Gay Dating

Dating and Social Media

Jonathan Welford

Written by: Jonathan Welford

Jonathan Welford

Jonathan Welford is a dating and relationship coach, author of three relationship coaching books and regular GayDatingExpert.com columnist. He heads up a coaching and therapy practice specializing in dating and relationships. He lives in the UK with his husband and their English bulldog named Lola.

Edited by: Lillian Castro

Lillian Castro

Lillian Guevara-Castro brings more than 30 years of journalism experience to ensure DatingAdvice articles have been edited for overall clarity, accuracy, and reader engagement. She has worked at The Atlanta Journal and Constitution, The Gwinnett Daily News, and The Gainesville Sun covering lifestyle topics.

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In this digital age, we are all connected.

Hey, if you are reading this, you are on a computer and more than likely you have messages coming at you from emails, blogs, social media and all the other forms of digital communication.

Social media in regards to dating.

More than likely you have a dating profile on one (or more) of the many wonderful dating sites available. If you have these available to you, so do your potential dates.

At some time (and more than likely after reading this), you will have Googled your name to see what comes up.

Everything is there to be found, and depending on your security settings, anyone can see what – and who – you’ve been up to.

When you are in the dating zone, you have to be careful, and I don’t just mean meeting in a public place.

I had a client at the start of last year who’d been through the dating process.

He had a couple of years of being free and easy, not wanting to commit to anyone.

He just wanted fun. In fairness, many of us have done this.

Interestingly, my client had taken a more public approach to his exploits.

Each encounter was photographed and reviewed on a blog, as you would with a novel on Amazon.

He set up his blog to share with his friends, but what he thought was a fun hobby came back to haunt him eventually.

Because he’d gone through so many men, his friends had shared the website with other friends, and word of mouth resulted in more and more people following his exploits. His dating pool increased with the posts on his website.

After a few years and a few job changes that had moved him out of the area, my client eventually returned to his city and was finally in the relationship zone.

He’d got the serial sexual adventures out of his system and wanted to commit. He thought he’d found “The One,” until his boyfriend Googled his name and the review site came up.

It caused a lot of issues, and ultimately the relationship ended as the boyfriend didn’t want to be considered a notch on the bedpost.

My client has now taken the site down. (He hadn’t left it up intentionally. He’d just moved on and it had become a distant memory.)

 

“What you wrote may have been appropriate

at the time, but now it may be toxic.”

So when you are dating, check the following:

1. Facebook/Twitter feeds and photographs are appropriate.

Yes, you may have a past, but if the pictures are proudly displayed on your profile, it may cause insecurities which can make a relationship falter.

The untag button is your friend!

2. Blogging.

If you have a blog, review the posts, especially if you are waxing lyrically about a previous partner and how much you love them.

Similarly, watch out for posts on how much you hate your ex. Neither of these are friendly to your dating life.

3. Journals and photo albums used to be private.

Now (through convenience or laziness) they are online.

While what you wrote or photographed may have been appropriate at the the time, now it may be toxic or make you look stupid.

We’ve all made decisions we’re not proud of and we can share these with a new partner. However, wouldn’t you prefer it to be when you want to share it?

In short, make sure all your social media is friendly to your dating life.

Fellas, in what ways do you keep social media from affecting your dating life?

Photo source: bp.blogspot.com.

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