Free Online Dating Sites

One of the biggest negitive views that people have about online dating is that it’s “unnatural” or shows that you don’t have any social skills. While that may have been true sometime in the 1990′s I don’t think it holds any truth in 2009. Today we are living in a much faster paced world and and social networking and web 2.0 have shown that hey, it’s cool to meet new people online! Every now and then I get an email from somebody saying that they are meeting great people online but their friends and family are always taking a quick jab or joking around with them about looking for love online. The best piece of advice I can give them is to just ignore such statements and focus on what makes them happy.

This is probably one of the most frequently asked questions when it comes to online dating, how and when do you know to move the conversation from email to the phone? Well it’s a little complicated but the best advice I can give our readers is to wait until both of you are comfortable with one another, how will you know? Well you sort of just do. If you two haved moved on beyond “whats you’re favorite food” and instead are talking about “the most embarrasing moment for me was” then chances are you’re ready to move on from email and start talking on the phone. That’s not to say you have to go directly there, these days instant messaging and cell phone texting are a great intermediate step you can take.

Everything has a downside to it and one of the biggest downsides of online dating is becoming a victem of fake profiles. I really don’t understand why people feel the need to pretend to be something they aren’t but what makes me mad is when people who use fake profiles think they can get away with it. Don’t they know that sooner or later the conversations will have to go beyond e-mail or the telephone? Don’t they realize that once a person finds out they aren’t really who they say they are that the person won’t be able to trust them anymore? Well enough of my anger, let’s get on to how you can avoid falling for these malicious users.

The first type of fake profile isn’t really that bad, but it’s still a lie. Of course i’m talking about the profiles who use pictures from 5 – 10 years ago and try to pass themselves off as still looking that way. The first obvious sign of an aged photograph should be the quality of the picture, these days digital cameras are everywhere and even cheap cell phones are capable of taking higher quality pictures than most disposable cameras. If a picture looks grainy or has poor color quality than chances are it was taken before the year 2004 and you’re dealing with an old photo.

The second type is much worse, and it’s the profile that uses somebody else picture when they look nothing like that. I honestly don’t know how these people expect to get away with it but one thing you can do to avoid this one is to ask if they have more photos of themselves. Typically these fake profile users will go on another dating site or social networking site and just grab 3 or 4 photos of a random person and then try to pass themselves off as them, when you ask for more photos chances are they won’t have any because they won’t remember from which other profile they took them from. If somebody is hesitant to provide you with more photos than it should be a warning sign that they may not be who they say they are.

To society online dating is still relitively new and unkown and the first question people seem to ask is “does it really work” and he answer is yes, but… Online dating is really no different than meeting people in your everyday life such as at the mall, a bar, or through mutual friends. The only real difference is that you don’t have that initial face to face contact which can be a good thing or a bad thing depending on how you choose to percieve it. On the downside you don’t really get too much of a sense of a person through text alone, and as always there will be people who use older photos or even worse, photos that aren’t even of them! But on the upside you can find out so much information about a person through their profile alone, this allows you to search and filter through many more people than you ever would be able to in everyday life.

Now as far as results go, everybody will have a different experience with online dating. Some will see immediate “success” while others can’t seem to find anybody they connect with for what seems years and years. The best way to take advantage of online dating is not to set yourself up in a limited box, but see how far you’re able to expand yourself so that you can meet more and more people, if nothing else at least you’ll make new friends.