Advice

It’s not unusual to hear about outside pressure when it comes to dating - well-meaning friends and family who attempt to push you in the direction of one person or another, or who encourage you to date someone in whom you’re not all that interested. However, what you might not know is that it’s also common for the pressure to come from another source: yourself.

When you have that “spark” on a first date and your date is clearly feeling it as well, deciding on a second date is a no-brainer. But what about when the date isn’t particularly hot, but they’re not unattractive either? What about when there’s nothing “wrong” with them that you can pinpoint at all, even if you’re not sure you’re feeling it? What about when the two of you are completely compatible on paper? And what if your date seems interested in you?

That’s when the self-pressure comes in - those voices of fear that tell you this person may be your best, or only, shot at love. Or maybe you’re waiting for an excuse to call things off, but you don’t see anything particularly offensive... so you just keep going on dates because you think ending a relationship without an obvious reason is cruel.

The truth is, prolonging a relationship you’re not enjoying is actually what’s cruel. While rejection stings, it’s better to be free to continue the search than to waste time on a relationship that ultimately goes nowhere. And you’re doing as much as disservice to yourself as to your date.

“But wait,” you might be thinking. “Surely there are some people who need that extra time to really make a decision. Or maybe they have impossible standards to begin with and they never give anyone a chance.” That’s certainly true, and you find that, over time, no one “measures up” to your dream date, it’s worth exploring the possibility that the problem lies elsewhere. However, that doesn’t change the fact that whatever the underlying cause, you’re not doing your date any favors by prolonging the doomed relationship. If you have impossible standards, it’s up to you to work on them and change them, not a random date.

You don’t have to make a snap decision about a potential relationship, particularly if you know you tend to need a little extra time when it comes to big decisions. And sometimes relationships naturally start with a slow burn, while others begin strong and flame out fast. Only you will know what works for you and your date. But if it’s fear that’s keeping you from moving on, you’re probably not indecisive for the right reasons. There’s always the possibility of love out there; don’t let fear hold you back and impair your judgement.

When writing an online dating profile, it can be easy to get caught up in the “rules” - that a self-summary must be a certain length, that it should follow a certain format. Certain approaches should be avoided, like humorous ones, and everything should be clear and to the point.

There’s nothing wrong with the rules, and for someone who’s just starting out in the world of online dating, they’re quite useful. But not every suggestion works for every situation. Moreover, the point of an online profile is to create the impression you want. If the rules are a hindrance more than a help, it’s time to evaluate if you really need them.

For example, a common mistake many make is answering every question on a profile, even when the answers aren’t particularly illuminating or entertaining. Perhaps their Friday night isn’t much different from any other night, and that’s not a bad thing - but when someone answers the specific question, “What do you do on Friday nights?” with, “The same thing I do any other work night,” suddenly they seem just a bit more boring. The solution? Don’t answer the question at all! Don’t damage your first impression just because you feel you have to follow the rules.

Now, let’s say you’re naturally creative, you’ve been online dating for awhile, and you’re bored with your existing profile. There’s nothing that says you can’t save the “safe” profile for later, and try your hand at something completely different - a humorous essay, an unusual approach, an image section that creates a flipbook. The important thing to remember is that by taking an unorthodox approach in your profile, you’re gambling; there’s a chance you won’t attract readers, or that you’ll actually put them off. However, if you’re prepared to accept the consequences, why not think outside the box and experiment a little?

Rules, tips and tricks can be invaluable when you’re first starting out, but once you feel you have a command of the basics, you can experiment with more unusual approaches. Just as you might wear a different outfit or present yourself in a different way in public, it doesn’t hurt to play around with your profile - provided you’re prepared to get potentially negative reactions.

A lot of factors come into play when it comes to finding your match. And all of them are at work during that awkward first date. Physical attraction is one thing, but that's only a small piece of the puzzle. Mental and spiritual chemistry are equally important, and much harder to determine.

Picture your first date. There's so much you want to know, so many questions you want to ask, but you don't want to turn your date into a job interview. How can you figure out if you and your date have long-term potential, without asking too many questions?

OkCupid has the answer. The site used its database of match questions - and the 776 million answers users have given - to find out exactly what questions are best able to determine compatibility. "What questions," asked OkCupid, "are easy to bring up, yet correlate to the deeper, unspeakable, issues people actually care about?"

Each question had to meet this set of criteria:

• Most people had to be comfortable discussing the subject publically.
• The query and answer had to be mathematically likely to tell you something you couldn't just guess.

Good first date questions were not:

• Redundant
• Subliterate
• Too personal
• Too obvious

OkCupid analyzed 34,260 real-world couples to find the answer. When a member deletes their OkCupid account, they have the option to give the site the reason for their departure. If they choose "I met somebody on OkCupid," they can also give their significant other's username. Looking at that dataset of couples, OkCupid found that agreement on three questions correlated best to an actual relationship:

• Do you like horror movies?
• Have you ever traveled around another country alone?
• Wouldn't it be fun to chuck it all and go live on a sailboat?

Couples who gave the same answers to those three questions were more likely to be compatible than those who answered any other trio of questions. 32% of successful couples agreed on all three of them, which is 3.7x the rate of simple coincidence. They even outperformed the site's most popular user-generated match questions:

• Is God important in your life?
• Is sex the most important part of a relationship?
• Does smoking disgust you?

