Internet Dating... Any successful relations?

Hey guys!

It's been forever since I've been on calorie count, but been busy busy for the past few months... anywho, thought I'd just start a new thread with something I'm wondering about.

Internet dating? Anyone do it/did it with success? How does the first meeting/date go? Any horror stories? Any inspiring stories (for a single chick/stud)?

I wanna know because I'm curious and signed up for a couple dating sites, but haven't paid because I'm a little skeptical about dating someone who... let's say... could be Ted Bundy.

Let me know what you think.

Cheers

Just like in the "real" world there are good and bad ppl. I think it is 100% possible to meet your potential mate online.

I've met some cool/normal/nice guys from myspace/speed dating etc. No real matches yet but I know God has someone special for me so right now I'm getting my focus moreso on Him. Just got a new book entitled Lady in Waiting , can't wait to get stated on it.

Try meetup.com, is usually free.

Hi fledtheflock,

I met my girlfriend on craigslist (taboo, I know) and we're coming up to our 9 month anniversary.  It's entirely possible to meet someone good online.  I also met up with three other people before my current girlfriend online and I've found the best sites to actually be either Craigslist or Plentyoffish.com.  Both are free, which is nice.  The best advice that I can give is to use your best judgement.  If someone says something that strikes you as odd, chances are that it isn't going to be much better in person.  Hope that helps!

-D

I went out a few times with people from sites geared at dating (match.com, cupid.com, etc) and those dates were always horrible for me.  It seemed like guys could easily be classifed into one of two categories:  those who wanted and expected sex within minutes of meeting or those who wanted to get married within hours of meeting (I am not exaggerating!). 

I have, however, have success by randomly meeting my bf on a website that had nothing to do with dating - it was a debate type website.  At that point in my life I didn't want a boyfriend, despite that things just automatically clicked with him. 

If you're interested in meeting a partner (as opposed to a one-night-stand or a psycho), I'd suggest branching your internet-wings and looking at website that have a social focus instead of a dating focus.   

I met my husband on what was then called relationships.com.  We are coming up on our seven year wedding anniversary and have two children. 

Prior to meet though, we emailed for 3 months, talked on the phone for another month, and only then had our first date. 

A girl friend of mine also met her husband on the internet.  (And he is a millionaire)

Good luck and just be careful!

Hi, I've done the internet dating thing for a couple of months and its fun. You have to be very careful about giving out personal info and keeping yourself safe, of course, but it isn't as scary as some people will tell you.

Two FREE sites I've liked are OKCupid.com and www.plentyoffish.com. I've heard very bad reviews about many paid sites like EHarmony because lets face it... the longer they keep you dating, the more money they get. Ouch!!

The first meeting I had with a guy went really well. It was amazing because I was able to ask him straight out over email many questions which you wouldn't get to discuss in person... so when I met him we had a lot of moral and intellectual values in common.

The relationship did not last for other reasons, but I'm not discouraged...

 

Sure there are lots of guys just looking for sex but you will be able to weed them out if you talk to them over email or AIM long enough. mail me if you have any questions good luck : )

O I think it's possible....but I also think it depends on where you live!

I tried it for quite awhile, and really had an open mind about it. I DO have my horror stories....but then again I have horror stories from guys I met out in the 'real' world! LOL

I would just suggest ALWAYS meeting someone in a public place! And always have your own money n ride! LOL

And meet them in person soon after connecting online. It's really disappointing to develop a 'relationship' with someone either through email, text, or even talking but then meeting up and either having NO connection in person, or them not being who they seemed. Don't want to get too emotionally invested until you see what it's like face to face!

But good luck!

Hi! I too have been away from CC for a while, but I wanted to reply to this! As some of the previous posters mentioned, it really depends on where you live. But that said, I met my current boyfriend on plentyoffish.com and we've been dating for nearly two years now and I completely adore him :) And since our first "date" was just a coffee date, it went fantastically.

If you go through free dating sites, chances are that the same bunch of people are going to be on most of them, so you don't have to wade through all the profiles. And you just have to be really picky about who you respond to. I pretty much refused to respond to anyone who didn't write me a coherent message or anyone who couldn't be bothered to use basic grammer skills in their personal messages. It also helped to mention things that i was interested in that are more eclectic and that got real conversations started.

I wouldn't be too terrified of meeting anyone as long as you can hold an interesting email thread with them for a while first. And as long as you keep the first meeting or so public and tell all your friends the wheres and whos, it should be fine.

