Online Dating

No one wants to be alone at the holidays. If you’ve ever thought about delving into online dating, well – what’s stopping you? The holiday season offers plenty of opportunity to get out on the town and find someone to snuggle-up with inside. There’s no reason to lock yourself up and stare at the Yule log solo. Here are five tips to get you in the mix of things with online dating this holiday season!

Tip 1: The community is hopping! There’s no better way to break the ice (or bear the cold) than by taking on the town with a partner in crime. Whether it’s a festival of lights or a special engagement of The Nutcracker, the holiday season is ripe with activity. Find a partner at an online dating site and keep one another company while seeing the holidays from the streets of town.

Tip 2: It’s a time for sharing. Enjoy meeting new people this holiday season. Don’t think of it as dating – think of it as an adventure with people! Whether over coffee or a meal, it’s a treat when someone lets you see a glimpse of their life. Even if you’re not a match, walk away richer in spirit after sharing your time with someone.

I have been poking around the FriendFinder Network of dating sites lately and have notice that they have modernized the user interface a bit. The improved site design doesn't look as busy now, which should attract more daters. FriendFinder has always been in the forefront of keeping their sites fresh and up to date with new features. They were one of the first dating sites to offer built in members blogs and interest groups. The one problem with a feature rich site is they tend to have complex user interfaces which can turn less tech savvy members off (just take a look at Facebook now).

I also notice that they have removed the advertising again from their dating sites home page and from the members pages as well. This improves the looks of the sites 10 fold and I applaud FriendFinder for doing this. A site without ads looks so much more professional.

While not directly related to dating, I notice this in my searches: "FriendFinder.com Games". It's a flash games site that has over 8000 free games to play. It looks like the FriendFinder Network plan to make money from the Google Ads on the site.

If you want to find out some more about a FriendFinder Network dating site, you can check out our review of FriendFinder.

Related Story: What is With Advertising on FriendFinder?

Once you've gotten everything set up, it's time to get in the groove!

Sign in daily, or at least 3x a week. Most dating sites list the last login date of each profile, so you want yours to appear current. Even if you only login for the sake of pinging your account, do it. People are much more likely to email someone when their profile says, “Active within 24 hours” or “Online now!”

Some sites, like the new RewardingLove.com, are even prioritizing matches and only matching those members with active profiles.

Reply promptly, but don’t stalk your email. Even if it’s to say “No thanks,” be polite and reply promptly to all emails. Avoid looking like you stalk your dating inbox – give it a half day or so before you write back so you don’t appear desperate.

I know that it may seem like inviting trouble to send a “no thanks” email, and I’ll admit, some people can’t take “no thanks” for an answer. But more often than not, people will either say nothing or reply back to say thank you for letting them know you’re not interested. Got one of those people who won’t go away? Use your dating site’s blocking feature – you don’t owe them anything more than a “no thanks.”

Always think of how you would feel if you were in the other person’s shoes. If you emailed someone who you thought was perfect for you and they never ever wrote you back, even though they’ve obviously logged into the site several times and read your email, you’d get pretty upset. While it may sting a bit to hear “no thanks,” it at least gives closure for that match. No more wondering – now everyone knows where they stand.

Don’t overdo it. Stick to a schedule. Like I mentioned earlier, emailing more than 10 people a week will start to take its toll on the quality of the emails you send. You’ll also get really frustrated when it looks like you’ve sent 50 emails in three days and gotten no responses. (When the real problem is not the quantity, but the quality of those emails.)

Favorite people, then email. If you’ve already sent out your 10 emails this week, resist the urge to crank out more! Take a break from emailing, continue to add people to your favorites list, and wait for any replies to come in from your original emails before sending more. (Sometimes, people you add to the list will email YOU before you have the chance to email them!)

Be selective. OkCupid has started to show how frequently each member replies to emails. If you have the choice of emailing a green (replies frequently) or a red (replies very selectively), pick the best bet! (Or email the red knowing your chances of a reply are slim!) I wish more dating sites would implement this feature because it would encourage everyone to reply to more first contact emails.

Don’t get discouraged. Especially with paid sites, your 10 emails may only be read by 6 paying members. Out of those 6, two may be already seeing someone semi-seriously and 3 may not be interested in you. Getting one reply isn’t such bad odds! Keep your chin up. Remember, if you have your best profile, your best pictures, and write your best emails and they still don’t reply, then they’re not worth YOUR time, not the other way around.

