Online Dating Blog

A reader who was diligent about taking my advice recently wrote me. While he offered many compliments (which I’m happy to share!) he also pointed out some gaps in my dating guide in regards to having early success:

I stumbled on your site a couple months ago after considering getting serious about online dating after using okcupid in an extremely passive way for about 6 months. I was looking for advice that didn’t entail sleeping around. I too am an engineer, so you methods really resonated with me. So, your site and your story really inspired me to give it a go. As a consequence, I feel like I skipped the first part of your dating experience and moved to the part where you found success.

I followed much of the core of your advice. Like write short-emails, contact lots of people (I used eharmony and contacted around 95% of my matches, probably around 300 women), date lots of people (I went on as many first dates as I could at a given time, my record is 5 in one week and 2 in one day even). I have been doing it for 2 months. Basically, I followed your advice and it has been working. So I wanted to say thanks many times over for the advice and for putting your experience out there for others to learn from. I feel that it has saved a lot of my time and changed me as a person in the way that I think about relationships.

Anyway, I met someone a couple nights ago and I was reluctant to even go out with her as her profile was pretty weak, but I followed your advice and looked at it as practice. It turned out to be great we hit it off immediately and were already talking about what else we would do together before the night ended. Of course, I have read your cautions about early success so I am very cautious about calling this a win yet, but I imagine this may be something that could last at least for a while. There have been two others were contenders for the long term, but neither came close to this one.

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I am at a point where I would like to get to know someone a bit better and going on 2+ dates a week has really taken a toll on the rest of my life. I am wondering if I should just focus on the ladies I am currently dating and enjoy the summer and such more.

You seem to talk very little about how you approached things after the second date with new women (unless I read something wrong). For instance, were there girls you would keep dating after a couple dates while still looking for new ones? It seems like at some point, it is very dishonest to do this and could screw things up with someone that is a great find. Basically, I am looking for your thoughts on how you approached continuing to date someone beyond the first few dates while you were still dating online.

Early Successes

First, based on something this reader wrote I want to clarify one of my stances in my guide: when I talk about being cautious about early successes I’m really talking about the desire in some people to abandon dating altogether when they meet someone that treats them moderately nice. This reader was taking my advice on caution further than I would have wanted him to. He had moved past the point of an early success to the point of having a good deal of dating experience under his belt.

My motivation to offer caution comes from this:

1. I am often contacted by people who aren’t having much success and with a few tweaks to their profile or their approach we start to see improvements
2. Shortly after they’ve started to have some success I’ll get an email about how they met the perfect guy/girl and they’ve canceled their dating account. Sometimes this is literally less than a week from when they first contacted me.
3. I’ll caution them about the speed at which they are moving and they’ll ignore my advice.
4. At some point later, normally a few weeks, I get another contact from them describing frustration as things didn’t work out with the relationship they decided to pursue

My advice on early success is aimed at these people. In the case above, my reader absolutely doesn’t fit into that category. I think he considers himself having early success because he’s only been dating online actively for a few months now but taking the experience he’s gained in that time I think it’s safe to say he’s not jumping on an “early success”.

Early Success Can Happen!
All that said, having success early on can happen! I’m not saying ignore any success, I just want to make sure people are choosing to be with a great match as opposed to choosing to “not be single”. If you’ve been dating online for several months I think you’re well equipped to see when you’ve found something special. If you’ve been dating online for a week, it can still happen I’m just not convinced we’re as good at seeing it…especially if we’re a tad bit desperate to end our singleness.

Did I Always Stop After the Second Date?

In my guide I strong encourage going on second dates. When I talk about going on these second dates, what I am really trying to do is to get my readers to give their dates a real chance. It’s not that I would want anyone to date someone they aren’t interested in indefinitely; I just talk to so many people who give up on their first dates too quickly.

To my readers question on dating past the second date: there were a few women that I dated 3 or 4 times but if I ever took it past the 2nd date it was because I suspected there was a chance to build a real relationship. I never dated just to date. My two-date rule was about getting to know my date and getting dating experience but my end goal was always to find a strong, healthy relationship…so most of the time it was a few dates and then moving on.

My Advice to this Reader

What I advised my reader to do (and what I would advice others in this situation to do) is that if if you think you’ve found someone great, pursue that relationship! If it’s an early success, pursue it with more caution such as keeping your dating account active or by letting your match know you want to take things slowly and will likely continue to meet others (at least for a little while).

If the “early success” situation is not your case, I would encourage you to be excited that you’ve met a great match! In his case my reader wanted to take a break from meeting new women to spend time getting to know this one and I’m 100% behind that idea. Allowing a promising relationship to grow is exactly what I would do in his situation.

What I Did When I Met My Wife…

In my case, I took my advice above: I had dated online for a year, very actively many months. When I met my the woman who would become my wife I knew I had found something special. I was excited about that and after our date, I canceled every other date I had scheduled with other women (I believe I had 5 or 6 schedule).

Clearly, things worked out! When you think you’ve found something special I want to encourage you to pursue that! Just apply the appropriate amount of caution depending on where you’re at in your dating life.