If you’ve logged onto an online dating site before, you’re probably aware that online dating has some shortcomings.
It’s not always easy to find people who share your common interests. If you do find them, a real connection isn’t a guarantee. Even if you do make a good initial connection, it’s often hard to keep the communication flowing.
Many different niche dating sites have attempted to fill in some of the gaps that exist in the world of online dating. It’s true that you might increase your chances of online dating success by trying out platforms aimed at people like you. But when it comes to Catholic dating sites, there often still seems to be a piece of the puzzle missing.
Single Catholics who are looking for a date are, more often than not, looking for more than just a date. Many are seeking to discern the vocation of marriage with someone. What they need is an online dating site that offers them choices of other single Catholics who share their faith and values.
But even Catholic dating sites might still have a quite a bit lacking if you want to discover a person who is a good fit for you in more than just a superficial way.
An emphasis on faith is a great place to start
From the get-go, an online dating site aimed specifically at Catholics should help you to find someone who shares your Catholic faith.
It’s always possible that a few members of Catholic dating sites don’t take their faith seriously. Some may even disagree with the Catholic Church on things that you know to be uncompromisable.
But even with these possibilities, the likelihood of finding a person who is on the same Catholic page as you is much higher when you’re on a Catholic dating site instead of attempting to find them over on a secular dating site.
By starting your search in a place that is likely to help you find a faithful Catholic, you’re setting yourself up for better chances of success in your quest for a lasting and holy relationship.
Unfortunately, though, sharing the Catholic faith with someone is not even close to a guarantee that they are a good match for you.
Most Catholic dating sites certainly attempt to help members find matches based on shared interests beyond their faith. However, what we’re often left with is a Catholic-focused version of the same old thing where we pick and choose desired qualities in a kind of superficial way.
Meeting online versus offline
There’s no denying that searching for people to date online can be very different from meeting people in real life.
A lot of times, we might meet a person in real life and have great chemistry with them, even though their interests or personality on paper (or screen!) don’t look that exciting to us.
In my own life, I was fortunate enough to meet my husband in our parish youth group near the end of high school. We had some mutual friends and ended up talking to one another a lot. We initially had very little in common beyond our love for the Catholicism.
He was a band geek with a love for science fiction and some obscure (to me!) kind of music called progressive metal. I was a homeschooled farm girl who listened to country music and loved romantic comedies. I had all of college planned out, and he hadn’t thought that far ahead.
Of course we can never really know for sure, but I think it’s dubious that we would have been very drawn to one another if we’d only ever seen one another’s online dating profile, rather than meeting in real life.
The problem is that the sort of formulaic way users can search for people who meet their criteria on an online dating site is not even close to a perfect substitute for the way it works in real lie.
The traditional way that we can search for people who are what we’re looking for can often allow us to miss the very people we would “click” with best if we’d met them in real life.
A new approach to online Catholic dating
One feature of the new Catholic Singles dating platform update that is meant to help overcome this gap is our unique user polls. Our polls include questions users can answer that serve as conversation starters and points of connection beyond the mere aspect of shared faith and interests.
On the app, the polls will take on a new life by asking all members a new question every other day. Then, we’ll provide users with some matches sorted by the preference of their answers.
So for anyone who has noticed the polls on Catholic Singles but hasn’t known how to make the most use of them to find potential matches, our new app update approach can be really helpful.
Not everyone gets around to answering a poll on the site so others can find out about the way they think. But now with the recurring poll question on the app, users can really make the most out of this feature.
It can be difficult to look at online dating in a different way than we view our Amazon order or a Google search, where we simply type in what we want and then sort through the results to find the best choice. But for Catholic dating sites, a hope for something deeper really is appropriate.
It may not ever be possible to truly imitate a real-life experience online, but our polls here at Catholic Singles create an experience that has a lot more similarities with the organic way we “click” with someone off the screen.
