Online dating can be an incredible experience. From the comfort of your laptop or phone, you can soon be introduced to more guys than you could meet in a whole year of nights out. But dating online comes with a different social code to meeting people in real life.

Probably the hardest pill to swallow, if you’re new to online dating, is the passive rejection. Put simply, if someone isn’t interested in you, they simply won’t reply.

Obviously there is a whole list of reasons why someone might not reply to your message. Maybe they never read it. Maybe they don’t use the site any more. Maybe they forgot about the message. And maybe they’re just not that into you.

The thing you have to remember about online dating is that it works both ways. It’s not just a shopping site. You can’t just filter the options according to your preferences, and expect to go on dates with everyone you like. Online dating is a two-way street, and the other person needs to also be interested in you, and have similar intentions. In the same way that you have set preferences which you filter matches by, other people also apply filters. Maybe you’re not the right age, or height. Maybe they prefer another hair colour, or they’re into different things than you. It’s also important to remember that not everyone on an online site is there to go on dates. Perhaps they just want to chat. Perhaps they’re just online see how much attention they get from strangers. Maybe they’re testing the water, and too shy to reply.

Whatever the reason, the reality of the situation is that not everyone you speak to online will reply to you. But the worst thing you can do is dwell on this.   It’s a reality of online dating, which you need to appreciate early, so that you don’t just focus your time and attention on one person online. Online dating is a numbers game. Often for every ten or twenty messages you send out, you may only receive one or two replies. That’s nothing against you personally, and not something which you should interpret as a sign that you’re unattractive, or not doing it correctly. It’s just how things go online. For whatever reason, not everyone will reply. But there will always be some who do – those are the ones who deserve your time!

In the same way that not every message you send out will get a response, you shouldn’t feel obliged to respond to every message you get. The nice part of online dating is that rejection is passive. If you’re not attracted to someone’s profile, and they approach you, there’s no requirement to reply back to let them down gently. In fact, often just saying nothing at all is a far politer, kinder way to let someone down. Unless they continue to message you repeatedly, there’s no need to reply.

If someone does contact you over and over again, and you don’t want to speak to them, remember you can always use the block function on most sites, to disappear from view.

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