I don't get how to do this online dating thing...

[Inflikted]

If any of you are familiar with my posts, you know that I'm a 24 year old guy that has never been able to date or anything like that. I get pretty lonely, and when I'm really feeling lonely, I'll kinda give a look to the whole "online dating" thing, though I've never had any luck with that, either.

 

I guess I just don't really "get it". I've looked at a lot of "tips" for being successful with online dating, and one that seems to stand out is to read a girl's profile and try to say something that directly relates to a part of it when you message her, so you show that you have an actual interest. I try to do this, but it never seems like a lot of the girls I come across say anything substantial enough in their profiles to really touch on when I message them. I suppose if I were more "clever", that wouldn't be a problem, but I'm not, so... I never really get any responses/ messages.

 

I'm also curious about how an online thing should progress with a girl. I mean, after you message each other, what's the next step? Exchange phone numbers, or go right to talking about an actual meet up? And what kind of timing should exist here? Like, how long (and/ or how many messages should you guys exchange) should it be before you start swapping phone numbers and talking about meeting up, and whatever else?

 

Lastly, and this is pretty much an entirely different issue that doesn't necessarily relate to online dating at all, but... how far should you let a relationship progress if you're not entirely sure how you feel about someone? Let me go into a personal little anecdote, here. I've always been very intimidated by the physical aspects of dating/ "romance", if you catch my drift. Thus, I've always been very much focused on personality and looking for someone I get along well with, while completely ignoring physical/ sexual desires.

 

Lately, though, I've been in sort of a mood... The other day, I noticed a girl had viewed my profile on one of the sites I'm on. I looked at her profile, and the stuff she wrote seemed okay, I guess, but I wasn't in "Wow, she's really awesome!" mode. I did find myself thinking she was pretty cute, though, and that sort of got me wanting to write her (I never really have that reaction towards girls). I found something in her profile that got my mind working, and I wrote to her telling her a sweet little story that related to that thing (I wasn't lying or embellishing anything to her, by the way). To my delight, she wrote me back. We messaged a couple more times about the subject, and then the conversation seemingly ended. I was going to write her again a day or two later, but when I logged on, I saw that she had deleted her account, and that sort of disappointed me.

 

I didn't necessarily think there was a major connection there, but I was feeling unusually excited and, well, aroused by this girl. This made me feel guilty; I'm not a religious person, nor do I subscribe to the "wait until marriage" mindset, but as someone that's never had anything even close to a sexual relationship with a girl, that got me thinking. I started thinking, what if she and I had started meeting up and going on dates? What if it got to a point where sex was on the table? Would it be wrong for me to sleep with her if I didn't know whether or not I liked her enough to consider her a long term partner? Would that make me a bad person?