is he the one? 15 signs the one you are dating online is for real.

So you’ve been chatting with him online for awhile now and you’re wondering if he is really the one. Is he boyfriend material, or just a loser playing with your heart?

Have you tried the Ultimate Player or Keeper Quiz yet? If not, go do it now before you read this blog. 

The 15 signs that will help you assess if the guy you’ve been dating online is for real covers some of the most basic and common sense things, doesn’t it? But believe me, it can be hard to take notice of the little things when you are ‘deep in chat’ with someone who feels like the right guy. In my personal experience, the emotions I was going through while chatting online certainly clouded my perceptions. Maybe I was just clinging on to the hope that maybe there is someone special out there for me. 

If this sounds like you, then I urge you to turn up that small voice inside of you – the one that is playing the devil’s advocate and planting that tiny seed of doubt in your head. What are you afraid of? You really have nothing to lose: if he passes the test with flying colors, then you know that something very special and long term could potentially come of it. But if he fails the test, you should be thankful that you were warned before you got seriously hurt. 

Remember, so what if you lose something that seemed so right and could have been? The bottom line is, it wouldn’t have worked out anyway. And if I were in your shoes, I would rather find out before we’re both in too deep. If he is truly playing with your heart, you really don’t deserve this. And he certainly doesn’t deserve you!

Let’s take a look at the signs and you will realize that it just makes complete sense! 

1.     Does he consistently chat with you at the same time(s) (e.g. 8 p.m.) on most days?

Yes, he may be working and can only ‘meet’ you at the same time everyday. But it would be wise of you to vary your chat times as much as possible throughout the day, for example, in the weekends, earlier or later on some weekday evenings, or on days off work. If he is willing and able to chat with you at varying times every time, it would be less likely that he is trying to hide something or someone in his life. He could be a married man pretending to be available and chatting online with you, while his wife is cooking dinner in the kitchen and his kids are in the bedroom doing their homework. Or he could be a single man managing a few ‘long term’ relationships at the same time. Maybe he has Julie scheduled for 6 pm, Andrea at 7 pm, and you at 8 pm!

2.  Are your chats often interrupted where, for example, he may have to leave his computer while you wait, without any good reason? 

By the same token, if something or someone else is demanding his time, he may be more likely to interrupt your chat. Think about the reasons (or excuses) he is giving for leaving the computer in the middle of your chats – are they perfectly believable or are his same, old excuses starting to smell a little fishy?

If you’re less than impressed with your guy’s frequent absences from the computer, be open and honest with him. Ask him if something or someone else is distracting him. If you are not satisfied with the answer, ask him if you can call and talk to him over the phone (See Question No. 8). If he tries to schedule another time in the near future, or insists that he calls you instead, it’s time you seriously dig deeper.

3.  Does he appear to have a life outside of you (and his computer)? 

If your guy spends hours on end chatting with you and still wants more, don’t get too excited. While it’s great that he finds you so intriguing and hard to get enough of, you have to seriously ask yourself this question (apart from ‘does he have a job’): does he have a life outside of you and his computer? 

Quite honestly, if he didn’t have a life before he met you, it is quite likely that he will not have a life after he meets you. For one, you really don’t want a social recluse for a mate. You and your guy will be much happier if your social circles extend beyond the both of you because you would have more experiences to share with each other. Besides, most women seem to prefer a man who is able to take charge sometimes. There is a fairly high chance that a man who doesn’t have a life outside of you and his computer could have self-esteem issues, and so could likely depend on you for direction on most matters in your relationship, even trivial ones, like ‘where to have dinner tonight’. 

This issue can be worse if it is combined with Question No. 5. If he is isolating himself because of a major change in his life, such as a recent divorce, debt or bankruptcy, he may actually form an unhealthy association between you and his problems. Sure, he may see you as the solution to all his problems – a light at the end of the tunnel, or the cloud with a silver lining. But in truth, his world may come crashing down when he realizes that you are just another human being who is capable of failing or disappointing him. 

I’m not saying that you should avoid a potential true love just because he is going through a major change in his life. In fact, your companionship and support are crucial during this period. He does, however, need to be able to pull himself through major challenges in his life and be a stronger and better person for himself, as well as for you – regardless of whether he has your undying support or not.

4.  Does he appear to have friends and family in his life whom he talks to you about?

As you spend more time with your guy, you should feel yourself becoming more integrated with his life and his circle of friends and family. The more intimate your relationship gets, the more he should tell you about his friends and family. This should apply even if you have not yet met each other in-person. For one, his having friends and family would imply that his social circle extends beyond you and his computer. 

