Online dating has been around for more than twenty years, and it still attracts polar opinions. Some think of it as the only possible way to find a partner in our time-consuming era, while others consider online dating services to be a dangerous place full of con artists that are only after your money.
Of course, there are a lot of pros and cons of online dating. For example, international dating helps to find single girls from every corner of the world. And there are a lot of happy international couples. On the other hand, romance scammers are the real problem that spoils the dating experience of those who decide to try online dating.
So, some glorify online dating as a time-saving opportunity to find a date-mate without leaving the comfort of home, and some keep as far as possible from online dating not to become a victim of online fraud.
You will find a lot of online advice on how to be successful in online dating or tips and tricks on succeeding in attracting girls without mistakes that most of the guys do. You will also find a lot of advice on how to identify and avoid online dating scammers.
With all those scammer stories, it feels like the evil of online dating has been revealed, and there it is. But, unfortunately, that’s not the end of the list of problems that online dating has.
While online dating scam is a real thing, and you need to consider it, you should also mind the negative psychological effects that online dating has. It can easily affect your romantic life in general. That’s why we offer you to check out the main negative psychological effects of online dating and how to avoid them.
Online Dating May Change Your Attitude to Romance
Swipe left, swipe right – dating apps make things much simpler, right? Funny enough, but you are completely wrong if you think that way. Turns out that the sheer abundance of romantic options has dramatically changed our attitude towards dating.
Since our online life influences our offline life, so does online dating. Yes, when you are online, you can swipe those you liked or disliked left or right, but that’s impossible when it comes to the offline part of the dating. In the end, you can become less understanding and caring.
You can easily get irritated when it turns out that the person in real life doesn’t match your tastes completely, but you can’t swipe. All that’s left is to leave.
Needless to say that such actions may lead to your failing at every offline date you have. But those mainly happen to folks who don’t see the difference between the online and offline worlds. If you understand that your date-mate may be quite different from their online persona, then you are safe.
Regular Rejections Cause Low Self-Esteem
Most of us venture into online dating not to chat with international single girls but because we can’t find enough time to go on offline dates to get to know your prospective partner.
Yes, before we had online dating services and apps, we had to go on real-life dates to get to know the person instead of chatting to get to know each other before deciding whether we want to meet offline. Thus, online dating comes as a perfect time-saving possibility.
And when you get rejected, you may get depressed. Like, “Come on, I don’t have enough time to go on the offline dates with people whom I don’t know at all. How can I date anyone if I get rejected online?” That generally happens because of the unrealistic expectations people have about online dating.
Yes, it saves time and allows you to get to know the person before going on the offline date. But that doesn’t mean that you are going to find your perfect match as soon as you create an account.
Sometimes it takes days, sometimes it takes weeks, and sometimes it may take up to a few months before you start chatting with the right person. We all get rejected online, but we can’t be rejected by everyone. Just mind that you should give it time.
“I’m Too Good” Syndrome
Speaking of rejection, the problem may come from the other end as well. When you get too much attention from other online daters, you may get the feeling that you are too good. The one who deserves the best. You feel that most of the people who start chatting with you aren’t good enough.
They don’t deserve your time and attention. And you are waiting for your perfect match that never comes because they simply don’t exist. Almost every article on online dating says that it was designed to help people get to know each other before going on a date.
The key phrase is “get to know each other.” You need to learn more about a person to figure out whether your chat mate is your perfect match or not. So, when you start dating online, no matter how good you think you are, you need to devote some time to get to know your prospective mate before ditching them to wait for your perfect match.
Deceitfulness
People are deceitful online. No matter how harsh the rules of the online dating service are, there’s still a risk that your chat-mate creates a persona online that will differ completely from who you are about to meet on your offline date.
That can easily make you paranoid and constantly think that your chat-mate is lying to you. Actually, you can end up being too suspicious on your first offline date, wasting time on finding out whether the person is lying or not.
The way to avoid it is to trust your heart and remember that while some people can lie about themselves online, their number is quite limited. Besides, you can always feel when the person is honest, even while being online.
FOMO
Yes, the fear of missing out is a real thing, and it often occurs when it comes to online dating. You get the feeling that a better partner is always somewhere there. And you swipe, and swipe, and swipe until there are no new users.
And you end up spending all of your time swiping instead of chatting with people and getting to know them. That happens because you get under the charm of endless possibilities that online dating seems to offer you.
But in doing so, you forget what you were registering on the service in the first place. You got there to find your significant other and not for attracting the attention of as many people as possible. But you end up fearing that you are missing other possibilities.
That’s why you can ditch someone with whom you already sympathize in favor of finding someone better. You need to remember that you are using an online dating site to find a person whom you are going to get, and that happens through chatting, and if you find a prospective partner focus on them.
So Is Online Dating Safe?
Online dating may have a negative psychological impact on you, but only if let it do so. You need to remember that online dating gives you the possibility to find a partner, and that’s it. It’s not a social media site where you can chat with people and post things for years.
You create your profile, find a person, go on an offline date, and if that’s your significant other – leave the site. If it’s not, repeat the same scenario again and again, until you find it. Also, you shouldn’t ditch the possibility of finding your partner offline just because you are using an online dating site.
