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March 31, 2001, was the day that Drew and I got married. We met three years earlier, so our 10th anniversary of our first meeting on Match.com is coming up fast, in May. Here’s one of my favorite pictures from our wedding:
We’ve shared so much life together in 10 years that it seems like we have known each other much longer than that, but also, the time has passed quickly.
If you are over 40 and don’t think that that online dating “works,” take a look at the piece below, the “Vows" section of the Sunday New York Times, March 23. Diane Cole and Philip Barnett found each other on JDate in 2002. Now 55 and 61 respectively, they had each been married and widowed. If you can still access the Times article, take a look at the little video that accompanies the write-up. It’s sweet, but you’ll get to see that these are two ordinary people with an extraordinary story.
You’ll also get a perspective on the experience of a 50ish widower on a dating site: These guys are pretty popular. Just like pretty women under 35, single men, particularly those who are widowed or divorced, are desirable commodities. Older men who have been married tend to like being so, and will go about getting themselves married again in pretty short order. As Philip says in the video, there are many more widows than widowers, so even though ideally, men and women should have some time between a divorce or death and a remarriage, these folks are good risks, since they are experienced at being coupled and want to do it again.
Vows
Diane Cole and Philip Barnett
By SANDEE BRAWARSKY
WHEN an armed band of American Muslim militants invaded several buildings in Washington on March 9, 1977, Diane Cole, then 24, became one of more than 100 hostages. The gunmen threatened to decapitate captives before she and the others were released 39 hours later.
As Ms. Cole sat in fear, pondering her fate, Philip Barnett was in Spring Valley, N.Y., and unable to sleep; his wife’s uncle was also one of the hostages. He recently recalled how he had wondered about the others being held, and how he had prayed for all of them. Dr. Barnett, now 61, would eventually come to know Ms. Cole, 55, but only after they both found themselves widowed and alone after long marriages.
Even before those frightening hours in Washington, Ms. Cole, who became an author and a contributing editor for U.S. News & World Report, had been tempered by heartbreak. Her first husband, Peter Baida, nearly died of cancer while they were dating as students at Harvard. As Mr. Baida fought for his life, her mother died of cancer. From that crucible came her 1992 memoir, “After Great Pain: A New Life Emerges.”
That book ended on a note of optimism. Yet for a living memoirist, there are always new chapters. When Mr. Baida died in 1999, he left her with a 10-year-old son, Edward, and a message: grief should not trump joy.
“All the things she has endured could have crushed someone with less fortitude and spirit,” her cousin Judy Rousuck said. It was two years before she was ready to “move away from the cold terrain of grief,” Ms. Cole said. “I wanted warming up. I wanted romance.”
She turned to the Web, but men she encountered were filled with bitterness about past relationships. “I needed someone who spoke in tones less bitter and more sweet,” she said.
When she saw Dr. Barnett’s online profile in April 2002, she sent him an e-mail message. In his response, he offered understanding, noting that his own son and daughter were grown when his wife, Sarah, died, whereas Ms. Cole was left to fend for a young child. He also explained he was busily fielding e-mail from other women. “I never had such attention,” he wrote. “I married the only girl I ever dated, and the only one who really spoke to me.”
Nevertheless, they began an e-mail exchange that uncovered that both had longstanding interests in baseball, classical music and Jewish philosophy. But when she offered her phone number, he replied, “I feel more comfortable writing rather than speaking.”
In that same exchange he again mentioned the long list of women, but then dangled encouragement. “Few of these women are as interesting as you are,” he wrote.
In May they agreed to meet for dinner on the Upper East Side. For her, it was “comfort at first sight,” she said. Before parting she gave him a copy of her memoir, which Dr. Barnett, a professor and science reference librarian at City College in Manhattan, stayed up into that night reading.
They started seeing each other regularly, sometimes with Edward. Ms. Cole was touched by Dr. Barnett’s “sweetness, honesty, modesty and sense of humor, not to mention his intellectual curiosity,” she recalled. Comfort and healing grew to love, leading the three of them to take trips to Iceland and Norway.
“Diane has a big heart; we’re so compatible,” Dr. Barnett said. “She teaches me Shakespeare. I teach her science. I didn’t think I’d ever be happy again, and I am.”
Last summer they decided to marry. Explaining the timing, Ms. Cole said: “As a mother, my priority was to see my son settled into college life. And then we decided it was time for us to move into the next phase of our lives, too.”
Rabbi Julie Schonfeld led the couple’s ceremony at Bayard’s in Manhattan’s financial district, a party space in a 19th-century mansion that is filled with nautical accents. Ms. Cole, in an off-white cream satin Escada gown with gold sequin straps, stood with Dr. Barnett under the wedding canopy, bringing together past and present for their future.
