Tag Archives: Ave Maria Singles

Dear Anthony,

What would be an acceptable number of members to be corresponding with on Ave Maria Singles at any given time? Should I contact only one member at a time and then move on to another, or should I correspond with many and then, once there is a connection, politely stop with the others?

Your question is a very good one, and an important one. It does not have a black-and-white answer, I’m afraid. It really depends on what you are comfortable with. I definitely encourage members to interact with more than one person at a time, and only the amount of people that they can comfortably handle having dialogue with. Yes, as one member becomes more interesting to you, begin to politely tell others whom you are less interested in that you need to stop corresponding. Tell them the truth. Everyone on the site should know that everyone else is doing the same thing; namely, interacting with other members at the same time in order to determine which person they want to invest more time and energy in. Here is an example of a polite way to stop corresponding with someone:

Dear [Name],

I’m so glad to have had the opportunity to correspond with you, but I need to stop corresponding at this time. There is another member I would like to spend more time getting to know. I am not sure if it will go anywhere further, but I believe I have to give it more of my time and energy. I am open to continuing to be in correspondence with you if you would like, but I felt it was important to tell you this. If you prefer not to correspond any further, I understand. I will be praying for you, and I ask that you pray for me. Thank you again for the times spent writing. It has been very flattering.

God bless you,
[Your name]

You can adjust this type of note in any way you wish. It really depends on whether you want to leave room or not to correspond again should it not work out with another member. If it did not work out with the other member and you wanted to get back in touch, you simply contact this person and say, “Just wanted you to know it did not work out with the member I told you about. I would love to correspond with you again, if you are open to it,” and see what happens.

Some members correspond with many people at one time, and some can handle only one person at a time. Again, it all depends on what you are comfortable with. I just always ask that members not overextend themselves to the point of not being able to reply to a person in a timely manner. That would be rude, so we want to avoid that happening. Just at least say, “Got your message and will get back to you soon, thank you,” or something like that. If you find it gets overwhelming, then decrease the amount of people you correspond with at one time and find your comfort zone.

Dear Anthony,

After a slow start on Ave Maria Singles, I’m now somewhat overwhelmed with corresponding with several women at once. It’s hard for me to turn anyone away. I don’t want to spread myself too thin, yet I don’t want to lose an opportunity with a new person either. How many would you say is too many to be writing to at the same time?

Great question. I’m glad you are having this problem :-) It’s certainly better than no correspondences. I’m glad you are being conscientious about this situation. You definitely don’t want to make anyone feel hurt or bad.

Regarding how many to write to at one time, my answer is to dialogue with as many as you can handle. I am a strong advocate of putting yourself out there to interact with as many single persons as you can in order to discover (and it IS a discovering process) the person you want to focus your efforts on toward seriousness. It might happen that you start narrowing down those you take more effort with, until you finally get to the point where there is one person you want to devote your entire attention to. Then, once you are in a “serious” relationship (which means you are exclusive), you enter “courtship” (which is the process of moving toward engagement to be married by discovering if there is any reason you should NOT marry this person).

I guess that does not answer your question exactly. That is because it is different for each person. Some people just can’t handle writing to more than one person at a time. For some, it will be two or three. Then there are those who are so dedicated to the process of finding someone that they invest a lot of time in corresponding with many, many people and narrow it down as rapidly as possible. But this anxiousness can backfire. So many men take the inappropriate (and self-destructive) route of copying and pasting some very short, insincere, generic note that women can spot right away and are turned off by. For example: “Hi, saw your profile, write me if you want,” or something like that. It is critical that your initial contacts makes sense if you are going to write to many people. If you plan to write something like I just gave as an example, then don’t bother writing at all. No one (especially women) likes getting an initial contact from someone that shows no evidence of even reading their profile. It is a turnoff and will get you nowhere, as well as waste your time.

A great initial contact is at least a good paragraph or two that shares something about what you liked about their profile as well as something about yourself. For women who don’t like initiating a contact, their strategy is to briefly share something she liked about his profile and leave it at that. A man knows what to do with that. If he doesn’t, then he is not for her. At any rate, keeping dialogue with several or many members is challenging. But unless it can be done in a way that shows real interest and sincerity (and not like you are saying the same thing to everyone), then it can’t be very effective. In other words, every message to someone should be customized to that person. Everyone, especially a woman, needs to feel unique and special. After all, the person you marry has to be someone who stands out above the rest. A well-written message will go a long way in making someone feel that way, and help with the chances of finding the person you are praying for.

