One of the most alluring aspects that entices people to try online dating is the shear volume of people that you can meet and, therefore, have the opportunity to go out with, in a short period of time. Online you can talk to more people at the same time than even the most social person would meet in a week of going to the bars every night. This is due to the casual nature of online dating.

There have been times when I have been talking to and trying to make plans with several women at once because I was genuinely interested in meeting and going out with them all. Additionally, you are not going to go out on a first date with everyone that you talk to, therefore it only makes sense that people would play the odds and try to talk to a bunch of people at once, figuring that at least one of those interactions would lead to a date.

Unfortunately, the other side of the coin is that many conversations that are seemingly going well will abruptly end, or first dates that you thought would lead to a second don’t, because the person you went out with decided they had other better options on their plate. This isn’t something that any of us should take personally since it is the nature of the dating game (both on and offline); however, it still can leave you in a kind of dating purgatory in terms of where you stand with people you’re talking with or why your relationship suddenly ended.

That beingsaid, after being active with online dating for several months now, I met a woman recently who chose to buck the usual dating norms and was completely upfront about what her current situation was and where I stood. After emailing a few times several weeks ago, our correspondence abruptly ceased, with each of us doing our own thing. That was until the other night when she instant messaged me.

We ended up having a great conversation and I ended up asking her if she wanted to grab a drink sometime. She responded positively and gave me her number. However, after we chatted for a few more minutes and our conversation began to wind down, she asked if she could be honest with me about something. Her ensuing admission was that she wanted to be upfront that she had been casually seeing someone, but still wanted us to go out and see what happened. Since I assume that everyone I meet online is talking with or seeing other people I wasn’t surprised by the content of her admission, and was genuinely impressed by her honesty, which led me to respond that I wanted to meet her even more as a result.