The parents of her late husband sat up front as Ms. Cole, who wears their son’s wedding band on her right hand, held out a forefinger, on which Dr. Barnett placed the band once worn by her late mother. (The Baidas refer to Dr. Barnett as “their new son-in-law.”) The bride then gave Dr. Barnett a wedding band, one from his first marriage.
“Although many people already thought of us as an old married couple, we wanted to affirm in public our love for each other and this unexpected happiness in our lives,” the bride said before the March 9 ceremony, which happened to fall 31 years after the siege in Washington. “Now I can reframe the anniversary from one of terror to one of joy.”
One of the greatest things about Internet dating right from the start has been the inclusion of gays and lesbians on regular mainstream sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals. What a step forward to ending discrimination for sexual minorities. And how regressive it seems now when sites like eHarmony refuse to work with gays and lesbians. Now sites are cropping up for gays and lesbians specifically, and the regular sites are marketing to the gay population. Yea! Here’s an article that describes both:
Gay matchmaking sites find a growing market
Anastasia Ustinova, Chronicle Staff Writer
Thursday, February 14, 2008
Dale Bullock, a longtime matchmaker for lesbians and gay ...
Growing up, Bethtina Woodridge heard all kinds of advice about dating, finding a husband and getting married.
“You don’t have those tips about meeting women,” said Woodridge, 31. “How do I approach her, how do I know she is gay?”
For Woodridge, finding that special someone turned out to be easier online. Several months after signing up for dating service Chemistry.com, Woodridge was matched with her partner, who was “incredibly honest and sincere, and she stole my heart.”
After online giant eHarmony made headlines last year by saying its psychological research is based exclusively on heterosexual relationships, a growing number of rival online matchmakers are using their algorithms to find same-sex love as well.
“There are just not enough services for creating healthy relationships, and (it is) a major gap in the gay community,” said matchmaker Patrick Perrine, founder of San Francisco-based Mypartner.com, which caters to “sophisticated, cultured and relationship-oriented gay men” and has more than 50,000 clients across the nation. “There has been a long-held stereotype that gay people are only looking to hook up.”
But there’s disagreement over whether gay people fall in love the same way as straight people. Some matchmakers, including Chemistry.com, say the chemistry of love is the same whether you’re gay or straight. But matchmakers who dedicate their services exclusively to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender community disagree, pointing out that little theory is available about gay relationships outside general psychology.
“When you are dealing with a Mars-Venus situation, it is one thing. When you are dealing with Mars-Mars, it’s different,” said Stuart McFaul, marketing director of the newly created Partnerforlife.com, which has created an algorithm based on years of founder Dale Bullock’s private matchmaking experience in the gay community.
Unlike adult hookup sites that allow users to browse profiles, online matchmakers offer lengthy personality tests, designed to match clients with a compatible partner. Though companies keep their algorithms secret and little scientific data is available about the effectiveness of the services, thousands of those looking for a soul mate are willing to pay up to $40 per month to try them out.
Advertised as gay-owned-and-operated businesses, sites such as Partnerforlife.com and Mypartner.com ask their members to answer questions that assess their personalities as well as cover different aspects of a modern gay man’s life, including sexuality, HIV and parenting. Offline services such as relationship counseling and seminars are also available.
“Differences between gays and others have nothing to do with the fundamentals, but with day-to-day living,” said Bullock. “The prime goal is to create a community support structure for our couples to grow closer together and to develop a standard model for their relationship.”
The matchmakers claim “you can actually find people who are compatible, and this is a major advance that is going to keep the industry alive for the upcoming 50 years,” said Mark Brooks, an Internet dating and social networking consultant.
Matchmakers like Chemistry.com, which estimates that about 10 percent of its 3.7 million clients are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender, say all love is equal, straight or gay. Last year, the company launched a TV campaign criticizing eHarmony for rejecting applicants it deems undesirable, including those looking for same-sex partners.
Chemistry.com is using a single algorithm created by Helen Fisher, a professor of anthropology at Rutgers University, who has identified four personality types based on chemicals in the brain that tend to be associated with different types: the explorer, the builder, the director and the negotiator.
The explorer, for example, has high levels of dopamine, a chemical that tends to make a person curious, creative, spontaneous and irreverent. The explorer’s perfect match is the serotonin-driven builder, who is calm, cautious and detail-oriented.
People are usually drawn to the partners who complement their type, Fisher said, and that rule of attraction goes beyond their sexual orientation.
“We are not measuring what your appetite is for your sex partner; we are measuring basic human characteristics,” Fisher said. “Who you choose to love is one thing, how you feel when you are in love is another, so I am operating under the assumption that gays are going to fall in love and have absolutely the same experience and choose the partners in the same way straight people do.”
While matchmakers scramble to tap the booming industry, academic researchers say they hope the growing competition pushes companies to post their research for peer review.
“And unlike those (companies), most scientists don’t have good resources to collect data,” said Eli Finkel, a psychology professor who studies dating at Northwestern University’s Relationships Lab. “Until we have actually seen their data, we would not be able to know” how effective the sites are.
