Can You Find Love Online?

Are people looking for love in all the wrong places online? The digital media world has become a very real part of most people’s everyday lives. They communicate via social media, get their news via digital television, shop at ecommerce sites and find dates at online dating sites. But are online dating sites the best places to find a romantic connection?

Even if you only consider the ways to meet someone online, they may not be the best choice. To understand why, you need to view the online digital media world in the context of real world interactions. There are many places you can meet a potential date or mate in the real world: your church, your neighborhood, a club, your place of business, the local bar, a singles bar or… yes, a dating service. It’s common wisdom that you’ll find the most compatible partners – and therefore, those with whom you’re most likely to build a long-term, stable relationship – by finding your dates in places where you share common interests – you church, an interest club, your professional relationships. If you’re looking for fun, you might find it in a singles bar, but the chances that you’ll find a true and lasting love there are slim. You’re more likely to find people who like to hang out in bars – which is probably not the best place to find someone with whom you want to spend your life.

The online world is similarly divided, though it’s not quite as obvious. There are many different types of connections you can make in the digital media world, and each of them plays to a different type of relationship. Many digital dating sites are no better than a glitzy singles bar. They’re populated with people in the market for quick hookups and predators looking for lonely people they can exploit. There are exceptions, of course – and those well-known dating sites that carefully screen people before “introducing” them are the equivalent of a real world dating service – or the old-fashioned yenta.

If not on dating sites, then, where do you find romance and love in the world of digital media? Again, think how various digital media entities compare with offline counterparts. Many people meet first when they interact with each other on Facebook – usually because they share friends in common. It’s not much different than being introduced by a common acquaintance. Others meet when they play a game together, just as many people meet in the real world when they share common interests. And as more and more people work at home through an online connection, it’s becoming more and more common for people to meet a lifelong love when they work together on a project.

How do you find love in an increasingly digital media world? The answer is the same answer it has always been – make yourself the most attractive person you can be, extend respect to everyone you meet and remain open to the possibilities that every relationship holds.

Social Media and the Digital Revolution: Tools for Enhancing Love?

The Digital Revolution has taken a bad rap. Every year, there is at least one day devoted to “tuning out and turning off” – that is, turning off the digital media, tuning out of the social media and engaging fully in face to face and real life interactions. It’s a valuable exercise, but it’s built on the notion that interactions that take place over digital media are inherently harmful to relationships. In fact, when used in the right way, social media and other digital tools can help you enhance your relationships and keep the spark of your love burning bright. Here are just a few ways that you can use today’s technology to help enhance your relationships and keep love alive, whether you’re far away from each other or in the next room.

Connect Through Social Media

Facebook, Twitter, instant messengers and other social media sites are communication tools that you can use in many ways to connect with your loved one throughout the course of the day. Instant messengers allow you to maintain a connection between you and your love that can be as strong as working at the next desk. Never underestimate the impact of a quick IM that says, “I’m thinking of you.”

Make Your Status Known

Much as been said about the fact that social media makes it easy to depersonalize your relationships, but tools like your Facebook status also serve as a powerful social signal. One of the most important moments in the early stages of a relationship is the moment you decide to announce yourself to the world as a couple. Your “In a Relationship” or “Dating” or “Totally Taken!” status serves the same purpose as showing off your ring or changing your last name. It announces to the world that you are a couple and sends a powerful signal to the person you love that you are proud of them and want to show them off.

Share Experiences Through Digital Media

Separation is one of the most difficult things for a couple in love. Telephone calls and letters, even emails and IM messages can only go so far. The world of digital media and digital television can make a weekly date night possible even if you’re both on opposite sides of the world. Simply queue up the same Pay Per View movie or video at a specified time, and watch it “together” while you’re on the telephone or in an online chat.

Digital communication is often seen as a tool of ecommerce, a for-profit scheme that depersonalizes the world and separates us from each other. Like any other tool, though, it all depends on the use. When you use it to communicate and connect, digital media can be a powerful tool for building and enhancing intimacy in love.

If You Want Lasting Love, Cultivate These Four Qualities

The search for love can lead a person into some unusual situations and places. Far too many people fit the description of the old country song, “looking for love in all the wrong places”. In fact, you can find love anywhere – but not before you are ready to love someone and be loved in return. Preparing your heart and your life for love means working on some important qualities in yourself.

Honesty

Healthy relationships are based on honesty – and that means more than not telling lies to people. It means knowing yourself and presenting your genuine self to the world. It’s not enough to be honest with just the object of your affections. In fact, if you wait until you find a love interest to start being honest, you’ve already missed the boat. Honesty is one of the most attractive qualities you can present to others. When you are honest and genuine, others will want to know you and introduce you to others they value.