Internet dating is actually getting to be more of a norm, so it's pretty unlikely you'll meet the next Ted Bundy ;) Good luck!

I keep meaning to check out Plenty of fish when I go home, I keep seeing the advertisements on the bottom of other pages lol. I just like meeting new ppl regardless.

I met my husband on friendster.com 5 years ago.  It clearly worked out well--but let me tell you, I had met plenty of other dates from the internet, and there were some really...uh... interesting ones.  I will never forget the dull physics Ph.D. student who wore his pants around his armpits, or the guy who asked to have sex within 30 minutes of meeting.

My inspiring story (obviously) has to be my husband.  We didn't live in the same state, but his grandma lived near me and he was looking for someone with similar interests to hang out with whenever he visited her.  We went from sending messages, to chatting online, to phone calls that started lasting all night.  I was nervous about meeting him, but it went better than I expected   I was visiting friends near his home, and he was home for the weekend.  We went out for pizza, and the initial nervousness dissapated once we bonded over an appreciation of cheese and dough.  The long distance relationship thing wasn't a walk in the park, but we made it work because we wanted to.

The funny thing is--we found out around 3 months into dating each other that his aunt used to babysit me.  The world is smaller than you think, eh?

I think online dating has changed a lot in the course of the past few years.  Just play it safe, trust your instincts, listen to your friends.  Don't rush yourself, and you'll find that dating online is just like dating in real life.

When I was going to college, two of friends met people on line with mixed results.

We were in school in rhode island and one friend met a guy from Indiana in a chat room.  After about 6 months he came to visit her and they really hit it off.  He moved out here and they have since been married for about 5 -6 years.

Another friend in college met a guy in Oregon in a chat room.  they talked on line for maybe 6 months to a year.  She dropped out of school and moved out to Oregon to be with this guy.  He was very aloof when she got out there and she later found out that he had a girlfriend (who was also in the dark).  Obviously things did not work out with them.

My brother joined a dating agency late last year and has had non stop girlfriends for about 2 months each, he's hardly been single to be honest and my best friend met her now fiance on Myspace last year by accident and well... I'm chief bridesmaid at their wedding! It definitely works

My brother-in-law met his, now, wife on line.  I don't live anywhere near them, but they seem happy and compatible.  I hear they are thinking of starting a family soon.

ALrighty. I met my fiancee on OKCupid. It is completely free, and actually you can (you don't have to ) take tests. Some of the tests and questions are silly, but you actually can learn alot about how people think on them. It's a fun site. 

I was a member of Match and Eharmony. I don't think Eharmony is worth much, frankly. I think you could go look at their forums and advice section (which you can read for free and you don't have to be a member). You will see all kinds of gripes and complaints from members. Match was not bad. I met someone on there and dated for awhile. I liked being able to cruise the profiles which you couldn't do on eharmony.  Chemistry belongs to Match.com, but they are like Eharmony as they select profiles for you.

I think the dating sites are what you put into them and your profile.

Also make sure you use recent, clear pictures. That is a big complaint about internet dating - people not looking like their pictures. Have a friend take some regular, everyday photos (including a body shot) with you naturally smiling and being happy; by "body shot" I mean you standing up in regular clothes not a undies shot .  It is 100% better to be honest. You also have to develop thick skin, because some people are just plain rude, mean and hateful, but it's better to know about the duds before you waste time meeting them.

I have a number of friends who have found their spouses via online dating and was fortunate enough to meet my husband in a roundabout way via friends dating online.  I think the key to successful internet dating is honesty from the get go.  Sure, you'll want to be guarded at first but as you get to know people don't exaggerate hobbies, weight, income.  If sharing a photo, make sure it's truthful and accurate to how you look now. 

If you're interested, how internet dating led to me meeting my husband:

Hubby's best friend dated Kim A and Kim B, both of whom he met online.  He didn't care for Kim A but fell in love with Kim B and ended up marrying her.  Best friend set up my husband with Kim A because he thought they had a lot in common and would hit it off.  They did and husband dated Kim A for several months.  Fast forward: husband and Kim A broke up but stayed friends.  From what I understand, they didn't have that "wow" factory but got along well and had a lot in common.  I moved to Iowa and attended Kim A's church.  Kim A said, "I'd like you set you up with my ex.  He's a great guy, we're still friends, we just didn't have the chemistry to sustain a long-term relationship."  Well, we hit it off and Tuesday is our 2 year wedding anniversary.

