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Online dating: Hurry, limited offer!

Shehnaaz Chenia | Friday 19 October 2007 | 13:47

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Online dating can lead you into a trap of slowly, slowly, catchee monkey. And no-one wants to date a monkey.

I’m not saying that you should jump into bed before you’ve finished your first drink, or elope to Vegas for your second date. If you do, don’t come crying to me when you’re single again before you can say “Britney Spears”. The bit you want to be quick about is the bit that online daters tend to delay – meeting up.

All too often, people will strike up a connection online and spend weeks or even months whizzing impassioned emails to each other without ever meeting in person. They each decide that they’re in lust or even love with their correspondent – until finally they meet, only to discover that there’s about as much spark as a dead ciggie floating in a duck pond.

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The internet has made it all too easy to develop feelings for someone you’ve never met. You share an intoxicating number of interests and tastes, you make each other laugh, you have similar dreams and ambitions and you feel as though you “speak the same language”. It’s wildly exciting, and you have no reason to think that the connection won’t translate into physical ardour.

But usually it doesn’t, and the experience is extremely soul-destroying. The pair of you have conspired to create a psychological fantasy that’s so big inside your heads that reality can never match up.

When you find that the living, breathing person doesn’t float your boat, your resulting distress may not be far off the feeling you have when you’re dumped. This is because, as when a relationship ends, you find yourself having to rub out all those dreams and fantasies of a future together (or, heck, even a night together) that your imagination had helplessly conjured up.

It’s bad enough when you’re both disappointed; when one of you remains attracted and the other isn’t, the emotional fallout can be extremely painful. You’ve already invested a great deal of fantasy and emotion in your burgeoning (but illusory) relationship, and it’s not easy to let go.

The plain truth is that attraction is the glue that makes a relationship work, and attraction is about chemistry – and chemistry is something you can only judge in person. Many jaded online daters can testify that one minute in person is worth 50 fulsome emails and a photo album full of gorgeous snaps.

Yes, even an honest photo can’t reveal whether you’ll fancy someone in person. According to psychologists, between half and 80% of attraction is down to the way someone moves and speaks. Your date needn’t have a squeaky voice and hunched shoulders to turn you off, either. Chemistry is extremely subtle, and it’s often not easy to see why you’re attracted or not. But the fact remains that you really can’t tell until you’re face to face.

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Follow these four tips, and you should be safe from the disppointment of a delayed meet-up with all the chemistry of yesterday’s gravy skin:

1. The six email rule

Six emails in total – not each – is more than enough to know whether you want to meet someone, especially if you’ve seen their photo. You might want to talk on the phone too, if you’re comfortable with that, but certainly no conversations of more than half an hour before you meet. The human imagination always creates a larger-than-life image of the person you’re emailing or talking to, and as time goes on it’ll be increasingly difficult for them to live up to that – or for you to live up to their fantasy. And you wouldn’t want to disappoint them, would you?

2. Don’t trust the photo

Unless you’ve met someone, don’t fall in lust with their photo. As I said, so much of physical attraction is about how someone holds themselves and speaks that you really can’t know from a two-dimensional image, no matter how honest the photo is.

3. Don’t put them on the spot

Once you’ve met up, now it’s time to put on the brakes and start to take it slowly. Don’t for heaven’s sake ask whether they’re pleasantly surprised or disappointed. Putting them on the spot will make them feel uncomfortable, and will make you seem needy. Besides, do you really want to hear the truth? If they’re delighted, chances are they’ll say so.

4. Don’t assume you’re a couple

So you made a fast connection online, and it’s clear that you fancy each other in person. Don’t get carried away. Keep the novelty alive, and don’t rush into seeing each other more than once over the next week. You had a life before you met this person; continue to have that life while you get to know them. Don’t neglect your friends, because they’re the ones who’ll be there when everything goes pear-shaped. Look forward to seeing your new guy or girl, and give them a chance to fantasise about you. Now that you know the chemistry is there, suddenly the Supremes and My Collins start making a whole lot of sense.

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