Everything that follows is based strictly on our own experiences as online daters and subsequently as dating site owners and staff. Nothing is written in stone, and we welcome our members to add to the accumulated knowledge about online dating by offering their own knowledge and experiences through submissions to our Forum. It's a great place to share experiences and exchange stories, thoughts and questions on various related topics. You can start your own thread anytime you wish. Check it out here... When embarking on online dating for the first time it pays to be patient and learn from others. The time you take to read these sections might save you a lot of grief later, and make your experience of online dating considerably more enjoyable. Try To Open Your Mind To All Possibilities And Constrain Your Fear Of Losing Control When you're online dating with a long term relationship in mind it’s easy to become needy and to want each person you meet to be the "one". Don't do that, because it leads you to see what you want to see in each person you're meeting and dating instead of letting them each be themselves and seeing them for who they really are. Don't try to control them, simply let them be themselves and relax and be yourself. Let each meeting be a learning experience. Go into each meeting with no expectations, and hope only for a pleasant experience. And remember that the person on the other side is also longing for a true love and may also be prone to neediness. Don't let someone push you into a bad relationship just because they are desperate to find someone. It may feel good at first to be receiving such intense attention and to be made to feel so attractive to someone, but remember that if she or he is overly needy it simply means they need someone (anyone), it doesn't mean that they need you and you alone. Meeting people from other parts of the world, be it Thailand, the Philippines, Indonesia, or any of the other Asian Countries represented on AsiaLoveMatch.net, should be an eye opening and enjoyable experience. Spend your time chatting with and getting to know lots of people, and let each of them do the same. Eventually you'll find the simple nature of online dating on a site with lots of members is that your group of mutually interested contacts slowly narrows itself down to a small group of special ones, and then some of them become clearly more suited to be friends, until there are just two or three who really make your heart beat faster. That's when it's time to start planning to meet the ones you know could possibly be your ideal mate. Of course on a site like ALM, that means it's also time to start planning for a trip to Asia and the adventure of your life. If you treat every meeting like it has to be the one, like you can't wait another minute to lock down your life partner, then you'll find online dating to be a long, arduous and ultimately disappointing ordeal. But if you treat it as if it is a journey that is worth taking for the joy of the trip, with the finding of your other half as simply a bonus that may or may not be achieved, you will almost inevitably meet that special someone and enjoy that bonus. That is the way of life, and online dating is simply a way experiencing more meetings with more people in less time and thereby experiencing more of life than was ever before possible. If you treat it as that and nothing more than that, you will be rewarded in the end.