Online Dating as a Catholic: Part 2

Yesterday, we began a guest post series from the author of SystematicChristianity.org, Matthew Grivich, on the subject of on-line Catholic dating…

In yesterday’s post, I outlined the advantages and disadvantages to online dating. Today I would like to give my suggestions as to how to use Catholic dating sites most effectively.

Advice for Men

• Try to make your profile show your uniqueness as a person and be moderately entertaining. Quality pictures are valuable.

• When sending a message to a new woman, be polite, include a compliment, a question (preferably referring to her profile) and a request for more contact. Don’t be afraid to be a little over-the-top with your compliment.

• When she doesn’t reply, pick yourself up and send a message to another woman.

• If she does reply, send at most two more messages before asking to see her (if local) or call her (if not local). Note that I say “at most”. Asking to meet or call in the first or second message may be a good idea. If she is not local, start planning your visit on the second phone call. The visit should be no more than six weeks from the first phone call.

• Before the first visit ends, start discussing the next visit (assuming you want to see her again).

• Calls every few days are appropriate in the beginning, with weekly dates (if local) and monthly dates (if not local). If you are not willing and able to visit at least monthly, you should not contact the woman. Daily calls are appropriate pretty quickly if things are going well.

• Throughout, if you are thinking nice things, say them.

• If you are ready to escalate the relationship, do so. Catholic Match men have trouble with both these issues. If the woman has been around a while, she will be happily surprised that you actually desire her and are willing to show it.

•The only things I would be careful about are “I love you” and marriage proposals. There are thousands of ways to say “I love you” without those three specific words. Stick to these alternatives for a while. Hold off on marriage proposals until you are pretty sure that she is ready.

• Alternatively, if you are not thinking nice things or are not interested in escalating the relationship, break the relationship off (as gently and politely as possible). She deserves to have her time and energy free for a man who can give her what she needs.

Advice for Women

• Try to make your profile show your uniqueness as a person. Quality pictures are essential. Regardless of how you feel you look, there are men who will find you beautiful, but quality pictures can help this appreciation of your beauty along.

• Usually it is the man’s job to send the first message. If you are not getting enough messages it is acceptable to send emotes to a man (but no more until he replies).

• When a man does send you a message, please reply. If you are not interested, a simple thanks, but no thanks message is acceptable.

• As long as you believe that there is any chance that a contact could end in marriage, you should accept the man’s requests (for e-mail, phone, dates, etc.).

• Responding to and dating more than one man at a time is encouraged (though time-consuming) until you are actually in an official relationship. 

• If a relationship is not progressing as quickly as you would like, some encouragement may be necessary. A fair number of men, and Catholic Match men especially, are timid and need some prodding. However, if the encouragement is not successful (even when explicit), then he probably isn’t that into you and you need to break it off.

• Don’t be afraid to open up emotionally to a man. Your demons are not as bad as you think they are and if he is romantically interested in you, he is interested in all of you, especially what is going on inside.

• Once you are sure that relationship will not end in marriage; you should break it of as politely and gently as possible, but remember to speak clearly. However, some men don’t understand polite and gentle. With those, be abrupt and rough and above all, explicit.

• If at any step he tries to cross a physical or ethical boundary that you are not comfortable with (or is prohibited by the Catholic teaching) give him a firm no. If he persists, break it off. You can do better. If necessary, you can block his phone number, block him from sending messages to you on Catholic Match, and report him to Catholic Match.

Next time…

As I mentioned in the first part of this series, my fiancée and I met on-line. In my final post I would like to share our “how we met” story…

Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3