If you are single and online dating this blog is for you. I frequently have clients come in who are looking to find a partner who discuss the trials and tribulation of online dating. There are, of course, many positive things to online dating: most people are doing it, it gives you access to people who are also looking to date and it can put you in contact with people you may not otherwise meet. That being said, online dating poses it’s own set of challenges. For example, sometimes people’s profiles are deceiving – they make an individual seem different (for better or for worse) then he or she is in real life, or perhaps you meet up and find the face to face 
connection missing.
Because in a lot of ways everybody is doing online dating these days (unlike when it first came out and there were only a few options for online dating, there are now dozens of sites) it also can feel like there are many people and no matches. Online dating requires you to invest a lot of time and effort between setting up accounts and making profiles to actually finding others you want to spend a few hours of your precious spare time meeting up with. After some time this can feel exhausting and can sadly leave us feeling more hopeless than we ought to.
If you find yourself in this position I recommend you give yourself permission to take a break. It is absolutely possible to experience online dating fatigue (or burnout) and continuing to push when we feel exhausted (or exasperated) by the process usually makes us more cynical and even less likely to find someone. So instead of pushing through, give yourself some time, whether this be a month or a few months, to completely disconnect. When I say completely, I genuinely mean completely. As with any burnout if you keep investing time and energy, even in small increments, you won’t ever fully come out of the exhaustion or cynicism. So take a complete break, take the apps off your phone and don’t go on the sites when you are home. Take the time to focus on doing things for yourself, increase your self care, enjoy connecting with your friends. When you are feeling more ready to fully invest in online dating again, then try again. It is okay to take time off, it doesn’t decrease your chances of finding someone (in some ways it might increase it because you’ll be in a better head space when you come back to it).
So my hope for you right now is that you take this time to listen to where you are at and how you are feeling. If you are feeling exhausted by the whole process – take some time for you and recharge, Spring is a wonderful time for that.
