Stretching Your Comfort Zone To Find More Matches

Contributed by: EFoley on Tuesday, February 23 2010 @ 09:47 am

Last modified on

In my last article, I wrote about dealbreakers and how they're fine and good when the dating pool is large, but limiting once the pool starts to dry up. At some point, you're going to get too old to be that picky... well, at least if you want to find someone quickly! ;-)

Let's look at some of the dealbreakers from the list I made in the last post:

  • taller/shorter
  • older/younger
  • divorced
  • separated
  • had kids
  • wanted kids / didn't want kids
  • smoked
  • drank more than once a month
  • overweight
  • didn't have a good relationship with their family
  • didn't go to college
  • didn't finish college
  • was way more/less formally educated
  • Republican / Democrat / Libertarian
  • didn't share religious faith
  • had no religious faith
  • was too religious
  • had poor grammar or spelling skills
  • was bad on the phone
  • was awkward on a first date

If you have your own list of dealbreakers, write them down. All of them. Anywhere you set a hard limit is considered a dealbreaker and should go on your list.

Now, let's arrange your dealbreakers. First, list the ones you absolutely WILL NOT TOLERATE under any circumstances. Here are mine:

  • Wants kids (I don't and have known for years.)
  • Smoker (I'm allergic.)
  • Diametrically opposite political views
  • Diametrically opposite religious views

Now... list the ones that you COULD MAYBE TOLERATE if the rest of the person was amazing. Here are mine:

  • Drinks more than I do (socially and occasionally at dinner)
  • Less formal education
  • Obese (I am overweight, but actively working out and eating well to lose weight)
  • Divorced
  • Slightly shorter than me

Now... list the ones you'd RATHER NOT TOLERATE if you didn't have to. Here are mine:

  • Kids from a previous relationship
  • Much shorter than me
  • Separated (prefer the divorce to be finalized)

Armed with this list, you can now go into your custom searches you've made for your dating site of choice and start to slowly stretch out your search and see what comes up. Start with your list of "could maybe tolerate."

So for example, if I had set my desired mate's height at 5'7" or taller, I could stretch it down to 5'5" or taller. I could check off "Some college" in the education section instead of leaving it to just people who had graduated. I could tick "Divorced" in addition to "Single."

If you're feeling really rambunctious, you can set up a separate search just for the people who are in that stretch zone. So for example, I could have a search that's my regular search, but in height, it ONLY shows men who are 5'5" and 5'6". This is a big time saver!

Check out these "new" singles - you never know if the perfect one for you is just a little shorter than your average Stormtrooper. Happy dating!

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