What Do You Get When You Get A Notification?

A fellow .com dating friend recently mused about the feeling you get when you get a notification of contact from someone, and how in the long run the feeling is usually more negative than positive.

I have to agree.

Every single time I would get a notification that someone was initiating contact I would think, "This isn't a drill! Make sure your seat-backs and tray tables are in their full and upright position, and let's DO THIS THING!" Then I'd proceed to view the initiators profile.
And, like my friend said, 9 times out of 10 there was just "something" missing.
You know what's the worst thing to have missing from a profile? A profile picture.

It's ridiculous really.

People who don't post a picture usually have some excuse that they aren't posting a picture because it forces people to be shallow; that people place too much merit on physical appearance.
I think people WITHOUT pictures are the real culprit of placing too much merit on physical appearance. Just post your picture already! If you don't have a picture, I guarantee I'm not delving any deeper into your profile.

Even if there IS a profile picture, 9 times out of 10 there is some unnamed "something" missing.

What's hard about all that though, is that there is no possible way you can fit yourself into an online dating profile. So 9 times out of 10, even if there was "something" missing, I'd respond to the contact, because maybe the missing "something" just didn't fit into their profile.

PS: Did anyone get the reference to my post title and the picture?

Cyber Staring

Most dating websites allow you to see who has been viewing your profile.

The site I pay for not only tells me who looks at my profile, but how many times they've looked at my profile.

There are a few men who have viewed my profile over 25 times, but they have NEVER contacted me in any other way. It's weird.
I'm going to call it Cyber-Staring.

If I cared enough I might contact them, but I don't...so I won't.

Can I Have A Definition Please

How does one go about defining their online relationship?

What's even trickier is defining an online "relationship" that is long distance.

Ideally the people you "meet" online live relatively close; close enough that meeting in person isn't that big of a deal. But what if the person you meet lives 13 hours away in Texas?

Is your relationship any less valid because you haven't held hands, hugged, kissed, or even SEEN the other person in the flesh?

If you couldn't tell...I've immersed myself into the above stated situation. To be honest, I didn't immerse MYSELF, the other person involved kept tossing buckets of water at me essentially saying, "I'm all in, and I'm going to keep dumping buckets of water on you until you realize you're all in too."
(you know me and my metaphors, haha)
While talking on the phone yesterday, he referred to himself as, "my boyfriend".
CAN he be my boyfriend if we haven't met? Or does he automatically become my boyfriend when he steps off the plane in St. Louis and we meet "for real".
He feels like a boyfriend.

Everyone who knows our "situation" thinks he is my boyfriend.

Obviously HE thinks he's my boyfriend.

There is no doubt in my mind that if we lived closer, and had met already, I would be calling him my boyfriend.

I guess what is really holding me back from calling myself his "girlfriend" is the stigma of being in an online relationship.
I've judged others for their online relationships. I've also judged others for their "hastiness" of defining their relationships.

Maybe this is yet again a slap in the face by a humble pie.

I found this pinterest-ism the other day:
Sometimes the greatest relationships are the ones you never expected to be in. The ones that sweep you off your feet and challenge every view you've ever had.
If that's the truth, then I guess I'm in the greatest relationship.
I never EVER expected to have the "feelings" that I do for this guy. It's so unexpected that I spent a good two weeks trying to talk him out of it because I thought he was crazy.

But it's happening. And it's weird. And exciting.

Some of the advice my co-workers and friends gave me about "relationships" (because I've never really been in one and I had no clue how to be in one) was that once you find someone worth being in a relationship with it'll be effortless. And I thought I knew what they were talking about. I thought the relationships I'd formed with the other people I'd met online were effortless. I was wrong. WAY wrong.

THIS relationship is effortless.
Well...except for this "defining who we are to each other" bit.