Successful singles respond to a crisis by taking advantage of the opportunity. Basically, successful people respond to changes and difficulty by seeing the opportunity in the situation. For example, this situation with COVID-19 provides an opportunity to get really good at online dating!
Online dating has some real advantages over normal dating. Yes, we know it has some disadvantages, BUT, folks who are successful see the advantages!
For example, being stuck at home and having to meet people online means there are a lot more people at your fingertips. Most people have hundreds if not thousands of Facebook friends and with a little effort and some direct messaging you can meet as many people as you want. In fact, we think it’s ideal from the perspective that you have access to all these people who aren’t really actually your friends but you kind of know them and those are usually the best prospects for a date! They are also the friends of your friends so you have some background of relatedness, kind of like going to a party and knowing half the people and not knowing the other half of the people. That’s an ideal party to meet somebody. There’s a sort of trust and safety versus meeting somebody that you totally don’t know.
Apps like Facebook and Instagram and others have this advantage over dating apps. You have friends and friends of friends and groups and a sort of community feel that dating apps usually lack. On average people are much more responsive to a direct message on Facebook or Instagram then they are on a dating app.
It’s still a numbers game! Remember that! You might send out 20 direct messages and get five replies. That’s fine! The kind of direct messages you want to send or ones that show that you’re paying attention to the person. For example, you might say specifically what you liked about their post or their picture.
The rules of flirting still apply. In other words, use what we call micro gestures. Be subtle, be smooth. For example, saying, “I loved your picture with the Siamese cats, I grew up with two of them!“ someone is much more likely to respond to that over a direct demonstration of romantic interest or even any type of question, at least initially.
If things progress, yes, you can get into questions and expressions of romantic interest etc. but take your time don’t rush it!
The next step is some one on one time, and it’s easier to do that now than ever! Just offer them either a virtual cup of coffee or a virtual glass of wine for 15 or 20 minutes on Zoom or FaceTime. Limiting the time makes it easier to accept and you can choose coffee or wine depending on how flirtatious the interaction is. So there’s a lot about this situation that actually makes it easier for singles!
Now, transitioning it from here is more difficult but doable. If the flirtation progresses in the virtual dates you can opt for an in-person walk in the park or something like that, at 6 feet apart! And if after one or a few of those you’re both really into each other and you want to dive into a relationship I haven’t heard anything about that being against the CDC guidelines so go for it!
We would recommend that you be extremely safe about it, that you follow the CDC guidelines and be sure that your partner is as well. Usually, we don’t give advice in terms of committed and monogamous or not monogamous with that kind of thing, we want people to do whatever they want, but nowadays we would really support you in this circumstance and being in a committed monogamous relationship if you decide to enter into sensual contact with that person. For obvious reasons.
So these are the kinds of things that successful singles do in a crisis like this. You have our full support and we can expand on any of it for you.
If this speaks to you and you’d like our support taking your dating game to the next level, reply to this email or text 415-308-9580 for relationship coaching and we will contact you to set up a time to chat.