The Coronavirus epidemic has been causing disruption to our everyday lives forcing us to adapt, not only in our working lives, but our dating life too.
Relationships on Female First
What do we do we cant meet up at the speed of a swipe?
As a matchmaker and dating coach with over 10 years experience setting people up on dates and consulting them on their dating lives, here’s how I’m currently advising my matchmaking clients to get out of the dating game and form a relationship during times of self isolation.
Reduce your number of matches online –dating apps are sure to be busier than ever, but now is not the time to be storing a bank of matches. Now is the time to have a clear out of matches, and narrow it down to the number of people who you can conceivably manage to have focused interactions with. Realistically 3-5 people is a manageable amount. Keep them if there has been some good interaction, they have something about their profile that you’re particularly intrigued by, and there’s been communication within a week of matching. Anyone else can be unmatched.
Try to get the conversation off the app in a short period of time pick up the phone, and use it for what it was intended for – making phone calls.
Amazingly, in a short space of time, we’ve gone from using house phones, where we would happily sit and talk for hours, you remember the Bob Hoskins’s famous BT add years ago ‘It’s good to talk’? If the ad were created now, it would probably be more along the lines of ‘ It’s good to txt back’. Since we are now in the era of ghosting, coasting and a number of other impolite ways to make a person on the other end feel rejected to be left wondering what you could have possibly said wrong. Only you never actually got to experience the tone of their voice or the sound of their laugh.
See attraction isn’t built on how a person looks or what a person does or says, it’s also the way they say it. Many times, I’ve introduced people, and the woman wasn’t sure right away based on his photos but on hearing his voice suddenly found him a lot more attractive. On the flip side, I introduced a woman who ticked all the boxes for one millionaire client. His feedback was she would have been the ‘perfect match’ if only she didn’t speak ‘so common’.
When I’m introducing two people, I always suggest the guys calls first.
Not only does it break the ice but also it allows a conversation to flow far more naturally than building rapport via text. Instead of thinking strategically what to text back, you respond with a more natural immediate response.
Getting to know someone through text messaging, the tone is often misinterpreted and your questioning can come off as interrogating and aggressive. Especially when you use exaggerated punctuation.
Texting should be light, fun and flirty, whereas calls past the first couple of calls, can be relaxed, but also deep, and revealing.
Just because meeting in person may be somewhat limited, it doesn’t mean you can’t still see each other. Use this time to utilise technology, and have virtual dates. You can video call while you’re both eating or preparing dinner, sitting and enjoying a glass of wine or tea, while talking. Read extracts of books you’re reading to one another, show them how you look when you’re at home chilling. Now you haven’t got to rush to dates after a stressful day at work, and hectic commute. You haven’t got to worry about who splits the bill. Maybe now you can meet for a walk round the park, because now you appreciate just being in nature that much more getting out and being in the presence of someone again. Now’s the time to focus on being more present, and focusing less on stuff, and getting back to basics.
Relationships are built on the sort of conversations you have daily. Shows like Netflix series Love is Blind recently showed us how quickly you can form an emotional connection, even fall in love within a very short space of time by simply having daily open discussions.
As Orlando Bloom recently said in an interview with The Sunday Times about his relationship with his now pregnant fiancée Katy Perry ‘There’s the act, and then there’s the real person who I’m intrigued by. What’s most important when you strip it down, is what do you talk about when you’re passing the potatoes, or ‘what’s on the news or what are you reading?” or what are we watching? Or how we spend our Sunday’.
And since social plans are cancelled during this period, you have more time to really invest in this area of your life, taking time to get to really get to know someone. Not just getting someone to tick boxes on your list, but exploring a connection. Ultimately you can focus on what impressive place a person takes you for drinks or dinner, what job title they have, and how they dress to impress.
But when we are looking for a partner, when we strip everything away, what we all want in the end is to find a person who feels like home.
Siobhan Copland
Matchmaker, Relationship Expert
Cupid in the City www.cupidinthecity.com
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