Shapley

Dating online has become one of the most common ways to meet potential new partners. It’s little wonder. The internet offers the opportunity to establish people casually and get to know them a little bit without the pressure of finding yourselves in the kind of situation that typifies a first date.

But online dating comes with its own set of informal rules and conventions and if you’re unsure of how to act online it can prove disastrous to your fledgling relationship.

Firstly, there are different standards to think about which apply according to the different kinds of ways you meet people online.

For example, if you are using a dating site such as Smooch then the rules are fairly obvious to follow. You have both met on a site dedicated to dating so it is a fair presumption that the other person is single and in the market for a date. That can be a major hurdle to overcome in other environments such as Facebook, where asking the question “so… you got a boyfriend? LOL” can be easily misjudged and even cause major offence.

Some practical tips for online dating

• If you are getting friendly with someone on a social networking site such as Facebook, don’t dive in with the “are you single?” question. If the other person is interested in you and is available for dating then this will come up naturally in the course of conversation. If you start asking outright, then the other person might feel you’re being too personal – or even assume that you’re only talking to them because you think they’re single.
• Don’t start asking for a physical meeting until your friendship is well established. Online relationships can seem to go from ‘nothing’ to ‘good mates’ very quickly, but that doesn’t mean that you’re good friends who’d find it actually that easy to sit opposite each other over a beer. Let things develop naturally until you feel you’ve reached a point where you’re both very confident and happy with the prospect of a meeting.
• Don’t lie about your own situation. The anonymity of the internet makes it easy to gloss the truth. You can easily claim to be taller or richer than you are in real life. That seems fine when you’re trying to look impressive, but if you want to take your relationship offline then it’s going to get off to a bad start if you turn up 6 inches shorter that you claimed to be.
• Do feel free to check out the background of your potential new friend. People often have multiple online identities and while it is good to trust people, it doesn’t harm to check them out a little bit before taking things further.
• Don’t make racist, sexist or homophobic jokes. While you might not mean them (and admitting that they can be very funny) you might unknowingly be causing massive offense. Making cracks about suicide bombers might seem funny and a ‘safe’ topic to you, but the other person might have close  relations or friends with strong religious views and your ‘gags’ might go down like a proverbial lead balloon. If you want to make the other person laugh, far better to mock yourself a little bit – it helps establish that you’re a nice person and not likely to be judgmental.