Casual Dating Websites

I would say, don't reset this time. However I would strongly recommend staying away from dating sites in the future, along with deleting your current dating profile.

Dating websites mimic porn in many ways. The prolonged searching for the perfect match, the dopamine released as the result of sexual arousal, and the novelty of having thousands of women's pictures at your fingertips. Even if the girls on there are "real", to your eyes they exist only on your computer screen. Therefore, you would be re-enforcing to your brain that sexual release comes from viewing pixelated images.

I highly recommend staying away from all sexual arousal in the first 90 days of your reboot. It is simply the fastest and best way to recover. As you may be aware, we, as addicts can find it very difficult to meter our sexual arousal responsibly. You never know when you could go too far and go back to porn. It is therefore safer to stay completely clean.

 

What NoBrainer said.

~Squeaky Soul

 

100% agree with NoBrainer. I had some experience with dating sites. There are a few thing about them. 1 - they are very low effective. 2 - for me the quite often lead to a pmo. If you really want to find a girlfriend I would recommend to pay more attention on the people surrounding you. Get more social, meet you're friends, go out somewhere interesting. And be patient!

 

I was able to completely stop PMO, 2 months now, but I have not been able to keep off the dating sites! Ive had sex multiple times from dating sites, so my brain has associated internet dating with sex, not relationships, not friendships, but sex. And as a result, I have yet to quit, sure, its not porn, but It just as addictive. Thats my next big issue to deal with in the near future.

Good answer, Nobrainer!

 

Well spoken sir.

 

Cheers guys

Unfortunately, this experience came from making the same mistake myself. I thought I could use a dating site responsibly, yet in 24 hours I visited the site at least 10 times. I sent messages to girls all over the country, and ended up very horny. I almost ended up relapsing, just from one day's dating site activity!

It's so not worth it.

 

Agree with everything above,plus I will add that a lot of the girls who hang on those sites are toxic.They`re looking for attention and free stuff mostly in my experience.You don`t need that in your recovery process.

 

If I gave up on the dating sites, I have no idea how I would meet women...let alone, a woman I like.

 

First step is to say to yourself that it isn't impossible to find one offline. Very difficult but start saying that to yourself until you believe it. Second step is to always keep improving yourself. Then well.. I am still working on the next step. Lol. I have an online dating site profile which I check occasionally it doesn't trigger me or anything like that so I'm ok with it. I have also gone to bars, cafes, libraries and other places to meet women. So I have a hybrid thing going on. It's just a matter of chance and letting things happen as well. Maybe the next step would be to meet women through cooking classes or dance lessons and stuff like that.

But it is really important to end the notion that if you gave up on dating sites you'll have no idea of how to meet women you like. Really important.

 

Thanks Ruso!

I suppose dating sites do to me what porn does to many guys on here.

 

A nickles advice...treat her like she has HIV.

 

And Ebola.

 

HIV has a 0.1% chance of being contracted by sexual intercourse with someone who has it.
Ebola is super rare, unless you live near a bio weapons lab.

 

Nobody's saying give them up forever. But when you're rebooting, it's probably a good idea to stay away from them until your brain chemistry returns to normal.

 

Honestly, I deleted them all for these exact reasons and I recommend anyone who is trying to successfully complete a NoFap challenge to do the same. A few months ago I had previously foresworn them, then I made myself the excuse to download Happn because I fooled myself into thinking that it had more of a 'real-life' thing going on than other apps (since it focuses on the people you walk past during the day) - how wrong I was! It's worse than Tinder in some ways because instead of being presented with one female at a time you are shown a dashboard with the pictures of hundreds of girls who you've walked past, side-by-side - and in a city like the one I live in which is renowned for its women being hot, that's a problem! It's just like the experience of browsing through a P site with the excessive amounts of stimulation it gives and before I formally decided to take on NoFap and delete the app it had led me to relapse and fantasise about girls who I had never met and who I didn't even remember walking past. They were girls who I wasn't even getting matches from, but who I knew I would have a chance with if I was talking to them in real life!

Those apps and sites aren't like real life in the slightest and they do not help you get used to interacting with real people and real women. They can mimic P and hinder your progress. Maybe there are exceptions and I know couples who have met through them, but even when I dated people through them last year I found it difficult to get any real chemistry going even though I found them very attractive and we had had some great back-and-forth messages going on prior to meeting up.

