Dating Tips and Advice | Dating Blog

Online dating is the subject of this blog but it is easy to be so focussed on the dating aspect that we miss the opportunity to make friends along the way. I often hear people say ‘I have enough friends’ – pardon? How can anyone have enough genuine and caring friends?

I recently lost a friend to cancer, she was the most amazing person and even though I had never actually met her I felt we were very close, with a deep understanding of each other. Deb lived at the other side of the planet and without the internet I would never have got to know her.

I learnt so much about being selfless from Deb and this post is a tribute to her kind heart, in the hope that it will encourage someone to see beyond the falseness we often find on the net and beyond the surface of a stranger at the other side of the planet.

I remember learning to type at boarding school, we used manual typewriters and carbon paper. When I was about thirteen the school bought a daisywheel electronic typewriter – wowee, you could actually correct mistakes rather than retype everything. The only problem was there was only one of them so we had to put our names on a list and wait our turn to use it.

By the time I began my working life I was introduced to telex machines and it never ceased to amaze me that I could type into a machine and within minutes someone in the USA or Middle East could read it. Our department also bought one of the first mobile phones ….. mobile was a relative word, it was the size of a car battery but I was so proud whenever I got to leave the office lugging this bulky phone around.

Technology has moved on so rapidly during my life, we now have the ability to send emails from our mobile phones, which are so small they take five minutes to find in the bottom of your handbag. This was the stuff of science fiction when that first daisywheel typewriter turned up at my school.

Why this trip down memory lane? All in all I have felt really lucky to live through this time of technology boom and yes I was one of the idiots that said the world wide web was a fad and wouldn’t last (cough, cough – okay so I am not so bright sometimes). We now have instant access to the internet, heavens we can now use little pieces of plastic to buy our groceries and have them delivered to our door the next day. We also have access to people we would never have dreamt of speaking to before the internet arrived. Through online forums and blogs I have ‘met’ religious zealots, bigots, racists, philanderers and loonies of the first order but I have also met some interesting, diverse and unique people from all corners of the earth, of which Deb was a particularly fine example.

If you walk into any cafe, bar or workplace you will meet people who have views you find offensive, shallow or arrogant people, some you will take to over time and also some you instantly click with. The internet is exactly the same, it is just a case of being open enough to talk to people.

Why would you join a forum and then never say anything? Why join an online dating service and just sit waiting for people to come chat to you? Unless we are open and make the effort to talk to people many opportunities in life will pass us by.

Deb has taught me that life is too short to hide away being suspicious of everyone, sometimes we have to open up and let people in. That is not to say tell your life story to everyone you chat to online but if you feel a connection with someone give them a chance and maybe you too will be lucky enough to make such a friend.

I miss you Deb – In peace, In love.