Meanwhile, in an attempt to counter the stereotype that gay men are not looking for serious commitment, Partnerforlife.com’s ads feature ordinary-looking couples doing everyday activities with tongue-in-cheek slogans such as “One-nighters are great ... 365 are better.”
“This is what attracts people the most - so gay men and lesbians can look at each and say, ‘We can have ordinary lives just like everybody else,’ “ McFaul said. “Our ads are a celebration that we have arrived.”
Michelle Singletary writes an excellent article about the “Sweetheart Swindle” of which all singles need to be aware. See below, I have underlined parts of the article that I think are particularly relevant.
Online dating scammers will tugat your heartstrings and wallets
By Michelle Singletary
Thursday, February 14, 2008
If you’re looking online for a sweetheart, beware: You may find a new meaning for the expression “money can’t buy love.”
The National Consumers League has issued a warning to people looking for love on the Internet to watch out for con artists whose only mission is to separate them from their cash.
“Scammers lurk in chat rooms and on online dating sites, attempting to earn someone’s affections and trust so that they can persuade him or her to send money,” said Sally Greenberg, executive director of the National Consumers League.
The league, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group, is calling such scams the “Sweetheart Swindle.” It’s a simple scheme, really. The con artist spends time nurturing a relationship. The goal of this online courtship, Greenberg said, is to eventually get the victim to repeatedly send cash.
Greenberg said the group’s Fraud Center only began tracking this type of scam last summer. However, it’s become so pervasive that the organization says it has moved into its top 10 list of scams. Last year the average lovesick victim lost more than $3,000, according to complaints logged at the center’s Web site (http://www.fraud.org).
The scams vary but the typical swindler will begin to weave a tale of how he (or she) has gotten into a financial jam, Greenberg said. Feeling sorry for their online lover, the victim eventually sends money.
In one case, a woman gave $35,000 to a man she met on Match.com, who claimed he was from her hometown of Kansas City, Mo. He said he worked as an engineer in Nigeria. For four months the two had long online exchanges, much like you have at the beginning of a courtship. He even sent her flowers and professed his love for her.
Then the man began requesting money to pay for medical care for his 11-year-old son, whom he claimed had a congenital heart condition.
It was all a con. Eventually the woman took out a second mortgage on her home to pay off the credit cards she used to get advances to send him money.
“I’m not a stupid woman,” she told me in an interview. “I have a master’s degree. I hold down a good job.”
But, she said, she felt sorry for the kid. “That was where my heart strings were.”
If you’re inclined to be harsh on these victims, don’t be so smug to think this couldn’t happen to you, Greenberg said.
“Scammers are really good at figuring out and preying on the vulnerabilities of the people they are scamming,” she said.
The Consumers League said if you want to avoid heartache from a sweet-talking swindler, look for these red flags:
* You are being asked for money.
* There is a confession of love soon after you begin communicating.
* The person claims to be a U.S. citizen who is living abroad. Or they pump up their professional credentials.
* The person wants you to help with their business or get involved in a business deal.
Greenberg advises that you give money only to someone you’ve met in person, have known for a long time and can truly trust.
I would suggest that you make it a personal money rule not to give or loan a significant amount of cash to anyone you’re romantically interested in.
If your honey needs money, look at the situation as an opportunity to see how he or she handles a financial crisis. When faced with an unplanned expense, does your Pookey have to resort to borrowing the money?
Step back from your emotions and you will gain some important information about a person you may view as a potential spouse.
I’m not saying never give any money to your boo (that’s the hip way of referring to your romantic companion). Of course, you will trade off paying for dates or transferring a little money between the two of you. But I want to emphasize it should be only a little money.
Whether you are dating in person or online, you should not be paying the person’s rent, car note or any other bill. Don’t give her money to get her hair done. Don’t lend or give him money to fix his car. These are all expenses that your sweetheart should be paying without your help.
And certainly don’t ever borrow money to help out your sweetie, no matter how desperate the situation seems. If they need financial assistance, help them find another resource.
Don’t get a cash advance on your credit card. Don’t take a loan against your 401(k). And for goodness sake, don’t borrow against your home.
Bailing out your boo is not an indication of your love. It’s an indication you’re dating someone who needs to budget or get another job (or a job) or move back home with his or her mama.
If you’ve ever thought of using a web cam (come on, now, who hasn’t?) but didn’t know how to start, here’s just the advice you need in the article below. Fess up now, who has used a web cam and kept it clean?
Microsoft and sex expert Tracey Cox’s top tips for hot webcamming action this V-day
By Katherine Hannaford Tech Digest
To support the launch of Microsoft’s new range of webcams - the VX-7000, VX-6000, NX-6000 and NX-3000 - Tracey and her heaving bosoms want you to know that you should always… Check whats in view People will make assumptions about you simply by looking at the things you own, so make sure everything in view sends the signals you want to send. If youre keen to promote a certain image - like be seen as intelligence, for instance, make sure a pile of books are in view. If you want to be seen as artistic, put a painting directly behind you.