Freshen up your profile. Update your profile at least once per season to reflect what’s going on in your life. It could be as easy as a new headline, or popping in a sentence about the new movie you just saw or the live concert you’re looking forward to next month. Swap out your main profile picture (another reason why it’s good to have two close-up shots of your face). You may get a second glance from someone who wrote you off originally!

Last but not least, don’t let online dating rule your life. Get away from your computer and do things. Join a meetup group, go game with buddies, take a walk with your dog. Finding love isn’t a race to the finish. If you treat it that way, you’ll be likely to settle for the first person to want to date you. Then you’ll find yourself stuck in an unsatisfying relationship, go through yet another breakup, and be stuck back at square one. Take your time to do online dating right and you’ll be sure to connect with the right person.

Related Stories:
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 1: Choosing Your Site
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 2: The Perfect Profile
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 3: Before You Send Any Emails
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 4: Emails and Winks

Tom Shone decided to give internet dating a try after breaking up with his girlfriend a month before. Guess who was the first person to contact him on a dating site? If you said his ex-girlfriend, you would be right.

Loved your profile on Nerve. Glad to hear you’re feeling so “chipper” these days – Natalie.

Tom hadn't meant for anyone who really knew him to read his profile, especially his ex. You always put your best foot forward when writing a dating profile, which made it look like to his ex-girlfriend, that he had forgotten all about the heartbreak and tears from the month before. She did later apologize that day for the email, and said it was just a shock to see the profile. Tom told her that he wasn't using the dating site to go on dates, he was just window shopping.

Now that you've set up your searches and favorited some interesting people, it's time to send some emails!

Set a reasonable rate of emails per week. For my Gold clients, I send 10 first contact emails per week. Ten is a good, round number and prevents you from getting into an assembly-line kind of feel for email-writing.

Favorite first, then email later. This prevents you from going into email overdrive because you’re afraid you’ll forget to email someone. It is very doubtful that waiting ONE DAY is going to mean the person of your dreams slips through the cracks. And if they do, well, it just wasn’t meant to be.

Think of it this way. You email someone one day too late. It’s a well-crafted, well-thought out email. They think:

“DAMN! That person is great, I’m kinda bummed I’m dating someone. This person sounds way cooler. Maybe I’ll cancel next week’s date and go for this one...”

Option B! You go beyond your ten emails a day because a new member popped up that you just had to email because they were just too perfect and awesome. Problem is, you’ve already written a bunch of emails so this one (whether you realize it or not) sounds a little... canned. They think:

“Hmmm. Yeah, not really.” Delete.

Sticking to a maximum of ten emails a week ensures you craft each email individually. Cut-n-paste emails stick out for bad reasons. Make yours stick out for being thoughtful and unique.

Think of it like a cover letter for a job. You want it to have immaculate spelling and grammar, but you also want to convey your enthusiasm for the company and the position they have available. The more you can connect your skills to the company, the better your chances are of getting an interview. Obviously, you’re not REALLY applying for the position of girlfriend or boyfriend, but your goal should be to get the person interested you and the way you could possibly fit into their life.

Don’t wink, unless it’s right after emailing. You can combine an email with a wink, but don’t ever wink alone. Winking is the easy way out. Why spend time writing an entire email when you can press one button and move to the next 35 profiles? It’s like casting a wide net and seeing what you catch, right?

Wrong. Winking sends a message. It says, “You’re not worth an email.” It says, “I’ll see if there’s anything in this for me before investing my time.”

Always email first. Send a wink along with the email (or in a day or two if you haven’t heard back), but never wink alone.

Next up, setting up a routine so the daily grind of dating doesn't grind down your resolve or your eat away at all your free time.

Related Stories:
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 1: Choosing Your Site
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 2: The Perfect Profile
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 3: Before You Send Any Emails
The Roadmap to Online Dating Success, Part 5: The Daily Grind

There is not much to this Economist article but it does offer a few interesting statistics on the UK online dating scene.

Did you know 5 million singles visited British dating sites in September, 2009? On average about 4 percent of people have used a dating site in Europe. In Britain, online dating is twice as popular with 8 percent of the population having visited a dating service.

This is probably one of the main reasons why eHarmony now operates a dating service in the UK. Since it opened in June of 2008 eHarmony.co.uk now has more than 500,000 singles registered with them. To find out what makes eHarmony a popular choice among singles, read our eHarmony Review.