Twenty minutes into the conversation, it became clear that, as a European with limited time left on his Hollywood visa, he was looking for a wife. I walked back to my car, shocked. That was my first internet date, courtesy of OkCupid. Since then, much of my adult life has been spent running an unintended experiment on the most successful way to conduct a first date borne from the internet. In the three years I lived in LA, I probably went on 20 first dates.
We clicked, and dated for months. It was a great relationship. And I still value the time we had together as musicians, dating, trying to cut it in that cutthroat scene. Sometimes the fear I hear from single friends is that dating apps turn looking for a spouse into a numbers game.
Sure, it took me 20 dates in LA to find one relationship. But it was a great relationship. And the number of friends I have who are now married to one of those internet first dates continues to grow. The internet, like most things, is a tool. I use it to find interesting men with whom I can have safe conversations in public. Lots of friends. So to some degree, when you are dating, you need to be looking toward the future and the values and interests and hopes you might or might not share.
Which, interestingly, follows the guidelines of a famous course on dating for freshmen at Boston College. I also learned to take some of the pressure off by just dating more. The more dates I went on, the more comfortable I became, and the lower the stakes felt. It may feel safer to chat for a week or longer before deciding to meet, but more often than not, that just drags out the inevitable and is a frequent waste of time.
Dating apps are representative of the internet as a whole: they have everything. This means you can chat with someone who attacks, demeans, or threatens you. You can chat with someone who is looking for cheap sex, or who intends to marry in a month. You want to use these platforms according to your own values, rather than the ethos that comes implicit with them.