Along with…
Be friendly It sounds obvious but there is a temptation to play it cool for fear of appearing too keen. This can (sometimes) work in the flesh but it doesnt translate well on a webcam. The more you smile, the more theyre going to like you. If you insist on using the treat em mean, keep em keen stuff, save it for when youre actually out on a date. We like people who like us. Simple as that.
Make them laugh The joy of being able to see each other as youre chatting means you can use humour, irony and innuendo without fear of it being misinterpreted - which often happens with text or email. Its impossible to take something the wrong way if you can see its delivered with a big, cheeky grin!
Use the camera to reveal the different sides of you Obviously, youll want to look your best the first time you chat via the webcam, but dont be afraid to let them see you looking less than perfect. Revealing different looks gives you dimension.
Look animated and expressive Give good face! Popular people tend to have animated faces and make a steady stream of expressions when theyre talking or listening. Not only do facial expressions liven up our own stories, they also let other people know the effect theirs are having on us. A lot of expressions are infectious - it really is a case of smile and the world smiles with you!
Watch your body language Dont slouch - youll look lazy and uninterested - and if youre nervous, watch what youre doing with your hands. Also be careful about camera angles. Try out your webcam with a trusted friend first, getting them to check its in a flattering position. Practise tilting your chin down and lifting it up, getting them to tell you which is most becoming.
Dont cross your arms Before you jump in with a (defensive) Its comfortable, thats all, let me agree with you. But while some people do in fact cross their arms for comfort, just about all of us adopt this position when we feel defensive, protective, angry, threatened or plain scared. It sends negative signals, so dont chance it. While were on the subject, if youre female and body conscious, resist the urge to hug a pillow. Itll make you look both childish and insecure.
Write down a few ideas of what to talk about before you chat Funny things which have happened that day, something interesting you heard on the newsIf you get suddenly tongue-tied, a quick glance at the list saves you from awkward silences. Keep conversations reasonably light-hearted at the start - its fine to go deeper later but ideally youd save serious topics for when you meet up.
Compliment but not too much When someone tells us were sexy, funny, bright - whatever - it has the optimum effect the first time its said. Keep harping on it and you not only dilute the compliment, you also get the opposite reaction to the one intended: instead of liking you, they find you annoying!
Does he fancy you? Watch to see if hes smoothing or messing up his hair. Guys do this involuntarily if theyre keen, trying to look their best. Also check out how hes sitting. If hes keen, hell tend to sit with his legs open, giving you a crotch display. Its a subliminal Me Tarzan, you Jane gesture, highlighting hes got something you dont Does she fancy you? Women also tend to play with their hair or smooth their clothes, in an effort to look their best. If she tilts her head to the side, its a sign shes interested in what youre saying. Its also good news if she massages her neck or her hands start to glide over her arms and neck. This is called autoerotic touching: shes touching herself where she thinks youd love to!
Use we as soon as you possibly can Were great at this arent we!, or Well have to get used to chatting this way. Linking the two of you conversationally subliminally plants the idea of linking up in other ways. Another great word to use often: you. Instead of Anyway, I was talking about, say Anyway, as I was telling you. Including you makes people feel youre talking to them specifically and it pushes the pride button. The word to use least of all is I. Youll sound selfish if every sentence starts with it.
Here you go, rich ladies and gorgeous men, a dating site just for you. PocketChange.com hosts a speed dating section: Men 35 and under can apply, based solely on appearance. They must submit 5 photos for judgment. Women must be over 35 can apply,and must qualify (solely based on wealth) in one of four ways: Must make more than $500K, have liquid assets, entrusted assets, or a divorce settlement of $4MM+. (I’ll show my ignorance: How much is $4MM? I guess if I don’t know, I haven’t got it.)
Most of this below repeats what seem now to be commonly understood safety rules for online daters. But it never hurts to repeat important lessons, and who knows? Maybe YOU haven’t heard them yet.
Online dating safety tips
•Use your best judgment . Don’t ignore facts that seem inconsistent or “off.” If something doesn’t feel right, close communication or, if on a date, leave. Watch out for someone who makes overtly sexual or personal remarks, tells grandiose stories with inconsistencies, gives vague answers to specific questions, constantly blames others for his/her troubles, or insists on getting overly close, overly fast.
•Talk on the telephone a few times before arranging a meeting. For added security, use your phone’s number blocking feature or use a disposable prepaid cell phone that isn’t linked to your personal identity.
•Don’t disclose too much personal information. Don’t divulge the name of the company where you work or to which gym you belong. If your date asks you something you don’t feel ready to share, tell him/her you want to know him/her better first. Before you share contact information, discuss the need to respect each other’s privacy.
•Do your own research . Type your match’s name into a search engine, contact your state or local municipalities to obtain public information, or use a paid service to obtain a full background report.
