The story behind this website:
After a few years of being single, I decided (or more accurately… was persuaded) to try online dating. After a while, I noticed two things:
- There are a lot of us (both men and women) who find ourselves single when we are further along in our lives than we imagined.
- While online dating might be second nature to Generation Z (or whatever 20-somethings are called); Baby Boomers, Generation Xers and others who might have been married for perhaps (gulp) decades are NOT naturals at online dating. This occasionally leads to horrendous errors of judgement, people getting very frustrated by the whole experience, not knowing how much to “open up” (and on what medium), and sometimes a lot of suspicion all round. Most of us are also appalling self-portrait artists (both photographically, and in words).
So, what I found was that lots of people (sometimes friends, sometimes work colleagues, sometimes people I met online (shock horror) ) started to ask my advice about how to approach this whole dating online thing. I seemed to be having more success than them (we’ll define “success” another time), and they kept asking for my advice. Well one way or another, that gave me the idea for this website.
It’s not entirely altruistic: I enjoy writing and talking about this stuff, and in the process I think I can make a few pennies from it through adverts on it. Just being honest… Click away please. No, seriously – do please check out some of the things in the ads!
Dating Online is written from the perspective of what is believed to be a normal, middle class and middle-aged Baby Boomer. Without wishing to offend anyone (strange to have to put it that way these days), I am solidly heterosexual and have not ever felt the need to “experiment”! This no doubt also affects my perspective on dating matters, which I assume will come through in my writings on this site. I have friends (of both sexes) who I speak to about this stuff, so this is not just one person’s possibly warped perspective. It includes lessons learnt from sharing views – and sometimes secrets – in conversation with others.
After not too much time and a few false starts (and I am afraid that occurred over about two and a half years from when I first dipped my toe into the online dating pool), I am now almost two years into a stable, exclusive, mutually committed relationship which I believe could be for the really long-term (yippee!). Yes, we do tell people how we met (if it comes up, which is less and less these days).
In terms of my personality type (these things matter online, more than some of us care to think it does), I am: well educated (degrees, schools, life, etc); interested and knowledgeable about current affairs & global stuff; not a sporting type; hopelessly impractical in terms of handy-man stuff; fairly even tempered; have good table manners; good sense of humour; able to be the “chief morale officer” in a relationship; fairly tidy and organised; able to cook fish fingers and all manner of “survival” food (but don’t ask me about fusion food or haute-cuisine); can tolerate watching many celebrity chief programs (an important skill when attracting the right sort of partner who compliments your weaknesses – see above); likes travel; and I am financially OK (no more than that) and have been quite successful in life – so I am not racked with “my life has been wasted” insecurities (which are alarmingly common, I discovered). I have been married twice, both times for about 14 years (get your calculators out…), and quite happily so for much of that time. I never cheated (but they all say that, don’t they?). If I lived in America (I don’t) I would be described as a WASP, but I am English. Love me or hate me, that’s all reasonably accurate.
See what I just did? That was lesson #1. Know how to describe yourself in a way that is neither superficial nor too self-centred, but gives out some information and conversation points… and try to make it light hearted and sort of fun.