Respect

Respect is another quality that must be cultivated and offered freely to everyone – including yourself. People around you do notice if you show respect to others, and it makes a difference in how they view you. When you truly and honestly respect other people, you’ll be more open to their ideas and thoughts, more willing to listen to them and more attractive to the people around you. If you want to attract people who will be respectful of you – especially that one special someone who will respect and love you – you need to cultivate respect for all those around you.

Trust

In the best relationships, the participants trust each other. They know that their partner has their back and will not betray them. Too many people see trust as a weakness or believe that people who trust others are fools who are easily deceived. There is a difference between being open to trust and being a fool, however. When you learn to trust, you’ll learn to recognize the signs that other people are worthy of your trust. If you’re not open to trusting others, you’ll never be able to build happy relationships based in love.

Faith

Faith is an important component of loving relationships. Whether you place your faith in God or in an ideal, shared faith and values are among the most important predictors of successful relationships. Faith can’t be learned, but it can be cultivated. You just have to take small steps – believe in the little things first and eventually, you’ll find that you’re able to “believe six impossible things before breakfast.”

Because find love in this world may seem like an impossible thing, but if you have faith in love, you’ll find that love has faith in you.

Setting the Stage for Lasting Love

If you want to attract a lasting love into your life, you have to set the stage for it. It’s not enough to join dating sites or start joining clubs in the hopes of meeting the man or woman of your dreams. There is only one person in the world standing between you and finding true love. No matter how many dating sites you join, no matter how many profiles you read, no matter how many club meetings you attend with your heart in your hand, you’ll still be bringing along the one person who stands in the way of you finding the love you desire – yourself.

That doesn’t mean your dreams of finding a true partner with whom to share your life is impossible. It means that you have to prepare yourself to be the perfect partner for the person you want to attract. It means you have to cultivate in yourself the qualities you want to find in your perfect mate – not the superficial qualities of appearance and shared activities, but the deeper qualities on which true love is built.

Practice Respecting Others

Respect is the cornerstone of love. You can’t truly love someone unless you also respect them and it’s difficult to love a person who doesn’t return your respect. You’ll often hear people say – and may even believe yourself – that respect is something that must be earned. In fact, respect should be something that you give freely to everyone you meet until they prove they are not worthy of your respect.

Why is Respect so Important to Love?

When you respect another person, you want to live up to their expectations. You make an effort to be seen positively by them. Respecting another person means you put your best face forward. You listen to their opinions and take their feelings into account. All of those things foster attraction and deepen love between two people.

Be Trustworthy

In a true, loving partnership, both parties trust the other implicitly. Building trust makes time, but it is worth the time you put into it. Building trust means practicing ffaith and honesty in even the smallest things. If you say you will do something, you must follow through with it. If you can’t, you must be honest about the reason for it. Being honest, open and reliable invites others to trust you and lays the groundwork for long-lasting relationships.

Faith, trust, respect and honesty are the foundation of love. You can’t wait until you meet your perfect partner to start practicing them. Instead, practice being respectful and truthful and trusting in all of your relationships. When you find that special someone, you’ll already know how to act with them.

The Fundamental Approach to Choosing Love

Fundamentals is a financial term that refers to the process of choosing stocks in which to invest. A stock investor who engages in fundamental analysis looks closely at the company before making a decision and bases his decision on the fundamentals – the profit and loss statement, the financial analysis, the market for the product and other factors that influence a company’s success and profitability. It’s an accepted – if not the most accepted – way to choose stocks for a portfolio. Doesn’t it make sense to apply the same approach to choosing the partners in our love relationships?

It may seem cold-blooded to analyze the chances of relationships succeeding in the same way we do analyzing the chances of an investment making money, but stop and think for a moment. When you choose a life partner, aren’t you making the most important investment of all – yourself, your emotions and your life? It only makes sense to evaluate your relationship and its possibilities before making a major commitment. The difference is that instead of evaluating financial statements, marketing analyses and cash on hand, you’ll be evaluating your emotional state and the fundamentals of love.

Respect

Before you can begin to love, you must respect yourself and others. Every relationship in the world revolves around the respect the partners have for each other. When you respect someone, you listen to them. You take their feelings and their time and their contributions into account. You work to gain their respect in return. If you lack respect, you have only a hollow shell of a relationship.

Trust

Do you trust your partner? A true love relationship must be based in mutual trust if it is to succeed. When your partner says she is with her friends, do you wonder if she’s telling you the truth?  When he says that he’ll be there on Saturday, do you know that he will be there without fail? If you can’t trust in those simple things, how can you even think of trusting that person to raise your children and be there for you as a partner for the rest of your life?

