Just as new technology is coming at us at lightening speed these days, so too are the changes that the new ways of communicating spawn. Seems impossible that I have been online and doing email for only a little over 15 years. What did we do without it? Frankly, I can’t be bothered by texting and can’t even figure out how to get it on my fancy (but probably already outdated) Blackberry. I think I may have disabled the function by mistake.
Here’s an article about the uses and misuses of texting, Facebook, Twitter and the like by folks trying to find love. Basically, it seems to boil down to moderation in everything, including moderation. What do you think? What has been your experience with technology aided communication in your searches for love?
Technology: The New Compatibility Test
by Julie D. Andrews
Compatibility was already complicated enough. She’s an only-child; he’s from a family of 12. He’s a meticulous planner; she’s fly-by-her-seat spontaneous. But technology is fast adding an entirely new layer of compatibility for would-be couples. And it can suss out the potential for a relationship in a matter of dates, reports Monica Hesse for The Washington Post.
Indeed, mismatched technology preferences can end a romance before it begins. The hardest hit generation? Thirtysomethings, Kelli Lawless, who helms Dating and Mating in America, told the Post.
Apparently, the forty-ish are most likely to be in sync technologically (with their preference for phone communication). Twentysomethings are most likely to experiment with tech gadgets until they figure out what love lines work best. But men and women in their thirties tend to take “independent, a-la-carte approaches to their technology,” according to Lawless.
A few of the most common tech mismatches:
1. To Text or To Call? After a first date, she’s waiting for that first follow-up call. Instead, she gets a text—the first techno letdown that can signify more to come. She wonders if this is the type of man who, instead of returning a call by dialing, texts back. Maybe he’s dumped a girl by e-mail before, she imagines. Two months of dating go by. A total of four phone conversations take place. Phone calls become a big, scary thing. Like that, it’s over.
2. What’s Your Frequency? In the first month of dating, his daily texting gradually increases until he’s sending five, six, up to seven short messages a day. “Hey, beautiful!”, “It’s raining out”, “What do you feel like eating tonight?” She’s feeling a bit smothered by the influx of sweet-nothing texts that have nada to do with specific plans. There’s no exchange of address, no time-to-be-there included. She eventually gets vexed by the frequent interruption and stops responding. He feels unwanted. Thus, game over.
3. Tech Savvy or Stalkeresque? She’s following him…on Twitter. He thought he wanted a partner who could be with him every step of the way, even as he navigates his moves for the day. But suddenly, he feels a whole lot less free. If I Tweet where I’m going, he wonders, is she going to show up there unannounced? Do I want this or not, he questions, adding in his mind that he is still technically not married and thus somewhat single. But how would she take it if he asked her not to show up at a Twitter-identified location unless explicitly invited? He mentions it. She gets the hint. Finito.
4. But I’m Not On Facebook. Suave, under-the-fray pick-up lines [4] these days sound as carefree as, “I’ll Facebook you,” or, “Are you on Twitter [8]?” But what happens when the party being hit on is not on these sites? The tech wires cross instantly. The only option remaining is to ask publicly for a number and plug it into a phone. This opens the door to a bigger possibility of rejection. Some will accept this risk; others will move right along to the next Facebook-friendly face.
Here’s some recent research, article reprinted below—what do you think? “Couples in which the woman was more than five years older than the man were three times as likely to split up as those where both partners were the same age. And those in which the woman was more than five years older, neither partner was well-educated and one had a previous divorce, stood the least chance of surviving.” I took the fluff out (where the hearts  are) of the following long article and kept the parts that I thought interesting, what the research says about a couple’s potential for staying together.
What’s the formula for the perfect marriage?
By Dani Garavelli
IF YOU thought the secret to choosing a lover who will last a lifetime was down to chemistry, then think again. According to new research, the best way to tell if a marriage will go the distance or fall at the first hurdle is by trusting another science altogether – mathematics.
Keen to rid society of the blight of divorce, mathematicians assessed the staying power of 1,074 Swiss couples and came up with a formula for a long-lasting union. Ditching such airy-fairy notions as love, romance and sexual compatibility, they used the “linear assignment model” – a methodology used by businesses to match workers to appropriate tasks – to “optimise spousal allocation”. Yes, that means helping people end up with the best possible partner.
The results were dramatic. Having assessed the age difference, cultural and educational background and divorce history of all the couples, the academics found the marriages most likely to succeed were those in which the woman was five or more years younger than her partner, and also better educated.
Couples in which the woman was more than five years older than the man were three times as likely to split up as those where both partners were the same age. And those in which the woman was more than five years older, neither partner was well-educated and one had a previous divorce, stood the least chance of surviving.
