Kathryn's Blog: Internet Dating Advantages

Score a big one for Match.com

And she got married!  Essence Atkins married the guy she met on Match.com two years ago.  If you wonder about the quality of the men and women on dating sites, it’s hard to argue with this pairing:

ESSENCE ATKINS MARRIES HER INTERNET BEAU: Couple jumped the broom Saturday in Pasadena. G. Garvin provided the food.

*Actress Essence Atkins, best known for her role on the UPN sitcom “Half and Half,” has married her boyfriend Jaime Mendez after meeting him less than two years ago through an online dating site.

According to People.com, the wedding took place Saturday at the Ambassador Mansion and Gardens in Pasadena, Calif, The couple met on Valentine’s Day of last year through Match.com.

“I wrote him a quick little note that I had read his profile, and then I signed off, Happy SAD Day – that’s Single Awareness Day,” says Essence, 37. A week later the couple went on their first date, and they were engaged a year later.

The bride wore a Stephen Yearick gown for the ceremony and an Angel Rivera dress for the reception, according to People. “I felt like a princess,” she says.

Her former costar Valerie Pettiford performed original music at the reception. Plus, the bride surprised her husband with a salsa band to celebrate his Puerto Rican heritage.

“We’ve been taking salsa lessons. It’s part of what we’ve been doing together as a couple,” she says.

TV One personality, chef G. Garvin, blended Puerto Rican and traditional soul food dishes, which included mac and cheese, roasted pork, peach cobbler and plantains.

As party favors, guests received match books and travel-sized candles. But singles guests were given six-month memberships to Match.com. 

posted by Kathryn Lord on 10.18.09 at 7.04 am
permalink | Categories: • We Love Love Stories • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • Where are the Good Men and Women? • 0 Comments

100 first dates equals one for life

Looks like Oprah’s magazine has a good article this month about Internet dating—and this is a marvelous technique: Setting a goal for dating (first dates, anyway) a large number of people.  It’s reasonable to expect that in 100 first dates, you’d find one worth sticking with.

What I Learned from Dating 100 Men
By Ann Marsh

She was 34 and she meant business, so she placed an ad with an online dating service and let the e-mails roll in.
Last year, in under six months, I dated more than 100 men. I dated on beaches, on hiking trails, on the back of a Harley-Davidson. I told more than 100 men about my work, my family, my years in Czechoslovakia. I weathered personal-revelation fatigue and relied on pep talks from girlfriends to see me through. I didn’t kiss any of these men, reserving physical contact for the one—I might as well say it—who would eventually win my heart.

After years alone, on the cusp of my 35th birthday, I was serious. I’d learned that letting myself kiss the wrong guy set in motion a sort of unwitting hormonal bonding stronger than rational thinking. If I was going to meet the right man, I decided, I needed to remain chemical-free, to think clearly, to get to know him first.

I didn’t understand this in my 20s. Back then, I’d followed the Hollywood movie model wherein men and women tend to tumble into bed, then into love, and finally into marriage. The string of breakups I endured demonstrated that, for me at least, this strategy wasn’t working.

My frequent experiences with the Wrong Man also taught me what I wanted this time around. I was looking for someone who could see my best self despite my imperfections. A gentle but strong man with the capacity to become as deeply devoted to me as I would be to him. In a word: available. I suspected it might take awhile to find him in greater Los Angeles, and I was right.

To get started, I posted an ad on an online dating site. I asked a girlfriend to take a picture of me bathed in late afternoon sunlight and wore the most glamorous smile I could muster. I stated that I wanted a man who “somehow manages to strike that tricky balance of being both dependable and spontaneous. Or who can happily tolerate both of these aspects in me.”

I got a lot of responses right off the bat. Some were ludicrous, like the 50-something guy in a Hawaiian shirt who offered to fly me to Vegas for the weekend. I deleted far more than I answered. But Week One still found me on dates with 14 men at local coffee shops. In Week Two, I slowed down to seven. I shook hands with a Danish architect and an hour later zoomed across town to meet a swoony soap opera actor. The next day was tea with an airfreight handler, followed that evening by a walk with a real estate lawyer. I dated aerospace engineers, entrepreneurs, doctors, an oceanographer, film animators, a romantic man who lived impecuniously on a boat, and a self-proclaimed gazillionaire who resided atop a mountain.

