Gone are the days when it was taboo to meet your S.O. on the internet. Online dating is now the norm. With so many singles, and what seems like an endless amount of profiles to browse, finding a match can be time consuming. Once you’ve connected with someone, it’s important to get the ball rolling in planning an offline meeting. While you may be tempted to delay the pivotal in-real-life first date, don’t succumb to your insecurities. Here is some sound advice on when to make the move from messaging to actually securing a date.

Exchange Numbers

Depending on how often you message your online love, once a rapport is made, you should exchange phone numbers. It’s much easier to take the conversation offline and continue via text to ultimately plan a meeting. If he or she is consistent, the exchange should happen within a few days of messaging through the dating platform. No one wants to continue logging in and out to check a novel long message. It’s a good idea to also have a quick chat before planning a date to help you feel more at ease about who you’ll be meeting.

Coffee Date

We aren’t saying you have to meet someone within the first 24 hours of an online introduction but don’t be afraid to take the initiative. If you’ve been exchanging multiple messages or emails for more than a week and your online crush hasn’t asked you out yet, take a deep breath and make the first move. Suggesting a coffee date is cool and casual. You can tell more about a person within a half hour of meeting than weeks of messaging. If your date isn’t what you expected, it’s also pretty easy to excuse yourself from a cafe.

The Tipping Point

Research has shown that if you wait more than 17 days to meet offline, you’ll more than likely be let down. Prolonging an IRL meeting,  will have you dreaming up what the person on the other end of the screen is really like. The internet can only provide so much information but once you’re face-to-face, you can confirm he or she is who they’ve claimed to be the whole time. Personality traits are much different when listed online compared to experiencing the person behind the profile.

The bottomline is the sooner you can assess whether those online sparks translate into real life sparks, the better.