It's All Based On a Picture

It's a struggle.  We all know it. Once you are out of school and living in the real world, your dating prospects tend to get smaller and smaller.  Fast forward to your thirties, and you are really starting to feel the pressure.  Every weekend you get dressed up and drag yourself out to a bar only to be let down by the individuals who do their best to impress you to hopefully score a cell phone number so they can send you a text sometime.  But thanks to the wonderful invention known as the internet...struggle no more!  Online dating has become the answer to all of our problems...or is it? 

Match, E-harmony, Zoosk, Tinder, Plenty of Fish.  There are so many opportunities for us to find the one and only!  Are you 50 and older? Ourtime.com is for you.  Jewish - Jdate.com.  Single Parent - SingleParentMeet.com. Gluten Free - glutenfreesingles.com. Golfer - DateaGolfer.com.   They even have one for clowns! - clowndating.com. 

The list goes on and on.  There is basically a site catered to all of our needs, hobbies, and fetishes.  <Google search will bring up some really interesting ones if you feel like being entertained for a few minutes>.  I have done my fair share of online dating.  I have signed up and answered the questions to better find my match... What is your ideal date; How important is religion to you on a scale of 1 to 5; Do you smoke? Would you date a smoker? Do you like pets?; What side of the bed do you prefer to sleep on?

Let's be real ladies...online dating is like a full time job.  Your first message comes in and you can't help but to be excited.  An hour later you realize you have ten messages, twenty messages... some are witty, some are cute, some are just entertaining.  I once had a woman tell me that I would make a great dominatrix....ummm thanks?? But sorting through all of these messages and trying to decide who to talk to and which conversations to engage in is tiring.  After a week I was starting to dread the process.  

And even though I have met many couples who have gotten married and met their one and only through online dating, I started to realize that this process has one major flaw...We first base everything on a picture.  Swipe left, swipe right...

**Full disclosure I am happily married now, but my online dating experiences have left me wondering how many relationships have been lost due to this online dating conundrum**

When we are scrolling through our messages, the first thing we do is assess the person's picture.  Are they good looking? Do they look nice? Do they look like a creeper?  There is a pet...he must be lovable....there is a kid...is it his or is it a niece?  These pictures will play a major determination as to whether or not we will move forward with the conversation.

But in the real world...you know the one that doesn't exist with a screen in front of our faces... we don't have a picture to assess.  We actually have to talk to the person..hear their voice, check out their mannerisms, feel that so called chemistry that everyone is searching for.  When we are looking at a picture, we cannot do any of that.  Whatever happened to the good old blind date??

It is a fact that someone's personality can make or break them.  I have met people who are average looking, but their personality is so amazing it makes them extremely attractive.  And then there are those guys who are so good looking, but they open their mouths to speak and *whomp whomp* the magic is gone.  How many people have we swiped and how many opportunities were missed because they just "weren't cute enough in the picture?" 

So my advice to you is...try not to base it all off of a picture.  Give people a chance.  FaceTime with someone or meet up for some coffee.  They may surprise you in ways that you never thought they could.  That average looking Joe may have had a bad hair day in his picture.  And when he shows up with a winning smile and sweeps you off your feet with his wit and charm you will be so glad you didn't swipe him away!

<3 P.S. Be smart...I'm not saying just meet up with anyone at anytime.  I actually used to facetime them first to make sure I was really talking to a legit person and not some catfish.