Goal-Free Dating: Part 2
Back on February 14th, I published a blog entry on “Goal-Free Dating.” One of the points I made was to “Stop doing. Instead of signing up for 40 different online dating sites, going on 90 dates in 30 days, ending up broke & miserable – and still without a relationship, let it go. Go to events without the goal of meeting your spouse. Rather go there to have a good time and to meet new people.”
Ok, I’m guilty. In the past, I ignored my own advice and joined several online dating sites. Although I met some wonderful women – several of whom are still good friends – I never ended up in a long-term relationship. The last time I was on a dating site was over a year ago.
Today I was going through some archived emails and found emails from 29 women with whom I corresponded through a dating site. Each of these emails had their profile name, enabling me to check to see if they were still active on the site. It has been over a year, so I expected the number to be quite low. I assumed people would either be in a relationship after all of this time, or they would have given up and tried something other than the dating site. I was surprised. 19 women – 66% — still had active profiles on the site!
I have my theories for why this might be true. 1) Online dating creates the opposite of a scarcity mentality. It creates an over-abundance mentality. Because you have so many people to choose from, you begin to idealize your potential mate, leading to constant dissatisfaction. Hey, if this date isn’t perfect, then maybe the next one will be. 2) People on the online dating sites are not really ready for a relationship, even though they think they are. Rather they enjoy the chase, the attention, or the early stages of the relationship. 3) Quite simply, they have not yet met the right person. Had they not been on online, maybe they would have been “playing more” and found someone elsewhere. Maybe not. 4) Or maybe the “goal” of being in an “idealized” relationship – and trying hard to achieve the goal – is exactly what stops us from being successful.
What are your thoughts/theories on this?
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6 Responses to “Goal-Free Dating: Part 2”
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I have a few pretty simple reasons why online dating may not all it is cracked up to be. There are success stories but I bet the success rate is lower than regular dating that was not facilitated online.
First of all the people that are submitting their details online are expecting to be contacted, rather than doing the contacting. They are waiting for the “wink”, especially if they are women.
Secondly, the people are usually ones that have a more difficult time to meet people in person. That is, they let technology do the vetting process, instead of themselves. For example, looking at profiles that ONLY have pictures yields a very specific subset of the population. Men do this usually. It is possible that there are plenty of interesting (AND gorgeous) women that post profiles specifically without pictures for one reason or another. Many men won’t see this as their “goal” is not quite honorable.
Last of all, relationships are actually very tricky because women and men want different things out of a relationship at different times. The online dating sites have not evolved to reflect this. They are rooted in old world beliefs that men have to invest first (pay for credits), women can just sit there and let men approach them, and that the traditional mating ritual can simply be transplanted online. This has changed quite drastically with the women’s equality movement and how some women are starting to approach relationships. In the end there has to be mutual benefit, and the faceless, cold world of most online dating sites usually lead to just one benefit for both — indiscriminate sexual games that usually are great for the man, and horrible and disillusioning for most women.
Yes, there are beautiful success stories from online dating that lead to marriage, but I would like to see the eventual success rates of those and see if they are above the 50% success rate of marriages or not.
Organic methods of finding partners that involve meeting people in your usual surroundings is still the best goal-free way of meeting people AND therefore meeting potential partners.
Hi,
I think you theories about online dating are accurate. Unfortunately, men who date without goals are known as “players” and their are plenty of terms for women that aren’t as nice.
I agree with your comments of online dating if you are using it soley to find your mate. What if, you are just looking for someone to hang out with. What if you are just bored with your life and the lack of people in it, and you just want a little excitement. I think it is what you are looking for. I know several girls that do the online dating for something to do.
I agree with your theory as well. I think people who are too anxious to find someone to have in their life, so they go on these online dating sites, sign up and then some, not all, settle for someone who is just an “OK Fit” (for lack of a better term)in the compatibility area rather than a “perfect fit”. It is due to their eagerness to have someone in their life that they will settle. I may be a little off on what you are expecting for feedback, but I know I would never settle (at least I hope I never get to that point).
Would you believe I am doing research on you for business and I am actually enjoying this for my own personal use!
Ok, so women go online to find some excitement from their boring life. Hmm, that’s all well and good, except if you don’t specifically say that you want “just friendship” then you will inevitably meet men who are interested in friendship and much more than that. That is, most men look and find female friends in their real world, and go online for the fantasy and excitement of meeting someone that they can have a sexual relationship with, eventually.
This disconnect is probably one of the biggest reasons online profiles don’t work because they are not really precise or refined enough in terms of what you are looking for for probably both men and women.
Men and women look for different things at different times depend on what is going on in their lives.
Here is a response from Lisa that made on the original goal-free dating entry…
Alex – you are SO right on! As someone who has been involved in a number of on-line dating sites in the past 2 years, I can vouch for many of the statements that you make.
However, I would be one of the ones who would initiate contact with someone I was really interested in, as opposed to just “winking†at them and expecting them to contact me. That’s so archaic.
In a world where women want to be treated as equals and progress continues to be made in that area, many women forget that and revert back to the olden ways and days when we were expected to wait until contact was made with us. No wonder men are confused sometimes.
Lisa