Sweethearts Tonight – But Who Was He Winking at This Morning?
My first Dating Chronicles column suggested my Sister Single Tomatoes build a dating site portfolio – similar to a diversified basket of stocks. The method is simple: create a mix of paid and free, general-audience and niche-specific sites that, in aggregate, optimize your visibility to your target population. Then go on your sites often enough to be smiled upon by the site search engines.
For most of us, the point of this hurry-up-and-wait search is to stop swimming laps in the dating pool and exit as soon as we find “the one” or “a possible one”. Do you know the proper e-etiquette for handling this happy situation when the time comes? That’s a trick question, as you’ll see in the following scenario.
Let’s follow smart, savvy, sexy Single Tomato Mindy in her online exploits. Three months ago, Mindy met nice guy Dave on Match.com and has been seeing him twice or three times a week ever since. Her heart goes pit-a-pat or twitter-twitter when she thinks about Dave. Her pulse quickens at the sight of his email address in her inbox and his name on her caller ID. After a month of taking it slowly, Mindy welcomed intimacy with Dave and, as Bob Dylan rasps, “It’s all good.”
As a Hot Tomato and monogamy-believer, Mindy is now thinking about investing her time and her heart in seeing if this relationship has a future. Why not! Dave is everything she described in the who-you-are-seeking section of her dating profile – he’s fun and funny, romantic and affectionate, smart and world-wise. Best of all, he respects her opinions, work ethic and career goals. Go for it, Mindy.
Although she hasn’t looked at other men online since Dave became her only squeeze, Mindy feels it’s not fair to Dave or anyone else for her to appear available online any longer. What should Mindy do next?
According to writer Cherie Burbach [“Internet Dating is Not like Ordering a Pizza”]: Once you’ve gotten serious in the “real world” you politely tell people “no thanks” when they ask you out. In the online dating world you take yourself out of active circulation. “Pulling your profile” can mean one of two things: taking your online ad down entirely or taking it off the market temporarily. Choosing either one of these is fine, but you do need to make sure your profile is not actively up, able to be browsed, or accessible via email. In other words, once you’ve made the decision to see where your current relationship is going, make sure you are not giving out the signal that you’re still available to folks in the online world. More at this web site.
Following Cherie’s advice, Mindy goes online to take herself off the market. And then it happens. She notices that Mr. Dave Wonderful viewed her profile a few hours ago. Why? He’s already sleeping with her! Pit-a-pat turns to argh. Is Dave still viewing and contacting other women? Is he a cyber-cheater? Commitment-phobe? Anti-monogamist? An e-player? None of these answers makes Mindy happy.
Now Mindy debates whether to change her own profile settings to ‘hidden mode’ so she can monitor Dave’s activity without being detected. But she hates the idea of e-spying. She is perplexed that Dave apparently doesn’t know – or care – that his online roaming leaves a visible trail. She is hurt that he has not reached the commitment exploration stage as she has. And she wonders if he is just winking at or getting cozy with other women. Not happy thoughts.
Predictably, modern Mindy discusses her dilemma and her options with a few trusted confidantes – her therapist, her best friend, her hairdresser and her sister. Buoyed by their supportive empathy, she plans to tell Dave that she knows about and is disappointed by his ongoing online presence, given their months of intimacy. Mindy also grapples with old issues of trust that are instantly reframed by the wild-wild-west behavior in this brave new cyber-dating world. It’s not like the pre-online days when ‘a friend’ saw your boyfriend out with another woman and decided to tell you. Now you can access clues to his dating activity 24/7, all by yourself.
Fast-forward to their Saturday night dinner date. After they order, Mindy launches into her well-rehearsed we-need-to-talk spiel. Antenna up, Dave hears her out. He responds that he’s glad she brought it up because he was thinking about taking his profile down, but now he’s feeling pressured by her and wants to know if she was spying on him or looking at other men. Now Dave isn’t so sure Mindy is right for him after all. Oh dear! Several rejoinders jolt into Mindy’s head.
She can ask Dave to forgive her for not trusting him and continue to date him despite the cyber-elephant between them, until she decides whether to resume her own mate-search. Or she can negotiate a truce by telling Dave she’ll take her profile down if he promises to do the same with his. Or she can thank Dave for a great run – without tears – and make a graceful exit before dessert.
Yes, Mindy is a mature Tomato who chooses to swim in the faster-than-a-trackball-mouse-click e-dating pool. But no one told her that the waters won’t always be smooth, that she won’t get tossed by the waves on occasion, and that a handsome lifeguard is not on duty to rescue her if she swims out too far.
What do you think Mindy should do? Be a sweetheart and send me your thoughts on this dicey topic – pretty please?…/ bonnie@bonnietv.com
The NYC Insiders Guide
for women who aren't kids
The Dating Chronicles
True Stories from a Single Tomato
by
Bonnie D. Graham
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Bonnie D. Graham's bio tends to overflow the allotted space in an online dating profile. A divorced mom who raised a lawyer and a doctor, she has worked and/or dabbled as a mainframe computer programmer; Mary Kay cosmetics consultant; stand-up comic and founder of the troupe BonnieG & DaBoyz; ballroom and disco dance instructor and disco contest semi-finalist; bachelor auction MC; global marketing communications manager; writer/editor; graphic designer; newspaper reporter; concert reviewer; celebrity interviewer; rock ‘n’ roll trivia column ghost-writer; digital photographer; talk radio and cable TV producer/host/interviewer; eBay seller/buyer/instructor; and social media instructor. Now a card-carrying member of AARP, the Sandwich Generation, and the legion of laid-off American workers over 50, she gleefully Tweets as @RadioRed777 and can be found in her spare time splashing around in the dating pool. www.bonniedgraham.com. Email: Bonnie@bonnietv.com
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