Kathryn's Blog

Easy Come, East Go: Watch Out, Guys

Women aren’t the only ones who get used, though it does look like this gal used chat rooms and not dating sites:

Internet gypsy guilty of assault, leaving on information superhighway
It began as an Internet romance.

But when Tamie Shell was sentenced to four days in the Lincoln County Jail and given credit for time served for third-degree assault Thursday, the romance was over.

Shell, 48, told Lincoln County Judge Kent Turnbull that she planned to get out of North Platte as quick as she could.

After only two weeks in North Platte Shell, originally from Pennsylvania, has a place to go – she met a new man on the Internet and is going to live with him.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.29.07 at 8.57 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Dating Tips • Be Safe • Scams and Scam Protection • 0 Comments

Nigerian Scams on the Dating Sites

Most Internet users are aware of the “Nigerian Scam.”  Heaven knows, I ‘ve written plenty about scams, Nigerian and otherwise.  See these blog entries.  Here’s a story below about Nigerian scamming right on dating sites.  For sure, never, never, never send, loan, or give money to anyone you meet on a dating site.  Note also the resource identified here, Romancescams.org

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

State Dept. Warns About Internet Dating Web Sites

(CBS) DENVER The U.S. State Department has issued warnings for users of Internet dating services. People posing as eligible singles are turning out to be scam artists from Nigeria and other countries.

CBS station in Denver KCNC-TV’s reporter Rick Sallinger spoke with victims of the fraud.

Shawn Bland of Aurora, Colo. was hoping to find a companion so he signed up to become a member of the Web site Singlesnet.com. It didn’t take long before he received an approach from someone calling herself Kelly Williams.

The picture Bland received was that of a beautiful woman. Williams said she would “never lie to him, never cheat him, and she wanted to be with him forever.”

Her profile on the Web site indicated she was from Oregon. But after several rounds of Internet communications, Williams told Bland she was actually living in Africa and needed some money.

“Well hunnie am planning to come back to state,” Williams wrote in bad English adding, “I have a little problem about to complete my flight ticket. I want you to help me with funds.”

This sounded very familiar to U.S. Postal Inspector John Salanitro. He said the next step is the scam artist sends the victim a phony check or money order.

“They will tell the victim please cash that and wire a percentage of the amount and keep the rest for your troubles,” Salanitro said.

Pamela Duncan of Colorado also went on the Internet through Singlesnet.com in search of love. Someone calling himself Anthony Little found her. He said he had a son and sent a photo of himself and a young boy.

“They tell you that you are Godsend that you are beautiful, that you are an angel falling from heaven,” Duncan said.

Little sometime later claimed he was working in Nigeria and needed help with money for a plane ticket to Denver to visit Duncan. She sent $700, but when the plane was to arrive at Denver International Airport there was no Anthony Little and no son.

“It made me feel I was violated, it was almost like rape,” Duncan said.

She searched the Internet and found a picture of her “Anthony Little” on a Web site called Romancescams.org. Now she has joined that group to alert others to beware.

“I have met people on RomanceScams.com who have lost their homes, their businesses. I have heard of people losing $50,000,” Duncan said.

Despite that she is not giving up looking for love online.

Shawn Bland is dumping the so-called “Kelly Williams” for a new prospect in Oklahoma. He believes she is real.

Quin Lipin the owner of Singlesnet.com told CBS4 such scams are common all throughout the Internet.

“People try to take advantage of other people by pretending to be whoever they want to be,” he said.

Lipin said his Web site has blocked communications from Nigeria, but the scammers can mask their addresses to get around that. He said his company will delete an account if they believe it is involved in fraud.

Romancescams.org urges users of Internet dating services to be careful when receiving contact from people using bad grammar and asking for money. Its Web site is filled with information on how to avoid becoming trapped in such fraudulent schemes.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.25.07 at 11.20 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Be Safe • Scams and Scam Protection • 42 Comments

Money - Let’s Talk About It

I don’t know what the big deal is with new couples and money—why is it so hard to talk about? Of course, if folks grew up in families like mine, money was a dirtier topic than sex.  And sex was pretty bad. 

How you and your intended handle (or don’t handle) money is a very big deal.  I love this quote from Money Guru Suze Orman in the Newsweek article below: If Orman had her way, people with poor credit ratings (known in the business as FICO scores) wouldn’t be allowed to get married until they demonstrated at least two years of steady financial improvement. “There’s exceptions to every rule,” Orman says, “but I always say, FICO first, then sex.”

Now wouldn’t that make for an interesting pre-sex discussion?