“Are you insane?” my astonished girlfriends said, laughing.

I was overwhelmed but exhilarated. And I overdid it. At the end of Week One, I startled friends and myself by bursting uncontrollably into tears. A lifetime of pent-up loneliness came unglued all at once. Then I hit a groove. No matter how the date went, I reminded myself I was taking a stand for what I wanted.

And I tried to relax. I steadied myself right before each new hello. Nothing was worse or more exquisite than my date’s first flicker of disappointment or approval. If he clearly wasn’t interested—like the swing-dancing entertainment lawyer or the Harvard-educated wine expert—then he was simply another woman’s catch. I got out of her way. I knew I’d meet someone else tomorrow. Even if a first date wasn’t fantastic, I tended to accept second dates to make sure I hadn’t been too hasty in my judgment. About four or five men survived through fourth or fifth dates before I said goodbye. The thing I liked best about my whole dating project was that it validated that nagging sense I’d had for years: Every Saturday night I’d spent alone or with girlfriends, I’d believed there had to be several thousand potential dates out there for me, somewhere. It turns out I was right.



To date so many men, I needed to be honest in a new way. In my 20s, when the wrong man asked me out, I usually lied. I was either (a) busy, (b) dating someone else, or (c) moving to Siberia for a year. Sensing my fib, some men refused to let go. A few talked me into dates or, worse, relationships. I marvel to think I left the nest without ever learning how to verbalize my own needs and desires.

One of my earliest electronic dates taught me about honesty. “It was really nice to meet you,” the tall, good-looking athlete wrote me in an e-mail after Date Number Two, “but I didn’t feel that indescribable something that would tell me we’re a match.”

I sat there looking at my computer screen. He had found the words to describe my own sentiments. I didn’t feel rejected. I felt liberated by his courage. Better yet, I stole his line.

A handsome telecommunications executive I met over a drink at a restaurant one evening looked and sounded far less alluring to me a few days later in the sober light of day. In a subsequent telephone conversation, my whole body tensed while I told him that I didn’t get the sense he was the right one and that I didn’t want either of us to waste precious time. I wished him well. He sounded a little startled. But the discomfort was short-lived. We were both free.

It’s embarrassing to admit that I was learning the very basics about personal boundaries at the age of 34. But it was also a thrill. Like a suit of comfortable, lightweight body armor, my newly declared boundaries kept me safe.

At times my faith flagged, like when the well-spoken National Guard pilot bought me a single California roll for dinner and called for the check. Phew. Rejection in a bit of raw fish. The best remedy was always the next date. When the soap opera actor or the triathlete didn’t call—both of whom had looked deep into my eyes and proclaimed their attraction to me—I did nothing. I let them go. I wanted a man whose actions matched his words.

The initial frenzy mellowed to a couple of dates a month, and one sunny Sunday afternoon in late summer, I met Johanne. I had, by this time, trained myself to listen closely to what my deepest instincts said in the first nanosecond of meeting a man. “Hmm...maybe,” I thought when I spied him waiting across the Art Deco lobby of a seaside hotel. With every subsequent date, the voice grew surer.

I never expected my man would come from a faraway continent where he was raised on a tea plantation, but he does. We can talk and play and work things out together. We have each finally found a home in the other.

Johanne says he’s more confident in my feelings for him, knowing I looked long and hard to find him. He’s right. The parade of men who preceded him helped me know myself better. They repeatedly tested my ability to speak up or to stay quiet when I needed to. They certainly taught me to appreciate the man who, in the end, answered not only my ad but my dreams.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 09.26.09 at 8.45 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • Proactive Dating • Handling Rejection • 0 Comments

The opposite of do it yourself?

One of the best things for me—an inveterate do-it-yourselfer—about Internet dating is just that: the ability to take charge of your romantic life and do it yourself.  But a frequent complaint that I hear from singles is the lack of time that doing it yourself takes.  Just as “if a need exists, someone will fill the gap,” here’s a way to outsource your dating.  While this does make me somewhat uncomfortable to think of able bodied folks hiring out mate finding, this does seem to be a worthwhile service for people who are challenged in some way that would make Internet dating difficult if not impossible, like severe dyslexics who write and read poorly, but might otherwise be good catches.  What do you think?