Much better to go out and try to talk to real people. Get used to starting conversations with strangers - any strangers, not just girls - we're talking taxi drivers, shopkeepers, bartenders, people in queues, people on the train (maybe not that last one if you live in a big city like mine though, they tend not to like that). And when you need to meet girls, seek out ways to meet them in real life - if you don't feel comfortable approaching them in public places like bars, supermarkets and bookshops at first (hell, I'm still no good at it) then look for places where you have a pretext to socialise like parties, foreign language conversation exchanges (these work like a charm for me), dance/language/cooking/sports classes, bookclubs, and so on. Try http://www.meetup.com/ for ideas in your city. The double confidence boost that you will get from getting out of the house to do something you enjoy and from getting girls' numbers while you're at it will be far greater than anything you could get out of a dating app, trust me.

 

Honestly, I deleted them all for these exact reasons and I recommend anyone who is trying to successfully complete a NoFap challenge to do the same. A few months ago I had previously foresworn them, then I made myself the excuse to download Happn because I fooled myself into thinking that it had more of a 'real-life' thing going on than other apps (since it focuses on the people you walk past during the day) - how wrong I was! It's worse than Tinder in some ways because instead of being presented with one female at a time you are shown a dashboard with the pictures of hundreds of girls who you've walked past, side-by-side - and in a city like the one I live in which is renowned for its women being hot, that's a problem! It's just like the experience of browsing through a P site with the excessive amounts of stimulation it gives and before I formally decided to take on NoFap and delete the app it had led me to relapse and fantasise about girls who I had never met and who I didn't even remember walking past. They were girls who I wasn't even getting matches from, but who I knew I would have a chance with if I was talking to them in real life!

Those apps and sites aren't like real life in the slightest and they do not help you get used to interacting with real people and real women. They can mimic P and hinder your progress. Maybe there are exceptions and I know couples who have met through them, but even when I dated people through them last year I found it difficult to get any real chemistry going even though I found them very attractive and we had had some great back-and-forth messages going on prior to meeting up.

Much better to go out and try to talk to real people. Get used to starting conversations with strangers - any strangers, not just girls - we're talking taxi drivers, shopkeepers, bartenders, people in queues, people on the train (maybe not that last one if you live in a big city like mine though, they tend not to like that). And when you need to meet girls, seek out ways to meet them in real life - if you don't feel comfortable approaching them in public places like bars, supermarkets and bookshops at first (hell, I'm still no good at it) then look for places where you have a pretext to socialise like parties, foreign language conversation exchanges (these work like a charm for me), dance/language/cooking/sports classes, bookclubs, and so on. Try http://www.meetup.com/ for ideas in your city. The double confidence boost that you will get from getting out of the house to do something you enjoy and from getting girls' numbers while you're at it will be far greater than anything you could get out of a dating app, trust me.

 

I've been using Tinder, and from this it looks like I should stop as it could lead me into another relapse. I want to get beyond 71 days this time, and Tinder will make it a lot harder by the sound of it. I've never used it to masturbate to, and don't use it to get aroused. I'm using it to try and meet new girls, as going out and socialising in the evening isn't easy for me physically. I think I may stop, as it will probably lead further on and make me want "real" porn again. Although, my brain probably reacts the same to Tinder pictures as to online porn. I don't know. I'm not using it for titillation, so should I delete my account and stop using it?

 

I would normally recommend deleting it while you do your reboot, or really until you feel like the symptoms you started the reboot with have been healed. You might not feel titillated, but the addictiveness of Tinder still comes from your primitive caveman brain constantly swiping right and going "yes, yes, more novelty, more new potential mates!" - and all this in front of a screen. So in that way it creates similar neural pathways to the one porn makes - it gets you used to unreality and alienates you from reality. I would normally say that during a reboot you should be trying to rewire your brain to getting used to getting out in the real world as much as possible (it's helped me so far, but I'm hardly a voice of authority on this one with only 2 weeks under my belt!)

But I can totally understand how dating sites might be useful if it's physically difficult to get out and meet girls, and in this case I'm not sure what to suggest if it's eliminating the only way to meet new people. I hope you don't mind my asking and that this isn't too rude, but what is it that makes it difficult to go out? Is it a health condition like a disability or illness? (Please don't feel like you have to say if it's too personal!)