Dating apps are exhausting, but you can make them work. Know what you want before you start, use a good photo and a specific bio, pick the right platform for your life, and mix in offline meetups. Online dating takes effort, but strategy beats frustration.
Chapters
Let's talk about whether or not dating sites or dating apps actually work. I think for the most part they are incredibly challenging, and I'm not just saying that as a person that's older that's dipped my toe in the water in them. I'm saying also for the younger people out there, I know that it's just not easy. A lot of people are just really frustrated. I hear that there's a lot of just fake people on there. One thing I would say is that decide what it is and who it is that you're looking for and make that very clear. There's no point, for instance, in saying that you want to meet up with somebody on the weekends and then match with somebody who's only available during the week and spend time texting back and forth only to discover that you just can't find a suitable time to meet, which should have been obvious from the start. Make sure that your dating picture is actually— makes you look as attractive as humanly possible. Get a friend to take it for you if you want, um, but you know, just the look of just rolling out of bed unshaven, just generally looking untidy, it's not really going to be attractive to to too many people, I suspect. Number 3 is spend some time writing your profile. Don't just whip something off, or, you know, the worst of all, just not write something at all. Think about the person that you're looking for. Think about what it is you want, your general interests, things that get you really excited, and articulate that. Number 4 is, of course, there are all sorts of different sites out there. Um, some of them are for very specific kinds of lifestyles, like swinging or BDSM. Some are more general. Match.com owns loads of them, so you will find that your data is shared over a number of different sites. You might like that, you might not like that, but whatever you do, um, check your privacy settings to make sure that if you don't want your profile shared over a number of sites, that it's not. Finally, I would just say that dating sites are not the only way to meet people. There are of course meetup groups for special interests, there are places that you can go like Eventbrite to find events that you might be interested in, singles events where you might meet people. You might meet people through events that are advertised on Facebook. Um, and you know what, I might actually host an event in London myself at some point for all the people that I know who write to me that say that they'd love to meet a partner. So, you know, there's always that to look forward to. But whatever it is that you do on the dating sites, yeah, you do need to have a lot of energy for you, but sometimes it can actually pay off.