In addition, the fact that he is comfortable opening up his personal life to you also indicates that he is probably whom he says he is. And the more he speaks of specific characters in his circle, the more you can be sure that these persons do really exist. 

5. Is he going through a major change in his life, for example, a recent divorce, loss of a loved one, debt, bankruptcy, etc.?

As I mentioned earlier, emotional baggage can be destructive for any relationship. 

Chatting and becoming intimate with someone online who may be undergoing a major change in his life can be quite tricky. Just think about it: you will not be truly able to experience the person in his ‘normal’ state. Instead, you will be dealing with someone who may be just a little unsettled, stressed, insecure, disgruntled, or even depressed from a major trial in his life. Already, your relationship is starting out on the wrong foot. 

Besides, people can change when their circumstances change – simply because they adapt in order to not crumble under the stress of a major trial. If you develop a relationship with someone during a major setback in his life, you may get a nasty surprise when he recovers from his dire straits one day, and becomes a totally different man! 

I know a couple who recently split up after close to twenty years of marriage. She found out that he had been cheating on her with his business partner for over a year. It was really unfortunate to see their family being torn apart. When he was asked why he decided to have an affair, he claimed that when he left his job as a military officer to start his own business, he suddenly felt liberated. Where he was used to having mostly male co-workers in the military, his world had now opened up when he entered the business world and was introduced to female colleagues. His circumstances changed, and so he learned to adapt. Unfortunately, he chose the path of destruction for his marriage. 

Of course, there is also the argument that you can be drawn closer to each other when you pull through tough experiences in life together. Sure, that does happen too. But if you had to paint a picture, wouldn’t you prefer to start working on a fresh, new piece of canvas instead of one where someone else has already begun painting on? 

Once again, you deserve the best true love, so leave the baggage behind, step up and claim him!

6.  Is he hesitant about sending you recent photos of himself?

You would think that any idiot would see through a guy who is hesitant about sending you recent pictures of himself. Well, I guess I was an idiot! For almost a year of chatting with a certain fellow, I actually believed him when he sent me pictures of himself with low resolution, and told me he was thirty-six years old. Those pictures turned out to be him alright – more than ten years younger! 

In hindsight, I should have suspected that something was amiss when he told me that most of his photos were with his ex-wife, and that he really didn’t take many pictures of himself since they split up. I mean, honestly, how hard is it for one to take selfies and email them to you? There is really no excuse of not being able to do that – particularly since we now live in a world where digital cameras, camera phones, scanners, and every electronic gadget your mind can possibly fathom are easily accessible! And of course, if one absolutely must, there is still the traditional way of taking a few pictures with the good old camera, and sending those pictures by snail mail through the local post office. It’s not hard at all, and certainly not impossible. 

You have every right to demand recent photos of your online fellow (time-stamped would be nice). And if he is serious about you, he would want to give you the opportunity to accept him for who he is, online and in-person. 

7.  Does he tell others in his life about you?

Just as your guy is likely to tell you more about his friends and family if he is serious about his relationship with you, he will tell his social circles about you. 

Listen out in your conversations for any indication that he does mention about you to his friends and family. Ask him about their reactions and responses. Ask him about his response to their reactions. 

My husband used to tell me that he told his closest friends and family members about me when we were chatting. He told them that he was really interested in this girl who lived in Singapore, halfway across the world. I can just imagine how most of them were either trying to be polite or empathetic as they listened to him share about his online encounters with me. In their hearts, they probably didn’t think our long distance, online relationship would ever work out. I’m sure he knew they were skeptical. And he, too, wasn’t quite sure if we would ever work out, given our circumstances. Yet, he persisted with faith and one day, it happened – we got together and three years later, we were married. 

Listen closely to how your guy talks about your relationship. If he is serious about you, he will speak confidently about your future – particularly if there is a plan in place where both of you will be together eventually. And most of all, he will take the risk of sharing the good news about your relationship with the people closest to him. 

Note that I said he will be confident about your future together, but he will not pressure you into making the same commitment unless you are ready to.

8. Have you chatted over the phone with him?

Chatting over the phone will add a whole new dimension to your relationship, but it should be done at the right time in your chat experience. It’s best to leave any phone contact out of the picture during your early chat sessions. If you use the phone early on in your chats, you may find it a lot harder to stop communicating with the person if, further along the road, you realize that the online relationship isn’t working out. My advice is to reserve telephone chats for someone who is really special – someone you can imagine having a long term relationship with. In other words, don’t chat over the phone until your online relationship has progressed to a deeper level and where you feel a deep connection with each other.

