With over 500+ million people on Facebook alone, you would think that finding a potential partner would be a piece of cake, wouldn’t you? No so it appears. But why not?

There is a big difference between finding a partner on a social networking site and finding one on a dating site. And, here are some of the reasons why:

This Is Creepy

Due to the amount of personal information displayed on social networking profile pages, I often have people expressing to me that they feel invaded, creeped-out and generally very uncomfortable when, they get a friend request or an email from someone saying something along the lines of: “I like your photo, and I thought it would be nice to chat – are you really single?”

When you think about it, having a stranger approach you with the intent of meeting you for a potential romantic connection is fine. However, if this stranger may already have access to you, via your other friends it can be a little creepy.

If they can see your photos, status updates, friends and anything you have posted on your page it can be intimidating. Firstly, you have no clue to who this person is and secondly, you are at a disadvantage because, they possible know much more about you and your life, than you would like them to - at this stage, until you have the opportunity to get to know them if, you wish to.

Having said this – once you friend them on the site, you are on the same level playing field, because you have access to their information as well.

Dating Dilemmas On Social Networking

There seems to be a lot of stress associated with dating and being on social networking sites. What I mean by this is the accessibility to each others information, daily up dates and how very public the stages of the relationship can become.

The Relationship Status: There is an expectation for example that the “Relationship Status” on a profile be changed to “In A Relationship” and the name of the person to be publicly displayed. If this is not done, it is seen as a reflection of how that person feels about the other and is really taken to heart. 

The thoughts behind this are generally - “They obviously don’t care about me or they would be proud to tell everyone about me! Or are they keeping their options open and that’s why they won’t change their status from being single?”

These feelings in my opinion are not necessarily the case. I think a lot of people forget that, a relationship is between two people and not the billions that it can potentially be exposed to over the internet.

The Instant Messages Drama: I will go into the specifics and dynamics of online relationships in another article however; each social networking site has a chat facility (Instant Messaging). This causes huge problems for people dating and connecting online for a couple of reasons:

• Most of the time when you are online in a chat – other people see you are online and want to chat. This means that you could potentially be balancing at least a couple of chats at the same time.


• Where the drama comes in, is when you are chatting with the person you are attracted to and not responding instantly with them in the conversation. They may not know that you are chatting with others, and become upset because you are not responding quickly enough to them – or you are obviously not giving them your undivided attention. This can make them feel unimportant and that you don’t care enough about them to give them your time.


• When typing backwards and forwards, it’s very easy to misinterpret what someone is saying. Because you are only reading words, you breath the life into them to take in what you think the other person is saying – which as you can find out later after insults back and forth was not necessarily what they had intended you to think.

How To Be More Successful:

The best way to be more successful at connecting online is once you have made the initial contact and worked out if you like each other:

• Meet offline as soon as possible in a safe environment. Coffee shops are great for this. This will allow you to find out if the connection offline is the same as online. Besides in order to have a real relationship, you need to come out of each others computers


• Organize it through the sites emailing system. That way if it doesn’t workout you still have privacy from direct contact.


• Don’t talk on Instant Message or Chat – pick up the phone or Skype each other if there is physical distance between you, you are less likely to misunderstand each other and it’s a much better way of communicating.

Understanding that a person’s profile page is their world and you are an invited guest goes along way to respecting them. Feeling that a couple of black letters on a screen validates you as a worthy partner or not, doesn’t seem to make a lot of sense does it? It’s how you are treated by someone both on and off screen that counts. 

Smiles to you,

Yvonne Rice