This is the nature of meeting someone online. It’s a lot of work, so it has to be carefully done, and you have to choose how many you write to at a practical level so this level of attention and customization can be maintained. It’s hard to do this in person specifically because once in person, you are automatically at a more intimate level and you are dealing your time that demands more of the “physical presence”. Until you meet people in person (which should be the goal of anyone you start writing to), you just keep writing to people who seem interesting and trying to discover who you more inclined to want to meet in person.

It should not take more than a month or two to meet someone in person. Otherwise, you risk wasting your time and the other person’s time with endless written dialogue. Once you start meeting people in person, you realistically cannot manage more than one to three people at a time.

As for what to say to those you are no longer interested in, again, this is the nature of meeting someone online. Everyone has to know that everyone else is doing the same kind of scrutinizing in their searches and decisions about corresponding. There is absolutely nothing wrong with saying, “I think you are very interesting, but it would not be fair to you if I wrote any further because I am writing to a few people now. I would like to see where they lead. But if they do not lead anywhere, it would be an honor to correspond with you. I hope you understand. I will pray for you. Please pray for me.” I’m sure many members will agree that just getting any reply at all would be an improvement. So writing some reply is great, but writing something like this is even better.

Anyone who does not appreciate a reply like that is not cut out for online dating. They should just do what they can to meet people offline wherever they can. It takes thick skin and a real commitment to the process in order to have success with online dating. It is not right for people to take anything “personally”. No one is deliberately out to get anyone else. They just want to meet the one person they are praying for toward marriage. At the same time, you (and others) should not feel bad about having to tell members you do not have the capability of writing. No need to say “not interested.” Rather, say you would be interested in writing if you were not doing so with others, and will be open to doing so if circumstances chan

Dear Anthony,

Is there any hope of finding a man locally on your site? I am now a Catholic school teacher and love it, plus my family is here and I do not want to move away from them. I have not had any success meeting someone locally. So I’ll just do my thing in my area, and if I meet someone, it will be through my activities here.

Is there any hope of finding a man locally on Ave Maria Singles? Sure there is. But the fact is, 70 percent of our success stories (of the 800 marriages I know of) are of two people from different states. And most times it is the woman who does the moving, which makes sense. If a man has a job he is established in, and since he is the provider of the home once married, it makes sense that the woman be prepared to move to where he is. I know that is a very hard thing to do, but it is a leap of faith every woman should be prepared to make should she meet a man she wants to marry.

A man, however, has to be very sensitive to the fact that a woman needs her family, especially her mother. For a new mother, there is nothing quite like having your own mother around to confide in, or visit, or have help out. Women thrive on this. Early on in my marriage, there were many a moment when Bridget would cry on my shoulder because she did not have her mother around to talk to and visit. She lost her mother before we were married. So I have seen how important the mother is to a woman. It would serve a man well to consider a woman’s family as he seeks to court her and marry her. He should be very eager to make sure she gets to see her mother or family periodically, if not often. If he shows this sensitivity to her, it will go a long way in his gaining her trust and deeper love.

I guess what I am saying is that it is unlikely that you will meet someone locally from using Ave Maria Singles. Finding a solid, practicing Catholic who has all the qualities you are attracted to is very hard to find. You need to be open to God’s will, but also to God’s influence. These 100-percent practicing Catholics are a minority, and they are scattered everywhere. If you allow God to bring you options from these places, you will find there are more opportunities for you. Yes, it might mean you will have to move, but you have to believe your vocation is more important than your family or your teaching at a Catholic school. If you believe that, then you need to be prepared to get into your vocation as the highest priority of your life. Otherwise, you should prepare yourself for remaining unmarried as a real option (not by choice but by default because there was no one locally who came along).

I feel for you. When you love your family that much, or your job, it can be very difficult to see how God would want you to give them up. But I have dealt with hundreds of people just like you who are now married to a person that they ended up choosing over their family or job. They are now very happy. And the bottom line is this: until you meet the person you fall in love with, it doesn’t make sense to give up anything. But when you do fall in love, everything changes, and it will make you do things you thought you never would do before.