My very first telephone conversation with my husband happened after about three months of online chatting using chat programs. You can just imagine how excited we both were! Maybe we had built that moment up so much that when we actually did speak on the phone, it turned out to be an anti-climactic experience! For one, I had somehow imagined how his voice would sound, and it didn’t sound like anything I had anticipated. It wasn’t that I didn’t like what I heard – it was just different from what I had imagined or expected. We also ran out of things to say to each other! 

Don’t expect your first telephone conversation with your online guy to sweep you off your feet. Chatting online and chatting over the phone are two very different things and can have very different outcomes. Some people may express themselves better verbally while others may be more comfortable with written expression. Our subsequent telephone conversations got better, but as with any form of communication, you just get better at it with experience!

9.  Does he post about you on his social media?

So you’re both spending a significant amount of time chatting online with each other. By now, you should have found out if he has Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Snapchat or LinkedIn accounts. He says he sees you in his future, but when it comes to social media, your boyfriend never posts about you, nor does he want you to post about him on your social media.

His social media is his gateway to the world. If he has social media accounts, what he posts there is a great indication of how serious he is about your relationship. Well, his social media habits and what he posts also say alot about the kind of person he is, but that’s a topic for another day.

What is his relationship status? Has he updated it since you’ve been dating online? Does he hide your relationship, or is he really open to his contacts about “seeing” you? How many followers does he have? Whom are these followers – do they include his ex-girlfriends? Does he tag your account to his? Does he accept your tags of pictures of you and him together? Is he active on social media? How do you feel about his posts? Does he post you on social media?

Here are some common excuses or reasons he may have given you on why he doesn’t post about you on his social media:

1. My personal business is not for the world to see.
2. People are not interested in my personal life.
3. We just started dating.

None of these reasons may necessarily indicate that there are red flags. You do have to consider all of them in the context of a few things, like is your boyfriend a private person? How much does he like attention? How active is he on social media? If he posts on social media, what does he post about – do they tend to be personal or non-personal things? How long have you been dating? Does he get angry or hurtful when you bring up how it makes you feel?

It’s easy to feel insecure about your relationship, especially if he refuses to talk about you openly on his social media. But remember that everyone is different in terms of their use and perception of the purpose of social media. Some may see social media as intrusive, particularly if his intimate circle of friends and family are not a part of his contacts. He may not feel comfortable posting about you with people who don’t even know him personally. Whatever his reasons, keep this in perspective of other things he says or does, and don’t get mad about this one issue. In other words, how did he score in the other questions on the Ultimate Player or Keeper quiz?

10. Has he given you good reasons why you shouldn’t go visit him in-person?

There comes a time in every online relationship where the all-important question will come up: ‘shall we meet in-person?’ 

But what if you pop that question and he says no? Don’t fret just yet. First, ask yourself, what kind of reasons is he giving you for not wanting you to visit him? Do they sound like poor excuses? Or do they sound like valid reasons? How long have you been chatting for? And what stage is your relationship at? Have you started talking about getting serious? Are you both chatting with each other exclusively? 

If he says you shouldn’t visit him in-person because he feels that he may not be ready to take the relationship to the next level, that is perfectly normal – particularly if you haven’t yet discussed having a future together. 

But if he’s been whispering sweet-nothings and professing his love to you, his one and only, then you should be wary if he doesn’t want you to visit him in-person. It’s quite obvious, isn’t it? If he is serious about wanting to be in a relationship with you, wouldn’t you think he would want to be with you in-person, as much as you would like to be with him?

So you see, both extreme situations are cause for worry – the fellow who doesn’t want to meet you in-person, and the fellow who wants to meet you in-person too early in the relationship. You don’t want any part in a relationship with either of these guys.

11. Do you feel rushed into making a commitment towards a relationship with him?

Be wary about the fellow who thinks you’re the one for him even before you have both spent enough time getting to know each other. Perhaps even worse is the fact that he may expect you to feel the same way about him without you having had the opportunity to get to know him – online and in-person! For one, he is being selfish by imposing himself on you. By insisting that you’re already a couple without giving you a chance to make that decision for yourself, he is implying that you are not capable of making your own decisions about the relationship. This type of behavior may reveal what he could be like if you do end up together. 

Secondly, the way he commits to your relationship without first taking the time to know you in-person should warn you about how he makes important decisions in his life. It doesn’t take a nuclear scientist to know what it takes for both parties involved to commit to a relationship. If the guy you’re dating is one to decide on a potential mate so hastily, it could be a sign that he takes such commitments lightly. Either that, or he just wants to fall in love with you for the wrong reasons. You might notice, too, that someone who imposes his own ideals on you quite likely has an overbearing personality as well. It can get really hard to resolve any disagreements when you have different viewpoints. The outcome is often a win-lose situation where he wins and you lose.