‘Done For You’ Dating Service Proves Romance Can Be Outsourced

A Canadian company has introduced a brazen service that lets singles delegate their online dating to a representative who exchanges messages under their name. Done For You Dating combines the extensive selection of singles on the Internet with the convenience of a personal matchmaker.

Toronto, Canada (PRWEB) July 1, 2009 -- A Canadian company has introduced a new service that lets singles delegate their online dating to a representative who manages their profile and exchanges messages under their name.

Done For You Dating combines the extensive selection of singles on the Internet with the convenience of a personal matchmaker. Unlike traditional matchmaking services, which match clients within an internal database, Done For You Dating scouts millions of single women and men on the Internet for their clients’ perfect partner.

“Online dating is like hunting for buried treasure,” says Luke Chao, founder of Done For You Dating. “The treasure is there, but it takes an incredible amount of digging through dirt before you find it. And most busy professionals don’t have that much time or emotional energy to spare.”

Dating representatives at the company are selected to be socially savvy, skilled writers who are knowledgeable about popular culture. They receive specific training in online dating and personal branding.

“We promote the client’s best qualities,” says Sue Bedford, a representative at Done For You Dating. “It’s already a borderline immoral service, so we go the extra mile to represent clients fairly, accurately and factually.”

Company founder Luke Chao is the managing director of The Morpheus Clinic for Hypnosis, where he first started helping men overcome problems interacting with women. He is the ghostwriter of several books, including Sydnee Steele’s Seducing Your Woman.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.07.09 at 5.46 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • News About Dating Sites and Types • About Matchmakers and Dating Services • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

If Forbes says it, it must be true…

The period between New Year’s and Valentine’s Day is always the BEST for online dating.  The economic slump has interestingly magnified that good news.  People look for relationships and love in times of stress, and we are stressed. 

Depressed Dow Drives Americans into Arms of Online Dating

A handful of online dating sites are reporting activity spikes following September’s global financial crisis.

“On days when the US Dow Jones industrial went down […] by more than 100 points, more people were likely to log in and spend more time on the site,”
stated Senior Research Scientist Gian Gonzaga in an interview with Reuters.

“People seek out companionship in times of stress. Studies repeatedly show that being in a relationship can help a person’s psychological and physical health.”

CEO Thomas Enraght-Moony of Match.com corroborates Gonzaga’s view. “During these trying times, people are looking for hope in their inbox,” he said.

November brought Match.com its largest membership increase in the last seven years.

But even lesser-known dating sites, like Perfectmatch.com, are seeing bounty. The latter reported a 47% hike in membership in the three months to November compared to the previous quarter.

An Opinion Research Corp. poll, sponsored by eHarmony, found 57% of Americans worry more about their love lives amidst the credit crunch. Married men were most affected, with 63% stressed over love.

And 75% of poll-takers between 25 and 34 worried whether the economy would negatively impact their love lives. Younger, single respondents were more likely to pursue a relationship as a result of these concerns.

Older respondents, which were more likely to be married, still worried financial issues would harm their existing relationships. “There are often more fights over bills and household budgets” among couples in climates like this one, Gonzaga pointed out.

The Opinion/eHarmony poll comprised 1,092 users. Meanwhile, a survey by Avalanche LLC — which operates date.com, matchmaker.com and amor.com — found 84% of people are spending more time online or over the phone before meeting face-to-face.

With all that in mind, it bodes well for the online dating industry that the Dow is down 35% this year.

Online dating services became aggressive advertisers in ‘07, with eHarmony spending the most: $110.1 million in total as of February last year. Match.com followed, spending $66.4 million in total.

Their efforts weren’t wasted. Prior to 2008, Mediamark Research found US adults were increasingly receptive to online dating, which was previously stigmatized as an arena for the desperate and unloveable. Men were slightly more likely to log onto an online dating site (52.2% versus 47.8%), and people between 18-34 consisted of over half of the online dating population. Single parents were significantly more likely than average to pursue a ‘net-based romance.