Best, Kathryn

Marriage & Money: What You Should Know
Getting hitched? Don’t even think of it before you’ve had ‘the talk’ with your beloved. No, not that talk. The one about money.
By Jennifer Ordonez
Newsweek

April 9, 2007 issue - Tax time can tax even the strongest marriages, but newlyweds Brad and Drew Erb, who took their vows last October, should be feeling particularly in love as April 15 approaches. Over the past six months, the couple has done nearly everything possible to avoid the kind of financial conflicts that often lead to nasty fights between husbands and wives: they combined their checking and investment accounts, made each other beneficiaries of their respective 401(k)s and are bumping up their life insurance. Brad, who is now on his wife’s medical plan, saves a few hundred dollars a month. Even better, filing a joint tax return this year gave them a 15 percent higher refund. “Our situation is probably luckier than a lot of people’s,” says Brad, a Winter Park, Fla.-based financial adviser for Edward Jones.

He’s right. All over the country, freshly married couples, confronting that cold 1040 “EZ” form for the first time together, are finding out the hard way that when it comes to marital stress, sex has nothing on money. “Money is the last taboo,” says Olivia Mellan, a psychotherapist and author of “Money Harmony: Resolving Money Conflicts in Your Life and Relationships.” “Money is never about money. It’s about love, power, security, control, old age, self-esteem, freedom, independence.” That, financial advisers say, is why squabbling over finances tops the list of reasons couples divorce.

So how can married couples—or those about to get hitched—keep money worries from ruining their love lives? The quick answer is that old cliché: communication. Preferably the brutally honest type. It may not be easy to come clean about your financial shortcomings. But your mate will find out sooner or later—probably when you’re sitting down to do your taxes—and if it’s later, it’s going to get ugly. Now’s the time to exercise that “better or worse” clause in your wedding vows. What’s your real income—not your “dating inflated” version? How much debt do you really have on those credit cards? Does the repo man carry your picture in his wallet? With marriage and money, advisers warn, ignorance is definitely not bliss.

That’s advice Amie Provencher and James Schiffner, who just tied the knot, are determined to take to heart. The two met online three years ago through eHarmony, the matchmaking Web site. Provencher and Schiffner are like-minded about a lot things, but it’s hard to imagine that money is one of them. Like the cobbler whose children have holes in their shoes, Provencher is a finance manager who, by her own admission, “hates bills.” Schiffner, 38, a computer security analyst, doesn’t. “We actually have really different philosophies. He pays a bill as soon as he gets it. I don’t,” Provencher says. Both are “addicted” to their chiropractor (not cheap) and like to go out for sushi dinners at least once a week. But while Provencher will spend $200 on a haircut and has a newfound fondness for pricey moisturizers (she recently turned 40), Schiffner spends almost nothing on grooming.

That may not seem like such a big deal; but month after month the differences can add up. Financial adviser Suze Orman urges people to pay close attention to little clues like these before they decide to walk down the aisle. Does your boyfriend over-tip at restaurants, even though he has credit-card debt? Orman says that may mean he doesn’t respect his money and will take the same approach to yours.

Provencher and Schiffner are evolving. She says he has helped raise her money consciousness. “James came into the relationship clean, with no debt and a really high credit score. He’s enabled me to get in pretty good financial shape.” Provencher’s willingness to change is a good sign, says Orman, whose latest book, “Women & Money,” urges women to confront money fears instilled in them by a historically patriarchal society. If Orman had her way, people with poor credit ratings (known in the business as FICO scores) wouldn’t be allowed to get married until they demonstrated at least two years of steady financial improvement. “There’s exceptions to every rule,” Orman says, “but I always say, FICO first, then sex.” Orman believes that when spouses have very different credit ratings, it often means trouble down the road. Consider the consequences, she says, of buying a house with your credit-challenged spouse. Your mortgage rate will likely be based on the lower credit score—or, at best, an average of the two. That means more debt and higher monthly payments, not the sort of thing you want to find out for the first time when you sit down with the mortgage broker. “You have to be able to address things beforehand,” Orman says. “Everything.”

Of course, as long as opposites attract, spendthrifts will couple with hoarders—and people like Ruth Hayden, a St. Paul, Minn.-based financial consultant, will have clients. The author of “For Richer, Not Poorer: The Money Book for Couples,” Hayden says the key to marital happiness is compromise. “What I teach to my couples is that 30 percent of their challenges will actually be resolved. The other 70 percent have to be managed.” Brad and Drew Erb have some things to work out. Brad’s father, a university professor, grew up in a Mennonite household where frugality was next to godliness. “Our parents never made a whole lot of money, but they were always conscientious about living below their means,” says Brad, 33. “Debt makes my skin crawl.”

Drew, 28, says her kin couldn’t be more different. They’re “the classic American family where credit cards rule everything.” The first in her family to go to college, Drew says her parents “wanted to help me but their attitude was, ‘Get loans and we’ll help you pay it back’.” During college and afterward, while working as a horticulturist, Drew amassed lots of credit-card debt. But when she and Brad got engaged, she decided to get serious about her finances. She quit horticulture and took a higher-paying job as an office manager. “I felt that I wasn’t contributing very much to our marriage and that Brad would be bearing the brunt of it.” So far, the couple, who live in the house Brad bought before they met, can think of only one real splurge: new furniture. Since they got engaged, they have been able to pay down about half of Drew’s debt.