You’re a grown woman, capable of making your own good decisions. Don’t let anyone make them for you. Remember, a good relationship is one where you want to spend the rest of your lives together because you really care about each other. As a result of the genuine love you share, you have the best of intentions and are respectful towards each other. You work together to make it work. There is honesty and integrity in the relationship. Sure, you can have disagreements from time to time, but you always feel secure in the relationship because it is built upon genuine love for each other.

12. Has he asked you for money, no matter what the reason(s)?

Scammers are a commonplace these days so it is necessary to warn you about them here. According to the US Federal Trade Commission, online daters have reported being scammed of $547 million in 2021 – an increase of 80% compared to 2017! The average amount lost per person is around $2,400. Unfortunately, online scammers are more common than you may think. Sadly, these people have only one objective – to steal your money. 

The strange part is we hear of people being cheated all the time of their money even though their situations can be so obvious to an outsider. The thing is, you won’t realize how easy it is for you to become a victim until you are in that situation. So if your special guy takes an unusual interest in your possessions, or begs you to pull him out of a dire financial situation, take heed! He could be trying to cheat you of your money, or your money could be the only reason why he is courting you. Just ask yourself: if you are in bad financial shape and need some money to settle your debts, would you not first seek the help of your closest friends and relatives, before you approach someone you have met online? And if nobody you know in your life would loan you any money, what does that imply about your character?

The rule of thumb here is: do not give any money to anyone you meet online, no matter how deep you think your relationship is. Once you have crossed over the virtual world, and established a strong relationship in the real world based on mutual trust over a reasonable amount of time, you can give away your money however you please.

13. Does he ask about your net worth in a way that makes you feel uneasy – even if just a little?

Similar to 12, if someone you are involved with online asks you questions that make you feel uneasy, particularly questions about your financial assets or personal worth, you should really consider the person’s motive behind your relationship. 

Remember, you are not obligated to reveal any information about yourself to anyone you meet online. We automatically put up our guard when someone we bump into on the street asks us where we live and how much we are worth. By the same token, there is no reason why someone you meet online shouldn’t have to first earn your trust before you reveal your personal information. 

14. Does he remember key information about you that you know you’ve told him before in previous chats?

Ladies, this is the difference between a man who listens and one who doesn’t; a man who remembers your anniversary and one who doesn’t; and most importantly, a man who truly loves and cares about you, and one who doesn’t. 

It is quite plain and simple. 

I was often amazed at how my husband remembered the smallest detail about me which I told him before in our previous online conversations. Today he is still the same way. If we are in a store and I tell him that I love the song playing in the background, he would download that same song for me when we get home, and surprise me by playing it on our music player! 

So while it is generally true that you cannot count on your man when it comes to his ability to multi-task or pick up his dirty socks around the house, your man should certainly be expected to remember details about you – particularly if you mean a lot to him. Don’t kid yourself: if the guy you are chatting with online doesn’t remember half the stuff you tell him about yourself, chances are, he isn’t too hot over you. 

Ouch!

I know that must hurt – but think about it: the man who is hot over you could still be out there. Wouldn’t you prefer to be with him? Life is too short – you’ve got to save your love for the one who truly deserves it. 

If you want to test if your guy is relationship material, keep a notebook handy beside your computer. Whenever you tell him key information about yourself, such as your likes and dislikes, jot it down in your notebook. A few weeks down the road, test his memory, in a casual fashion, by asking him if he remembers certain things about you. 

For instance, if in an earlier chat, you remarked that your favorite meal is lobster tails, seize the opportunity in a later chat to ask him if he would know which restaurant to take you to on your first date IRL. If he does, applaud his attention to detail. If he doesn’t, test him with other information about yourself. If he fails most of the tests, it’s time you be honest with yourself: is he truly interested in you?

15. Do you feel energized after every conversation with him?

What’s the point of wasting your time with someone who doesn’t inspire, energize and captivate you with every conversation? If you intend to share a future with your guy, you have to love every minute of it! 

So ask yourself:

• Do you feel energized after every conversation with him?
• Does he leave you looking forward to your next virtual rendezvous? 
• Does your heart pound in anticipation as you await his arrival online? 
• Does he move you to tears when he speaks from his heart?
• Does he inspire you to be the best you can be simply because he believes in you and what you are capable of? 
• Are there moments in your chats where you wish you could capture permanently in your heart? 
• Does he leave you with that warm and fuzzy feeling all over every time your hearts connect?

If you find yourself smiling because these statements apply to you, you’re probably on the right track with your online guy. 

So there – these are the 15 signs of whether he’s the one. If you play by these rules, you will be on track with finding the one who is Heaven-sent. And when you find him, you will experience a truly abundant and fulfilling love life!