While writing a guide to dating on the internet, I spent a lot of time revisiting the ghost of dates past. Before meeting my fiance online I was, on various occasions, bored to tears, catfished (pursued by someone who seemed to have an extensive selection of identities and no interest in actually meeting), shown some unsolicited testes, poisoned by a chicken burrito and treated to a live action one-man recreation of the fourth season of The Wire. If I learned anything about dating itself though, it was to keep laughing and not lose heart – but I also came away with plenty of other life lessons.
If you’re signing up to a dating site as your new year’s resolution, there is a chance that you’ll end up meeting someone you really like, but no matter what happens, you will definitely come away with some brand new skills. Here’s what I discovered:
Being able to chat to anyone, about anything, is a superpower
Before I started meeting strangers on the internet, I thought small talk was a big deal. Friendly baristas frightened me. But when you want to find love, and you discover yourself sitting in silence with a stranger in a chilly basement bar, you must say something, even if it’s just: “Gosh, isn’t this beer orange?!” Just as I can swim well enough to stop myself from drowning, thanks to online dating I can now chat well enough to stop myself from hiding in the toilet at parties.
Trust your instincts
When you’re dating people you’ve met online, some of them will be slightly odd, just as an anticipated and delicious picnic will feature the odd ant and wasp. You’ll start off thinking: “I mustn’t be so narrow-minded; I must give them a chance!” But after 10 or 20 dates, you’ll have the proof to know that your instincts are always bang on. Now I have enough confidence in my instincts to know that if they can spot a creep at 20 paces, they are right about bad jobs, dodgy friends and quiet restaurants.
Interested people are interesting
Only a real bore will bang on about themselves for hours on end, but if you let them, they will think you’re wonderful. If you listen attentively to your date and ask them pertinent questions but they don’t return the favour, don’t see them again. This is a useful skill to have in your arsenal when you need to entertain an elderly relative, placate an angry customer or find yourself, as I once did on a slightly weird work trip, thigh to thigh on a Venetian gondola with the global MD of the company I worked for.
The world will take you at your own estimation
Online, you meet a few people who are desperate to find someone to spend time with because they can’t bear to be in their own heads. Yet the ones you tend to be drawn to are those who already seem to like themselves – they want to be with someone, but they don’t need to be. Once I’d figured this out and started actively enjoying my own company, other people followed suit. I’m no advocate of arrogance, but if you act as though everyone else is pleased to see you, they will be.
You know what your time is worth
If you get very into online dating and you’re seeing at least two different people a week, your time becomes very precious. When your date is telling you about a novelty tea towel they once saw, and you’re thinking “I could be at home washing up right now”, you open your eyes to what you value, and how much time you waste. I learned this after finding a date so dull that I went to the ladies and attempted to break the window open in order to escape. (Eventually I gave up and decided to be honest about the fact that I wasn’t into it, but I’d spent so long in there that I could probably have got away with pretending I had to go home with diarrhoea.)
Once you’ve learned how to make your excuses after a bad half an hour, you then know when to exit a boring party or how to leave your desk at 5.30pm without spending another hour clicking between an Excel spreadsheet and ASOS.
No one loves a grammar snob
I am ashamed of this, but when I first signed up to a dating site, I sometimes replied to messages when drunk, just to correct the spelling. But I’ve met lots of lovely adults who are nervous spellers but great writers – and my spelling snobbery was holding them back from expressing themselves. Online dating taught me much about judging someone on the content of their character and not their relationship with a Chambers Concise, and, more broadly, that being kind is more important than being right. Also, if you’re better at spelling than your partner, you’ll always win at Scrabble.
We have more control over our circumstances than we know
Love is random and magical. But if you can open a browser and find someone you really like by listing your favourite movies and handing over your debit card details, you can do anything. Believing in fate is terribly romantic, but it holds us back. Once upon a time I hoped I would find the man I was going to marry by growing my hair very long, leaning out of a window and waiting for him to pass by. But I actually discovered him by going on the internet and actively looking. Now I know there is no value in sitting about wishing and hoping. If I’m daydreaming about something, it’s down to me to make it happen.
guardian.co.uk © Guardian News & Media Limited 2010
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Lessons in life that online dating taught me
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