Another secret to avoiding financial stress: deciding together if one spouse is going to stop working to stay home with the kids. Married last June, Filipa and Eric Bryson moved from her hometown in New York state to her husband’s in Rhode Island. She left behind her job as an elementary-school teacher. She thought she’d find a new job, but after giving birth to their son she had a change of heart. Surprisingly, she loves being a stay-at-home mom. “Now it’s all about, ‘Can we afford for me to stay home?’ ” Filipa says. “I never thought I would be like that.”

For the Brysons, the decision has worked out well, because they both agree it’s what they want for their family. For young couples trying to make every dollar count, it’s especially important to map out short-and long-term savings goals. Amie Provencher and James Schiffner already do this. They both plan to start saving for a house, and would like to have a rainy-day fund. But first, Provencher has to finish paying off her student loans and old credit-card debt. Schiffner, meanwhile, has his own debt to retire. He splurged and bought Provencher’s $10,000 engagement ring on credit. “The way to save money for a home is to just save money,” he says. “And we’re not there yet.” The important thing is, they’re “not there” together.

With Raina Kelley

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.21.07 at 7.30 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Money Matters • 1 Comments

NYT Does “Confessions of a Matchmaker”

Here’s the New York Times’ take on “Confessions of a Matchmaker”:

Specialist in Tough (to) Love

By SUSAN STEWART
Published: June 16, 2007

Hype and hokiness aside, some reality shows are appealing because they seem real. Buffalo is the setting for “Confessions of a Matchmaker,” tonight on A&E. Nobody will confuse that town with Hollywood, Manhattan or the castle on “The Bachelor.” Establishing shots show us a gritty, snowy industrial city in the unforgiving north, with a heroine to match.

Patti Novak, who runs a dating service within spitting distance of Niagara Falls, is a fine representative of Buffalo and a fine character for the reality genre. She’s plainspoken but not rude, a classic dispenser of tough love. When Charlie, her first customer comes in, she sizes him up pretty quickly.

“You’ve made a choice between doughnuts and sex,” she says.

“Life takes its toll,” Charlie responds with a shrug. He’s a former Mr. Nude Universe, but those glory days are long gone. Charlie now weighs 346 pounds and was recently kicked out of an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Still, there’s hope.

“I see sensitivity and a great pair of blue eyes,” Ms. Novak says. She takes him out for a test dinner and cringes as he slurps pasta: “For God’s sake, chew with your mouth closed.”

Charlie learns his lesson better than another client, Ashley. A cocktail waitress, she refuses to give up her fake tan and layers of makeup. “He might want to take you home and roll you over,” Ms. Novak tells her, “but I bet your bank account he won’t want to take you home to Mother.”

Some reality shows are predicated on cruelty, or at least a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. That “American Idol” seems increasingly to fit both those models may be why its ratings are slipping. Sometimes a little kindness is preferable to a freak show. Ms. Novak’s clients are not weird enough to be laughable or pathetic enough to pity. They are people with whom a lot of us could identify, at least on a bad day.

A very bad day, in the case of John. At 41, he says he has never had sex. He blames it partly on the economy. Ms. Novak tells him to get real.

“It’s not cute that you’re a virgin at age 41,” she says. “It’s a red flag the size of Texas.”

It takes John two dates to figure out his problem. (The viewer may guess it sooner.) Over a shared plate of appetizers, dawn breaks. At least Ms. Novak, who is watching, detects “chemistry.”

Ms. Novak’s criteria for success may be debatable. I know a lot of happily married couples who would probably fail her chemistry test, but her heart is in the right place. And heart, on a dating show, is what counts.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.19.07 at 3.49 am
permalink | Categories: • News About Dating Sites and Types • About Matchmakers and Dating Services • Books, Movies, and TV • Just for Fun • 0 Comments

Love Behind (not in) Bars

I’m not quite sure what to think about the topic of this story below.  On the one hand, what worse place can you look for love than in a prison? 

On the other hand, at least you know where the guy or gal IS, and for the time being, you are physically safe.  Some people for sure are attracted to the edginess and risk of dating a convicted criminal.  A big step beyond the traditional bad boy or Hell’s Angel.

But you do know that these guys have plenty of time, and many of them are skilled manipulators, though not skilled enough to stay out of jail.  And if they don’t have the skills, they have access to good teachers. 

In Internet dating, it’s “Buyer beware.”  For sure if you are thinking about looking for a Sweetheart behind bars.

Best. Kathryn Lord
Your Romance Coach

Prison Love
YouNewsTV™

Story Created: May 11, 2007
By Angelica Thornton
Video
PORTLAND, Ore. - Mike Andes looks like quite a catch.