•Meet at a decent hour in a public place. Lunch dates work especially well. Limit alcohol consumption or abstain until you know the person better.
•Use your own transportation. Riding together should wait.
•Tell at least one friend or family member about your plans. Leave your date’s name and phone number with them, and arrange to check in with them after each of the first few dates. Carry a fully charged cell phone with easily accessible emergency numbers.
•Don’t leave purses and coats where your date could go through them. They might contain items that could reveal personal information about you.
•Take your time. Allow time for a variety of experiences together, particularly the simple everyday routine. In long-distance relationships, consider living in the same area for a significant time before committing to a more serious relationship.
Yeah, yeah, singles online often do lie about everything from how much hair they have to how much money and how many wives. You’ll see the whole spectrum, from the absolutely strait-arrow honest, to the sociopath who you know is lying because his lips are moving. Sharpening up your observational skills will serve you well. This article below is a bit too hysterical for me, with the killers and the police warnings, but there are a couple of new suggestions. I particularly liked: People should ask to meet their date’s colleagues, friends and families, Woodland said. Many predators, she said, are isolated and don’t have support systems. The article is in red, and I underlined what I liked.
What you see isn’t always what you get with internet dating
By Paula Burkes Erickson
Like Brad Paisley’s hit country song “Online,” where a nerd on the Internet morphs into a much cooler, taller dude with six-pack abs, many people misrepresent themselves in online dating services. Kelli Pickens and Shelley Cadamy can attest to it.
Pickens of Edmond once agreed to a date with a guy — who turned out to be a lot different than his online persona.
Uninterested, she begged off an after-dinner movie, and her date called her no fewer than 12 times in the next two hours, asking “Why didn’t you like me?”
Cadamy of Oklahoma City once met a man who told her he looked like a football player. Not really.
Of the roughly 30 men she’s met online or through personal ads, two showed up wearing wedding bands and a third, whom she drove to Dallas to meet, couldn’t hold eye contact for more than two seconds.
“This guy made the hair on the back of my neck stand up,” she said. “It was very difficult to hold a conversation with him, much less trust him.”
To reduce such disappointments and for their own safety, singles who meet online should take certain precautions, say health care and law enforcement professionals.
For starters, they should always should meet in public places and always let someone know where they’re going and when they’ll be back, said Terri Woodland, clinical director of Sunbeam Family Services in Oklahoma City.
“Don’t wait until you’re involved to question who and what kind of person they are,” Woodland said. “Verify everything that person told you about themselves, including their education and workplace. And start early, so you don’t set yourself up for disappointment and heartbreak.”
People should ask to meet their date’s colleagues, friends and families, Woodland said. Many predators, she said, are isolated and don’t have support systems.
Just last week, Donna Louise Riles of Norman was shot and killed. Police arrested Tony Benae Smith Jr., a man Riles’ aunt said the 36-year-old single mother met two days before through a telephone dating service. Smith had several misdemeanor and felony convictions in Midland and Fort Worth, Texas.
Police are encouraging people to be careful when meeting strangers. Singles can use free online search engines and paid services to do background checks.
By paying $15 to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation, anyone can request a criminal background report on anyone else, said Jessica Brown, public information officer. The reports show all criminal activity within Oklahoma but don’t include federal offenses. However, they give more detail, including charges and jail time, than the free information available on http://www.oscn.net, the Web site of the Oklahoma State Courts Network.
The registry of sex offenders in Oklahoma is free. “But,” Brown said, “keep in mind, people drop off the list after 10 years.”
Brown strongly discourages online dating. “The only thing you know about that person is they like to be on the Internet,” Brown said. “You have no reference from a friend or a neighbor.”
Cadamy considers online dating no scarier than any other method of meeting people. “At least you can read about how they perceive themselves — versus meeting in a bar or standing in a grocery store, wondering if the guy checking out the lettuce next to you is single.”
Cadamy recommends meeting for coffee on the first date, and going Dutch. Until she knows someone better, she only uses her first name and never shares her address.
If not for online dating, Pickens would have no social life. “I was a single mom with two toddlers,” she said. “I could schedule ahead and plan a date, but ‘Where was I going to meet someone?’”
Pickens met her husband, Alan Pickens, online. They “spoke” briefly in a chat room, and six months later, he e-mailed her and asked how she was. Long before they met, they became pen pals and friends via e-mail. They’ve been married nearly three years.
Alan Pickens entered the chat room on a whim, he said.
“It was exciting at first,” Pickens said. “Everyone was hitting me with questions because I was the new guy. But after a week, I got tired of it. It was really fast, and I couldn’t keep up.”
Pickens was drawn to his wife because he found her intelligent, based on the verbiage she used, and attractive, based on her photograph that accompanied her profile. “We got lucky,” Pickens said. “I wasn’t a freak, and she wasn’t a freak.”
