Dating Websites

Top lessons learned from dating online:


1.) There are a lot of people in this world. You think you might have pretty narrow specifications, like "Asian female under 30 years ago who's willing to have kids, doesn't smoke, likes to exercise, is over 5'3'', etc., etc. but a LOT of people actually match that criteria.

2.) No. 1 is both good and bad: there are a lot of options so that there's a lot of people to choose from, but the bad news is.....there a lot of options. Too many options, even. Hard to know what one wants, hard to differentiate, hard to compare apples and oranges.



Recently I've been on a website called 2 RedBeans, a website geared specifically towards Chinese singles who live in the United States (some call it the "J Date" for Chinese people), and I've found that even such a specialized source has TONS of women, so that a more limited and special search is needed (it's like LexisNexis search parameters).

3.) Some people, really, genuinely, don't want kids. I guess I've been very naive, but I also thought when I was a child and even through early adulthood that having kids was the natural thing for people to do once they got married, cuz I guest most married people I know go on and have kids. Not so. There are girls who definitively don't want kids, and won't change their mind, so that sort of makes a decision not to pursue a relationship faster.

4.) Talking online is almost pointless now; much more fruitful to meet in person as soon as possible, if only to stop the games of texting, waiting a while to respond, not responding as soon as possible so as not to look too desperate, etc., etc.

5.) Go over dating profiles before a first date like it's your own resume before your interview, or you're interviewing someone.

6.) There are leagues. I might have an inferiority complex, but one I open up a dating website portal, I can tell which people will have a million messages sent to them, and which ones might not have that many. It's obvious, we're all adults, it's like bidding on Ebay and the $100 antique item comes up. There will be a lot of people who want it, and the dollars you have match how impressive you are in your own online profile. (I don't have that much money online). It's a numbers game, and people "settle," which is OK because luckily humans aren't like houses or antique items: they're changeable creatures that have functions other than aesthesism, and people can surprise with the number of things they have in common.

7.) Don't be afraid to go too far on a date. I'm still young and have a little money stored up, so I've been to other cities in the United States to go on a date, but also went to the baseball stadium there and saw the attractions and made a trip out of it.

8.) Shorter is better. Messages should be quick and not a book. I unfortunately learned this the hard way, as I used to publish entire novels when responding to a girl and spooked people out. There are some rules in online dating, and "not seeming too desperate, too rambling, too psychotic" is definitely one of them, and going short is one of the methods of doing that.

9.) After meeting someone for a first date and then a second date, you can go back to the online website you met them at and see if they've been "active" the last few days. If they are, it doesn't mean the end of the world, but it just means they've still got their options open. Don't take it personally, and my rule is that if we haven't gone on a 3rd date, you can still be talking to other girls online and possibly going on dates. ( Some people might have a more stricter or looser standard.)


10.) Check out Aziz Ansari's book "Modern Romance." Lots of good laughs and lots of things I related to as the target audience of that book: definitely for people who are still dating, maybe even for people who have moved to marriage to look back and reflect on their journey and laugh at the people who are still struggling through the abyss.


Fantasize on,

Robert Yan