Searching Our Love

posted by cupid on Jul 18

Online dating can be considered as a part of long distance relationship. In fact, maybe most of long distance relationships begin from online dating.
My current long distance relationship started from online dating. I have joined several muslim matrimonial websites since October 2006.

Why did I join online dating service?
With the type of job I had at that time, it was difficult to meet someone new, offline. I travel a lot and new people I met were all clients.
Friends and family introduced me to men, but no chemistry. And with the local man’s character, I don’t think I will find the man who has my criteria.
Since I spent most of my spare time online, I decided to consider online dating service in search of my life partner.
My purpose: to get married. Nothing else. I’m tired of living alone and being alone after my parents died and my younger sis got married, I need togetherness. I’ve lost my “home”.

Which websites did I join?
Before, I joined several general online dating services, e.g. Match.Com, but I wasn’t serious to find a partner there. It was only for fulfilling my curiosity about this kind of website, what’s going on there.
For sometimes, I didn’t think about joining muslim websites. But then it occurred to me, it will create problems if I have relationship with non-muslim man.
So, I started looking around on the net for muslim websites.

I chose these:

- MuslimMatrimonialNetwork.Com, on October 2006
- Qiran.Com, October 2006
- Muslima.Com, April 2007
- MuslimWedding.Org, December 2006

I didn’t join their paid service though, not that desperate, lol. Let the guys came to me. At the end, I stick with MMN, because its model of contact mode, its profile description are nicer and more complete compare to other muslim sites.

What did I expect and what did I get?
Of course I expected I’d find my prince charming there at a finger snap. Oh no, it wasn’t like that. The filtering took process. I met several men who clicked only at the first conversation; I was with men (not at the same time) for sometime but then they disappeared without news. Many things I experienced.

Now, it’s been one year with my guy and going stronger. He’s wonderful, he’s got a good heart and he can tame me, hehehe………………

What are things to take notice when join online dating service?
a.    Knowing your purpose, reason you join the service, understand what you want from the relationship.
This is important, because once you identify this, it will guide you through the relationship you will be in. You know you won’t play around, especially when you are serious to find a life partner.

b.    Choose the reliable and trusted service.
You have set up your goal, and then next step is choosing which dating site fits you. Many things can happen in offline life, and you can imagine what can happen in the internet. Read the testimonials and the service’s terms, do your research first.

c.    Be cautious of fraud people.
After you register yourself, then you will start “promoting” yourself, setting up your criteria of the prospect partner, and surf the profiles available.
If there’s a forum in the service, I’d recommend you to browse it and look for a report of fraudulent. I didn’t know this at the beginning because in my mind I have this positive thought that in this website people are friendly, nice, and won’t do harmful things. Once, I paid the service only for month and I got the access to the forum. I read a discussion about fraudulent, e.g. the person you know starts asking for money, etc. I was surprised, but it was a very good information to know.

d.    Be cautious always, don’t open up too quickly. Build that trust first.
Someone is interested in you, you read his/her profile and you think the person has your criteria. You introduce yourselves.
I always ask a profile with a photo (at least one photo). It’s logical, right? You want know the look of the person you are talking to. Or if the person doesn’t put a photo on his/her profile, ask him/her to send some by e-mail, better if he/she has photos with friends or family.
For me, I still hold my Eastern culture. I’ve never called a man first. I gave the man my mobile number and my e-mail address, and let him contact me first. Then I’d observe: does this man keep his promise to call me? How serious is he to know me?
You can always set up your marks there: ask the person about the job, the value in life, the purpose of having later relationship, ask as many important questions as you can. Allow the person to ask same questions to you.
This happened to me. My guy called me on the first 3 days after we had our contact and he asked me serious things, like: why I joined the site, why I wanted to get married, and what kind of my ideal man is, and so on. And I asked him many questions too.
I’ve never met a man online before that has approach method like him. It was a sign that he’s serious to find a partner.

e.    What to do after trust is gained?
Well……… You can start talking about friendly things, start as friends and see if you click. Chemistry is important, right? If there’s no chemistry how can you both proceed? Hmmm….after this stage, I believe you all know what to do

Live it. Enjoy it. Don’t forget to check out tips here, OK?