The Pastor Wrote Back!

So, after having my pity party over the Pastor, a week and a half later he responds to my email. He apologized and said that he has been “having to make transitional decisions that have really taken up a lot of [his] time.” He continues to ask me a few questions as if he didn’t wait three weeks to email me back.

I asked a few of you over twitter and email what I should do: email him back or not. Normally responding to his email would be breaking the cardinal rules of online dating:

1) Online daters have a response period of four days or less before they come across as not interested.

Thoughts: He took 3 weeks and as creepy as this sounds, I saw that he had been on several times before I wrote my original blog post… which is why I felt as if it had been rejection. Also, a guy should be able to make time to write you a quick response because he needs to show that he has enough (not too much, just enough) time for you.

2) Normally you are supposed to give the online communication a deadline of three weeks before he chooses to either ask you out on a date or ask you to communicate through another method. If he doesn’t then he may have something to hide.

Thoughts: We started emailing at the end of April. It’s now June…

Also, I kind-of already dealt with the “he’s rejected me” part and moved on. Part of the moving on process included writing a blog post about him.

So, what exactly is my concern in responding to his email? Is my pride getting in the way of something happening? Is it worth giving him another chance? Or is it just totally weird all around (pastor on a dating website)?

I’m going to totally sound like a girl here, but since I know he’s been on the website in the past three weeks (during his no-response period), it makes me feel like I’m his second pick. Almost as if he was talking to someone else and then decided that it wasn’t going to work out with her so he decided to write me back… but chances are that’s just my wounded pride speaking.

Nevertheless, thanks to y’alls responses and encouragement, I wrote him back. I made the email short and sweet, but I also included a portion where I was a little more transparent with him than normal.

Here’s what I said:

“While it was great to hear from you, I’ll have to admit that I almost didn’t respond.” I continued with my reasoning and then explained to him why I assumed he wasn’t interested.

Most guys do not like having someone tell them that they went about something in a wrong way, but hopefully he sees this as positive communication rather than rejection. We will see.

I still haven’t decided what I would like to come out of this… whether at this point I actually want to meet him for dinner or not.

I guess today is not the day I have to figure that out!  

First SW Post: Weighing Against the Competition

Here is my first post for Singles Warehouse. To read it on their website, click here. 

Do you remember in grade school when our coaches would teach us about our competition? Sometimes we would watch videos, or even go to one of their games… all to do what exactly? Gain an edge.

Recently, one of my girlfriends asked me if I knew what I was up against in the dating world, and honestly I couldn't give her a solid answer because all I had were assumptions gained from the messages I received from users on the dating websites.

Some examples are as follows:

“I was glad to come across your profile. You seem to be very interesting and different from any other girl…”

“Your profile is very refreshing compared to what I've seen…”

“Just thought it was refreshing to see someone as interesting as you on here…”

Now, you’re probably wondering what exactly is on my profile. Well, I have one cropped photo—that’s rather blurry, and a short summary of what I do for work, play, and then what I am looking for. Short, clean, classy, and in my opinion, intriguing. And I am very confident in my profile because I average about 3.5 emails a day on one dating website.

But this begs the question of: what sets my profile apart from all of the other women? Even though I knew I had an edge (from the emails I had received), I needed to know why I had an edge (so that I could keep it that way, of course).

I came up with the idea of seeing exactly what guys see when it comes to online dating in my area. So, I selected a free online dating website and set up an account for a guy in search of a woman around the same age and in the same location as myself.

To my surprise, my assumptions were not that far off. I only came across a handful of women (ages 22-26) that had tasteful profiles listed for the purpose of actually wanting to meet someone to date, as opposed to just hooking up.

What I wasn't expecting to see was how many women were extremely, extremely, vulnerable and almost careless with the information that they shared about themselves. Maybe I am too careful with the information I share, but you never know who is looking at your profile and then searching for you on social networking sites due to the information on your profile.

So what did I learn from my analysis?

I learned that I do not need to change anything on my profile, but that I may need to put up a better photo of myself. While I was scrolling through all of my “matches,” I noticed that only the bright photos caught my eye. When the search engine returns all of the matches, our photos are very small…and a small dark photo could easily be passed over.

(Even magazines use this technique!)

I also learned that we, members of the online dating world, need to learn to market ourselves better. We need to learn how to sell ourselves as if we were trying to sell a product that we believed in. We need to make sure that we know who our target audience is (who it is that we are trying to attract). We need to make sure that our profile says what is unique about us, what sets us apart from everyone else, what our best qualities are, and what we are looking for.

To help you come about this easily I have a few questions to think about as you are creating/editing your profile:

1) Does your profile display your best qualities? What do you have to offer? What is unique about you? What sets you apart from everyone else? Learn to sell yourself!

2) Are you datable? If so, why are you datable? Would you want to date yourself and why? Be the type of person that you’d want to date.

3) What type of person are you trying to attract? What exactly are you looking for? A serious relationship, new friendships, a hook-up buddy? Define clearly what you are looking for.

5) Are you leaving a good impression by what you’re saying and by your photos? You communicate by what you’re wearing (or not wearing) in your pictures.

Remember: Every time someone looks at your profile it is an opportunity to make an impression. Do not let them get away!

For more advice on how you can enhance your dating profile click here.

Joining #SWExperts!!

Good Morning Everyone!

I just wanted to give you all a quick update on what's happening here in Dallas :) I am going to officially start writing for the blog on Singles Warehouse's website. I am really excited about this opportunity and you all should be too! It means that not only do I get to blog about my dating life, I get to share more advice and opinions to readers from other countries!

To find out more, click here Singles Warehouse and take a look! That's my introductory blog post!!!

Shunned By The Pastor

Recently I started communicating with a Pastor from a neighboring town. There was just one thing, however, that was weird about our communications… it was through a dating website. Everything about him—the fact that he was in his twenties, well educated, had gone to a 4-year Uni and then to Harvard for his masters—was normal and appropriate for a dating website other than his occupation. I mean, that’s weird right?

In his first email he mentioned that he just moved to the area and had accepted an associate pastor position for a church in ______, Texas, and then mentioned the program that he was in charge of and asked me a few questions.   

What he didn’t realize is that he gave me way too much information in the first email. I was able to find him in less than 2 minutes through a google search.

As it turns out, he is real, and his credentials were accurate. He also is supposedly very well known in certain groups and organizations around the world…. He even has a youtube page.

Anyways, I decided to write him back. Except I let curiosity get the best of me and I asked him why he was on the dating website. His response was that “Pastors need a little lovin’ too.”

We communicated back and forth for almost 3 weeks through the website until one day he didn’t respond.

This was a little tough to swallow for a number of reasons: 1) it was the first guy to “reject” me through online dating, 2) the first guy to reject me since before my dating hiatus and 3) I was rejected by a pastor.

Most likely he thinks I’m not good enough for him… or that he’s too good for me. Either way they both mean the same thing and my response is still the same. I will continue to push myself to be better with or without you.

No person should ever make us feel like we are not good enough for them. 

So, yes pastor-guy, you have wounded my pride. But it will recover and I will continue to improve. You, on the other hand, are missing out.