How to Stop Letting These Men and Women Waste Your Time on Dating Apps
Learn to protect your time and energy
It’s a wild world out here in these online dating streets. I tried online dating previously but I stopped during the pandemic. Romance was the last thing on my mind during 2020. However, after surviving this past year, I decided to give online dating another whirl. This time around it’s been a healthy mix of fun and sheer f*ckery, and I’m here for it.
Swiping left or right through an endless sea of profiles has made me smile, laugh, creeped me out, and at times confused me. While the types of profiles may vary, there’s one striking similarity that I’ve noticed about many of them — they’re huge time wasters.
Believe it or not, a lot of the men and women on these dating apps are not really there to date or build a relationship. For them, the apps can offer a source of entertainment, an ego boost, or an outlet to casual sex. I came to this conclusion through my own online dating experiences and after listening to similar stories among friends, family, and co-workers. Chile, everybody has an online dating story, and where there’s smoke there’s fire.
In all fairness though, there are some success stories too. Many people do find love on dating apps and build solid healthy relationships. But those aren’t the ones we’re here to talk about. We’re here to talk about the time wasters and how to avoid them.
There are tons of articles that discuss the etiquette of using dating apps or how to build the “perfect” profile. Yet, they rarely address how to avoid having your time wasted while you’re on them. Here are a few gems I’ve learned and applied along the way to protect both my time and energy.
Stop wavering on what you want — If you know you want a serious relationship, 2.5 kids and a white picket fence, stop swiping right on folks who don’t. I don’t care how cute they are, if their profile says “something casual or don’t know yet” or “doesn’t want kids,” please believe them. Same goes if you’re not interested in a relationship, don’t swipe on someone who wants to be booed up. It won’t end well. These filters are there for a reason, so use them. If their profile doesn’t have any filters listed (and you still decide to swipe), make sure you ask what they’re looking for early on to avoid wasting your time or theirs. Now, if you don’t know what you want, take some time to find out before you hop your happy little self on a dating app.
Pay attention to effort — If they can’t be bothered to even fill out their profile and throw up a decent picture (that doesn’t include their bathroom mirror or random strangers and animals), then that may be an indicator of how they’re showing up in real life. Pay attention. There should also be effort when it comes to engagement. If your conversations mainly consist of cut and paste phrases (ex. “how’s your day going, good morning beautiful, or WYD”) or it takes them several days to even respond to you, it’s time to move on beloved. After a certain age, all this surface level “elementary school” conversation ain’t gone cut it. Yes, we’re all busy but remember people will always make time for who and what they want. Trust. Solid effort and basic social skills are important, and you deserve both.
Stop signing up to be a pen pal — Dating apps are simply tools to connect you with potential matches or love interests, whatever you’re looking for. Once you make a connection and you feel comfortable engaging with this person, get off the app. It shouldn’t take you three months to figure that out either. Set up a real time conversation as soon as possible by phone or video to get a feel of what the vibe is like offline and go from there. This also helps to determine if this person can hold a decent conversation away from their keyboard. If they’re hesitant to move off the app, that’s probably a red flag #catfish. Bonus tip: don’t allow them to replace messaging you on the app with texting. Some people will simply swap one tool for another to avoid engaging in any real communication. If they can’t commit to having consistent phone calls and meeting in-person or by video, don’t waste your time here.
Slow Down— People lie on or omit things from their profiles ALL the time, and some do it much better than others. Don’t even get me started on some of these pictures. That’s why it’s so important to slow down and take your time to actually vet your potential matches. Pay attention to your interactions with them and really listen to that inner voice, gut feeling, or the Holy Spirit to help discern if this is worth your time and energy. Don’t let fear, loneliness, desperation, or pressure from a potential match make you rush that process.
Stop taking everything personal — I don’t care how amazing their dating profile is, always remember these folks are still strangers. There’s no real loyalty here, so don’t expect any. If they decide to suddenly ghost you, then let them. It’s not about you, it’s about them. Don’t waste any more of your time trying to figure out what happened or why because it doesn’t matter. Say thank you and keep it moving. They honestly did you a favor by removing themselves to make room for a real one to step in.
Lastly, in the words of the great Iyanla Vanzant, “everything that shows up ain’t for you.” When you know that, you become unstoppable! You want quality over quantity, and it’s quite alright to say no thank you to anyone or anything that “ain’t for you.” You’re wasting your time when you settle for anything less.
