ONLINE DATING FATIGUE – THE 1-2-3 OF OVERCOMING IT.

“I’ve been online dating for months and it’s exhausting. It never seems to go past the back-and-forth little meaningless conversations and flirting on the dating app. I feel stressed about how someone may be perceiving me, if my conversation is good enough, why their response time is what it is or mine. I don’t want them to think I am pushy or needy, so I am afraid I might appear distracted or not serious because I take my time.” – Robert, 45

Breaking the ice is always a challenge when meeting new people and especially when we are approaching someone that we are sexually and/or romantically interested in. No one feels overly confident in this land and there is not a person on the planet that looks forward to rejection in this area of our lives. Yet, our world has created an ever-growing entertainment source out of our pursuit to find a partner. More and more people are satisfied with just having limited companionship via text and app communication instead of actually meeting up and enjoying all the aspects of an actual engaging relationship.

We have created a world of love-hungry people who are terrified of strangers and cannot make eye contact with others, preventing ourselves from authentic communication and legitimate meetings with many wonderful potential candidates.

I have shared before that I have been blessed to have a life that supported a more organic old school approach to meeting people and have met almost everyone that I was ever in relationship within any capacity or dated including my life partner through actual meeting. I cannot say how much I believe that delightful happenstance is the best way to meet someone.

With over 40 million Americans dating online, we see a consistent decline in people’s ability to connect one to one in the “real” world. It’s more about our perfected profile pictures, showing off our resumes and the humorous high-quality avatars than wanting to actually know a real person.

Dating anxiety is a real thing, and our modern world has done nothing but make it more prevalent. No more are the moments where you find yourself out at a function, work or other with your significant other and everyone telling the tales of how they met. The sweet and charming experience of looking across a room and making eye contact, feeling something that drew you in to the point that you wanted to just go say hi. We do not create love stories based on the chance meeting of sharing a cab, talking to a random stranger about meat deals at the butcher shop or about what coffee is good at our favorite little barista. Now in all of these beautiful lands of opportunity, we look into our little screens and read articles such as this one in hopes to gain advice on how to meet “the one” with little to no effort or pain to our ego’s instead of lifting our gaze to what stands right before us.

I hear repeatedly from people that I am working with,

“I don’t have the time to meet someone.”

“Where am I going to meet someone organically? I don’t go anywhere or really do anything but the gym, work, grab coffee, errands that are needed.”

Just this week alone I had single clients tell me:

“Yeah, I don’t have much going on just popping by this meetup to listen to a talk and grab some BBQ.”

“Going into Dallas for a training downtown to learn about investment property opportunities.”

“I got dance class tonight.”

“Just working from home this week, trying to get out and work from the coffee shop to change up my scenery.”

“ISD function to get the board to pay attention to some of the covid stuff going on in the district.”

“I am doing some charity work with the homeless. I feel like I need to do more giveback this year.”

ALL OF THESE ARE OPPORTUNITIES TO MEET SOMEONE.

You want a fairytale charming meeting to tell your grandbabies about? Well, those tales come from lifting your gaze and living life. Real life.

Unfortunately, in today’s world the question is “what app did you two meets on?”

It’s unfortunate in my opinion that is, because so many people are so empty and lost, complain about not feeling alive or being understood or seen. People feel like they have to check boxes and one of them is to get the spouse or partner box checked. Efficiently.

We humans need and crave romance, adventure, seduction, erotism, fun, connection, intimacy, and vulnerability. These are among the many things that relationship, especially the freshness of a new relationship brings with them. We grow fatigued because of the mundane same old swiping and need to come off with witty new expressions at 2 A.M. with a stranger that we already have a feeling like we may never actually meet.

THE SIMPLE 1-2-3 OF OVERCOMING ONLINE DATING FATIGUE

Read the above commentary. Get off the little screen in your hand and look at the world around you. Stop saying that you don’t go anywhere to meet new people or there are limited opportunities. That’s a bullshit excuse. And if you are one of the millions of people who have become a product of our quick and easy everything comes to your door you need society where you never have to venture out for a damn thing, then ask yourself this, “Would I find interest or want to date a person who is living their life the way I am choosing to live mine?” More than likely not. So, challenge yourself to get a tad out of your comfort zone and grow yourself, you never know who you may meet on the path of discovery. Might just be your forever person.
Like I shared above online dating has become entertainment for many. The ding of our phones telling us that someone has messaged, finds us to be a match, sent us a little heart emoji or some humorous message gets us to have a pseudo feeling of being loved, wanted, seen without all the hassle of actually having to get to know someone, deal with all their humanness or reveal ours. When we are tired of one person’s show, we can simply cancel it and keep swiping till we find someone else of interest to share some messages and pictures back and forth with. This is not the path to finding your person however if you are truly serious and for many people who are wanting something more you know the frustration of spending time messaging back and forth only to find your canceled or have to cancel another who refuses to meet. Thats why #2 is all about push for the call and the meeting. I typically tell my clients that they have to have some patience on the front side in meeting someone new, giving a few days of exchange but setting the stage in their profile and out the gates as to how they like to do things. Meaning that you need to set the tone that you are a serious person looking for love, not ideal conversation on an app, and that you will request a face to face swiftly within reasonable time. After a couple of days of conversation, if you are feeling like you may want to explore this person in more depth, say something like, “I really am enjoying our conversation here and you seem like a great person, I like to chat on the phone, here is my number. “ Dating is just like sales prospecting and a good salesman understands that you have to offer something up freely and be vulnerable to help build trust to the other side. Someone has to make that first move or the whole deal will fade in time. Be the one to put your neck out and make the ask with the vulnerable share of a number. If you are uncomfortable with giving your direct cell phone line, then get a google number to give out until you have properly vetted the person. Whatever the case realize that online dating often is a great place to stall, it is an easy environment to get caught in the trap of “maybe later or tomorrow” which leads you to the land of never.
If you are like Robert above here and been pushing for dates for months, not getting the results that you want or expect and are starting to feel like you will never find your person, then maybe take a break and focus on other things of interest. Again, see above, get curious about your life and what more you can explore in it, and you may be shocked that this holiday from online dating leads you into the arms of your forever person. You must be active though in your life and get out of your house and work. Amazon may deliver almost everything to your door these days, but your life partner will not be showing up that way. Instead of stressing about your online love life, turn to your friends and ask them to set you up, even the people that you work with or are learning things with such as a personal trainer, yoga instructor, life coach, etc. all know people that you may not know but are potential people to explore. The people who know you, care for you and have other people can serve your romantic life well. Letting people know that you have explored online dating and its just not personal enough for you but that you are wanting to find someone serious allows these people in your life to keep their eyes and ears open and potentially create a chance meeting. Make sure that if your friends or network invite you to an invent that may be of interest that you take them up on it, magical doors to love can happen when you stay ready for them.

As always, my dear reader, you are worthy of love and connection. Good, authentic, real love and connection, but you have to be willing to find it, claim in and take action on it. It will always come back to being a match to the one that you are wanting to call in to your life. Hopefully these three points help you realize that your pool is not so small and that what you are actually needing is an environment that breeds opportunity.

And that, that you have all around you.

As always,

Stop Existing & Start Living

“Coaching for Grown A*s Believers.”

-KW