“Being able to choose our partners in the way we do is a bit of a luxury,” says Emmanuel Fragnière, a lecturer in management science at Bath University and co-author of the report. “As recently as a few decades ago, marriages were a matter for the community. We know divorce has an economic, social and psychological cost, so why not try to improve the odds of a marriage succeeding?”
But is a mathematical approach to dating really more likely to improve the odds of a successful marriage than a sociological or psychological one? And can immutable facts such as age difference or educational background really do more to keep a relationship afloat than empathy, tolerance, compromise and a healthy sex life?
Fragnière makes no apology for looking beyond the factors usually credited with keeping love alive. “It appears that men and women ‘choose’ their mates on the basis of feelings of love, physical attraction, similarity of tastes, beliefs, attitudes, and shared values,” he says. “All of these determinants are supposed to help them be happy together. However, research has shown that the longevity of marriages or partnerships also depends on objective attributes such as differences in age, family history, and educational levels.
“We imagined what it would be like if you had a regime like in North Korea, say, and marriages could be coordinated by a central agency. After looking at the impact of age difference, and cultural and educational background, we reallocated around 68 per cent of individuals to a new couple that we posited had a higher likelihood of survival.”
It all sounds a bit Brave New World. But could it perhaps throw light on some of the great love affairs of history? If only Cathy had been just a couple of years younger, might she and Heathcliff have escaped from the gloomy Yorkshire moors and settled down to a life of domestic bliss in a town house in Kensington? If only Anne Boleyn had stuck in at school, could she have kept her head?
The notion that husbands should be older than their wives goes back centuries and spans several continents, although most cultures believe there should be a limit to the age gap. (In the West, one theory has it that the women should be no less than half her partner’s age plus seven).
The tradition probably stemmed from the expectation that a man would be able to provide for his wife and future family. “It is received wisdom that men choose younger women for evolutionary reasons, because they look like better breeders,” says Barbara Bloomfield, a counsellor with Relate and an author of books on love and dating. “But then, of course, they may trade off looks for kindness and intelligence.” Equally, received wisdom says men look for women of lower social or educational status so as not to feel threatened.
A study carried out by Aberdeen, Glasgow, Edinburgh and Bristol universities in 2005 found that the likelihood of marriage increased by 35 per cent for men for each 16 point increase in IQ, whereas for women, there was a 40 per cent drop for each 16 point rise, suggesting either that men aren’t interested in clever women, or that clever women have no interest in getting married.
So why do relationships where the woman is better-educated stand the best chance of survival? “As a counsellor for 14 years, I have found that women do tend to set the emotional bar,” says Bloomfield. “They are far more likely to divorce men than the other way around, so you could hypothesis that maybe better educated women make better choices.”
Fragnière – who, it has to be said, has his tongue firmly in his cheek – accepts his research is unlikely to revolutionise dating, but wonders if it could have an application in the world of internet dating. Sites such as Match.com promise you will find someone special within six months or they will give you your money back.
At Edinburgh-based Datetheuk, for example, members have myriad options for checking out their compatibility with a potential partner. They can draw up their own profiles, look at other members’ profiles, rely on recommendations from the agency or suss out other people’s personalities by reading messages posted on public forums.
Checking the age or educational backgrounds of potential matches is no doubt part of the process – but it probably comes second to that first glance at the potential suitor’s photo.
A more obvious problem with the report is that it fails to take couples’ happiness into account. Not all long-term married couples are happy with their lot, after all. “It was not one of the criteria we included, but it might be possible to develop the model further and include some psychological criteria, and then, I suppose, happiness could be included,” says Fragnière.
Since Google and the Internet has made it so possible to learn everything and anything about anybody, lying seems pretty pointless these days. Remember when a blind date meant that you knew nothing about who you were meeting? Just as it is routine to do a search about who you are about to meet, it is a good idea to do the same searches on yourself to see what others might find out about you. And then be ready to explain it.
The Blind Date Meets the All-Seeing Internet
By Ellen McCarthy
Washington Post Staff Writer
Has it happened, finally? Has the Internet killed the blind date?
Given a first and last name, Google will often reveal where a person lives, how much they paid for their place, what they wrote in their last letter to the editor, possibly what kind of unsightly sandals they were photographed wearing at each stop on their last cross-country adventure.
And if their Facebook profile isn’t private, as Jeanna Brown, a 25-year-old single woman from Mitchellville, knows, “you can find out a whole lot.”
Web searches for background intel on prospective dates have been undertaken since the dawn of cyberspace, but only in the last few years—with the advent of Twitter, Flickr, LinkedIn and the like—have our online identities grown so rich that they routinely precede in-person introductions.
“First impressions have changed,” says Dan Schawbel, a 26-year-old personal branding consultant. “For me a first impression could be a Google search, a search on Facebook or MySpace. . . . You can do research beforehand and know whether or not you want to go through with the date.”
