When Should We Meet In Person?

So you sent a message and got a reply!  Keep that fun conversation going, but remember that the ultimate goal of CM is to meet someone in person!  No one ever got married by correspondence.

When is the ideal time to meet up for a real in-person date?  The short answer is as soon as possible.

Does this potential match live in your town?  Why not meet up as soon as this weekend?  This could be a casual coffee date or lunch date followed by a walk downtown.   Do they live a couple hours away?  It shouldn't be too hard to meet halfway for a meal, should it?

What if they live a day's drive away?  This is a bit more of a time-and-expense investment.  The most sanity-preserving way would probably be to drive up for a weekend and stay in a hotel nearby.  Because of the extra expense involved, you will probably want to message a little longer to make sure it's worth it, let's say 2-4 weeks.  During this time you will also probably want to advance to phone calls and/or video chatting.  Four weeks of messaging and chatting should be enough to know whether a weekend trip is a good investment.

Now, let's say they are a plane ride away.  This increases the expense of in-person visits substantially.  However, many couples make it work.  Remember, you are pursuing your vocation to marriage, and it's worth saving up for visits!  The amount of time needed to discern whether you want to fly across the country will probably be a little longer than that needed to decide to drive for a few hours.  You will take the same steps of messaging and having phone or video chats, but it might take longer to get to the point of booking an airplane flight.  Perhaps it will take up to 3 months, although it might be more or less than that, depending on your schedule and finances.  My point is that a greater financial investment requires a little more time to discern.

Finally, there is the international scenario.  If you know in your heart that you are never going to want to travel out of the country or play host to a foreign match, I advise not getting started on romantic messaging.  On the other hand, if you haven't absolutely excluded the possibility, then you will obviously have to take some time getting to know this person by messaging, phone, and video before setting up international travel.  Start saving money, and if things start to look serious then it's time to start investigating your country's immigration and marriage laws.

So it seems that the amount of time before meeting in person is directly proportional to the distance and expense of the meeting, but never lose sight of the fact that you are on a dating site for the purpose of actually meeting people, not for endless messaging!