His online personal ad shows him as a clean-cut, athletic man with a friendly face, a sense of humor and a love for the outdoors. Many women would consider him a serious prospect, based on his ad.

The problem is, Mike Andes is a convicted murderer. He’s in prison for killing a teen girl with a baseball bat and then burying her body in a wooded area near Longview, Washington.

Andes’ ad is just one of thousands placed by convicts looking for love online. Many of the ads feature lighthearted descriptions and photos of smiling men who are rapists, murderers or bank robbers.

Imprisoned convicts do not have Internet access, but family and friends outside of prison help them get their ads up and running on sites like writeprisoners.com.

And the love letters are flowing into the jailhouse.

Even notorious prisoners like serial killer Ted Bundy and “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez have hooked up and gotten married while serving time for heinous crimes.

Mary Elledge heads the Portland chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. She says she is stunned by the amount of match-making going on.

In 1986, Elledge’s son was beaten to death by three men who wanted some car titles he had in his possession. She says she recently found out one of the men convicted of his murder was looking for love online.

Elledge says she fears for the thousands of women writing to the incarcerated men, afraid they are turning a blind eye to their past crimes and the possible future dangers.

“This turns my stomach because I know what these guys are capable of doing,” Elledge says, holding a large stack of ads printed from Web sites that charge the prisoners between $40 and $70 for their ads.

She pauses and looks at one ad, saying the subject looks like an attractive man, but “you’d have no idea that he raped and tortured a 73-year-old woman.”

At the prisons, mail rooms are filling up with responses to the ads.

Randy Greer is in charge of making sure letters get to inmates on time before they become disruptive. He says that even though the men are in prison, corresponding with them does “open up certain doors.”

Corrections officials say these matchmaking Web sites do provide a positive service by keeping inmates connected to the outside world, but that they can also cause problems.

Corrections investigators know crafty convicts often prey on women. They start by sending very innocent letters, then they’ll ask for money, contraband, even help escaping.

In many cases, the prisoners are corresponding with several women at a time, hoping at least one will fall for it. They often do.

Sociologist Randy Blazak says “the letters written by inmates to women on the outside are often the most romantic things you ever heard in your life and that’s because they only exist in a sort of fantasy world.”

Blazak says there are several theories as to why women pursue prisoners. They may be attracted to “bad boys,” they’re lonely, or they lack self esteem. Or, they’re afraid of real commitment.

“In sort of more traditional relationships, the man kind of determines when he’s there and when he’s not,” Blazak says. “This is the opposite of that, so the woman can kind of be in control with the level of contact.

Mary Elledge’s group wants to shut the prison love Web sites down, saying the women writing in “are messing with dangerous, dangerous men.”

She’s also hoping lawmakers will look into legislation than would ban inmates from indirectly using the Internet.

But prison officials say that kind of law would be impossible to enforce.

Mail room organizer Greer says “you don’t control what’s talked about in a visitation session, you don’t control what’s being talked about on the phone, you can look at the mail, but what they’re asking isn’t illegal.”

So for now, Donald Cathey, who helped murder a couple during a home invasion and robbery, can keep searching for his soul mate, and Eric Smiley, who killed a police officers in Seattle, can continue to share his deepest thoughts with well-deserving women.

Thanks to the Internet, love has no bounds, not even prison walls.

Most prisoner dating Web sites do provide tips to protect the public. The president of writeaprisoner.com sent KATU a statement saying:

“Scams are much rarer than they seem. We currently host over 5,000 inmate ads. We receive about six complaints a year from members of the public who feel that they have been manipulated or misled by our members for financial gain… Any inmate found misusing our web site to defraud the public out of money will be permanently blacklisted from our site. We have a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.17.07 at 6.57 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Search Smart • Be Safe • 0 Comments

lavalifeprime.com

Did you know that older singles are the biggest growth group for dating sites? Lavalife (primarily a Canadian dating site) is moving to target those over 50 with lavalifeprime.com, and billing the site as a “social networking” site as well as dating.

Canada’s largest online dating service aims to pitch shared interests at a growing market, writes Kristin Goff.
Kristin Goff, The Ottawa Citizen
Published: Wednesday, May 09, 2007

Lavalife Corp., which offers an online dating service for single men and women, for gays and those seeking “intimate” relationships, may soon help older singles find a friend who shares an interest in flower arranging.

Canada’s largest online dating service is testing a new site, lavalifeprime.com as a place for people over age 45 to pair up for dates or friendship.

“It’s meant more for social networking (than dating), so if you want to meet someone in the same city who shares your interest in flower arranging or whatever, you can,” said Lally Rementilla, vice-president of planning, after speaking in Kanata yesterday. “They may not necessarily be of the opposite gender. They may just be someone you can do things together with.”

The website, now in the testing phase, will officially launch on May 23, according to information posted on the site.

