Online Dating 101 | EliteSingles

Wondering how to meet people online? Keep coming up short? Then this is for you. To help you succeed, EliteSingles enlisted the help of a relationship expert, best-selling author Justin Kelly McClure who explained that relationship happiness starts with ourselves.

Found yourself wondering how to meet people online? Stop. If you aren’t getting the results you want from dating then start by addressing the product you are putting out there (you). To find the “love of our life” we have to live a life worth loving, which should be represented on our dating profile.

Self happiness = relationship happiness

People are not attracted to generic clichés that say nothing about everything, but instead people are attracted to happiness and optimism. If you aren’t happy and optimistic then you shouldn’t be online dating (to begin with). To be truly available for someone else we have to be happy with who we are.

Once we are happy as a single person it’s easy to not date the wrong people, because we are happy on our own. If your happiness is contingent upon a relationship or another person, it’s doomed to fail, because nothing should be more powerful than your own relationship with you. This is crucial advice. We have to get honest and ask ourselves “What am I actually trying to get from this online dating? Am I already happy and available to bring someone into my life?”

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Be unique!

It all starts with your dating profile. If your profile is trite and boring, then you’re going to attract trite and boring people to go on trite and boring dates. It’s simple supply and demand. Your profile should match and represent who you actually are. We are all amazing people, therefore an honest dating profile should be like a snowflake: each special and unique, different from each other. If we’re all individual people, how come all dating profiles read the same? Because we are scared our uniqueness won’t be accepted. The problem isn’t online dating; the problem is our lack of courage in being confident in our own originality to offer other people.

Don’t describe “everyone” on your dating profile, describe you. I read a profile that said (many say this) “I really like my job and spending time with my son.” That says nothing about you. Those are your responsibilities and duties as an adult. You have kids, therefore it’s your responsibility to take care of them. You have a job because you have to provide food and shelter. Those are facts of your life. It’s boring to tell other people. Nobody cares. You think there is someone out there who is attracted to “The ONE who loves kids and her job. I can’t believe I found her!”

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Nobody cares that you like spending time with your kids or enjoy your job. Why? The people reading your profile do not know you. There is no emotional connection, so they do not care about the details of your life. When you spend months with someone and begin caring for them, you start to think of them and become curious about who they are. This is very different than most first dates where people ask questions they think they should, like reading from a script.

For instance, when you ask someone on a first date “Where did you go to school?” you are asking because you think you should – to fill the time of the obligatory hour and half first date. You don’t care where they went to school. You don’t know them, but after dating that person for two months then you might deduce “this person is really smart, I wonder where she went to school.” At that point you’ll remember the answer, because you cared about the question. Sometimes on a date the best questions are the ones you ask later.

Here is a revised rewrite of sample profile mentioned above about the lady who loved her job and son, “The other day I came home from a late night at work and my son Jack surprised me with dinner. It was so sweet because he’s only 12! He knows I love my job and put in long hours, but having dinner with him (let’s be honest…it was microwaved pizza) and talking about his science project was the highlight of my week.”

That says something about you, a lot about you, and also accomplishes the other things you want to say: you love your job and son. It’s colorful, engaging, brings people in instead of repelling them. It also engages the user. Remember the user has no emotional connection to you, so make your profile worth their time. We are all busy; nobody has an attention span, so why would anyone want to spend three minutes on your dating profile? Make it interesting and not only will they enjoy it, but they probably also want to know more about the person writing it.

A better profile for a better relationship

It all boils down to caring about your effort and attempt in finding a match. If you do it sloppily, then you are going to get sloppy results. If my kitchen is a mess then I am going to attract cockroaches and other insects. If you have a boring profile (a mess) then you are going to attract those people who gross you out the same. Write about you, be you. There is only one you, and if you fully represent yourself then you are already perfect for someone. Not perfect for everyone, but you don’t need to be. You are good enough as you are, but maybe you needed to be reminded of this. Be honest about your effort at online dating and through that know its ok if you don’t meet one person because you were already happy as a person before you registered.