Protecting Your Loneliness

Cliff Potts, editor-in-chief, WPS News
Baybay City, Leyte, Philippines — May 9, 2026 — 4:05 p.m.

Loneliness is not weakness.

It is human.

After loss, silence grows louder. Evenings stretch. The house feels different. The mind looks for warmth, for reassurance that connection is still possible.

That search is natural.

It is also the pressure point.

Online extraction does not begin with greed. It begins with hope. It begins with the desire to feel seen again, valued again, wanted again.

There is nothing foolish about that desire.

What becomes dangerous is urgency.

When affection arrives too fast, slow it down.
When promises arrive before proof, pause.
When money appears before trust, stop.

Protecting your loneliness does not mean closing your heart. It means refusing to let desperation make decisions for you.

You are allowed to take your time.
You are allowed to require verification.
You are allowed to walk away without argument.

If someone reacts badly to patience, that reaction is information.

Loneliness can make rapid intimacy feel like healing. It can make flattery feel like stability. But real companionship grows through shared time and shared reality, not digital intensity.

Build your life first.

Strengthen friendships.
Maintain routines.
Engage in real-world spaces.
Invest in health and purpose.

When your foundation is steady, loneliness becomes something you manage, not something that manages you.

The goal is not to eliminate loneliness.

The goal is to guard it.

Guard it from urgency.
Guard it from flattery.
Guard it from anyone who treats it as leverage.

Companionship is worth waiting for.

Peace is worth protecting.

Selective is not cold.
Selective is strong.

And strong people do not live inside scripts.

They choose who enters their lives.

Sexualized Dating Profiles: A Double-Edged Sword in the Search for Connection

New research shows sexualized dating profiles might get attention but can make people seem less ready for serious relationships. Find out why.

#DatingApps, #RelationshipAdvice, #OnlineDating, #DatingTips, #LoveLife

https://newsletter.tf/sexual-dating-profiles-hurt-long-term-relationship-chances/

Research shows that overtly sexualized dating profiles might get more initial views, but they can make people seem less likely to be good partners for long-term relationships, according to recent studies.

#DatingApps, #RelationshipAdvice, #OnlineDating, #DatingTips, #LoveLife
https://newsletter.tf/sexual-dating-profiles-hurt-long-term-relationship-chances/

Your 30s might be the best decade to fall in love ☕💍

Read more: https://flip.it/n-qzh1

#lifestyle #dating #relationship #love #datingtips #onlinedating #30s #commitment

Dating apps abroad aren't just for romance—they're your secret travel weapon 📱💗

Read more: https://flip.it/CCO18q

#lifestyle #travel #dating #relationship #onlinedating #datingapp #datingtips #wanderlust

Was für ein Arschloch von Mann 🤬 Wie kann mann sich denken, dass so eine Stalkingnummer gut ankommt?! 😳

Liebt Euch! Der Dating Podcast:
#137 Ein Match aus der Hölle

https://www.ardsounds.de/episode/urn:ard:episode:407947549ac0665e/

#Dating #Onlinedating #Bumble #Podcast #UnserDing #LiebtEuch #Stalking

Dear #Fediverse,

CONTENT WARNING, may be upsetting to some readers, contains descriptions of unfortunate dating situations.

---

I've had the pleasure of meeting some good men through #Mastodon but as a female who grew up in the southeastern United States, I can also (sadly) verify the truths of this Substack post.

I wish I could tell you a totally different story. I really do. But I carry a can of pepperspray on my keychain. It's covered with glitter so as to look unremarkable. I bought an armload of them last year, and passed them out to female relatives, friends, and #immigrant coworkers, plus a couple of #Trans coworkers.

None of that would have protected women in their own private homes, from their own husbands.

And this abuse is so common that I stopped even trying any form of #onlinedating due to the overwhelming number of men who made it clear straight away that my only valid purpose on this earth (in their opinions) was to satisfy their immediate need for sex. Even some of the men who seemed nice during online chats went there immediately after getting my phone number, or meeting in person. In one case, I narrowly escaped sexual violence. In most cases, I was sent unsolicited close-ups of the man's genitalia.

I was forced to change my #dating rules again and again, tightening my restrictions on when and where I was willing to meet, refusing to give out personal info until I had run a formal background check. I even put that in writing on my dating profile, but one guy was still angry when I discovered his arrests for violence against prior girlfriends. Another guy was angry because I didn't want to date a man whose driver's license was suspended due to alcohol abuse (driving while intoxicated).

After 10+ years of trying almost every free or paid online dating app or website, I can attest from firsthand experience that at least 80% of the men I encountered went directly or almost directly to describing in detail their specific sexual fantasies and then asking me to participate, either in online conversations, or by meeting at their homes, or meeting at a hotel.

After 10+ years of online dating, I can also say I met a small number of genuinely nice, respectful men too. Most of them had large numbers of children, though, and were heavily in debt, due to child support. I felt bad for them, but that was a package deal I didn't want to take on.

After 10+ years, I had only met one man that I regret letting get away, but that was at the end of that decade spent trying, and I guess I had a touch of PTSD. I do hope he found someone nice.

https://open.substack.com/pub/historyofwomen/p/rape-academy-context

Seen in a dating profile:

"Not sure what I'm doing here."

With a picture of a black cat. This is it. This is the entire profile.

You're on a dating app. It is for dating. It's not like you were talking a walk and ended up in a part of the city you're not familiar with.

You picked up your phone. You installed the app, and the best you could come up with is that you don't know what you're doing here????

Were you drunk? Or high?

Jeez....

(ETA: Or are you a confused black cat?  )

#dating #OnlineDating #DatingProfile