Dear Mature Online Dating,

What happened? I was writing to this great guy online, had tons in common, and POOF! It's like he fell off the face of the earth! Did I do something to scare him off? Was he abducted by aliens? Help!

Confused.

Dear Confused,

First, relax. How long has it been since you last heard from this guy? If it's only been a few days, there's no reason to file a missing person's report just yet. He may be busy with family or work, and not had a chance to get online. He might have had a system crash or virus. Your last e-mail to him might have gotten "lost in the mail," or been accidentally filtered by a spam-filter. His last e-mail to you might have been lost or filtered, and he might be wondering why you haven't written to him!

No harm will be done if you send a polite e-mail saying something to the effect of, "I haven't heard from you for a while. Is everything OK?" If he's still interested, it will let him know that you're still interested, and if he's not, then you'll know he's not.

Ideally, it would be nice if instead of falling off the face of the earth, people did write, "It's been nice talking with you, but I don't think we're a good match." But that, too, can open up a whole new can of worms. I've seen a polite comment like that escalate quickly into petty name-calling and flaming. Most would rather avoid that. Plus, not everyone is consciously aware that they've dropped out of site. I know when I was meeting people through personal ads, I would often have every intention of writing someone back, but got sidetracked until it would seem ridiculous to write to someone I haven't written in weeks just to tell them I'm not going to be writing to them anymore.

Did you do something to scare him off? Maybe, but that doesn't mean you did anything wrong, it just means you two weren't right for each other. Let's say you told him that you're a vegetarian, and he thinks that's weird. Is that someone you'd want in your life? No. He didn't weed you out, you weeded him out. Using the internet to meet someone isn't just about finding someone to date, it's about finding someone who's going to be a good match for you. If being yourself "scares someone off," they weren't going to be a good match. Period.