Imagine going into a bar, a nice bar
so I’ll call it a tavern, takes away a certain boozy aspect. And the people who
frequent this tavern weren’t born under a rock nor do they live under a rock.
They are intelligent people who are there to relax and enjoy getting away from
life’s stresses for a period of time and often they are there to meet someone
of the opposite sex, to find the man/woman of their dreams or at least someone
who is seemingly relationship material.

Are you there? Good. You have a nice
seat at the beautiful, long and curved, glossy, walnut bar. Your favorite
beverage is in front of you. When suddenly you hear a man say to a woman who is
sitting a couple of bar stools away from him, “Hey, nice chest, you look good in
red.” And then she calls back to him, “What do you do for a living?” to which
he says, “How old are you?” And she says, “How much money do you make?”This
exchange has your attention for sure.

Then suddenly on the opposite side
of where this exchange is taking place a woman says to a man sitting at the bar
a few seats away from her, “Do you like to travel?” And he says,
“Do you have kids?” And she says, “Where have you gone?”
And he says, “How much time do you spend with your kids?” She tells
him she has two kids and joint custody so she has them every other week but
they play soccer so she’s a soccer mom and she’s busy with them every weekend
during soccer season to which he gets up and moves down to the far end of the
bar never having told her whether or not he’s seen Paris.

Another man comes in and sits down in the seat just vacated by moving right
along man. He looks at the soccer mom, not knowing she’s a soccer mom and says,
“You look great. Do you exercise regularly?” To which she says,
“You look like a professional. Do you have a college degree? What do you
do for a living?”

Weird huh? Really weird. You only had one glass of wine yet you feel like you
fell down the rabbit hole. That’s what happens with online dating and what you should
pay attention to. If someone you don’t know, have never met, who may or may not
be the person of the profile, makes any of the above statements or asks you any
of the above questions without having taken some time to exchange emails they
probably have an agenda and who you are makes little or no difference to them.
The fact that much of this is already posted in their profile is the equivalent
of pushing at least a week’s talk time out of the way.

I assume you had an unsuccessful
relationship, which is why you’re on an online dating site. You are determined
that your next relationship will be good and will last.

Take some time to make the other person’s acquaintance, a quaint idea in the
age of Internet fast track dating but a really good one. If you don’t, you could
find out after you’re “going steady” that his idea of being an entrepreneur
means he got fired two years ago, can’t find work, and is looking for someone
to make his life a little easier but he doesn’t want to get involved with
anyone who might, god forbid, have other things to do besides sit in a bar or
day dream about ways to please him. If you’re a man you might think she looks
great, at least in her photos, but you haven’t taken enough time getting to
know her to learn that she babysits her grandkids every weekend all weekend
long because she didn’t think she was a good enough mom or that her idea of a
good time is Chinese takeout washed down with an entire bottle of sake.
Chinese, Japanese, she tells you that it doesn’t matter because the two
countries are almost the same anyway and she’s a brunette! No blonde jokes
here.

My point is that you wouldn’t walk around in the world expecting to fall in
love at the first meeting nor would you in any polite society ask those kinds
of questions unless you’d already determined that you at least liked the person
enough to consider them well on the way to becoming your friend. If you would,
please call me, you need help.

Slow down. Don’t let anyone push you. If you saw someone in a bar that looked
interesting wouldn’t you engage in small talk as a way to get to know them?
Don’t feel guilty because you’re not going to give out your regular email nor
are you going to plan a weekend away nor are you even going to go on a date
with him/her until you’ve met in a public place and that would happen after, I
don’t know, six emails, that’s three apiece. You’re looking for a relationship,
that’s not asking too much for a beginning introduction.

If you want your next relationship to be a good one take the time to get to
know, really know, who the other person is or isn’t.