Successfully Moving Dating from Online to Real-life??

LegacyUser

I was wondering does anyone have some advice. Met a guy online, got on very well, seemed to be going well and then we met. From the moment we met things seemed strange. I get shy and quiet when I'm nervous but I explained this to him before hand. He was nice and polite but seemed really disinterested. I tried to make the best of the situation but he continued to behaved very odd. I don't think he would have cared if I was hit by a bus!!

Anyway, I'm not too bothered but I did wonder is there a way to make the transition from virtual to reality smoother? I do take part responsibility for it being a disaster and don't want a repeat of this in the future.

I've done this before, with some people it has been easier than others. At times I find it very hard to connect with the person in the same way as I did online, its almost as if I don't see them as the same person. On one occasion we just plain didn't get on in real life - it was simply that I had created this image in my mind of how I wanted things to be and in the end they weren't like that - it's a very dangerous thing to do.

If he was behaving odd, maybe he either tried to be someone he's not when online, or he did what I did! It's not necessarily anything you had done.

StillWaters

It was just a bad date, don't overthink it. You may very well have a few more of them before you meet the guy whose real life chemistry matches the online stuff.

It's the nature of online dating. My advice in future is to meet quite early on, don't let the online correspondence drag on for weeks, and don't have your expectations too high.

LegacyUser

Hi Guys

Thanks for these replies. You both mentioned some interesting points. I don't think that I had built up an idolised image in my head of him, I was happy to meet him and see how things would develop. I think that maybe we did leave it too long, though it was only a couple of weeks and unavoidable, but is definitely something for me to keep in mind for any future dates.
I don't think I will ever really know what was the cause of this crash and burn but I guess its the nature of this type of dating.

Thanks again

Sleepy

I don't mean to be hurtful OP, but is there a chance your profile photo on the site overly-flattering?

It's something we're all guilty of in choosing only the best shots of ourselves for our Facebook profile or whatever but a photo on a dating site that's been photoshopped, carefully posed or cropped to hide the negatives etc could be setting yourself up for failure... it's equally true for us guys by the way, I notice quite a few of my mates have profile pics that are a few years old because they had more hair then!

LegacyUser

Well, I honestly think my pictures represent me as is, but maybe it is something to consider, though the pictures were taken very recently. I personally felt that even if I didn't fancy him when we met that I would be polite and not make anyone uncomfortable but he obviously didn't seem to feel the same way. I think things worked out for the best but I would like to avoid any pitfalls in the future.