Ms. Rementilla cited lavalifeprime.com as an example of how demographics and technology together are driving changes in web-based businesses. As technology advances, there’s been an increase among older Canadians in using the Internet and that means a growing market to reach.

It is one of many trends successful web entrepreneurs need to keep in tune with because the industry needs to constantly evolve to succeed, said Ms. Rementilla.

She spoke at an entrepreneurship symposium sponsored by the Women in Technology division of the Canadian Advanced Technology Alliance, presenting a tongue-in-cheek comparison of how skills in dating carry over into skills as an entrepreneur.

Both, for example, must have passion, a compelling “elevator pitch” or short descriptive story to tell, be good listeners and keep up to date with what is going on around them, she said.

Lavalife, based in Toronto has around 1.2 million active users and roots which date back 20 years when it began as a telephone dating service in 1987, she said.

Since then, the company has added its web service, where customers post online ads, and added a mobile phone service to its original voice business.

In the future, the company will capitalize on its expertise in those three communication channels, perhaps by increasing the ways in which customers can access its various services, Ms. Rementilla said in a brief interview.

It also has an online lifestyle magazine, aimed at hip, urban singles, she said in a luncheon speech that was part of a day long forum on women entrepreneurs sponsored by Women in Technology.

The Women in Technology division of CATA has chapters in Ottawa and Toronto and has grown to more than 150 members in its first two years. It intends to open chapters in Vancouver, Calgary and Montreal this year, according to Joanne Stanley, one of the founders.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.13.07 at 3.59 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • 4 Comments

Good News for Men: Women Catch Up

With computers and the Internet, men have traditionally outnumbered women, if you can call the history of the brief life of the Internet a tradition.

When Match.com first got going in 1995, they purposely made the site “clean and friendly” to attract women, figuring correctly, that if women came, so would the men.

Recent figures suggest that Match.com has done this very well: Match now has 55% female visitors to 45% male.  Some sites have done even better: eHarmony is 69% female, Catholic Match 72% women, SeniorPeopleMeet.com 80.8% ladies, and LoveAccess.com 87% women!!!  (figures according to Hitwise)

Yahoo! Personals still has a slight edge of more men: 51% to 49%, male to female.

What’s going on?  Women are finding out that online dating works and is safe (at least as safe as regular off line dating).  “The more monye and time involved in signing up to a dating site, the more the site the site would skew female.  And, the more free pictures were available the more the site would skew male.”

Women are also going where the money is: Sugar Daddie is 68% women.

Where do the men go?  Gay sites, of course.  And the Internet equivalent of mail-order brides from abroad.  While these articles don’t include the sexier sites, AdultFriendFinder is overwhelmingly male.

Good news for men, right.  Not so good for women.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.09.07 at 12.54 pm
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • News About Dating Sites and Types • Online Dating Facts and Figures • 0 Comments

Does Your Living Space Need Pre-Dating Attention?

Where and how you live is as important as your latest haircut.  Potential mates will be looking at the whole package.  Pay attention and give your living space the same attention as your dating wardrobe. 

The New York Times does these wonderful snarky articles now and then about the datinig scene, and this one on March 29, 2007, was so great that I have copied it here in its entirety.  NYT articles tend to disappear after a couple of weeks, so I am taking this chance they may get after me by printing it. 

This article talks about singles and their judgements of prospective suitors by their apartments.  While some of the judgements seem a bit over the top (must use pink light bulbs?), I harp on this topic regularly with my clients.  Where and how you live is as important as your latest haircut.  Potential mates will be looking at the whole package.  Pay attention and give your living space the same attention as your dating wardrobe. 

From the New York Times:

It’s Not You, It’s Your Apartment
By JOYCE WADLER

DATING is fraught with disappointments, so you can imagine how delighted a single woman might be to find someone like Albert Podell — particularly after she Googles him and learns how rich he is. Last year, Mr. Podell, a 70-year-old lawyer, gave N.Y.U. Law School $2.9 million. He goes out four nights a week, to the opera, symphony or theater. He is well read. He says he has traveled to 162 countries.

Then comes that magic evening when the woman is ready to go back to his place.

“It’s totally unchanged, like it was when I went to law school in 1973, a time warp,” Mr. Podell says of his small one-bedroom in SoHo, a description that seems plausible, given the hot pink living room with the futon seating and the fraying contact paper on the kitchen cabinets.

The place is also dimly lighted, which, once you examine the kitchen nook in daylight, is probably not such a bad thing. The cabinets hold nothing but a six-month supply of powdered milk for Mr. Podell’s cereal, so that he can keep his trips to the supermarket to a minimum; the Formica countertop is peeling; the stove has been disconnected from the gas feed. (Mr. Podell, who usually eats out, sees no reason to waste fuel.)

