5 Ways Your Cell Phone Can Ruin Your Dating Life

While I am all for the conveniences that cell phones afford us, there's one major drawback: Our constant attention to them may be putting a serious dent in our dating lives. There are so many singles who spend virtually all day every day giving their cell phone 100 percent of their attention. These people miss opportunities to meet people every day, and may miss meeting a potential date completely.

These are likely the same single men and single women, by the way, from whom I receive emails daily complaining that they never see any potential soul mates to meet. The irony is that these daters are being honest when they say they don't spot love matches, but it's not because singles aren't there. They are victims of "self cell-phone sabotage."
I don't want you to be sabotaging yourself from finding a date all because of your cell phone. To help you discover if you're unknowingly killing your love life by "self cell-phone sabotage," here are five ways your cell phone may be ruining your dating life:

1. You're Stopping Them Mid-Approach: You're in a store where someone is checking you out -- someone you've also noticed and found attractive. Then that someone decides to approach you, but the minute they take their first step in your direction, your phone rings... and you answer it. Not only do you answer it, but you proceed to have the same unimportant, repetitive conversation with the friend who called you. By doing this, you have stopped someone who's already interested in you from approaching -- and they probably won't wait around to do it a second time.

2. You're Totally Programmed: Let's put you in that same store, and that same person you are attracted to walks right by you and smiles just as you receive a text message on your phone. What do you do? Instead of reacting to what's going on around you and reciprocating with a smile, you react like Pavlov's dog to the "ding" of the incoming text and immediately look at your cell phone to find out who texted you. Not only did you miss that potential mate smiling at you, but by not acknowledging their smile, the potential mate will believe you are not interested and will walk away (and likely never smile at you again).

3. You're Never "Here": You could be out with a group of your friends in a place filled with singles you would want to meet. Instead of being present and talking with the singles around you, you are devoting all your attention to a full-blown conversation you're having with another friend via text message on your cell phone. Meanwhile, a single man or single woman whom you may have been interested in comes over and starts talking to your group. You're so involved in your text message conversation that you don't even notice. When you don't acknowledge that potential mate, he or she will assume you're not interested and will walk away.

4. It Never Occurs to You to Look: It's not that you don't leave your home. You're in the grocery store, the gym, the bookstore, the coffee shop, or the dry cleaners every day. So when I hear singles say that they "never see anyone" to meet, I know immediately that they're not "seeing" anyone because they're simply not looking. If people want to meet a love match so badly, why aren't they looking? Well, because you can now do virtually everything right from the palm of your hand, many people never stop checking their email, making business calls, doing Internet research, and sending text messages. So even though they're out in public, they miss everything (and everyone) around them. They also never interact with anyone. They don't look at people, smile at people, or flirt with people. Is it any wonder they're not meeting anyone?

5. You Make Your Date a "Third Wheel": You've met someone you think you might really like, and you go out on a date with them. So there you are enjoying their company and feeling like there might be an amazing potential connection. Then the red light on your phone starts flashing or your phone starts vibrating. What do you do? Despite the fact that you're in the middle of a great date, you just can't resist picking up your phone to see who sent you that text. When you do this, you immediately turn off your date.

Nobody likes having a date interrupted by text messages, and nobody likes to feel that their date's attention is not focused on them. Your date will feel like a "third wheel." You've also shown your date that your first priority will always be your phone.

Start being conscious of how much time you spend glued to your cell phone. Just think how many potential matches you may have completely missed who wanted to meet you. Start paying attention to what's going on around you in actuality. You won't believe what (and who) you've been missing!