The face of online dating in general has evolved since then. Online speed dating debuted late last year. And last month, online dating conglomerate eHarmony lost a three-year-old suit for refusing to match gays, lesbians and bisexuals. The company will launch a gay dating site, “Compatible Partners,” in early 2009.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 01.13.09 at 5.41 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • Where are the Good Men and Women? • Money Matters • 0 Comments

The best time ever to look for love online!  Right now!

If you need more reasons to get going and get online to find love, here’s more good news:  First off, online dating sites report huge surges in membership and traffic right after New Year’s, so now is the time to get your profile shaped up and ready for action. 

Even better, the economic stresses are also pushing people to find love.  Match.com reported the best November in seven years, and other dating sites are similarly reporting surges in traffic. 

It’s probably no mystery about why activity is the best it has been in seven years:  seven years ago was right after 9/11.  That tragedy marked the beginning of online dating coming out of the closet and into the mainstream.  In unsettled times, people yearn for family and connection.  This is another one of those times.

Pick your dating site and get going.  Or if you are already on a dating site, get active.  Lots of new folks mean lots of new potential.  Take advantage of it!

posted by Kathryn Lord on 01.01.09 at 6.30 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 0 Comments

Steve Penner does it again…

Steve Penner writes some interesting dating columns for SeacoastOnline.com.  I’ve posted his stuff before, take a look: On Heightism, This Guy Knows.  Here he goes again, talking about stigma about online dating and dating services.  Read my previous entry where I take on Dr. Joyce—actually, she did a half okay job.  Worries about being discovered online?  Hey, get over it.  This is 2008, for goodness sake!

Does a dating service ‘stigma’ still exist?

By Steve Penner
November 21, 2008 6:00 AM

When I first started the dating service LunchDates in 1982, scores of single men and women immediately contacted us and expressed an interest in joining.

The timing was perfect, as the disco era was ending and the divorce rate was peaking. The women’s movement was coming into its own, with many women deciding to delay marriage to pursue careers, not just jobs. While achieving career success, a decent percentage of these women suddenly found themselves approaching 30 and unmarried.

Initially I spoke with many singles who decided not to join. They just couldn’t pull the trigger; in 1982 the stigma attached to the concept of joining a dating service was too ingrained for them to overcome.

I recall talking to many men and women who indicated they really wanted to join, the price was not a problem, but then they expressed the following excuses:

* “I just can’t bring myself to pay money to meet someone.”
* “What if I join and my friends find out?
* “I’m not that desperate.”
* “I can’t picture the type of woman I want to meet joining a dating service!”
* “I can’t picture the type of man I want to meet joining a dating service!”

I firmly believe that my favorite whipping boy, the media, was somewhat responsible for creating and reinforcing this stigma. Whenever a single person in a movie or television show indicated they wanted to meet someone, lo and behold in the next scene they just happened to bump into an eligible member of the opposite sex while strolling down the aisle of a supermarket or waiting at a bus stop.

These shows conveyed the message that you are not supposed to overtly try and meet someone, only desperate losers do that. No, you are just supposed to hang tight and inevitably Mr. or Ms. Right’s shopping cart will bump into yours.

If the plot of a television show or movie ever included a dating service, it usually involved a serial killer, who was knocking off the women he was meeting.

Eventually though, the stigma began to fade, and hundreds and eventually thousands of adult single men and women joined LunchDates. What changed?

Throughout the 1980s and into the ‘90s many people who did join found success and began referring their friends, co-workers and relatives. The typical person who called LunchDates usually said something like “I never thought I would join a dating service, but I just discovered that is how my cousin met his fiancée.”

One inquiry came from a woman who was the executive assistant to her hot-shot boss, the CEO of a rather large Boston company. For a few months she had been relaying calls from one of our counselors, who was arranging dates for him. Once she figured out what was happening, she thought that if her boss was using a dating service, she might as well give it a try.

Still though, the stigma persisted to some extent into this millennium.

One of my favorite newspaper columnists (other than me of course) is Craig Wilson, whose column, “The Final Word,” appears every Wednesday in the Life section of USA Today.