All these things have proved detriments to love, but none so effectively as his sheets. Mr. Podell likes the ones from the ’60s and ’70s that tell a story: sheets with intergalactic battles or pink hippopotami or the Beatles. Since these are no longer available in adult-bed sizes, Mr. Podell’s sheets are now 30 to 40 years old. The fading is such that a person who saw one in a Salvation Army bin, having lost everything she owned in a fire, would remind herself that there was no reason to be desperate. The fading, however, was apparently not the reason that the sheets became a deal breaker.

“I was dating this very nice woman, I thought,” says Mr. Podell. “I was ready and she was ready to do the big deed. I take her to my apartment, go into the bedroom, and fling back the sheets, and she said, ‘My husband had these sheets and he was a mean-hearted son of a bitch and you must be like him and I’m leaving.’ ”

Spring is here and the restaurants will soon be filled with anxious and hopeful couples, ordering wine, dusting off their most luminous lies, thinking they might finally have found love. Then they will see their dates’ homes for the first time. And suddenly some of them will realize that they cannot be with this person a moment longer — or at the very latest, because that wine was not cheap, beyond the next morning. A few whose homes have been romantic deal breakers may, like Mr. Podell, know what went wrong and choose to ignore it, seeing their apartments as a reflection of their brave refusal to bow to conventional taste.

“There have been at least 40 women who’ve said, why do you live here?” he says.

Make that 41. Why does he live here?

“Ever hear the words ‘rent stabilized’?” says Mr. Podell, who’s paying $702 for a one bedroom in SoHo. “What do I need a fancy place for? A lot of people want to show off their wealth. It ain’t me, baby.”

Then there is Bob Strauss, 46, who writes dating advice for match.com and has a real stuffed baby seal in his apartment. He didn’t whack the seal on its silky little head, it’s a family piece inherited from a rich aunt and uncle in Miami.

It is displayed along with Mr. Strauss’s South Park and Sonic the Hedgehog figurines and Lego collection.

“It’s provocative,” he adds. “I like going out with tough, smart, aggressive, challenging type people. It’s fine with me if they want to argue about it; I don’t want to blandify my apartment to make myself generically acceptable.”

Most people, however, will never know how their homes sabotaged their romance. They operate under the assumption that if the garbage has been discarded and the dog hair removed, the house is romance-ready. They are unaware that such seemingly insignificant details as a Klimt poster or harsh overhead lighting are proof to some that they are not dateworthy. For these poor innocents, a guide.

No Stuffed Animals, Even If You Are Dying

Alison Forbes, a founder of The Art of Everyday Living consulting service in Los Angeles, is often called upon to help make homes relationship-ready. It was her sorry duty to inform us that the stuffed animal pandemic continues. She believes it may show a reluctance to grow up — or, in cases where the stuffed animals cover the bed, a reluctance to make space for another person.

Jason Bunin, the 36-year-old bad-boy chef at the Knickerbocker Bar and Grill in Greenwich Village, echoed her disapproval.

“You see it more in younger girls, like between 21 and 25,” Mr. Bunin says. “Pink, purple, teddy bears, unicorns, all over the bed. I’d just whack ’em off with my arm.”

Why do men dislike stuffed animals?

“Too cutesy and immature.” Also, Mr. Bunin says, if you were to get involved with someone like that, you’d have that garbage in your house.

Mr. Bunin, by the way, is on the dating scene no more. He married Caron Newman earlier this month in an Elvis-themed wedding in Las Vegas. You can check out the video at cupidswedding.com. Mr. Bunin is the one in the black sequined tuxedo.

There Is a Reason Nice Buildings Are Not Named for Norman Bates

Sure, you can save money by moving into your mother’s house, but as always in matters of romance, you must first ask yourself: Would James Bond do it?

If you are still thinking about the answer, consider the experience of Adria Armbrister, a 30-year-old program coordinator at Columbia University’s School of Public Health. Ms. Armbrister met a man online through Yahoo and after a month and a half of e-mailing they had dinner. It went well: The man, who was 29, owned a business, he did not ask Ms. Armbrister to pay for her own meal or try to borrow money. On the second date, they stopped by his house to pick up an umbrella. The house had belonged to his mother, who had died five years earlier. The plastic-covered gold sofas and the heavy gold tasseled lamps suggested to Ms. Armbrister that her date had not redecorated — never a sign of an enterprising personality. But the deal breaker came when she saw his room.

“We walked up three flights of stairs to the attic,” she says. “It looked like a teenager’s room. The computer was up there and the twin bed, his clothes were all over the floor. I was like, uuuuuh-huuuuh. He didn’t even seem sorry that he lived in a 12-year-old boy’s room, this was like normal behavior. It said to me, this person is not grown up yet. It was frightening. He’s lived his whole life in the attic.”

What did her date do for a living?

“He was in the real estate business.”

The Word “Ex” May Be Substituted for the Word “Mother”

It is also a detriment to romance when one’s date shares a roof with a former spouse.