Those aren't the only questions that can be used to glean important info about your date. OkCupid also discovered the best questions to ask if you want to know about your date's politics, your date's religious beliefs, and your date's feelings on first-date sex. Find them on the OkCupid blog.

It’s not uncommon for an online dating profile to require some editing before it’s posted. Even the best writers make simple mistakes in spelling or grammar. Additionally, we’re not really used to writing about ourselves; worrying about bragging or not bragging enough can certainly throw off our “flow.” But what if our profile is trying to tell us something?

For example, it’s easy to slip in a touch of negativity here and there - a throwaway line like “I don’t want any drama or any cheaters” or “Who doesn’t loathe their job? Ha ha” might be telling the world a bit more about us than we think, but it’s something we all do and don’t really think about. A stray sentence here or there is easily fixed, and if it’s not caught, it’s not the end of the world.

However, what if you can’t get through the “What I’m looking for in a date” section of the profile without breaking down crying at least once? What if it always turns into a laundry list of the qualities you’ll never, ever find attractive again? What if the entire profile has to be rewritten because it’s all negative? Well, perhaps you need just a little more time before you’re ready to really get out there again.

And that’s okay! Because who wants to pass up someone great just because you’re not at the right place in your life to really see them for who they are? Who wants to wonder about that profile you clicked past because one of the movies listed was a favorite of your ex’s? Who wants to cringe when they think of that date they went on the day after their dog died - the one they can hardly remember because they were in a grief-stricken fog?

We all need to take the plunge back into the dating pool when we’re ready - even if it feels a little awkward - but only you can know if you’re really ready. And if you’re not quite sure, sometimes your own writing can give you a hint.

Imagine you’re finally ready to come back to the dating scene. You wake up one morning and decide, “This is it.” You take extra care with your clothing and hair, you decide to focus on looking friendly and approachable, and you step out into the world, waiting for the interested to strike up conversations.

...But nothing happens. In fact, not only does no one approach you, you don’t really even see anyone you’re particularly interested in yourself. Nothing happens the next day, either. But two weeks later, you strike up a conversation with an attractive person you see in a bookstore. You don’t have a date yet, but you were invited to a book club being hosted the next day. It’s looking promising.

Online dating tries to take most of that waiting around out of the equation; while you may not see anyone single and attractive on your walk to work each morning, you can pull up reams of them with a click of a button. Instead of silently checking them out, you can email them whenever you work up the nerve. And you’re more likely to jump right into talking about dating than getting invitations to ambiguous group events.

And yet, there’s still an element of waiting around in online dating, one felt all the more keenly because, unlike your walk to work, when you check in with your online dating site you have only one thing on your mind. After spending all that time writing and proofreading your profile, you want that immediate gratification the minute it goes up. You want to send out those first-contact emails and get responses immediately.

But just like any other method of dating, sometimes people are busy, or maybe there’s just not anyone looking at your profile with whom you’d really share a connection. Online dating is more efficient, to be sure, but it still involves a search. And like anything that deals with real, other people and not merely machines, it can be confusing, frustrating and not on schedule.

So if you’re feeling impatient and frustrated, know that it’s normal. Know that nearly everyone else is probably feeling the same way. And know that it’s as much a part of the process of finding love as first-date nerves. So think of that walk to work, and focus on admiring the flowers in the meantime.

In the dating world, there’s understandably a lot of focus put on compatibility and “matching up.” As such, it can be confusing when you and your date or partner disagree. How much of a difference of opinion is too much? What about actual arguments? Where do you draw the line between compatible and not?

If it’s very early in a relationship - like, say, first date early - it might be easier to draw up a kind of pros and cons list, to figure out what’s working and what isn’t. For example, do you have physical chemistry? If so, that’s a plus. However, if that’s all you have - you’re not interested in your date intellectually, emotionally, and maybe you’re downright annoyed or put off by them and how they hand your difference of opinion - it might be worth analyzing what sort of relationship you’re looking for and assessing if they fit the bill.

On the other hand, if you seem to get along great but you’re both willing to go to the mats over the merits of a specific TV show - well, there’s always a chance you could agree to disagree over that one subject and still have a great relationship. Don’t be put off if your ‘incompatibility’ is limited to interests and not major life views. Only you know what a ‘dealbreaker’ constitutes for you, but don’t be afraid of some minor differences - you’re not the same person, after all.

Now let’s say you’ve been in a relationship for awhile. The TV show issue turns out to be indicative of a recurring theme - when you disagree you both hang on like pit bulls, refusing to let go. Once again, you’re worried - is there too much arguing in this relationship?

Remember that two separate, unique people have to learn to communicate, and it’s a learning process. The big question here is: are you both willing to learn to handle your disagreements differently? If neither one of you wants to compromise, or even if only one does, you might be setting yourself down a difficult path. On the other hand, if the good times are far more frequent than the arguments, and you’re both invested in making the relationship work, it’s possible all you need is dedication and commitment to improving the way you communicate, especially when you disagree.

Everyone wants to think that being in a good relationship means that everything goes right and no one ever fights. In fact, a relationship with two distinct personalities and opinions means there will likely be clashing from time to time. It’s how you approach these differences - and each other - that can affect the outcome of the relationship.