Organic Dating
“Online dating has ruined men,” sighed one of my clients. “The swiping culture has made us all treat each other like commodities and we don’t know how a normal relationship is supposed to develop any more.”
I’d been helping her to avoid guys that started off super-keen and got scared off too easily. She was a quick learner of the numerous unwritten rules of online dating: don’t act too keen, hold back, don’t talk about your past relationships, keep it interesting, don’t go to bed too soon, have deep and meaningful conversations, go on a variety of interesting dates. Dating is like a work of art, and I love the creativity of helping my clients build the perfect trajectory from first date to falling in love. But did it used to be like that, when we met people naturally — what I call organic dating? And is there a way we can improve the norms of online dating to make it more organic?
In the good old days, we met people through friends, at work or in bars. We treated them like fellow human beings, especially if we thought our behaviour could get back to our friends or colleagues. What if we decided to treat online dates like we treat our friends?
With organic dating, you often meet your dates’ friends at the same time or soon after. Right from the first date, get them talking about how they like to socialise, how long they’ve known their friends, how often they see their family, when did they last fall out with someone. You can learn a lot about their styles of social interaction and whether they are emotionally available or not from those kinds of stories. Then seeing them interacting with their friends and yours are good tests, and ones that you can do sooner rather than later. This avoids that artificial intensity that you can get at the beginning of dating, where you create your own little world that isn’t connected to the rest of your life. So integrating them into social environments is one way in which you can make online dating a bit more organic.
And we should talk about ghosting. When you meet someone in real life, but want to get away, what do you do? You make an excuse that you were going to get another drink or catch up with a friend you’d seen on the other side of the bar. So you could say goodbye when an online conversation isn’t going anywhere rather than just abruptly dropping the conversation, perhaps saying something like “I’ve enjoyed our conversation, but I don’t think I’m right for you, so I’m going to say goodbye. All the best!” If you don’t want another date, you can send a nice message, saying something like “It was great to meet you but I don’t think we’re right for each other. Good luck with your dating!” If we all start doing it, we can change the unwritten norms of online dating and start a new etiquette.
Online dating makes it easy to build up a fantasy person that is just a projection of our ideals. We fill in the gaps and even imagine their voice. Stop that happening early on by talking on the phone or having a short video-date, and meeting soon without endless messaging. Then you’ll be dating a REAL person — that’s organic dating!
When people start dating, they don’t know what the rules are. They look to others to see what to do. So let’s not set the online dating virgins a bad example. They are uncorrupted and can make the best dates — as long as they’ve moved on from their last relationship.
Don’t be a dating sheep and copy bad dating behaviour just because you can get away with it. Organic dating is about bringing your values into your dating life, dating authentically and healthily, and making a difference to others.
Sign up for Rachel’s healthy dating coaching programme here.
Book a one-to-one consultation with Rachel here.
More articles and videos from Rachel on dating well:
Video: Meditate before a date
