Dating Mistakes

Dating Mistakes

In this article I discuss some of the common dating mistakes people make.

It’s that time of the year again when dating websites’ traffic soars as singles re-evaluate their situation and make a conscious decision to change it by embarking on a proactive search for romance.  The 4 January is now known as the ‘Black Friday’ of the dating world as millions log on or sign up with dating providers in their quest to find love.

Whether you decide to use an online dating provider or a more personalised, professional and bespoke dating provider like us, one thing you really need to consider and be aware of are the pitfalls whereby you set far too stringent limiting criteria which automatically reduces your pool of eligible, potentially compatible partners.  Below I list some of the common dating mistakes that people make and believe me I made them too when I was single.

The List

Sometimes clients I meet with want to provide me with a list of must haves.  Some of the criteria can be very specific such as an exact height, salary, occupation and even hair colour.  So I tell them that I work with real people who are all intelligent, educated and interesting, furthermore I love working with them and that’s why they are members.  I cannot create a person and setting such specific limits on what you are looking for will not help you find who you are looking for.  In fact it will do the exact opposite because you will discard potentially eligible matches by refusing to meet them.  No matter how much you think you can determine whether someone is right for you by looking at a profile, you absolutely cannot.  In fact it’s well researched and proven by academics, Professors Eli Finkel and Paul Eastwick that you can only determine compatibility by meeting ‘face to face’.  

Here’s a little test that you can try out to prove the theory on specific criteria.  Ask your friends or family members who are in happy relationships if their partner ticked all their must haves.  I bet you they say no and I also bet they say they fell in love with them despite their imperfections.  You might even find that they never set any criteria at all.  Once you meet and attraction takes over there is no stopping it.

It’s important to have core values and qualities and to have a dealbreaker (such as you won’t date a smoker) but not a stringent list.  I am not suggesting that you settle for less or drop your standards but I am suggesting that you keep an open mind and consider someone you might never have thought of before because they just might be the love of your life.

To Google or not to Google

The internet is a fascinating tool, you can tell so much from a name, a telephone number or an email address.  You can access LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, the list is endless.  Equally the internet is quite a scary place especially when your home address can be found with just the click of a mouse.  If you give out your telephone number the chances are the person you gave it to will check out your Whatsapp photo and it might not be one you’re proud of.  People are visual creatures and they will discount someone on a badly taken image.

If you give someone your email address which happens to contain your full name then the chances are they are surfing through social media and viewing your LinkedIn and Facebook profiles.  Hmmm, not good if they decide not to meet you because of a post that your friend put up and tagged you when you were drunk on a night out looking worse for wear.

Think about it like this, if you were applying for your dream job and the potential employer viewed your social media profile, as they so often do, then you should not have posts on there that you would not want that potential employer to see.  Same thing applies for meeting a potential new partner, you want to be seen in your best possible light.  This is not putting up a false image, it’s presenting you in the best possible way.  After all you are seeking your dream guy or girl.

Don’t forget people on the internet are not always who they say they are and would you want a complete stranger to have your home address?  With our service we have already met all our members and anyone we introduce you to, so we know their name, address, date of birth, occupation, work address and what they like and dislike.  So we know them fairly well.  We never give out home addresses or last names as only our members choose to do that when they meet for a date.

So if you take nothing more away from this perhaps you may think about how your sensitive and private information can be easily accessed by strangers, people you have never even met.  So be careful about what you release and when.

Have fun dating and hope this helps to overcome some of the common dating mistakes.