Wow…
But like I said-Online dating is not for me-I prayed about it allready lol…
So here’s the thing- before you date, you have to be friends first-in my opinioin.
But-the question is then=how do you make friends with other Catholics?
My thoughts remain the same on this=going to Daily Mass and getting involved in groups at your/my local parrish…etc etc etc…
so what do you think?
Since you asked what we thought, I’ll give you a different perspective on the bolded part.
Where two people are mutually attracted to each other, starting as friends is probably not a problem for either of them. It shouldn’t be a problem for someone who is attracted but is not “madly in love”. However, once you know you want a relationship and the other person is a socially active individual that may likely form a relationship with someone other than you in the meantime, you don’t really think about becoming friends first. Also, for some people, friendship generally entails the infamous friend-zoning, meaning you become nonattractive, forever a pal and nothing more, and yet others just don’t want to risk losing a friendship and won’t date you.
Finally, artificial restrictions are just awkward. Becoming just friends is not a natural reaction to falling in love with someone. “Wow, what a lovely girl! I could marry her. In fact, I’d love to marry someone like her. Let’s become friends!” is probably not a train of thought that will ever occur in a male brain, I think.
This said, while I want to make my intentions clear if I’m taken by a lady, and while I won’t cross certain boundaries, it wan’t exactly look like gaining another colleague. On the other hand, I like slow pace and I believe there’s a lot of good things to say about it. In fact, whenever a relationship prospect appears for me, friendship inevitably builds up along with any sort of attraction, flirting etc. It’s not a mere game of senses. I also want to tone things down a couple of notches with people whom I first meet online on a “dating site” or in some random social circumstances, in which case it is first of all making acquaintance in the beginning (in fact, it will generally stay at “sir/madam” level for a while), and I very much appreciate a lot of level-headed, non-intrusive simple readiness to talk, without introducing tension by overly flirty moves.

Then again, were I smitten and charmed, there’s no doubt I totally wouldn’t mind flirty moves. But I typically am not smitten to that level. Basically, I believe the degree of being smitten matters a lot in people’s approach to all this friends stuff, as well as a number of other boundaries.