I met my husband on a Yahoo chat room.  I wasn't searching for a husband or anything, but that's just where life took us.

My great uncle found his fiance on some internet dating website.  A few others I know found their significant others on internet dating websites but I can't go into details 'cause some of them are still married.

My sister met her husband on a Catholic singles' site...they ended up emailing for a week or two and then chatting on MSN.  He phoned her for the first time on Christmas day (about three weeks after they first met) and she spent the whole afternoon on the phone with him. 

He came up from Kansas to visit her here in Canada a month later, continued the long distance relationship for a couple more months (phone calls for hours and hours on end).  When he came back in April for another visit, he proposed and they got married in September.

They are so happy together.  It's amazing just to see them together.  They'll just be having their two year anniversary in September.  They have a beautiful one year old and are expecting number two in February.

So yes, it definitely does work.

....not for everyone, though.  I joined the single's site, but I'm not crazy about meeting someone/starting a relationship online--I feel like I just need to see and get to know a person in real life.  That's just me, I guess, because it has worked for a lot of people!

My hubby and I dated online for 6 months before he flew to England to meet me (and all my friends and family). He asked me to marry him two days after he arrived. Within 6 months, I had moved to the States and we were married. We are still very happy togther and soon to celebrate our 4th wedding anniversary.

Obviously, he is a super nice guy, genuine, funny, honest and totally loveable. Neither of us was really looking for a partner when we first began contact, we both initially thought it would just be fun to get to know someone from a different country. But every day, I still feel lucky to have found him and Iknow he feels the same towards me. We found much in common with each other.

The key for us, in creating that bond was phone calls and emails, interspersed between online chats with web cams. We also wrote letters (snail mail) and cards and sent each other small gifts, such as mixed CD's (him) and poems (me). We would talk for hours, every day, about everything from childhood to politics. Under those circumstances, not only do you get to know someone really well, but I would venture to say it say it's difficult to maintain any kind of subterfuge. When we finally met, we both felt like we were greeting a well known friend.

If either of us had been asked before we began this journey, if we would consider dating someoone on the internet or someone so far away, both of us would have answered "no way, how could that possibly work out?".

BTW, the friend who dragged both of us reluctant techno phobes into the world of internet dating, is also happily married to the man she met the same way. 

I'm best man in the wedding next year, so yeah, it works. But don't do it.

I've done it myself. I've had amazingly good experiences. I've also had amazingly bad experiences. Bad experiences include what many people I know consider the worst first date of all time, that ends up in a shouting match at 3AM on a major arterial street and a date where she didn't tell me about her kids, her marriage, her status as a felon, or her then-current pregnancy until on the date. The good experiences, well, a gentleman doesn't tell those stories.

The first and foremost thing is it's like starting over. Remember the first time you asked someone out/got asked out? You're right back to square one. Online dating is its own world. You have to learn the tricks, the rules, and the formulas. This takes trial and error, and much as in real life, there's no way to learn it but to do it. It takes a knock or two, but it's not hard to catch up on.

But, I really don't approve of it. I don't like the way it changes people. It causes you to think of dating in a different and somewhat uncomfortable way.

Most importantly, there's a flawed premise at the root of it all. Meeting prospective partners without vetting for chemistry first, which is what happens in person, is a constant ticket to misery, and if you're not miserable, you're the one dealing out the misery.

 

I've tried the online dating before a long time ago. I did meet a great guy out of that, but that didn't last very long. Too much baggage I guess.

After that I haven't had any luck. I can't say its them because I am a very independent person. I am a single mommy of 2 wonderful boys and I am very protective of them. So thats probably one reason I have not had success in the dating online. I haven't given up on any of that yet. I just figured I should wait until my kids are a bit older and can take care of themselves.

I have had friends that have meet online and have gotten married and are still married today. So I know that it does work for some people, but you just have to be willing to give it a chance. :)

Meeting prospective partners without vetting for chemistry first

hmm... i would think screening for things you are interested in first is better then just whoever happens to be around and hot / you could get (which is how it works normally).

But its still something really new....so a lot of people arent really comfortable with it (and the costs that go along with it).

Ideally, wouldnt it be easier to meet someone if all singles (who are looking) were listed with information about them (what they like / looking for / do and so on). Sifting through the millions and millions of people out there down to the ones that fit what you are looking for and only talking to them seems like a LOT better chance to meet someone you could really make something work with.

But.... i guess settling for whoever happens to be around works too.