On more than one occasion, Brown has found out that men who represented themselves to be single were actually married, sometimes with children. The Web, she says, often reveals the discrepancy between “what they say they are and what they really are.”
Nancianne Sterling, a 32-year-old Arlington woman who runs TargetLove.com, a service that coaches clients through the Internet dating process, understands the temptation to scour the Web for information on a person in advance of a date with them. Before meeting her current boyfriend, she used to do it all the time, looking for résumés, school associations, blogs and anything else she could dig up.
But she advises clients to skip the preemptive search.
Scattered bits of online info color the way people look at their prospective dates—and not usually in a good way, she says. “We make determinations about somebody, whereas if we met them and we liked them, it wouldn’t be as big a deal.”
In this region in particular she often hears from clients who found that a potential date donated to a candidate of a political party different from their own and then decided it was game over.
“People come up with all these reasons why somebody’s not going to be good, before they meet them,” she says. “It’s almost like you’re looking for quantitative information to make a decision without emotion—and when you do that, you don’t allow yourself to feel for that person in the way that you might’ve if you hadn’t looked up any of the information.”
Plus, she adds, it kills the fun and mystery inherent in allowing a person to reveal themselves organically over time.
That’s not going to stop the author of DC Dating Adventures, a blog written by a 29-year-old District woman who asked that her name not be used because she blogs anonymously.
She once Googled the e-mail address of a guy who’d asked her out and found it registered on foot fetish message boards. A quick search saved her from having to find that out in person, she says.
And even as she uses the power of the Internet to research others, she’s tried to reduce her own Web trail. She made her Facebook profile private, deleted her entire MySpace page and regularly Googles herself to make sure nothing strange comes up.
That, Schawbel insists, is something everyone should be doing. Like grooming before an actual date, he says, people should be aware of how they’re presenting themselves online. “In person it’s much easier to control the way you’re perceived—people can get to know your personality. The Web sort of lacks that,” he says. “You need to put effort to the way you put stuff online.”
Brown agrees. A Web presence might not be the full measure of a person, but what’s up on a social networking site, she thinks, is “what you want to be seen. And if that’s how you choose to represent yourself, then that’s truly who you are.”
And despite Sterling’s entreaties, people like Brown aren’t going to resist the urge to do a quick pre-date Google search. “Why not? If the information is available, you might as well take advantage of it,” she says.
If you get on I-10 and head east from Tallahassee, two plus hours away you’ll be in Jacksonville, Florida. You know how I love love stories, particularly those couples that met online. Here’s one from Jacksonville, and they married in New Orleans, which is on I-10 heading west.
I Do, I Do: Online profile to real-life love
To say that Charles Perniciaro, 52, had become cynical about dating is something of an understatement. “I think he was looking to settle down, but things weren’t coming together for him,” said John Millns, a close friend. “He was getting frustrated.”
In 2007, Charles decided to try online dating. But his cynicism only grew when several women he met on the Internet showed up for a “first date” looking nothing like their online photos. “Those pictures must have been taken decades ago,” said Charles, a dermatologist who was divorced for almost a decade.
In January 2008, Charles read the online profile of Gail Kahler, 47, and found himself intrigued. Gail wrote she “was looking for a guy who loved sports and could also discuss a good book.” Charles knew he fit the bill. The two corresponded for several weeks and eventually met for dinner at St. Johns Town Center where they giggled and chatted the night away.
Charles knew he wanted to see Gail again. Not only did she look exactly like her online photo, he knew they had really enjoyed each other. But Gail was just beginning to date after losing her husband to a long illness, and she told Charles she “planned to date 100 men before she dated anyone twice.” Still, Charles couldn’t let her go that easily. He called Gail the next night and invited her to a dermatology convention in San Antonio that weekend. “I told her there were no strings attached, she would have her own room, and she should come with an extra suitcase because she’d be able to fill it with free samples of creams and things,” he said.
Gail, a fourth-grade teacher at Fort Caroline Elementary, was inclined to say no. But she asked her grown daughter and a close friend what she should do. “And they both said ‘yes,’ ” Gail said. Then Gail checked to make sure Charles was really registered at the convention. He was. In fact, he was giving a seminar. She said yes. “Right from the beginning he swept me off my feet,” Gail said.
The two said “I do” May 30 in New Orleans, where Charles grew up. After the ceremony, the wedding party “second-lined” their way to the reception at Galatois Restaurant. A second line is a parade led by a police escort, then a jazz band (in this case it was a band from Chalmette High School, Charles’ alma mater) followed by the bride, groom and guests, all dancing, all holding parasols, all waving handkerchiefs.
Millns, who served as best man, summed it up this way: “I can’t think of a better ending for two nicer people,” he said.
Somebody had to do it. Is this cute or what?
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