Your online dating journey can (and should!) be an enjoyable experience. Meeting new people and getting to know them better should be adventurous way to bring excitement to your life. Yes, online dating involves a little bit of work. But what if you’re working at it so hard that it’s not feeling fun anymore?
Instead of an activity you look forward to, has it become another item to cross off of your to-do list?
Are you spending too much time trying to coordinate messages and meetings?
Is your vision strained from checking your online dating app every ten minutes?
Are you finding yourself distracted from other areas of your life?
If so, it’s time to take a minute to reassess your online dating experience and make some quick adjustments.
If you’re feeling a little burned out in the dating realm lately, it may be time to take a step back and create some rules for yourself. By putting up some clear boundaries, you’ll find that dating can be a lot more enjoyable when it doesn’t feel like a part (or full!) time job.
Limit your time on an online dating app
You’ve heard us preach time and time again about putting effort into your online dating profile. We’ve told you to make sure you’re responding to messages and sending them, too. Letting an online dating account sit with no activity is never a good thing. But it’s important not to swing too far the other way either.
Pay attention to how often you’re checking your dating app. Are you pulling it up more than ten times a day? Checking it more than your social media profiles and email? If so, it may be time to put it away for a bit.
Try scheduling two times a day to check into your online dating account. Maybe you could log in once in the morning after breakfast and once in the evening when you’re done with work for the day. By limiting your time on an app, you’ll find that you’re more productive when you’re on there, and more productive at other things when you aren’t logged in!
Only spend time on a dating app that will fulfill your needs
Spreading yourself too thin over a wide network of dating apps is going to result in eventual burnout. There is just no way to have fun dating if you’re so all over the place you can’t keep up with it all. The online dating world is a big space and can easily suck you into its black hole of swiping left and right if you aren’t careful.
Be smart and pick the dating app that works best for you. A good, wholesome app is going to lead you toward a good, wholesome person.
The Catholic Singles dating app is a great place to land. We make connecting with other single Catholics more natural and simple. You can download our app today and give it a try.
Don’t let dating become a full time job
Kristi is a thirty-one year old single Catholic. She told me that she woke up one morning and made an appointment to tour a convent. Not because she felt called to the religious life, but because she was exhausted from trying to find a future spouse!
Somewhere in her early thirties, she had adopted Catholic dating as a career. Her needs as a friend, family member, and healthcare worker were not being met because all of her free time was dialed into dating.
Her calendar was filled to the brim with activities, but only ones that would or could potentially lead to a prospective future date. “I was so fixated on having to find someone to date, that I forgot about all the awesome people I already had in my life,” she explained.
To get back to a sense of balance, Kristi had to stop letting her dating life consume her. “I had to set boundaries and allow myself to enjoy life without being so obsessed with finding someone right away.”
If you’re overwhelmed by online dating, make sure you are scheduling in things for yourself that have zero to do with dating!
Don’t waste your time
Sometimes people in the Catholic dating world are too kind. Yes, you read that right. Feeling the need to be nice and polite, you may find yourself responding to messages that you aren’t interested in. You may feel the need to keep conversation active because you don’t know how to nicely cut it off.
It’s okay to say no, and it’s okay to say goodbye. In fact, saying both of those things is necessary if the relationship isn’t going anywhere. You’ll find much more happiness in dating if you’re dialed in to the people you enjoy. Your time and energy is precious. Treat it as such!
Go on dates for fun
It may sound funny to say that you have to set rules to make something fun, but if you think about it, isn’t that how life works? Games without rules aren’t fun because then everyone cheats. Sports have rules to ensure players are safe and having a good time.
Dating well means identifying what boundaries you need to create for yourself. Then, make sure to stay within them. This is the here and now of your life. You should be enjoying it, not feeling stressed and overwhelmed.
Seize the day by taking control of your schedule and only allowing time for the kind of dating that makes you happy. God created man and woman to enjoy each other, not to get lost and bogged down in the mechanics of getting there.
Take back your life and enjoy the freedom that comes with dating on your terms. The kind of dating that will bring back the new, raw, and exciting part of getting to know people that make you want to date in the first place!
