Tough question to ask and it demands a great deal of honesty, courage and a reality check from you. The fact is thousands of people place their ads and profiles on internet dating sites in the hopes of meeting someone for a date and eventually a relationship.

Internet dating service providers know that you are not necessarily telling the truth when you state in your profile that you are looking to settle down with someone and have an enjoyable and quiet life together, when all along you are viewing “bad boy” picture profiles that clearly state that are looking for an intimate encounter.

Why do we do that and who do you think you are fooling? Certainly yourself at the very least. The fact is, the older the crowd on any internet dating site, the more chances they will have a heart break story to tell and are just plain cautious or even worse cynical and skeptical that there is anyone out there at all for them. They have been too hurt to really give anyone else a chance.

So they put themselves out there for online dating with the hopes that someone will find them. And they don’t of course. Remember the law of attraction? You will attract exactly what you put out. So, if you put out that you are really not ready to date because you have serious trust issues, even though you emphatically state in your profile that you are looking for love, chances are you will attract the wrong kind of person and get hurt all over again.

There is a delicate balance between the right time and the right frame of mind when it comes to internet dating. Trust that you will know when you are ready to begin dating again, be brutally honest with yourself and don’t subject yourself to disappointing results because it’s not the right time to seek a date or a relationship.

It’s very easy to simply state that you are looking for a friend or a pen pal. That way, it takes all the stress out of having to put yourself ‘out there’ when you are really not ready to do so. Choose your internet dating services provider wisely and one that offers the most variety of encounters available including friendships and pen pals.

A friendship with someone, man or woman, can really help to renew your faith in trust in the human spirit. We all have come across hard times but we should never let our negative experiences influence our lives with people we meet in the future.

True, you need to be wiser perhaps, a little more cautious, but don’t cut yourself and others off completely from allowing someone new to enter your life.

A little time and patience will take care of the rest. Some wounds never completely heal, but it does make us wiser and forces us to take responsibility for ourselves in a way that we perhaps lacked previously.

Many heartbreak stories involve knowing when to get out and knowing when to stay. To not ignore the warning signals when you first received them and confronting the issues at hand as opposed to just pretending they didn’t exist. You can’t afford to do that this time around.

this article was written by shawn wilson, a member of the customer support team at datepad, where internet dating is always free. datepad has a massive directory of informative dating articles along with a great list of dating site reviews on their dating blog.