Honesty

Honesty is a fundamental building stone of all relationships. No love can survive lies, nor can it survive the oblique dishonesty of non-disclosure. Loving relationships are open and honest, and that requires knowing yourself well enough to share who you are with your partner. If you feel you must hide aspects of yourself behind silence or lie about them openly, love can’t exist.

Faith

Faith builds on respect, trust and honesty. Like the other fundamentals of love, it works in two directions. If you have faith in your relationship and your partner, you know that your love will stand strong through tests. You know that no matter what the world throws at you, you will stand against it together. You don’t fear that your partner will walk away if you lose your job or fall upon a misfortune. You believe with all of your heart that you will be together forever, through this life and into the next.

When you analyze the fundamentals of love, you can work toward improving each of them and building a long and lasting relationship that will be the centerpiece of your life.

Building a Healthy Environment for Love to Grow

The work of building a healthy relationship may seem difficult, but if you’re looking for a fulfilling, loving partnership that lasts for a lifetime, it’s work that’s important to do. A healthy relationship fosters love. Unhealthy relationships foster dependence, resentment and obsession. Everyone deserves to be loved and to live in a happy and safe relationship. If your relationships aren’t comfortable or you think that your relationship is unhealthy, there are ways that you can heal your relationships and build a healthy environment where love can grow.

The Qualities of a Healthy Relationship

A healthy relationship is a happy one. It has four basic qualities – respect, honesty, trust and faith. Out of those qualities, other good qualities grow – fairness, good communication and love. No relationship is perfect, and even healthy relationships sometimes go through unhealthy moments. Recognizing the cornerstones of healthy relationships can help you identify any areas in your relationship that need work so that you can work together to establish an environment in which love can flourish.

Respect

A healthy relationship is based on shared respect for each other. Respect shows itself in many ways. When you respect someone, you are proud of them. You accept and like them for who they are, and you listen to and value their ideas and opinions. The opposite of respect is contempt. It’s nearly impossible to truly love someone for whom you feel contempt.

If you feel that your partner is proud of you, supports you emotionally and listens to you, there is probably respect in your relationship.

Honesty and Trust

Honesty and trust are dependent upon one another. People build trust in a relationship by being honest with each other. Honesty goes further than not telling lies – it includes being open and sharing who you are with your partner. Likewise, trust goes further than believing that your partner will not lie to you. When you trust your partner, you know that you can count on them. You know that you can share your thoughts and feelings with that person without fear of ridicule. In a healthy relationship, you can feel safe telling the truth even when it’s difficult and painful.

Faith

Shared faith is a vital part of a healthy relationship. For some, this means believing in the same God. For others, it means holding shared beliefs that power your life and drive your actions. It means believing without question that you and your partner have the same aims and are working toward the same goals, with a shared set of principles. When you share your faith with each other, you are building your relationships on a strong foundation that will hold you up during times of trouble.

Building love in your relationships depends upon cultivating those four qualities and working with your partner – and within yourself – to be a person who respects, trusts and has faith, and who is worthy of respect, trust and faith in return.

Make Time for Love in Your Busy Life

Chances are that you’ve heard about the busy, successful and very lonely business executive whose relationships suffer because he’s always too busy with work. It’s a common misconception that business success is somehow incompatible with love. Relationships, after all, take work and if you’re consumed with your business and other interests, it doesn’t leave much time for making sure that your love relationships are healthy. Making time for love is vital to relationships, and that counts as much if you’re searching for your life partner or are trying to keep your current relationship happy. If you’re struggling to find love in your life, consider how you treat others around you and whether you are making time for love in your busy schedule.

Put LOVE in Your Schedule

Anyone launching a new project knows that one of the most important first steps is to make the time for it. When you have an important business appointment, you put it on your daily planner. If you’re launching a new website, you schedule time to work on it. When it comes to finding love, though, few people think about scheduling time for it. Of course, you can’t exactly put “Find love” into a 15-minute block on your daily calendar. You can, however, schedule in activities that will help you find the person you’re seeking. Whether that’s time you spend communicating with others on a social or dating service website or time you spend engaged with others who share your interests, it’s vital that you make it important enough to put it in your schedule.

Be Respectful of Time – Yours and That of Others

When you make a date or promise to telephone someone, have the respect to follow through on your promise. One of the most important traits that people look for in their relationships is respect. Canceling dates and forgetting to call are marks of disrespect that will get you dropped quickly as possible “love” material.

Focus on Your Companion

It’s not enough to just grudgingly make time for someone in your schedule. You have to be wholeheartedly there, listening and paying attention to your companion with interest. If you allow yourself to be distracted by your other concerns, it will be obvious – and you could miss out on recognizing the perfect person for your lifelong partnership.

There’s an old song that starts, “Love is everywhere” – and it is. If you don’t take the time to look for it and cultivate it, though, you may not recognize it when it’s standing right in front of you.