CrazyBlindDate.com last month">I wrote about CrazyBlindDate.com last month, the perfect site for those of you who think Internet dating is too slow. Now CrazyBlindDate has expanded into more cities: Los Angeles, Chicago and the Washington, D.C. So if you live in one of the urban areas they cover (New York, Boston, San Francisco and Austin), you can be out on a date in 15 minutes.
CrazyBlindDate.com Now Available in Los Angeles, Chicago and the Washington D.C. Metro Area
Hugely Popular Free Online Dating Site Continues to Gain Momentum; Named 2007 Online Dating “Innovation of the Year” by Online Personals Watch
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Starting today, singles in Los Angeles, Chicago and the Washington, D.C. metro area have their chance to join the growing CrazyBlindDate.com phenomenon. Already a success in New York, Boston, San Francisco and Austin, CrazyBlindDate.com is the only online dating site that encourages singles to get off their computers and into real, live dates, meeting people when and where they want.
Created as a free, fun and spontaneous new twist to the often tiresome world of online dating, CrazyBlindDate.com users simply enter criteria for their date (age, height, ethnic background, education, etc.) and choose the time and location from a list of local venues. Once CrazyBlindDate.com finds two compatible daters, both parties receive text messages and e-mails with the date logistics. Both daters must reconfirm their availability before the blind date is finalized.
CrazyBlindDate.com, first launched in November 2007, has received an incredible response and was recently named the online dating industry’s #1 Innovation in 2007 by Online Personals Watch. According to an analysis of the first 3,000 CrazyBlindDates:
* Over 2/3 of all daters rated their dates as “good” or “great;”
* 87% of singles told a friend about their experience on CrazyBlindDate.com.
“We’ve been thrilled to see such an overwhelming response and look forward to serving the voracious appetite of singles in LA, Washington DC, and Chicago,” said Sam Yagan, co-founder of CrazyBlindDate.com. “Singles across the country are finding that CrazyBlindDate.com is the one website that quickly connects them with real, live dates, taking the work out of online dating and replacing it with spontaneity and fun.”
John Tierney from the NYT is doing a series of articles about Internet dating. I wrote about it here in late January. Tierney focused on the sites like Chemistry.com and eHarmony that do the matchmaking for you. Here he describes going onto eHarmony with his wife to see if they get paired by the matchmaking. They had to fudge a little (eHarmony rejects those who tell the truth that they are married), but who cares about lying online, right? (That’s sarcasm from me. Lying in your online dating profile and communications is short-sited and perhaps disastrous. You can read more of what I have to say about it here).
As with the other Tierney articles, the comments that follow are at least as interesting as the article. If you can still see them on the NYT’s site, scan down and take a look.
And what do you think about the point that several commenters made, that Tierney was unethical in lying on the eHarmony sites, particularly since the site immediately started providing him with matches that he was clearly not going to pursue?
My eHarmony Experiment: Can This Marriage Be Matched?
By John Tierney
Now that a couple of hundred Lab readers have told their online matchmaking stories, let me tell you mine. After visiting the eHarmony Labs for my Findings column on matchmaking, I wondered if its algorithm would match me and my wife of 12 years, Dana. So we each registered separately with eHarmony and answered the 258 questions. We falsely said we were each divorced (because eHarmony doesn’t offer its service to people already married) and each childless, but otherwise we told the truth.
After we filled out the questions, we each were given a personality profile. It was pretty general — and tactfully written so that it emphasized the good aspects of each trait — but it seemed reasonably accurate to each of us. There were five general categories. We got identical ratings for extraversion and emotional stability. We got pretty similar ratings for conscientiousness (I was “flexible”; Dana was “very flexible”) and openness (I was “curious”; she was “very curious”). Our biggest difference was in the category of agreeableness: Dana was rated as consistently taking care of others, while I was consistently taking care of myself. EHarmony tried to put the best spin on my selfishness by explaining: “You believe that compassion has a role to play in your life, in a structure of values that encourages people to take care of themselves. Uncritical tenderheartedness does as much harm as good. . . . Fostering such independence is the best way you find there is to love and care for others.”
Then, presto, eHarmony started providing matches. Dana got more — understandably! — but even selfish me got several dozen over the course of the next week. Unlike some of the Lab readers who complained about the abundance of devout Christians on eHarmony, we weren’t overwhelmed with evangelical partners. There were, though, many people passionately devoted to walks on the beach.
We got a lot of matches in the New York area, and some farflung ones, too, but not the match that we wanted. Even though we’d said we wanted nearby matches and had entered the same ZIP code, eHarmony didn’t match us. Does this mean that there’s something wrong with eHarmony, or with our marriage?
