People who meet online can find natural love just as easily as people who meet in the grocery store. Honesty and authenticity are the only requirements.
I host workshops that help people create authentic online dating profiles. Sometimes when this comes out in conversation I get negative reactions. For example, I’ve gotten, “Oh I don’t need help with that because I’m waiting for it to happen naturally.” Or, I’ve heard, “Why should I be authentic since it’s not natural to meet online?” One of my favorite responses is, “Well I guess I’m a loser since I’m dating online because I can’t meet anyone naturally.”
I met my husband online. We lived eight blocks away from each other. We spent our free time at places that were also eight blocks away from each other. Even though we were living seemingly parallel lives, we weren’t meeting “naturally” at the grocery store or at the park or at the coffee shop. Instead we used the “unnatural” way to cross paths. Had it not been for that dating website, both our lives would be very different today. So is online love “natural?” Hell, yes.
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Back in the day we had to meet people socially as there was no Internet. It was up to us to be in the right place at the right time in order to find love. For many, this worked. Sometimes people share hobbies that bring them together. Maybe they have mutual friends, which leads the way. Or, perhaps they have an opportunity to meet through work. All of these situations are wonderful and amazing and should continue.
But, there are also people who haven’t been in the right place at the right time. These people have already exhausted the local bar, or the office or the … insert whatever hobby is being practiced. Then what’s the action step? Keep waiting until someday things change? Or, worse still is settling. Neither option has positive results.
Online dating is a contrived platform where natural love can happen. Of course the act of going online to date isn’t natural. You don’t just bump into someone. You’re not organically meeting in line at the pet supply store. You don’t get the luxury of telling a story about the one day you went to the mall with no make up and you met your future husband. So what. The important thing is that you find love – if that’s what you want.
If you do want to find love, it doesn’t matter where you find it or how you find it. What matters is that it’s found – and natural. Make sense or is this as clear as mud?
Let’s go back to my husband. Since we met online, it’s true that we met in an unnatural way. But, the love that came out of that unnatural platform was very real … and … well … natural. We took our online profiles down on our own without even having a discussion about it. I moved in with him three weeks after we met, as we both knew that this was what we both wanted. What we were feeling was real even though the way in which we met involved technology.
It’s very true that there’s a lot of unnatural love floating around the online dating community. There’s also a lot of unnatural love floating around the “real” world. If you dig deep into yourself so as to present an open, honest, authentic version of yourself, you’re more likely to find “natural” love on or off-line. Natural love doesn’t come from the platform or the tool that’s used to connect people – it comes from the heart.
Before I did the work of creating an authentic online dating profile, I was the classic example of unnatural. I was using an online dating profile that was a version of myself. I put out there that I was looking for someone to share a beer with and I got back a lot of someones that could share beers with me. And that’s it. There was no deeper thing to be shared with what was put out into the universe. Was it the Internet’s fault … or, that particular website’s fault? No, it was my problem to solve, as I had to connect with myself authentically before I could put that real version of myself out there to attract natural love.
So I invite you to open yourself up to natural love – wherever it may be. How? By answering the following:
- Who am I, really?
- Who do I want in a partner, really?
- What do I want in a relationship, really?
When we’re able to accept and showcase ourselves authentically, we’re able to connect with others in a deeper, richer, more real way. When we’re able to embrace who we want to be in love with, we’re able to let substitutes fall away. And, when we acknowledge our non-negotiable relationship needs, we’re able to look at the possibilities without sugar coating. If we can complete the answers to these deep, personal questions, our hearts can work with our minds to attract natural love – even if we’re using the most unnatural venue to do so.
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