I’m still confused about online dating

I’ve written some pieces before about my frustrations with online dating and I even wrote a piece where I was so exasperated with online dating that I felt that there was no hope to go on there because of these certain responses that I would get that disheartened me. And it’s not just me, I can imagine it’s the same for a lot of people that put themselves out there for online dating and you get a mixed bag of responses.

I’ve gone back into online dating, even though I told myself 10 times that I was done with online dating. The last relationship I had was the first one that I ever had and I met someone through online dating.

I have to tell the truth that it never really appealed to me to meet someone through a website because I’ve always been a firm believer at the moment.

The moment that you meet someone and it looks like something straight out of a Garry Marshall movie, Knowing that you’re in the right place at the right time and that you met the person that is going to be there for the rest of your life or just in enchanted attraction moment that doesn’t have to have a romantic or marriage endgame.

In my recent venture back into online dating I talked with two of my male friends that discussed their frustrations with online dating and it put the male perspective in and whole new limelight for me.

Throughout my life I wondered, “what if I was a guy?” then I knew I would have the same personality and mental perception to think of everyone, and I think I honestly would be a great guy, to provide a wonderful evening for someone and to put 100% into a relationship. Knowing what I would be like as a guy made me think about what it has to be for a man to provide all of this for a date to provide food and beverages and activities, all in the hopes of getting a relationship. And it doesn’t make me a little sad that some men do have to waste their money on something that never worked out. When I thought about that it made me want to participate money into the dates to offer to leave the tip or offer some form of financial help just in case the evening wasn’t great at least he didn’t waste all of his money on me.

When I talked to my friends, They had a perfectly good reason for going into online dating. To find a relationship which is really what online dating apps are for, And yet it’s so difficult to find a relationship there.

There are many high standards that women have for men just as men have for women. There is some strange code that some people have. Online dating has almost become like the character Ben Gates from the film national treasure and you have to figure out a certain puzzle or a code to figure out why online dating isn’t working. Maybe we need Ben Gates to figure out online dating and that could be the next film, national treasure: dating debauchery (I’ll pitch that to Nicolas Cage)

With that said, I understood what they were talking about with this strange code that some women have because I felt that with some men.

Around the time I began the painstaking part of going back into online dating, my friend Dylan had decided before I made my account. One day we were watching a movie and we discussed online dating. He summed it up perfectly that there’s a need to have to be entertaining every two minutes on a date. You could have a wonderful personality, but someone wants a different face to it. It’s like a petty reindeer game when it comes to online dating, you could find a wonderful partner there or just be completely exhausted with the idea of trying to find a date or trying to find a permanent partner.

He made an excellent point because it’s something that I’ve also thought about when it comes to dating. I remember having so much anxiety about trying to be as entertaining as possible. I was entertaining, personable, and compassionate. Yet that’s not enough for someone. Some people every picky they don’t like a lot of certain personality traits and someone and that’s OK because we’re all created uniquely and differently than others. When it comes to dating it feels like you have to be a used car salesman you’re trying to show what you provide and what you can do and yet someone will still go, “no not a good deal” Sometimes that’s good, and sometimes that’s bad.

It’s so frustrating to do online dating because it’s virtually all we have for dating (Pun not intended).

In the old days meeting someone at the right place at the right moment is very difficult because people don’t get out as much or wanted to inquire if they are single. If you go on an online dating app then that pretty much confirms his person is single, you might’ve walked past this person on the street and never even knew if they were single. It does show the availability but then it’s just as frustrating as real conversations of trying to get to know someone so it’s almost a virtual version of what’s usually a real-life conversation.

I do have to say I’ve met people that can converse very well, and some people that have had to learn how to converse. But it’s frustrating because to get a relationship you have to talk! There’s no way around it and with that being a core part of online dating it makes it so much more frustrating and confusing it makes the question posed, “why do you wanna go into online dating if you don’t even wanna talk?”

I shared with my grandfather about my venture back into online dating and he just made a disappointing noise. Anytime I go into a conversation with my grandfather, When it has to do with a decision I made and know that it’s different than a decision that he would make because he doesn’t understand it I can’t get mad at him for something he doesn’t understand. He wants the best for me and wants me to find a nice husband but I had to tell him that it’s gonna be even harder to find a nice husband. Because it’s getting harder to find people.

As I began my account and matched with a couple of guys. It was going to be a difficult time trying to make a remarkable impression to get things going, but then out of nowhere, they would delete their account. At first, I would be a bit sad because I enjoy talking to them but then realized they probably had enough and didn’t wanna keep wasting their time on girls that were dipping them or they didn’t wanna have to play the game. I don’t blame them, if it was hard for me, it was gonna be hard for them.

It almost feels like an uncomfortable norm knowing that online dating is one of the only ways to go and get a date. And then it probably doesn’t even happen and you feel like you wasted your time. To put yourself out there only to be easily dismissed with a swipe left.

Yet, no matter how many times the disappointment happens we all go right back to it.

I do have to get the credit that some dating apps have been making a better process to make dating apps efficient for someone to use. To have more information sections to make the selection easier for similarities. We all do wanna find someone that we do have something in common with. Sometimes it works out for some people to find their significant other on a dating app, and sometimes it doesn’t.

All in all, dating apps do serve as some form of blessing in disguise. That we learn what we want in a partner and we learn what we want for ourselves. I can’t deny that every single time I’ve gone on a dating app I have learned a little bit more about myself about how I want to be a partner to someone else. I learned how to make better impressions. I learn how to dismiss some vulgar comments.

As much as dating apps can be very confusing, you might not know what the future is going to be like to find a partner but you do learn more about yourself. Eventually, someone is going to come up, and we all have to go through these annoying and frustrating stepping stones to get there.