A marriage agency or online search for a spouse?

Johnny writes to MYNIPPON.com as part of our romance advice service, "I have worked with introduction agencies in my town and have had no success meeting women. I am tired of looking for a long time. I want to find someone who has a even a reasonable fit with me, and maybe even get married, and raise a family. What can I do? Is online dating for me?"  (Related article:  Does eHarmony and such other online dating websites work?)

In today's fast-moving world of express dating, we are advising our clients to pursue several parallel strategies. Of course, there is nothing like going to as many social events as you can and trying to know more people. Not only you might like someone, chances are that people you will meet might recommend you to someone else that they know. However, in this case you are still dependent on so many things going right. What if you don't get invited to enough parties? What if you are a shy person and do not come across as a confident, charming, and fun person in a party?  Maybe you are better in one-on-one conversations! What if most of your friends/acquaintances/colleagues are already married and do not like to invite single people? What if you just don't have the time to go to parties and socialize? While it is something that you should try to do when you can, socializing as a way to find romance is not the most efficient way. 

I would like to suggest, therefore, as my financial planner would say, that you diversify. Try several things at the same time to improve your chances of winning. So get the word out among friends and family that you "love to party" and are also "looking for romance".  But, at the same time, take control of your dating life, which you can do by using the Internet. As I said in my previous article on the options available for dating online, you have to join the dating websites since everyone is doing it. So, yes people still go to bars and hang out everywhere, but since they have the Internet working for them 24/7 they are not so aggressive when it comes to meeting new people when they are out.  And there is no ambiguity online. While in a bar or at a party, you might be desperate to find someone but will pretend that you are not looking.  Sometimes this can actually harm you.  On the other hand on a dating website, since you have to pay for memberships (Important:  I simply do not advocate joining any dating websites that allow free memberships forever - they are full of people who are non-serious and the motive of these so-called free personal websites is not to help you find love, but to sell your personal information, bombard you with ads and SPAM, and get rich on your back), you know that you are only seeing the profiles of those people who are interested in what they say: it could be all the way from casual dating to plans for walking down the aisle.

I know you mention that you might want to get married but you have to ask if first you simply want to make friends, have casual dates/sex, or are already serious about jumping into the marriage game. That will determine the strategy that you should pursue. Let me suggest potential strategies for both scenarios.

• If you are simply interested in dating/friendship or casual romance/sex with (with no plans to getting married in the short-term), you can take a more creative and seductive approach to winning women. For instance, almost all women prefer exotic men - those that have interesting backgrounds and are just different from the average "Joe". Make yourself come across as someone unique - talk about how you grew up in this place with forests and how you enjoyed water sports, and how you learned cooking exotic dishes from your grandmother, and anything else that differentiates you from everyone else. Do an inventory of your past and your current hobbies and analyze what defines you, what distinguishes you from every one else out there, and emphasize that not only in your personal ad (tips on writing a winning personal ad), but also whenever you meet someone at a bar or at a party (job-seekers, salespeople, and consultants call it the elevator speech: a short, direct, and simple description of who you are as a person).

• If you wish to marry someone and are looking for a spouse, then you will have to be totally honest. While it doesn't hurt to have a personality transformation so that you are more attractive to others, you will need to really look at yourself and what you want in a life-partner. Many websites provide free personality profiles that tell you a lot about you and also about the type of person that will form a good match. But if you have made up your mind to have a long-term, committed relationship or get married you can increase your chances by targeting specific websites, for instance, eHarmony, which are directed towards women and men seeking life partners or soul mates.