![\"How](\"https:\/\/image.marriage.com\/advice\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/02\/How-to-Approach-Online-Dating.jpg\" "\\"How")
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The internet has forever changed how we date. Online dating is now the norm, which comes with many benefits, including convenience, increased variety, and efficiency.<\/span><\/p>\n What remains the same (and maybe worse), however, is the vulnerability and uncertainty that comes with putting yourself out there.<\/span><\/p>\n While technology makes it easier to see who is available, I’d argue it has actually increased the uncertainty factor. And when there’s uncertainty, we know worry and anxiety may not be far behind.<\/span><\/p>\n As a therapist specializing in anxiety and OCD, I’m trained in various ways that help people work through excessive worry.<\/span><\/p>\n But you don’t have to have a disorder to find your anxiety go up a level (or two) when dating. Still, you can use these methods to help you through it.<\/span><\/p>\n For example, I personally found myself referencing <\/span>exposure therapy<\/span><\/a> in my own online dating experiences.<\/span><\/p>\n Online dating feels an awful lot like an “exposure,”<\/b> which is therapy-speak for doing something you’ve been avoiding because of anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n Exposure therapy is highly effective. In my therapy practice, I use it to help people face their fears or anything they might be avoiding.<\/span><\/p>\n While I could write pages about all that exposure therapy entails, for our purposes here, I’ll boil it down to learning how to do hard or unpleasant, uncertain, or uncomfortable things in a systemic way.<\/span><\/p>\n Technology increases the uncertainty factor because it focuses on the options<\/b>: if you don’t like someone, return them for another one — instantly.<\/span><\/p>\n “Add to cart” takes on a whole new meaning. Meanwhile, you, the returned merchandise, are left to guess what happened.<\/span><\/p>\n Research has shown<\/span><\/a> that the success of online dating hinges on finding an instant connection and immediate chemistry, which research shows are not indicators of <\/span>long-lasting relationships<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Then we have social media and texting, which have made it easier for people to avoid basic <\/span>communication skills<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n Entire generations of daters may never know what it’s like to pick up the phone to get to know someone or to express that they want to go in a different direction.<\/span><\/p>\n Online dating has made avoiding too easy — and that has consequences on all sorts of levels.<\/span><\/p>\n Both people, the one avoiding and the victim of avoidance, are left to fill in the blanks with stories they make up.<\/span><\/p>\n Those stories can become the foundation for second-guessing and <\/span>low self-esteem<\/span><\/a>. And anxiety.<\/span><\/p>\n Also watch: The math of online dating<\/b><\/span>Technology and dating<\/span><\/h2>\n