I’m not a fan of online dating. It reminds me of being down the sweet aisle at the super market. You’re presented with SO MUCH choice, all the options luring you in with their colourful wrapping and fancy quirks but ultimately, when you take your choice home you realise it’s bad for you and tastes like shit. That’s what I think of when someone asks for my opinion of online dating. Too much choice and always ends up being crap anyway.

When you’re bored you’ll scroll through the apps on your phone aimlessly, where people post the highlights of their life to make them seem more interesting and subsequently more ‘dateable’, but a few weeks in you’ll realise that they weren’t what you wanted after all. They’re not quite the version of themselves they had advertised.

I treat online dating as more of a hobby, something that keeps me actively within the dating scene rather than using it as a tool that will actually find me love. All the people you end up meeting are ultimately nothing that you expect and most definitely not the person you imagine you’ll spend forever with. All of my single friends agree that online dating is just a way of making sure you don’t forget how to flirt, you need to make sure you’re well versed for when you actually bump into ‘the one’.

Although not everyone may be as you expect when you meet them off of an online platform, there is one thing you can do which I believe will save you a lot of disappointment!

Get them to send a voice note before you meet them … this might sound like a really minor thing, but someones voice can tell you a lot about them! It can definitely reveal far more than a few text exchanges.

You like accents? Great, well the guy you’re about to meet has a very strong European one and now you know exactly how attracted you’ll be to the words that fall from his mouth. Or maybe you don’t like accents? Well … did you not realised the name he had displayed on his profile (Jo) had been shortened from José? Lucky escape here then, now you won’t have to hide your disappointment from the moment he says hello and kisses your cheek.

Maybe you like someone who comes across manly and in control of things going on around him? Good job he sent you that voice note of that weird laugh giggle he does then aye? Maybe that’s something you can look past, I don’t know. But what I do know is that you’re prepared, it won’t be a shock turn off that you’ll have to hide. Maybe you won’t mind that he’s not as macho as you’re wanting, because you’ve been having such great conversations.

So you cant stand talking to a girl who uses the word ‘mate’ excessively … ask her to send you a voice note about her day! Getting someone to speak in a long sentence will make sure they use all the normal vocabulary that they do in every day life, it will be easier to catch a slip up that way. Now you won’t have to grimace away from her when she calls you mate, as an expression of excitement about something you’re telling her.

Maybe you’ve realised that they say ‘erm’ a lot? At least now you know it wasn’t just first date nerves, thats actually their choice of sentence filler. Find it annoying? At least you found out before you met them!

A voice note can save you from a thousand awkward situations, you will no longer be as in the dark before you meet someone like you may have been previously. You now know more about them, but obviously it doesn’t mean you should make all of your prejudgements this way! Good luck.