There’s no denying that online dating has become a prominent aspect of today’s dating landscape.
We’ve probably all heard of people who’ve had great success finding long-term relationships through online dating sites. Perhaps even some of our friends have met their significant others through online dating.
But none of this means that there’s a guarantee we’ll always find quick success with online dating when we try it ourselves.
Maybe you’ve tried setting up a profile on a few different dating sites. Perhaps your bleak success rate (or even total lack of success) has you dubious that online dating can really work for you.
Nothing guarantees that you are indeed able to find that special someone. But there are definitely a few online dating mistakes you can avoid if you want your chance of online dating success to be as high as possible.
Here are four dating mistakes to avoid that can hinder success on Catholic dating sites.
1. The expectation of instant success
It’s not always easy to be patient when we’re really excited about something, especially at the chance to meet other people or even get to that first date.
If we’re very eager (or beyond eager!) to find that special man or woman, it might seem like it takes an eternity to find a match through online dating or dating apps.
Maybe you made a profile for yourself and then looked through your potential matches. Perhaps you sent a message to one or more people and expected that you’ll be dating someone within a day or two.
Having fantastic success on an online dating site that quickly is not the way it usually works. Maybe you quickly find people with profiles that sound like they’d be a great fit for you. But that doesn’t mean things will rapidly progress to a dating relationship.
Most of the time, it will first take a bit of searching and waiting to find someone who really sounds like a great fit for you. You might even have to try messaging potential matches that you’re unsure about, in order to discover that they actually are just what you’re looking for.
Even after you do make initial contact with men or women you’ve found on a dating site, you’re still not likely to be in a dating relationship with them super quickly.
Think about meeting someone in the non-online world. It typically takes a bit of time to determine whether attraction and chemistry is mutual or not before you’re both ready to officially date.
Going into the online dating experience with expectations that you’ll find success even faster than you would in person is just not realistic. In fact, if you have that mentality, online dating services will leave you burnt out in no time at all.
Expect that it will take time and effort to find someone online. If you write off online dating as a failure for you because it didn’t produce the immediate results you were hoping for, you might be missing out.
2. Leaving your profile incomplete
It can be tempting to create an account on an online dating site and then just start looking for matches without really doing much for your own profile.
If you’re a proactive, go-get-‘em type of person, this dating profile strategy might seem like a great idea. No need to wait around for someone to find you!
But leaving your profile incomplete means you’re making it difficult (or impossible!) for someone else who’s proactive in their own search to find you as they browse through online dating sites.
Worst of all would be to leave off a profile picture. Creating a great profile picture doesn’t have to be difficult, and users who have profile photos receive up to 11x more interactions than those who do not!
Beyond that, an incomplete profile will also discourage anyone you message from being interested in you. If you don’t fill out your information, there’s no way for other users to see if you’re likely to be compatible with them.
It might seem tedious to fill out all the sections and to put effort into making yourself sound awesome on paper, especially if you’re using a free online dating site. But in the long run, this is best way to make sure someone is interested in getting to know you.
3. Skipping the profile photo
This one is very similar to the mistake of leaving your profile incomplete. There are a lot of reasons online daters might be tempted to skip the photo.
Maybe you’re not crazy about your physical appearance right now, and don’t want your photo plastered on websites. Perhaps you’d rather wait until you’re a little more satisfied with how you look. Maybe you don’t have a photo you like right now and you tell yourself that you’ll find one later.
You may even find yourself wondering if like-minded people that you want to meet really need a photo of you at all.
No matter your reason for skipping a photo, it’s never a good strategy for finding a match on online dating sites or mobile dating apps.
As much as we might like to think that appearance doesn’t matter that much, and as much as we might hope to find someone who’s not shallow, the reality is that people want a mental picture, even on dating websites.
In other areas of life, having a face to put with someone’s name is always helpful if we’re trying to establish a connection. This is the case for both men and women!
It’s the reason that authors often have their head shots above their author’s bio on the back flap of a book. It’s also the reason some employers might choose to do a Skype interview when their potential employees can’t be interviewed in person.
If you leave your photo off your profile, you’re making it so that other users you might want to get to know has a more difficult time feeling like they can connect with you on dating sites where they’re looking for connection.
4. Sending generic messages to multiple people
Let’s be realistic: online dating can be very time-consuming.
If you’ve found that your messages aren’t always returned, it can be incredibly tempting to just have a go-to, generic message that you send to other online daters that you find remotely interesting.
However, this is not a good strategy for a few reasons.
For starters, sometime the people you’re messaging can tell you haven’t personalized the message. They might think your message sounds distant and kind of boring. More than likely, they didn’t create an online dating profile or download an app to meet distant and boring people.
You can’t truly get to know someone from a quick glance at the photo and info they’ve provided on online dating websites. You should reach out with a message and get to know them better.
But don’t make the mistake of not including information you’ve read in a person’s profile with that first message. You’d be missing the chance to get to know them more deeply.
The best idea here is to put forth more effort and write a message that is based on your shared interests with the person. A message like this might serve as a spring board to a real connection with them. Skip the generic pick-up lines and the low-hanging fruit of copy-and-paste messages. Instead, strive for intentional interactions, which can lead to great success in internet dating!
We get it. Online dating can be hard. But the irony is that, the more effort you put into it, the greater your chances of good results.
