There’s this underlying shame about online dating that women sometimes share. I think it has to do with the online dating experience that most pretty girls end up having on dating sites. They are the victims of these online “cat-calls” from men and their mailboxes are filled with messages that are either inappropriate or offensive.

What  works for me is to be totally and 100 percent real with what I put out there in my profile. I want to show who I am. Sure, I choose the most flattering pictures, but they are current. Sure, I try and try and sound intelligent, but I am being truthful. Whenever I meet someone in person, any lies are going to show right up. In person is the reason we are doing this, remember?

When I send out messages to girls, I like to comment on their profile and try and find some common ground. I always, no matter what, write a new message to each girl. It’s also really important to not get discouraged as a man, lest you become a jerk. These women are getting so many messages, they may not be responding because they have a full inbox, or they just gave up on the site. I’ve heard some girls say that they get hundreds of messages a week. Wild! The ratio of messages sent to messages received back means I am doing a lot of work and getting very little return.

Have fun and play!

One of the things I have learned, in my last couple of years as a single man is that it’s important to love without attachment. This is not to say that I am ready to bolt right out the door. No, I am about loving fully without being attached to a result (like sex, relationship, or my “list”).

By giving up that there has to be some kind of outcome, I am able to be fully here in the now with the woman I am dating. I am able to just “be on a date” without focusing on my strategies for getting what I want.

But then there is the loving part. I find that part of the reason men are confronted by the word “love” is that they have been burned loving in the past. In the ongoing process of letting go of that pain from previous rejections, I can find myself loving fully, even someone I’ve just met.  Not crazy stalker love, but a calm, peaceful, human love.

I’m not attached to it going anywhere other than right here, anyway.