“I met him at a function,” says a woman who is a lawyer in Manhattan and has been divorced for several years. She would speak only on condition of anonymity. “It was like” — and here she sings — “across a crowded room. He was very upfront about his living arrangement. He said he and his wife had one of those huge Upper West Side apartments with four bedrooms. She lived in one, another couple lived in another one, whoever was in need of a home is in the third one. Every morning, they go to the kitchen and have coffee together. I couldn’t picture myself in that scenario. It was like Frasier and Niles with that father and Daphne. He was very cute, but then I realized he was totally unsuccessful.”

Although the Stasi Were Said to Love It

“I can’t sit in a room with overhead lighting,” says Michele Slung, a freelance book editor in Woodstock, N.Y. “It makes me feel like I’m in a police interrogation room. I believe in lamps that are casting warm glows, and anyone that doesn’t understand that, I can’t be in their house, men or women. It’s a matter of warmth; it makes people happy.”

Ms. Slung insists on pink light bulbs, her preferred shade being Dawn Pink. She also uses amber lampshades.

“I don’t think I could ever like somebody who got their lighting wrong,” she says. “What this probably means is that I’m not in the market for a guy. If I ever found a guy with a beautifully lit house I would propose — although probably his wife would have done the lighting.”

In the Afterglow of Love, Nobody Ever Reaches for a Hammer

Michael Longacre is a New York graphic designer. He believes that design people are aesthetically demanding, but in the case of one brief affair, the problem was a more basic sort. “This was a great looking guy, who worked on Wall Street,” Mr. Longacre says. “He wore like $2,000 suits, but his great pride was really, really expensive shoes. He told me he had 50 or 60 pairs of these Italian shoes that are $750 a pair. I go to his apartment, there was no framing on the doors, there were like test colors on the walls. He’d started work on it several years earlier. I said, ‘You’ve spent $30,000 on shoes, but you’re gonna renovate your own apartment when you get around to it?’ He also showed me his waterless bong. Having high-tech marijuana equipment is another deal breaker for me.”

We Aren’t Kidding About the Klimt

Adam Handler, who is 35, lives in Atlanta where he does grass-roots organizing for CARE. He is now married. But five or six years ago, when he was single and living in Washington, D.C., a nascent relationship was destroyed when a woman he’d been dating invited him back to her apartment.

“On her walls she had my two most despised pieces of art,” Mr. Handler says. One was “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt. “I happen to hate Klimt, but ‘The Kiss’ is the most trite and overdone and what made it worse, it was in her bedroom. Then there was the Robert Doisneau photograph of this couple kissing.”

That black and white photo taken on a Paris street in the ’50s? That’s kind of romantic.

“It’s romantic when you’re 16,” Mr. Handler says. “At some point you need to outgrow it.”

The romance, while it did not end that evening, ended soon after.

“She was attractive, she was smart, she was all the things I thought I would have liked in a woman, but I decided I didn’t trust her judgment,” Mr. Handler says.

What was his wife’s place like when they met?

It was a studio in Manhattan, Mr. Handler says, with a few really nice antiques. She also had a very impressive set of Le Creuset cookware. He had just about the same amount of All-Clad. It worked.

A Touch of Raffia Might Have Helped. But We Doubt It

Evan Lobel knows how to put together a welcoming apartment — in addition to being the owner of Lobel Modern, a vintage furniture store in lower Manhattan, he’s a designer. But even that doesn’t guarantee success.

“I was dating somebody very seriously,” says Mr. Lobel, who is 42. “He went away for a year to work in the Peace Corps. The two of us were in love. I said, I’m gonna wait, I’m not gonna be with anyone else, and I lived up to that. When he came back, we were supposed to live together. I thought, wouldn’t it be a nice surprise, after a year of living in huts, to live in a nice big, beautiful apartment.”

While his boyfriend was posted in Swaziland, Mr. Lobel sold his 1,200-square-foot Chelsea apartment and bought a 2,500-square-foot loft, with a fireplace and stone bathrooms. It was a frightening financial leap. While his old apartment sold for $1.5 million, the new one cost almost $2.4 million. He brought in beautiful pieces: a cabinet by the midcentury designer Tommi Parzinger; a Karl Springer chandelier with an estimated value of $25,000.

Then his boyfriend returned.

“He said, ‘What is this? I can’t live in a place like this, I was just around people who were hungry and dying,’” Mr. Lobel says. “In the end we were breaking up. For a while I regretted even buying that apartment.”

It’s Not My Place, It’s You

Matt Heindl, who is 34 and does Internet marketing, remembers two terrible dating experiences. The first involved a woman who was a nail biter — he discovered this in the cold light of morning when he found bits of her nails on the bedside stand. He also has a vivid memory of the mildewed towel she offered when he took a shower.

“It kind of smelled like dog,” he says, with a tone of disgust. “I can smell it now.”

