Now that I am getting divorced, I am looking to get back out there into the world. I’ve already joined a few social groups and have been meeting people in real life. I’m just wondering if joining a dating site might be a good way to expand and sharpen my social skills.
If I did join such a site, I would make it clear that I was only looking for friends. At present I am not interested in a serious relationship or (perish the thought) marriage. I’m also not out trolling for sex.
Just curious if anyone has used these sites only for friends and if it worked out well? A membership for a few months isn’t too expensive, but if I am wasting my time, I’d just as soon save the money for something else.
Have you spoken to your divorce attorney about doing this? You don’t make it seem finalized yet & INAL, but Maybe that might make a difference somehow?
OKC has a spot that you can check Long Term Relationship/Short Term Relationship/Just Friends. To be honest, I don’t usually look at that part, but when someone says they’re just looking to meet new friends and nothing more, I just move on to the next profile. Almost everyone on those sites (especially the males) are not there to make friends, they’re there to find significant others and, to be honest, if you do find a ‘friend’ there’s a good chance they want something more than just friendship (especially since a lot of profiles say ‘I’m looking to be friends first and see where it goes from there’ and he may think that’s what you mean, but I pass up those profiles as well). It’s like walking into a Singles Mixer and trying to explain to a guy that you’re not interested in him, but you want to hang out with him anyways. He might think you’re cool chic and you to might end up having a great friendship, but OTOH, he might have other motives while he’s there.
If you’re looking for more than just friends, but not a serious relationship, that’s totally different, just say somewhere in your profile something like ‘I’m just getting out of a long term relationship and not looking for anything serious right now’ maybe add ‘and I wouldn’t mind making some new friends along the way as well’.
As I’ve always said, be honest and don’t lie, there’s someone out there looking for exactly you, but if you lie, you’ll end up with the person that’s looking for the fake person you made up and you’re the one that’s going to end up disappointed.
Also, if you’re not ready to put 100% into this, join OKCupid, it’s free and you’ll get a pretty good feel for what’s out there. If you do join Match, make sure you set your relationship status as ‘currently separated’. Drives me nuts when someone says ‘divorced’ only to find out that by divorced means ‘my husband and I split up 3 weeks ago and we haven’t even thought about started the legal paperwork yet’.