Pray about it more. I really believe you need to make your vocation the highest priority, to do what you need to do to meet the kind of person you would marry, and to leave the rest to trusting in God. I am praying for you.

Dear Anthony,

I have met men on AMS who said they were not sure if they were ready for marriage. This is frustrating, as I do not want to waste my time on men who turn out to be unwilling to make any commitment. Do you have any advice? Can you screen members better?

I am very sorry this has happened to you. There is no doubt that it is a source of major frustration for the women on AMS (and everywhere, for that matter) to have to deal with men who won’t make what I call “commitment moves.” Some men really are not capable of making a commitment, or are afraid to, or they are just making excuses so they don’t have to go through a confrontation with the woman as to what is the true reason they will not move forward. Perhaps they are embarrassed as to what that reason is (not attracted to the looks, think there is someone better-looking they could be with, etc.).

But whatever is the truth, the idea of men writing for some time on a site like ours and not being open to marriage is definitely inappropriate. I call this “The Stringing Along Game.” Men should never string a woman along. A woman should not do that either. To string along means to spend a lot of time in correspondence with no intention of making a commitment move. A lot of time would be 2+ months. There is no reason that two people on our service should be corresponding for that long without being open to a logical next commitment move, which would be meeting in person and being open to an exclusive relationship once you know each other in person.

Getting in person is critical to the next logical commitment move, which is exclusivity. No matter how well things are going in correspondence, no one should EVER assume anything for sure until they meet in person. When you are in person, only then do you know if the “connection” is real. Sometimes people turn out to be different in person than they are in writing.

When should the “in person” stage happen? I believe that by one month after first writing, the two should either be meeting in person or making serious plans to meet. And until they meet in person, both should be actively pursuing other people. This effort to meet in person is the very first commitment move. It is a good sign to each other that there is still potential of the relationship becoming something more. To drag correspondence on longer does risk being a waste of time for one or both. You are so right, you do NOT want to waste your time. So a woman should NEVER, EVER let a man get away with writing to her for more than a month without a commitment move to meet in person. For those women who do allow men to write to them for two, three, four months or more, the hurt potential is great if he finally does stop writing, or you meet in person and he is not interested after that, or you finally realize he is not going to make a move. You do not want to put yourself in a position to get hurt unnecessarily.

Web sites like Ave Maria Singles are not meant to be replacements for the normal way human beings interact, especially two members of the opposite sex who are trying to meet someone for future marriage. So a web site must never be considered the responsible party when it comes to a human being’s happiness.

You mentioned that we should screen better. That is impossible. We present our purposes clearly, and people agree formally to the purposes. We ask questions, and people answer. The problem is that we are dealing with fallen human nature, which we all share. That means every person is capable of sinning, but more than that, human beings with fallen human nature are capable of deceiving themselves. In other words, we often think we are doing or saying something good when in fact it is bad (whether objectively or subjectively). That is why so often we can see someone has done or said something and it perplexes us as to why they are not bothered by it. That is because they really “believe” they are doing good. A perfect example is those who say they are Catholic but believe that contraception or abortion is the choice of an individual. They really “believe” they are Catholic and are also right and doing good in their position.

So what can a person (or a web site) do when you are dealing with fallen human nature? I do think Ave Maria Singles does the best job at helping people pre-qualify themselves before they join (and many don’t join because they realize our standards are higher than they are comfortable with), and providing a questionnaire that can tell a lot about a person ahead of time. But this reality of persons who say or show by action that they are not really serious about finding someone and marrying is very, very hard to pre-screen. I suppose we could ask the question “Are you serious about marriage and making a commitment?” but do you believe the answer “yes” by the person will mean they are? There is no way to join Ave Maria Singles (as it is now) without knowing that we are about marriage and for the serious marriage-minded. Unfortunately, members cannot know the truth about any other members until they interact with them.

That is why I am always telling members, especially women, that you have to do certain things that insure you will not be wasting your time. One of those things is to NOT allow a member to get away with “Perpetual Writing Syndrome.” Insist (even mention it on your profile) that you want meeting in person sooner rather than later to be a priority. Even say it in the second message — kindly say that you are open to correspondence but need to know if this person is open to and capable of meeting in person soon after. Feel out where they are with the value of meeting in person and the concept of not wasting time. I’m sure you will always have a favorable response, and you will have ensured that you don’t waste your time.