The second experience involved an artist who lived in an East Village tenement. As he entered her apartment, a free-flying parrot relieved itself on his head. Then a large rabbit darted out from somewhere and licked his feet. A baby gate separated a second rabbit from the first — there had been a nasty penis-biting episode, his date explained. Also, the kitchen wall was covered with antique egg beaters, which looked to Mr. Heindl like weird tools.

Mr. Heindl and his date, Breck Hostetter, have now been married two years, and have a 9-month-old daughter, Greta. She operates Sesame Letterpress out of their home in Carroll Gardens. It is named, Ms. Hostetter says, after a parakeet who passed away at age 12.

Can Mr. Heindl explain how a deal breaker turned into marriage?

“I seriously thought, ‘Shall I run? No, I like her, I like her, I’ll check it out,’ ” he says. “I thought about it, I asked myself, ‘Why are you doing this?’ and I decided it showed she can really nurture, because one was like a really old rabbit, a geriatric rabbit. And she baked, obviously.”

So there it is — if your date doesn’t get your rabbit or your seal or your light bulb, he or she is not the person for you. Mr. Handler, the Klimt hater, now believes he was probably looking for a reason to break up with the woman he was seeing because she wasn’t right for him.

Mr. Podell, of the cartoon animal sheets, proudly fills a page with the household complaints of his dates. They include the size of his apartment, the lack of a coffeepot, the nonexistent stove connection, the lack of closet space. His love life, however, is great. He has a 22-year-old Russian girlfriend, whom he met in Malta. They have taken vacations to Asia, Europe and India, with Mr. Podell footing the bill.

Mr. Podell’s girlfriend lives in Moscow.

She has never seen his apartment.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.05.07 at 6.53 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • 2 Comments

Who Pays for Dates?

First dates, later dates, and who pays?  Big topic of discussion amongst both men and women.  Guys watch what women do, ladies.  So be ready. 

From InsideBayArea.com

Rule No. 3 (see last week): First date has to be cheap

WE GOT some interesting feedback on last week’s column about whether a guy should be expected to pay for most everything in the initial phases of courtship.

(Our position: The guy pays, especially if he does the asking, but we encourage even a halfheartedly mumbled attempt by the woman to spring for something — a round of drinks, the tip, 10 percent of the bail bond — mainly because such a gesture works wonders as a relationship, um, lubricant.)

Nearly all the responses were from guys, most of whom felt victimized to some degree by women who wanted a free lunch or dinner or gourmet picnic in a verdant meadow (more about that later). Interestingly, no women wrote in outraged about how our opinion perpetuates the stereotype of men having to coddle and take care of the opposite sex because they can’t take care of themselves. But then again, maybe our postman — er, letter carrier — has been ill lately.

In any case, one of the missives stood out from the rest, and not just because it sailed through the transom affixed to a brick. It was from a guy named Rob (we won’t identify him further, in case he might ever want to try dating again), who felt we weren’t hard enough on women who seem to expect to be wined and dined ad infinitum. To illustrate his argument, he broke down his expenses for a recent first date, from $7 for parking to $95 for a comedy show and drinks. Oh, and with a high-end dinner in between. The total was around $200 for, he said, “someone I barely even know.”

To which we can only respond: What, no private jet to Maui for a hot-stone massage in Hana?

Say what you will about who should pay for first dates (please discuss among yourselves, because we’re officially sick of the topic), but Rob caused his own problem by going too far, too fast. And that’s not something you’ll hear very often from this space.

Which brings us to today’s lesson: What is an appropriate activity for a first date?

Let’s stipulate that this is not an online-dating first date, for which the only acceptable venue is a Starbucks or a crowded bar with two exits, preferably one near the restrooms. No, this is a true first date, arrived at only after a certain amount of flirting, e-mailing and driving by her house 50 times.

-The movies: No. Too much time spent in tortured silence. There will be plenty of opportunity for that later in the relationship.

-Gourmet picnic in a verdant meadow: No. This smacks of trying too hard. And what if she doesn’t even like beefalo jerky and Coors Light?

-Parking, drinks, dinner, comedy show: No. See above. And Rob, enough with the dating cost/analysis spreadsheets. OK? Thanks.

-Dinner: Yes. Provided it’s at a modest place (sometimes known as a “joint”) that doesn’t serve a diminutive entree on a plate the size of a manhole cover. The fact is, most women are uncomfortable with first dates that are too lavish. (Or have we been misinformed yet again? Ladies?)

-Bowling: Yes. Because if one of you is demonstrably better than the other, you can put up the gutter bumpers and increase beer frames from one to three. In fact, we recommend that from the outset.

-The Boardwalk: Yes, if it’s at night. Everyone looks better in the glow of pulsating neon. Particularly those who’ve just come from a grueling session at the Stardust Lanes.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 06.02.07 at 6.32 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • Money Matters • 1 Comments