New Year’s Resolutions and Online Dating

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We’re about to head into what is considered the busiest time for online dating. It turns out that more than a people will be resolving to stop being single and the population of the online dating services is about to spike.

If you’re considering making such dating resolution this year and plan to use online dating as a part of that resolution, I’d like to encourage you to do the following:

Online Dating New Year's Resolution


See This as a “Real” Resolution
We make resolutions because they help us stick to something that’s hard to do. With dating, you might think you don’t need a “real” resolution and simply deciding to try online dating is enough. I would argue that it’s not. If you’ve never tried online dating, you may be surprised how frustrating it can be. “All these single people and no one to date” went through my mind more than once when I was dating online.

So take your resolution seriously and admit that it will take effort to stick by it.

Don’t Make an Arbitrary Resolution
If you say to yourself, “My New Year’s resolution is to try online dating” that’s all well and good but you can quit a week later and claim to have met your resolution. The problem there is you’ve not really solved the problem. You’re not resolving to date online because you want to date online. You’re resolving to date online so you can find a relationship.

With that in mind, I would encourage you to commit to a specific amount of time. I think February 14th is a great starting point because the dating services will be extra busy up until that date. After Valentine’s day things are said to drop off (I’ve never seen the numbers but it’s what I hear). Six weeks is a way better resolution than something non-specific.

Be Willing to Meet People
I talk about this in my guide but I’ll say it again here: there are too many people searching for the perfect person and then trying to date them instead of taking the approach of dating a lot of people and trying to find the perfect person.

Even if they don’t seem like “the one”, it’s just a date! They may not be everything you are hoping for but could you have fun? Do they sound interesting? What good is a resolution if you’re so strict you never meet a single person? People generally don’t like this advice but until you start giving other people a chance, you may find yourself struggling. Maybe that great guy or girl can’t create the perfect profile. That doesn’t make them any less great!


Overall, I think it comes down to taking things seriously. The person committing to stop smoking as their resolution knows things will be difficult and they mentally prepare for that. I hope you do the same and I hope you find success in doing so!

 

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About the Author:

Brad initially struggled with online dating but over time became quite successful using it. He met his wife using online dating and has been giving advice and helping people improve their results since 2007. He has written a Free Online Dating Guide to help others find success with online dating. You can learn more about his personal experience using online dating and running this website here.

Comments

  1. JohnD  December 28, 2011

    It certainly makes sense that early January would be one of the busiest times of year for internet dating. I just joined match about 11 days ago, and I have been thinking that, because of the holidays, the last two weeks of the year are probably the most awkward weeks of the year to be connecting anyone. And I suspended emailing any women for a week starting around the 22nd. It is not as if there is an unlimited supply of women in my target demographic. Any thoughts on that.

  2. Brad  December 28, 2011

    Hey John – I think it’s a valid theory to hold off contacting women when the holidays are in full swing. I saw a significant dip in the number of visitors I was getting the week before Christmas. Now my website isn’t a perfect measurement of the entire internet or when people are looking to date online…but it does seem to line up well with your thinking.