It’s a Saturday night and for business not pleasure I’m having a beer with a recently divorced man in his early 40s, discussing the pros and cons of online dating.
“My last date brought a blowtorch to my house,” Matt Kane* tells me. “She used to be a carnie. She actually used the blowtorch, too. It was a little bit scary.”
It’s Portland, Ore., the original “Keep it Weird” city, so I’m not as fazed as I maybe should be. Instead, probably because this guy doesn’t look like the type to date a carnie he’s clean-cut, athletic, works for a law office and has a Midwesterner’s boy-next-door type of charm I want to know the details.
“So you met this woman online? Did you know about the carnie thing beforehand or did it just come up organically?” I ask Kane.
“Oh, I knew. That’s why I asked her out!” he tells me, grinning and toasting me with his beer. “This was actually our second date when she brought the blowtorch.”
Of course it was. And was there a third date?
“No. I decided she was too much for me,” Kane says. “Plus I have a lot of, um, other options.”
He’s not lying. In the past couple of years since his divorce, this single dad has had several dozen dates and two longer-term relationships. He’s met all of them online.
“Where else do you meet people?” Kane asks, mirroring the question that 99 percent of my single, divorced friends ask on a weekly basis. “I don’t meet women at work. I don’t meet anyone going out to bars. And the women I know through friends are usually in relationships.”
Go online and the entire city heck, the entire state becomes your dating pool. In fact, according to some recent research on the online dating scene in the US, the top two dating sites eHarmony and match.com boast a combined 37 million users, and 75 percent of single people (about 41 million) say they’ve tried online dating. Going online for love opens you up to the vast majority of single people living in your immediate area.
“It was so easy to meet people online,” Kane says. “At first, I’d talk to them online for a while before we met but now I usually meet them in person pretty fast. You have to know if you have a connection, any chemistry, before you spend a lot of time talking online.”
Sometimes there’s immediate chemistry, hence the second date with a blowtorch-wielding carnie. Sometimes there’s not. “I will be upfront about it if there’s no real connection,” Kane says. “I once cut a date short because we both knew we didn’t want to see each other again.”
It may seem a little bit callous, but for many single parents Kane is raising a 10-year-old half of the week finding the time to actually go on a real date can be tough. There are babysitters to set up or, if you wait until your ex has the kids, the dating time takes away from your much-needed alone time. After a while, it just seems realistic to “call it” when you’re on a date that is a dud for both parties.
“She didn’t mind. I think she was relieved that I said something,” Kane says of the “no chemistry, let’s say goodnight” date.
Aside from the fact that he gets to meet a bevy of beautiful, successful women in the Portland area through his online dating sites (Kane has used match.com, Tinder and OK Cupid), he says the real benefit is an increased confidence in himself.
“Online dating has made me more confident about going on dates, about meeting people, about just having fun and not worrying whether it will lead to something serious,” Kane says. “For me, that’s really important. I was sort of a late bloomer and I didn’t date much in my early 20s. Then I met my wife and got married. So when we divorced, I was intimidated by dating. Three years of online dating has cured me of that. Now it’s mainly just fun. And I’ve made a lot of friends and met a lot of really great women I would never have met otherwise.”
With so many people diving into the online dating pool, you would think that there would be more success stories. However, the Pew Research Center recently found that the “vast majority of relationships still begin offline.” In fact, of the broad array of people interviewed for this research study, only five percent of Americans who are currently in a marriage or committed relationship said they met their partner online.
“Even among Americans who have been with their spouse or partner for five years or less, fully 88 percent say that they met their partner offline without the help of a dating site,” states the Pew Center’s 2014 research.
Perhaps, as in Kane’s case, these folks’ online dating adventures gave them the dating confidence they needed to approach a potential date “in real life”?
“I can see that,” Kane says about the theory that people go online to test date instead of actually date. “I would prefer to meet someone through a friend or at a party. It just seems more natural that way. And now, after going on so many first and second dates, I’d feel more comfortable going up to a friend-of-a-friend and asking her out.”
Dating, particularly after a divorce, can be a sad state of affairs. After all, you’ve just gone through a major life change. You’re used to being with one person, with knowing all of his or her unique quirks and desires. Getting to know someone knew is exciting, but also really scary especially if you haven’t dated since your college days. How do you ask someone out? Where should you go? Do you have to pay if you’re the guy? Do they want you to kiss them on the first date? Should you call them the next day? What are you going to wear? What are you going to talk about? It’s enough to make they typically-suave-grown-up you feel like a nervous 16 year old again.
That’s why online dating has so many benefits for the post-divorce crowd. First of all, there are a lot of other people in the same boat, looking for new love. Second, you can typically take it as slow or as fast as you want to go. Are you more comfortable talking online for a few weeks, or even a few months, before you actually meet? Put that in your profile. Chances are good that there are a few dozen other singles in your area that feel the same way. Want to date someone who is just a few years younger or older than you? You can weed through the matches until you find the age range you’re looking for. Would you rather just keep things casual and fun for a while and not discuss “where this is going”? Again, put it in your profile. One of the best parts about being online is that you can tailor your dating experience.
Interested in checking out the online dating scene? Here are a few hints from the professionals (and others who have been-there-done-that when it comes to online dating):
• Pick the right site: Some of the online dating sites feel more like a meat market for 20-somethings, instead of a realistic way for folks of all ages and personalities to connect. Here is a good comparison of the various online dating sites, from A-Z.
• Use current photos: We know you miss having a full head of hair and that you still think of yourself as that hot, buff 22 year old volunteer firefighter, but do us all a favor and don’t put that picture up if you’re really a 55-year-old with no hair and a little bit of a beer belly. Someone is going to love you the way you look today. Maybe it’s fun to show them who you used to be but only after you’ve posted two or three current pictures. No one wants to show up for a not-really-blind date and feel blindsided because you used old photos.
• Let your personality shine in your profile: Your online profile is not the place to pump up your life or project the type of person you want to be. This is your time to let your true self shine through. Write a genuine profile that shows off the real you and you’ll meet people who actually like YOU. It’s kind of a no-brainer. But people get nervous about those profiles and tend to over-compensate. Some people even pay a professional service to write the profiles for them. Resist the temptation! I can tell you, as a veteran of online dating, I can spot a professionally written profile or message in about five seconds flat. They’re too generic. And, often, they’re being reused. Just sit down and type your profile. Then, before you post it, call your very best friend and read it to them. Tell them to be brutally honest. Got their opinion? Good. Now follow it to the letter. Your best friends see the real you, not the you that you want to be. Trust them on this.
• Remember that it’s not life or death: Don’t take every date so seriously. Having another person reject you because there’s no chemistry is going to happen more often than you’d like to think and it has nothing to do with how charming, attractive, funny, sweet, likeable you are. It has to do with that crazy thing called love sometimes you feel it, sometimes you don’t. No big deal. “It’s fun to meet new people,” Kane says. “I just think of it as something fun, no pressure. That way, if it doesn’t work out, I’m not too disappointed. And, when it does work out, I’m really pleased.” Before you date, do yourself a favor and read this excellent blog post about “low-stakes dating.”
• Have fun and be open to new experiences: Divorce can drain all the zest out of life. But dating new people people who can introduce us to new food, new places, new adventures is a perfect way to get your old lust for life back. Be open to expanding your horizons and to getting out of your comfort zone. Who knows? You might just discover a side of yourself that you never knew existed. Overall, just remember to have fun with this experience. You’re single. You went through a major life change. And you deserve to find a little happiness. Good luck!
*Name has been changed to protect privacy.
