Photo by The Signal repoter Jaimy Jones.
Dating websites are filled with guys who look like they haven’t showered in year and who send messages that prove they haven’t read a single line in your profile. And from what I hear from male friends, they’re sifting through the same thing when they meet girls on dating websites.
Then there are the more traditional dating woes:
The “What are we?” conversation can be one of the most stressful ones to have when you’ve just started dating.
The “rules” of dating make little things seem so intimidating.
“When will he call? WILL he call? Why hasn’t he called? …Whatever, I’m calling him.”
“I can’t tell if she likes me. She said she liked me…. Whatever, I’m calling her.”
With inherent problems like these, adding another layer of miscommunication is not a wise idea. I’ve always tried to make the whole dating process as simple as possible. That’s why I never “friend” someone on Facebook whom I’m dating until we become serious. And neither should you.
To establish a relationship – and by this I mean a real relationship, not a series of mind games that make you think you’re in some kind of relationship when, in fact, you are only occasionally interacting with a bi-polar personality — then you’ve got to create the right environment, and Facebook is not that environment.
The right environment for a relationship to grow and thrive is an organic one that allows both parties’ personalities to unfold. Little idiosyncrasies and imperfections are endearing instead of embarrassing when perceived in the right time and place. It’s a delicate ecosystem that needs to maintain homeostasis. People need time to fall in love before they see all the skeletons in each other’s closets. Skeletons on Facebook rarely, if ever, stay in the closet.
Oh, and these days most parents are on Facebook. ‘Nuff said.
We spend so much time deliberating on which picture hides the muffin top, or accentuates those cut quads – and let’s be honest, our profile picture is the image we want to present to the world. The picture your best friend posted of you asleep in bed with pizza sauce on your face — double chin in full effect — is not. And your crush does not need to know what you look like in that situation while he or she is still making subconscious judgments about your attractiveness. It may sound shallow, but it’s true.
Plus, it’s so inauthentic and pathetic to have to pretend to be surprised or intrigued when a date tells you about his or her six brothers and sisters, and how they all dressed up as a basketball team last Halloween when you’ve already seen the pictures online. Let the process of becoming close with someone be a fun one, not a destination to rush toward. It’s supposed to be a process, because that’s what creating intimacy means. You go through things together, and that includes getting to know one another. Lying on your couch at night, scrolling through all his or her albums is not a replacement for face-to-face moments of discovery together.
You’re bound to see things you don’t want to when you go digging — like the ex. Let him or her tell you about that situation and that person, and more importantly why things ended between them. The pictures of them together may reflect something real that happened — but it’s hardly the whole story.
This one goes for guys and girls: you’ll never get that image of the ex’s face out of your mind. It will burn under your eyelids every time you close them. It’ll be floating there in your mind, a dark cloud over the two of you as you’re attempting to make new, happy memories together.
Focusing on someone’s past relationships can actually cause you to miss important red flags about a person. You become so distracted by thoughts of irrelevant things — like why all of a sudden he’s friends with that girl from his chemistry lab, or why she’s still friends with the guy she broke-up with last year — that you don’t pay attention to things that matter. Do they do what they say they will? Do they only take your feelings into consideration when it’s convenient for them?
These are things a person should focus on when getting to know someone. Failing to do so could end up leaving you confused and heartbroken when you finally start paying attention to things like character and integrity. Don’t do that to yourself. Be nice to yourself. Little things that stir up jealousy can be resolved so much easier once you’re secure in your feelings for each other.
It’s so easy to get wrapped up in another person. When you want to see and know everything about someone, as soon as possible, you end up overdosing on information from online profiles, and you’ve only been on five dates. Leave some space for yourself, your life and your friends. Later, Facebook can be awesome when you two start posting pictures together of a romantic anniversary dinner.
But whatever you do, don’t combine your profiles into one of those combination, couple things. No one wants to see that.
