|
After college, the dating pool dries up. That's often when online dating becomes a way to connect.
"When you're working in a job you see the same people every day, but when you go to college there are many, many opportunities to bump into someone you might end up in a relationship with," said clinical psychotherapist Diane M. Berry of Manitowoc.
Berry is director of Blue Waters Family Counseling and author of "Romancing the Web: A Therapist's Guide to the Finer Points of Online Dating" (2005 Blue Waters Publications, Manitowoc).
Kris Mauer, 31, of Manitowoc just wasn't meeting the right kind of people through conventional methods like bars and health clubs, but was hesitant to try the Internet route.
"My mom actually encouraged me to do it,' she said of online dating.
After putting her profile on match.com, she went on a few dates. Then, she got serious about it.
"I winked at a lot of people. I messaged a lot of people. I e-mailed people. It was time-consuming," said Mauer, a graphic designer for the Herald Times Reporter. "For about two months, I had a date every Friday and Saturday night."
Only one experience turned out to be a bad one.
"I called my mom from the bathroom (and said) 'How do I get out of this date?' " Mauer said.
It all turned out for the best.
She has been in a steady relationship with her boyfriend, Brian Feldmann, 31, a senior aeronautics technician from Appleton for 2½ years.
"You have to be your own cheerleader," Mauer advised. "It's not easy. You have to put work into it."
And don't compromise, said Mauer, who knew what she was looking for and wouldn't settle for less.
"Many of the 20- and 30-year- olds are very comfortable working with computers and have a lot of experience using them," Berry said. "They are much less hesitant to get involved in online dating than someone in their 40s and 50s might be.
"That's both good and bad. It can make them less cautious when they start exploring new relationships and contacting people online."
Mauer always arranged meeting in public places and set a time limit on the dates, preferring mid-day lunches so she had an excuse to leave.
People in their 20s and 30s sometimes ignore standard safeguards to online dating, Berry said.
"They tend to move too fast," she said. "They want to just go from e-mailing to telephoning, from telephoning to meeting in person too quickly. They're more likely to put themselves in riskier situations."
Her book offers suggestions on how to more safely meet people online.
"You want to spend some time getting to know someone via e-mail. My recommendation, as general rule of thumb, is four weeks," Berry said. "The next step is telephone contact. If you spend another several weeks just contacting each other by phone, you get to know each other better.
"If you invest the time getting to know them then you're less likely to regret meeting them when the time comes."
Berry recommended asking them about their family as well as hobbies and interests.
"The more contact you have and the more areas of conversation that you get into the better you can judge the consistency of the responses you get," she said.
"That's important because if you're dealing with someone who has an alcohol or drug problem you might get a wide variety of different responses. They might be friendly one day ... and standoffish the next.
"The same is true if you're dealing with someone who is already married or already in a relationship. If they're not available for long period of time, that would raise some questions or concerns unless it was explained somehow."
Berry offered tips on how to assess the honesty of individuals.
"For instance, if they tell you one week they spend Easter in the Bahamas and the next week they say they went to Montana over Easter, you want to question it more fully," Berry said.
"Also printing out all of the communications you have from the person can help determine whether the responses are consistent because you might not remember from one week to the next either."
Yahoo! Personals is a site that people in the area often use, Berry said.
Other popular sites include Match.com and eHarmony.
"There are sites for people who want to date someone who's Catholic, Lutheran, who's a Packer fan," Berry said. "There are gay and lesbian Web sites that are particularly tailored to those populations."
A recent CNN.com article even profiled online dating sites aimed at those with STDs.
Those interested in online dating can find Web sites using the Google search engine, through pop-up ads and from references in magazines, Berry said.
By Suzanne Weiss
Herald Times Reporter
| 