I sought counsel from the wizard behind the eHarmony curtain, Galen Buckwalter, the psychologist who serves as the company’s vice president for research and development. (You might have seen him in a documentary that’s been airing on public television stations recently, “Rolling,” which profiles him and two other people who use wheelchairs. He became a paraplegic after breaking his neck when he was a teenager.) Dr. Buckwalter created the algorithm a decade ago by testing questions on 5,000 married couples and focusing on the answers of the happiest couples (the ones who scored in the upper quartile of a measure called the dyadic adjustment scale).
Dr. Buckwalter reassured me, after I summarized our general personality profiles, that there was hope for the marriage. “Your personality profiles do suggest a good overall degree of compatibility,” he said. “However, I cannot from this information know if you and your wife meet our models’ criteria for matching.” He explained that the “matching models include more specific constructs than are used in the personality profile.” He wondered if some of the preferences we’d indicated — like our tolerance for drinkers and smokers — might have ruled out a match. I checked and told him that we’d marked mostly the same preferences except for the smoking category. Although neither of us smokes, my wife had said that she was open to a match with a smoker, whereas I’d said I wasn’t open.
“Voila,” Dr. Buckwalter said. ” The smoking likely did it. We find much higher user satisfaction when we keep those who don’t want smokers with similar persons.”
That was encouraging — briefly. Dana went back and changed her preferences to rule out smokers, and we both asked for new matches. We each got a few more matches over the next couple of days, but not each other.
Dr. Buckwalter encouraged me to look at the bright side. “You both have gotten a good number of matches within a relatively short period of time,” he wrote in an e-mail. “This does suggest there are additional matches in both of your pools of compatible matches. Do these additional matches include each other? Given the widespread use of the Tierneys as the definition of marital bliss in relationship science, I can only assume so!”
Well, we appreciate his good humor, and we’re trying to hold the marriage together. Maybe eHarmony will match us yet. Maybe we’ll find another matchmaking site to see if we find each other — although I do feel a little guilty doing this kind of experiment, because it wastes the time of all the partners who were matched with us during the past week.
I hereby apologize to all the women I rejected, usually by checking off the same lame excuse: “I don’t feel that the chemistry is there.” Really, it’s not you. It’s my wife.
UPDATE [Monday, Feb. 4, 5 p.m.]: Some readers criticized me for doing this experiment, so I should explain it a little more. I didn’t actually contact any of the women with whom I was matched; nor did I know their identities. I merely saw the profiles that they provided to eHarmony, which listed some some basic facts (like their first name and home town, their age and occupation) and some answers they gave to standard questions (like their favorite activities). I couldn’t see their pictures because eHarmony won’t show you a photo of your match unless you’ve provided your own photo, and I hadn’t done so.
I could have contacted any of the women by going through eHarmony, but instead I chose to close the matches. I told eHarmony I wasn’t interested and checked the “no chemistry” box in explaining why. I realize I wasted a little of the women’s time, since they looked at my profile when we were matched, but I hope it didn’t take long.
I always recommend that singles pick a big, established, well-trafficked dating site, one that charges a fee. And of course, if you join, you should pay. Here’s a report that backs up some of my rationale—that people who join and pay a fee are more serious and see others posting on the site as more serious too. Underlining below is mine.
The typical online dater is serious, says report
People who date on the internet tend to be serious about the endeavour, a new report asserts.
According to eMarketer, those who use paid-for subscription services to meet prospective romantic mates are doing so because they want to find a specific sort of person who takes the venture as seriously as they do.
Citing comScore figures that reveal 97 million people visited matchmaking websites in December of last year, representing a ten per cent year-on-year fall, the report comments that a specific demographic is drawn to such resources.
“Online dating site users are looking for a pool of other people who are serious about dating, and pay for access to that pool,” the publication notes.
Meanwhile, an International Herald-Tribune article is cited in which the chief executive of Match.com, Thomas Enraght-Moony, describes internet dating as “highly underpenetrated”.
Hitwise has reported that the term ‘Valentine’s poems’ was the most popular search phrase containing the word Valentine in February 2007.
More and more 50’s and older are turning to the Internet when it comes to looking for love. See the article below about PerfectMatch. Mark Brooks of OnlinePersonalsWatch Match, eHarmony and Lavalife have also experienced double digit growth in the 50+ segment. I have underlined parts of the article that I think are most interesting.
Dating Site Seeks Same Audience as Grandparents.com
By Brian Steinberg
Published: February 08, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com)—Think about online dating, and what likely comes to mind are 20-somethings trolling web pages in the hopes of finding a love connection. But increasingly, those trollers are more like 50-somethings, single baby boomers looking for dates.
That’s why during Valentine’s Day week, online-dating service Perfectmatch.com will be woven into “Another Chance for Romance,” a dating show aimed at boomers on Retirement Living TV, a niche channel that appears on DirecTV and Comcast. Perfectmatch CEO Duane Dahl said the site has seen a 60% spike in the 50-plus audience from 2005 to 2006, and estimated growth of 140% in the 50-plus audience for 2006 to 2007.
