There should be rules when it comes to online dating.
Not unwritten rules. Legitimate rules that are like traffic laws. If you get busted then you get fined, or lose your license. Lie about your age? That’s a fine. Lie about your marital status? License revoked.
Now to be slightly realistic: There should be universal rules that govern the first encounter between two people who find each other through the miracle of online communication and outdated jpeg photos.
We’ll assume that if you’re trolling online and get a bite, you’ll go through the motions of exchanging messages a few times before graduating to the phone call.
If neither party is discouraged by the telephone conversation then it’s probably time to have the awkward first encounter in a public place. Call it a date if you want, I don’t care. But the first encounter should be more like a job interview than a date.
First dates are for a night at the comedy club, a stroll through the zoo, a haunted hayride or touring a local brewery. Some of those ideas are better than others, but they’re all first dates. When your first meeting is a result of online personals, stick to the job interview.
If you play by these rules, you’ll never find yourself flying solo when you return from the restroom. (That happened to one of my buddies during an online dating encounter.)
1. Pick a good place to meet. Meeting at a public place is obvious, but make sure the time/place of your meeting is when the bar or coffee shop isn’t ridiculously busy. If it’s hard to get a table or hear each other, you’re wasting your time.
2. Show up on time. If you have to hang out in your car for 10 minutes because you’re early, so be it. (You have a cell phone, pretend you’re finishing an important conversation if you need an excuse to sit in your car. I have faked a phone call many times in my life. You should hear the conversations I have during those fake phone calls.)
Don’t make the other person sit there wondering if you’re going to show up. If you want to be proactive, get there early and make sure your future spouse knows how to find you immediately upon canvassing the room. First impressions are important, don’t ruin yours by being late.
3. Be honest. It should go without saying, but I’ve heard more than a few stories about people being unpleasantly surprised by little white lies, not so little white lies and big fat lies they’ve discovered upon meeting somebody for the first time. Don’t paint a picture – or send a 5-year-old jpeg – of what you used to look like. Don’t expect that your occasional smoking is not a deal breaker for an adamant nonsmoker. Be honest before you meet. If you lied about your age by a year or two in your personal ad, so be it, but be honest before you meet. (That little, harmless lie might already be a deal breaker, but perpetuating it won’t reverse the effect.)
4. Leave the baggage behind. Everybody bears the scars of hard lessons they learned from previous relationships. But don’t talk about past boyfriends/girlfriends/spouses when talking about who you are. It may be necessary to reference an ex when telling a story, but keep the focus on you, not who you used to date.
5. Set a limit and stick to it. When you agree to meet, set a time limit for the interview, be it 60, 90 or 120 minutes. If either or both of you are disappointed, you only have to make nice for a finite period of time. Even when you think you have hit it off, stick to the agenda. You don’t know if the other person is being polite by not putting an end to your seemingly pleasant exchange. If he/she likes what he/she sees, you’ll see her/him again soon enough.
It’s not a felony if you choose to play by your own rules, but it should be. Although without scofflaws, what would Jerry Springer do?
Did you have a lousy online dating job interview? Pour your heart out at the Broken Arrow Saloon. We’ll gladly pour you another drink!
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