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Romantic and sexual relationships are increasingly initiated using mobile dating applications rather than in face‐to‐face contexts. There is subsequently a need to understand socially competent and incompetent behaviors during this pre‐interaction relationship development stage. One‐on‐one in‐depth interviews were conducted with 22 emerging adults from Australia and Belgium. Data were analyzed inductively based on thematic analysis. Participants reported 11 superordinate social competencies represented by 85 competent and 67 incompetent behavioral norms that varied across four stages of online relationship formation (profile, matching, discovery, and evaluation stages). Findings provide a unique contribution to the literature as online social competence has yet to be conceptualized. Comparisons between online and face‐to‐face relational processes are also discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]