Dating with Children

I was reading a relationships and dating board post today where a woman was unhappy with a man she met on a religious dating site to which she belonged. Apparently the man would answer the questions in her email, expound upon thoughts that came into his mind, and say goodbye. She was delighted with his writing style and thought he expressed himself well; however she declined to meet or even continue corresponding with him. Why, you may ask? Because he never asked her any questions about herself! He simply showed no interest in getting to know her as a person, though he was happy to chat away fairly endlessly about number one.

I have dated online quite a bit, and this is not an unusual phenomenon. It seems (forgive the horrible generalization) that men see a pretty picture and assume that the inner woman is as pretty as the outside. Or perhaps they see a pretty picture and assume that for such a lovely piece of arm candy they can overlook nearly anything. I’m unsure of the rationale, quite honestly.

Once a person has been divorced, statistics say that another divorce is even more likely than was the first. They get more and more grim the more marriages in which one has been involved. I wonder if in our ambition to get someone who is better looking than our ex, we get more shallow than we really should be about inner beauty and compatibility. I don’t exclude myself from this phenomenon: I would really like a hot man this time around! However I have learned the hard way that you can’t fit a square peg into a round hole. No, that isn’t some bizarre sexual connotation, kids! I’m just saying that we have to actually like this person with whom we may very well spend the rest of our lives!

My advice is to get to know someone from the inside first. I hesitate to suggest that you fall for someone who has no picture posted on their dating profile because of course you must like the way someone looks and be attracted to them, but please don’t make that your only basis for a relationship. I would further advise that if you are really interested in someone, let them know that you want to know them! It’s great to give a lot of information about yourself through witty e-mails and charming phone calls, but don’t forget to show interest in who the other person is as well! Do it for you as well as them! After all, you would want to know ahead of time if, for example, a person is opposed to showering more than once a week, right?

Happy Dating!

dating, online dating, sex, attraction, physical attraction, physical beauty, compatibility, relationships, narcissism