Tips For Women Over 35 to Navigate Online Dating Safely!
The blog post 67 Hacks, is a much more comprehensive list on all things online and safety, while this post attempts to just paint the corners, and cover the basics that should help women over 35 date safely.
Here are some troubling statistics to frame this discussion from the Truthfinder, titled, Is Your Online Dating Deadly?
They start out the article with some alarming facts:
- 10% of sex offenders use online dating
- 51% of online daters are already in a relationship
- 10% of members on online dating websites are scammers
- Since 1995, 400 people have been murdered by someone they met online
Now that we’ve gotten that scary stuff out of the way…
Here are some kickass tips for women over 35. (But any women dating online can use)
Use really good photos. The article in Huffington Post suggest that you don’t use outdated photos, caution against using snapchap filtered pics, pictures with too much retouching and those trendy duck lipped photos they really want you to stay away from.
They want you to use traditional dating sites. They advise using Match.com, Cupid.com for example and leaving sites like Tinder and Bumble to the younger folk seeking casual relationships. Those sites can be fun but aren’t designed to produce long term relationships but rather casual short term “arrangements”. There is nothing wrong with those but just know they rarely lead to long term committed relationships because that is not the objective.
Francesca Hogi the relationship expert and dating coach suggests that women should be bold and make the first move! She says women are 35% more successful when they make the first move, and she says it doesn’t matter which site, if its Tinder or Match. As a man, I know an assertive confident woman gets bonus points by making the first move. She has pretty good logic behind this approach, you weed out the undesirables, you take control from the beginning, and you will stand out.
Francesca suggest going younger. She says, forget the old social norms that dictated a woman date a man her age or older.
“A 40-year-old woman will have better luck messaging a 25-year-old man (60% reply rate) than she would a 55-year-old one (36% reply rate).”
She issues this challenge - pick your age range, and then lower it by 5 years and see what happens!
This goes counter to most advice, but she urges moving offline quickly. I stand by the 5-date rule, but Francesca says after a few back and forth getting to know you emails, propose to meetup face to face.
This was an interesting nugget she gives. She encourages women to raise their standards. But not in ways that most people would think. She says in being more selective in terms of character and intention.
“Be open to a man who might not be your usual physical type, but treats you with respect and enthusiasm and consistency, that’s raising your standards.”
I thought this was really sound advice, a lot of women will miss out on a really good guy because he’s not the prototypical tall, dark and handsome guy of their dreams.
She suggests being a detective. She wants you guys to analyze what works and doesn’t work on your profiles, an letting your profile evolve. Pay attention to what photos get the most likes and comments and make that your main profile picture, she advises.
She challenges women, by asking if they are sending out enough messages, if they are only sending messages to their near perfect profiles…she effectively challenges the conventional wisdom that women should be the pursued and not the pursuer.
Francesca asks the hard questions like what happens when you give the guy who isn’t necessarily the “looker”, without the best profile picture but talks passionately about finding love— a chance?
First and foremost be safe, use common sense, and proceed with caution. Then throw everything you thought you knew and the societal norms out the window and be the pursuer. Go younger. And kiss the frog with potential.
In conclusion, I think it is more important to exercise simple safety precautions to traverse the hazards of online dating safely. If you implement the suggestions from the post on all things online safety you will have armed yourself with skills to navigate these tricky waters of online dating.
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