That doesn’t surprise John Erickson, Retirement Living’s founder, who believes older consumers are more dynamic than marketers care to admit. “If you approach these people with ‘Murder, She Wrote’ reruns and ‘Matlock’ or ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and think that’s going to satisfy them for the next 25 years, you’re missing the biggest opportunity in the market,” he said.
Importance of individualization
Consumers over 50 do represent a big opportunity, but more often than not, advertisers treat them all exactly the same. Studies have found that marketers over-generalize, misrepresent and sometimes ignore the generation, lumping them together and, in the process, alienating them. “The longer that marketers keep treating [boomers] as a huge mass as opposed to individuals, the longer it’s going to take them to enter the market,” said Jody Quinn, exec VP-general manager of the Boomer Insights Generation Group at Edelman, which did the latest study.
Market-research firm Yankelovich has identified at least six different flavors of boomer, ranging from “due diligents,” who think ahead and plan for the worst, to “re-activists,” who want to support social causes and do all they can to fix them before age makes it difficult. There are other challenges to navigate as well: A “mature” consumer in his or her 70s should not be approached in the same way as a recent retiree. “There are some really big differences,” said Gerald Carrafiello, president of Carrafiello Diehl & Associates, an Irvington, N.Y., agency that has studied marketing to older consumers.
Going at older consumers by mining a particular niche interest seems to be a way for some emerging media to lure advertisers. Mr. Erickson, a retirement-community magnate, launched Retirement Living TV in September of 2006. Filled with programs such as “The Prudent Advisor” and “Healthline,” the network has attracted the likes of Pfizer and Prudential, who seek consumers 55 years or older that are active in retirement. The channel can appeal to a broader audience, said Gig Barton, VP-advertising sales and sponsorships, but the focus is concentrated on people looking forward to retirement or those who have recently retired and are looking to stay active.
Savvy grandparents
Grandparents.com, a website aimed at baby boomers with grandchildren, has attracted ads from Johnson & Johnson and Hasbro, said Jerry Shereshewsky, CEO, Grandparents.com. The toymaker is not your typical elder marketer, but is based on the principle that grandparents tend to buy lots of toys for the kids. The site has about 35,000 registered users and about 150,000 unique visitors per month, he said.
AARP also targets different segments of its membership with its eponymous magazine. In 2001, the group decided to publish two different magazines, “My Generation” and “MM: Modern Maturity” aimed at the 55 age group and the other for 56-65 and 66 plus, said Hugh Delehanty, editor in chief of AARP Publications. Two years later, the group found that more readers were familiar with the organization’s name, AARP, and the magazines was rechristened just that, though different versions are published for different age segments—50-59, 60-69, and 70 plus—with about 25% of each version’s content varied according to target.
In years past, older consumers were looked upon as doddering, addled or even useless. Clearly, that view is changing, as seen in recent Ameriprise commercials that feature actor Dennis Hopper casting aside the traditional idea of retirement. But not all retirees or elders are the same, and marketers will have to focus as closely on them in the near future as they do on their younger counterparts. “Young marketers perceive someone to be ‘over the hill’ at 57; the 50-plus consumer perceives someone to be ‘over the hill’ at 75. So the people doing the marketing don’t truly understand the demographic they’re targeting,” said Jennifer Kaltia, a marketing consultant who has studied older consumers.
If you are an eHarmony fan and regular (and readers know that I have definite opinions about eHarmony -- just read my postings to find out), you’ll love the resource I just found: A blog dedicated to the tricks, twists, and turns of eHarmony. I certainly don’t have the time or dedication to figure out how to make eHarmony work better for you, but you may find what you need here.
Most people know that Internet dating is one of the biggest money-makers on the web. Even though total visits were down 10% in December, revenues continue to climb. Speculators say that the less serious singles are dropping out, and the truly serious are paying up. See the article below, I added the underlines.
JupiterResearch Sees Steady Growth for Online Personals, Despite Explosion of Social Networking
NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--JupiterResearch-- a leading authority on the impact of the Internet and emerging consumer technologies on business, reports consumers are looking for love in cyberspace at a steady pace, which will result in significant growth during the next five years. Online dating and personals will increase from $900M in 2007 to $1.9B in 2012, according to the recently published JupiterResearch report, “US Paid Content Forecast, 2007 to 2012.”
Despite the grave outlook in some press reports, there are no signs that the eruption of social networks has burned the paid online personals market.
“Still, as casual visitor traffic slows or shrinks, competitors will have to seek out harder-to-sell consumers, as well as offer additional services to their existing customers,” said David Card, Vice President and Research Director for JupiterResearch. “And competition is already ferocious.”
Personals remain one of the larger paid content categories online. Only music and games are bigger, or attract more than 10 percent of online users.
“Personals are one of the few legitimate billion-dollar paid content businesses,” said David Schatsky, President of JupiterResearch. “JupiterResearch projects a steady 16 percent compound annual growth rate through 2012 for the category.”
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