While I could and will easily argue that the “rules” for dating in general are kind of stupid.. (or perhaps games..) It kind of bugs me that online dating seemingly doesn’t really have any established rules.
Let’s say I am talking to someone online, and for lack of a better term, we are hitting it off. We meet in person, it appears to go well, but we both still keep our accounts. Does that mean that the date didn’t go well? I understand going out on a date doesn’t mean exclusivity.. but, at that point, don’t you start to wonder how many other people the other party is talking to?
When do you get to the point where you disable or delete your account? None of that is really established. For me, blog aside, I wouldn’t be the first to delete my account, because then I would never know if he disabled or deleted his. And, he could very well think the same thing.
After I suggested to a guy on POF that no one reads profiles (back in the day where my profile flat out said “I don’t live even close to your area..”) after he asked me to meet up several times.. He suggested the website was frustrating because after he’d meet up with girls, they would keep their account active and log on.
I guess it’s difficult for me to come to terms with because I am a very loyal person. If I am truly interested, I would not go out with other people. (When the time comes when I should be deleting my account, the future boyfriend and I will need to have a discussion about the blog and figure that out..) But, even so, anytime that I have met up with someone, even if it was once – if they then later messaged me on the online dating website, I took it as “Well, he’s not entirely sold on the idea of [CatLady]. I guess it didn’t go that well.”
Are there any established “rules” for online dating that I am unaware of? I would love to be enlightened.
Sorry.. just a rant tonight. Have a good Monday everyone!
Soon2BeCatLady 
i would think that until a couple is exclusive, just like in real life, options can be kept open. and that includes online profiles. if you are exclusive, then an agreement is made between the two parties to cancel respective online profiles.
as to argument of “i keep mine so I can see if he is still searching”, I think the real issue there is trust. if you have an open dialogue about being exclusive and closing profiles, and you still feel the need to check on him… that’s a whole ‘nuthah kettle o’ fish.
as to rules, i don’t think there are any. it’s too new. and ground is being broken at an alarming rate, and this new techie world doesn’t seem to have any boundaries that I can see. so i think anything goes.
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To me, either I trust you or not. If I don’t, disabling/deleting your account won’t assuage my concerns. If I do trust you; I don’t care if you still have it or not. Of course, this is all predicated on us being in an open (communicatively) and exclusive relationship.
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This is just another thing I dislike about online dating. To me, if you like someone enough to go out with them, and presumably are getting physical to whatever degree, then you should be focusing on that person only and vice versa and not still shopping for a “better deal.” If I’m still shopping, that means I have doubts about the person I’m dating — so I shouldn’t be dating him! I realize many people see it differently: they like someone, but want to keep their options open, for a really long time, maybe until the wedding day. But I can’t stand this attitude and if a man feels this way, I don’t want to be with him at all. It takes no effort to hide a profile and it’s really easy to unhide it again if things don’t work out. If you’re on a paid subscription and are worried about losing some of your investment, well, too bad!
That said, I was just emailing with a guy who’s out of the country for a month on a project for work. We’ve exchanged maybe a half-dozen emails and had a couple IM sessions. Things were going OK, but he doesn’t express himself that well in writing, and I generally have a problem with that. In his last message he asked me if I’d be willing to hide my Match profile. Now, even I think that’s nutty! We haven’t met and can’t meet for a month! I said no, and he’s quit talking to me, which is probably for the best.
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Once you’re in a relationship you shouldn’t use those websites, you are supposed to switch to your favorite one, ashleymadison!
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::shakes fist::
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Haven’t gotten there yet. I have ignored my own profile for a few weeks while making a decision… hide/ pause. But I believe if you r exclusive it should be hidden or disabled…
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For the first seven months or so I was on OKC, I was using it primarily to meet new people, NOT date anyone. The first six months were when I lived in France, and I was traveling a lot. I was exchanging messages with one guy in my home state, with the underlying assumption that if I ended up in my home state post-France, we would meet up and possibly go on a date (it never happened). I was also exchanging messages with an older, recently widowed guy who lived near me in France, who really just needed an anglophone ex-pat pen pal. We never got around to meeting up. The first guy who I ever met IRL via OKC became a good friend of mine, and we hooked up a few times. That said, we were also very upfront about not looking for a relationship even though we admitted to liking each other. I met up with another guy as a friends-only thing, and I had a first date with another guy.
Then, instead of moving back to my home state, I took a summer internship in the Midwest, where I didn’t know a single person. I exchanged pretty frequent messages with about a dozen guys there and one girl. I met up with one guy as a friend only, and I hooked up with another one who ended up being a jerk. Then my summer roommate eventually convinced me to add “short-term dating” to my profile. Many messages later, I gave five guys my number. One just as a friend, two prior to a first date, and the other two I just didn’t have time to see. (This was all in the last month of my internship). Between my first and second date with the man who is now my boyfriend, I had a first date with another guy. I liked my now-boyfriend best, so I found very creative ways to see him as much as possible before I left. (Our first date was 2 1/2 weeks before I left).
If I’d been living there permanently, I don’t think there would’ve been anything wrong if I had gone out with all those guys. I was very clearly not looking for a relationship. I wanted to date casually, and I was honest about that. My boyfriend clearly had no qualms about my OKC profile staying live–we both still have ours. They just state that we’re in relationships. I would still use it to make friends, since post-internship I moved first to New York (where I didn’t know many people) and now Toronto (I have zero friends here). I also use it to look at guys’ profiles for my friends in other cities.
Maybe it just depends on *why* a person is using online dating. Or maybe how long you message someone before meeting up. I would never make an assumption about a guy keeping his profile after our first date. That just doesn’t make sense to me.
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Maybe the rule is, there are no rules. Depends on the person I think – if you’re going to take your profile down, you should perhaps say that you are and check if he is too – but not after the first date.
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In some ways I think the no rules is a pro on the online dating side. It gives you more ways of figuring out if you are in sync with your potential suitor. In stead of wondering if his actions are because he thinks he’s (not) supposed to do something, his actions hint at what he thinks he should do. It’s more honest but means there will likely be a lot of people doing things you don’t like. Cross them off the list. Not for me. And keep looking.
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I don’t know the rule, but as someone who got the pleasant surprise of popping online to OKC to find that the guy I had been dating for a little less than a month had deleted his profile entirely-that was a completely wonderful moment. He didn’t ask me to delete mine, he didn’t even tell me he was deleting his. We had been using OKC as a way to send messages to each other, and we had agreed that we were only going to date each other. I had actually logged onto my account to send him a message-and he was gone! I called him up blubbering about how wonderful I thought is was, and he simply said that he was happy to say goodbye to [profile name], because he didn’t see any need for him again.
It goes without saying, I am sure, that I deleted my account, and we haven’t looked back. We are going on a year and (counting on my fingers…) 4 months.
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