Summary: As we rise from the ashes of our bout with the flu, we're faced with another problem, digital dating burnout. It's been weeks, maybe even months and you're just not getting anywhere with your online dating site. Maybe your dating world hands you an Etch A Sketch moment and you just can't find the motivation to dive back into online dating. What to do? We break it down. Letters from new listeners and new online daters and a handful of online news to make up for the missed week await in DDP episode 14! - Direct MP3 Download - iTunes Subscription - RSS Feed Show Notes for episode 14 below… DDP Ep. 14 Show Notes On DDP episode numero catorce we talk about… An upcoming contest!! Stay tuned for that, we mention it at the very end of ep 14. And... Getting over the flu/colds! Ugh, that was horrible, and now we’re back. Online dating can be like a roller coaster, with the accompanying highs and lows. You might have gone out on a string of first dates without finding anyone you want to go on a second date with. Or you might have had no responses to your thoughtful, sincere messages for two months. Or you might have had the stars suddenly align, and have four dates lined up this week, only to find yourself too exhausted to enjoy it all. Have you experienced digital dating burnout? We talk about when it might be time to take a break, take some time to yourself, and regroup. There are usually mechanisms on different dating websites to hide or suspend your profile - make use of these if you need a break! If you’re feeling exhausted with the whole process and aren’t totally into it, chances are that someone who contacts you will feel that, and not follow up with you, when you might have clicked better if you just had the chance to get your mojo back together. Lara talks about her experience a couple of years ago doing some online dating over the summer when she had more free time and it was a great time of year to be meeting lots of new people. Then it seemed like a good idea to take a break during the school year, returning to online dating with a whole new profile the following summer on a different site. Four months on, eight months off, four months on... and the whole experience felt worthwhile rather than exhausting. Don’t force yourself to get back online too soon because the people you are interacting with online will probably sense it. Joel agrees, mentioning that after he has taken a break from online dating, he finds that he drifts back to it when he’s ready, rather than consciously forcing himself to go back. LINKS DU JOUR Lara spotted an article from The Atlantic about computer dating in the 1960s - can you imaging not having any visual image of what your potential match looks like - or waiting weeks to hear back from the computer matching service??! Lara also gives Facebook a rare shoutout for adjusting their relationship categories to include ‘domestic partnership’ and ‘civil union’ in addition to statuses like ‘single’ and ‘married’. Good work getting with the times, FB. In a weird connection to FB relationship status settings, BreakUpNotifier.com will track your friends and alert you when someone you’ve been hiding a crush from because they’re taken suddenly becomes single - so you can pursue (stalk) them! Joel summarizes a cool short LifeHacker article that takes OKCupid data and identifies three questions that cut straight to the heart of how compatible you are with another person. We also got a tip from Donald via Twitter with a fun infographic about the perils of online dating, so check that out! And Joel talks about an Arkansas woman who was swindled out of $250K by an online dating scammer. If someone asks you for money, please think twice about the situation, especially if you’ve never met them! If something feels at all sketchy, IT IS!! MESSAGES We heard from Chad in Santa Barbara, California,
