The Art of Internet Dating

The worlds #1 practical guide to Internet Dating - All the hints, tips and advice you will ever need to find your perfect match online!

Thoughts

Here are some questions I've been asked by various people, magazines and what have you. Also, just some of my my various random thoughts on Internet Dating. Enjoy...

Q) Why do you praise the Net so highly as a place to find love?

Firstly, you don't actually "find love" on the Net. Internet Dating is simply a means to find like-minded people and make contact with them.
Internet dating is so popular because it is fun, easy, and completely safe. But the biggest advantage is that you can search and match hundreds of thousands of single people in an instant!

Q) Five years of dating on the Net seems a long time to me - how often did
you date during those years - did you meet scores of women or hundreds?

There were times when I would take months off at a time, while at other times I would have 5 or more dates in a week. It got pretty hectic at times, and I often had trouble keeping up with who was who!
I have chatted to literally thousands of people of the years, but I was more selective of who I met in real life. I started to loose count when it got towards triple digits!

Q) Do you personally know other people who've found their soulmate by this method?

Don't you? It's quite uncommon these days to not know anyone who has had experience at Internet dating, or who has met their partner via the Net.
I have personally matched up one close friend who is now married, and have help many other people find their partner via the net, many of whom are now married also.

Everyone is trying Internet Dating - from 18 to 80, from students to stars (I won't name names though!). On some Australian Internet Dating sites, there are a few hundred thousand profiles - incredible considering the relatively small size of Australias population!
There are many millions more around the world who use Internet dating sites every day.
The Internet is a revolution, and so is Internet Dating.

Q) Why do you think so many people experience disappointment dating via the Net?

That is because Internet Dating is no different to meeting people via the usual methods. Who hasn't been disappointed with some date they have met during their life?

Q) How is meeting via the Net different to meeting spontaneously?

The Net can be incredibly spontaneous!
May people meet online via email, chat rooms or instant messaging services, and then within minutes or hours head out the door to meet them in real life. Internet Dating can be anything you want it to be. You can meet a completely blind date spontaneously, or you can spend months emailing, SMSing, chatting, and video conferencing before you decide to meet. It's entirely up to you.

Q) Don't you feel spontaneity is more romantic and natural a way to meet?

Ditto my last comments.
There are plenty of organised Internet dating events too, and they can attract thousands of people. Many people use the Internet to find out about these events, that's yet another way to use the Internet for meeting single people, and there are many others ways too.

Q) Do you think that perhaps the Net is "too easy" a way to meet people in
the sense that if your date doesn't knock your socks off within half an hour,
you know you can just get back to the online catalogue and find something
better? Which isn't exactly the way love works - it builds up over time,
right?

Of course love builds up over time. But Internet Dating is no different to any other form of meeting someone. Take your regular nightclub for example:
You walk into the club .You look around for people who catch your eye (based purely on looks and body language - how superficial!). You make contact. If you don't get rejected, you chat to them for a while to get to know them. If you like them, you ask them if they would like to meet again. Likewise you can be picked up in the same way.

Internet Dating is exactly the same:
You log onto a dating site (or chat room etc). You search profiles for people you like, this time though you can search sometimes hundreds of thousands in an instant, based on any criteria you can think of (be as superficial or as picky as you like). You contact them, usually via email. If you don't get rejected, you chat to them for a while to get to know them some more. If you like them, you ask to meet them in real life, and you take it from there. Likewise, you can be contacted in the same way, if you choose to place your profile online.

Internet dating of course lets you determine who, when, how and where you will meet someone, so it's completely safe. You can do it for little or no cost, time or effort from your comfort of your home, work, or anywhere else on the planet, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. All you need is an internet connection - and many people have that on their mobile phones these days...