Date Better and Stop with the Deal Breaker Deletes

The world of dating has certainly changed.  We live in the realities of the online dating paradigm.  This world offers some amazing benefits to people looking for love, or other, less romantic pursuits.  You have access to a massive audience outside of your work and social circles.  This can be a great thing.  Unfortunately, some negative side-effects seem to be happening, that I will evaluate, with the goal being to encourage us all to Date Better.

Whether on your laptop, desktop, tablet or phone, you are able to participate in the dating process, on your schedule and on your terms.  You have before you, a catalog of individuals, all there for the purpose of meeting other eligible singles.  The problem is that this catalog gives people delusions of playing out of their “league” in the dating game.  You sit there like a regal figure, determining the worth of strangers, based on the shallowest of whims. No. No. No. Maybe….maybe not.  YES!!  Many times that “YES!!” is someone who the screen dater would never have the courage to approach in real life.  We’re online though, what’s the risk?  I’ve heard people complain that online dating doesn’t work.  Well, if you only go for ridiculously good-looking people with ridiculously great photos, your odds of success, plummet.   You’re constantly rejecting amazing people, yet think the system is broken because you’re being rejected and not making any real connections.

Let’s say you actually do make a connection and plan the “meeting”.  I’m not sure what this focus on being extraordinarily non-committal is supposed to accomplish, but meetings instead of dates seem to be the all the rage with serial daters, these days.  So you meet for coffee. Ugh…you can read what I think about that!  At this coffee meeting, you endure the interview.   One of my main DATE BETTER tenets is to cease with the small talk, that ultimately means nothing.  Guess what? I don’t care how many siblings you had growing up.  Your siblings don’t mean anything to me unless and until YOU mean something to me.  I want to know about experiences you’ve had and stories you have to tell.  It’s one thing to list biographical data that I don’t care about, but it’s another thing to say “that reminds of the time my brother and I got in trouble for (insert something interesting)”.  Unfortunately, the online dating conditioning encourages us to investigate, evaluate, delete and move on.  So the interview questions live on until someone finds something that is a “deal breaker”, and then they’re done.  Of course, today, a deal breaker can be something trivial.  “What, you voted for who??”, “You don’t really eat that, do you?”, “Oh, so you like sports?”.  These things that are merely interests that you don’t share, become deal breakers.  This is because you aren’t getting to the know the person, just their shallow biographical profile.

Instead of worrying how much money someone has for you to potentially spend later, why not ask them what they would do with unlimited money?  Find out what they dreamed of being when they were younger, and how they ended up where they are.  Ask people what DRIVES them, not what DEFINES them.  Don’t worry about this stranger’s job, family, car, etc.  If you really get to know a person, some of what you think are delete-worthy deal breakers, might end up being simply quirks.

Have a real DATE and commit to getting to know someone.  What does a 15 minute, awkward, coffee interview tell you? Get past that awkward beginning and have a legitimate conversation.  It’s no more of a waste of time than potentially letting someone great pass you by.  You can avoid this by taking my advice to…

DATE BETTER!!