On two separate occasions in the last week or so, a male client in DC and a female client in NY called me to ask very similar questions: “What should I do if I saw that the person I’m dating is still active online?” The DC gentleman had been dating this person for two months, and the NY woman’s dating was going on four months. Of course, my next question inevitably was, “How would you know this unless you went online yourself to snoop around?” Silence.

When it comes to taking down your online dating profile, is there a right time? Should it be after a certain number of weeks or months of dating? Maybe it’s after you’ve had “the talk” to figure out where you two are going as a couple? Perhaps it’s after you’ve changed your status to “in a relationship” on Facebook? Or, is it enough simply to unsubscribe from receiving emails through the online dating site?

While I’m a firm believer in dating many different people initially to see who’s out there, at some point, when you think you’ve found someone you’d like to date exclusively, it’s time to scale back on your online dating life and start to enjoy your offline dating life. I know many people get what I call “grass is greener” syndrome, always looking for the next best thing. All I can advise you to do is to recognize what you have… and enjoy it.

Unfortunately, there’s no defined rule as to when it’s appropriate to take down your profile. If you’ve already gone to great lengths spying on your new belle or beau, as my clients did, rather than jumping to conclusions (which they also both did… one even went as far as to send me new pictures she wants to use when she goes back online for real!), just have a conversation about it.  We could speculate day and night, and the reality of it is that we often don’t know where the other person stands unless we ask. Ask this person what he or she is looking for. Open up the conversation. Whether you get the answer you want or not, I could never know, but at least you won’t have to resort to entrapping someone based on his or her online dating usage. Maybe for at least one of my clients, the answer might be, “I was only on there to see if you were still on there! This is silly!” Insert big laugh here. So stop guessing, and start talking.

The only surefire way to make sure you’re both on the same page, though, is to openly discuss taking your profile down. Generally, a few things are synonymous:

Exclusivity = No more online dating = Boyfriend or Girlfriend = Couple = Being Together

Heck, you could even have a “profile deletion party” with a drink in hand. That actually sounds like a pretty fun date!