If you’re frustrated with online dating, you’re not alone. Well, actually you are, that’s the problem, right? As similar as people may look, speak, think, and act, no two of us are nearly the same. This makes for a better world and a longer search.
Meeting someone while you’re out happens less frequently in part because people are increasingly busy and wary. Another reason is that online dating enables you to engage with more people, more often, with less anxiety, and on your time frame; apps even work in the background, sending you potential matches while you’re sleeping, working, or out for a run. What hasn’t changed in the real world is that, generally speaking, women rarely initiate encounters while most men just don’t.
So, the good news and bad about dating apps is the same: They help you meet more wrong people faster. Meeting someone online is more productive but not more predictive. Of course, even if you communicate well, texting is cryptic and often misleading, owing to inference, bias, projection, and straight up miscommunication, not to mention the inability to observe and intuit in person. We’ve become dependent on what people look like, no matter how great their profile, rather than on the intangibles and energy of in person exchanges.
When people describe themselves on a dating site, they often mislead you because they’re unwilling to admit certain things, even to themselves. And many are guarded or just not self-aware. So, what you get from their profile is part fact, part fiction. The problem is, you don’t know which is which. This begs the question: What is under your control in this white-hot dating world?
The answer is so simple yet dating sites often ignore it. Aligning on interests and values is important and easy to determine quickly but misses the bigger point: Differences don’t end relationships, behaviors do. And the best predictor of behaviors is traits. People don’t break up because they can’t agree on how to spend the weekend. They break up because of behaviors one person can no longer tolerate from the other.
But what is under your control is identifying the traits that are your absolute top priorities. In other words, being self-aware, thinking it through, and putting the odds of a great relationship in your favor. Yet very few of us do it because it doesn’t occur to us or would take a long time to figure out.
Here’s the good news: We’ve pored over and curated a list of 21 key traits in the form of an easy 90 second quiz to help you. You can take the quiz now or, before you move on to part 2 of this post, ask yourself: What traits and behaviors really attract you? Which ones turn you off? In part 2 we’ll examine your unique deal-breaking Critical Compatibilities™ to position you to make better matches online and in real life.
To identify your Critical Compatibilities™ and instantly start finding better matches now click here to take the free 90 second quiz.