A few years ago Craig wrote a column (I just looked it up, it was Nov. 9, 2004 ...; isn’t the Internet great?) advising his single readers to stop trying so hard to meet someone. His specific advice was that singles should not be proactive and should just rely on fate. He wrote:

“I hate to dash anyone’s hopes here, but finding the right guy is mostly chance. Most anyone will tell you that. He almost always shows up when you’re least expecting him. Sometimes you don’t even want to meet someone when, all of a sudden, there he stands right before you as if to say, ‘Well, here I am!’ I met my partner, Jack, 20 years ago this month while standing in line at the National Gallery of Art.”

I immediately e-mailed Craig. “Telling single readers that ‘finding the right guy’ is mostly chance is exactly the type of bad advice that someone already in a happy relationship for decades would write,” I wrote. “The whole ‘just rely on fate’ suggestion is an outdated one that movies and television shows love to promote.”

I then reiterated my claim that singles do not have creative script writers looking out for them, and I concluded by chastising him:

“Many of those singles who take your advice will wind up watching the days, months, and years roll by, while they stay home on Saturday nights watching rented Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan videos and dreaming about ‘bumping’ into someone in line.”

How did Wilson respond? He sent back a sarcastic reply insinuating I was just trying to promote my dating service, stating “I was wondering when the pitch line was coming ...; Very clever ...;”

And so columnists like Craig Wilson continue to promote the “just rely on fate” theory.

But I am pleased to report that many single and divorced people across this country (and probably abroad) have realized that a proactive approach to finding love actually works. Over the last decade the boom in Internet dating services and such innovative approaches as Meetup.com and speed dating have proven very effective. Sure there is a level of chance involved and finding someone very special is a numbers game.

But you can’t win the lottery unless you buy a ticket. And the odds of meeting someone at a dating service or speed dating event are FAR better than playing your dog’s birthday on a Megabucks ticket.

At speed dating or at a dating service, you are pretty much assured that every person you meet is single, available, AND looking. If you know how to “play the game,” you can narrow the odds by requesting only to meet someone in a certain age range or someone who shares similar values along with a love of the outdoors.

As I have written before, finding a mate for life is the most important “acquisition” of a person’s life. Unfortunately some people still put more research and effort into buying a camera or a computer than they do looking for a potential spouse. (Probably disciples of Craig Wilson.)

But today, in 2008, the only stigma any single person should feel is when telling friends that your efforts to meet someone are limited to hanging out at a Laundromat or waiting in line at the supermarket.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.22.08 at 11.09 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 0 Comments

Online dating is like college if you are over 21

I’ve said any number of times that Internet dating is the closest grownup singles have to the experience of being in college.  College is the last time you probably were in an environment where just about everyone was single and looking.  Little did we know then that things were going to change big time one we left for the real world.  This column below is from “The Flat Head” out of the College of William and Mary.  The author, Maya Horowitz, speaks with wisdom from the other side—she is still an undergrad, it seems, but recognizes what a good deal college people have when it comes to finding sex.  She also correctly recognizes that the next best thing to being in college when you are a grownup is Internet dating.  Yes, as she goes on later, online dating is not perfect and has its hazards, but for those of us over 21, it’s the best thing to happen yet.

Jeez, though, when I was in college, our paper NEVER had columns like this one....

Behind Closed Doors: College: the perfect sexual paradise

By Maya Horowitz

My Thanksgiving break was marred by a harrowing look into our collective sexual future. All of what I’m about to say may be obvious, but I think it bears repeating because most of us forget to think about it.

College is the sexual jackpot. Granted, the College of William and Mary may not be the orgiastic sexual Valhalla that some of us would like it to be, but we’ve still got things pretty good. With around 5,000 undergraduates, the vast majority of whom are unmarried, finding a coital partner should be as easy as pie (apple pie that’s warm and gooey inside).

Now, maybe it hasn’t been so easy for you so far. But let’s just take a step back and think about this for a second. The sexual environment on the College’s campus is unlike anywhere else. There are thousands of us, independent for the first time in our lives, stuck together in the middle of colonial-nowhere with very little responsibility and a lot of free time. All of our bodies are young, hot, supple, panting, panting, panting, searching, waiting, expecting, seeking release …

Ahem, I may have digressed. The point is that there are a lot of good-looking people (it’s easy to be beautiful when you’re young and healthy) living in close quarters. The chances of you living in a sexual environment as fertile as this one ever again are very slim. When we graduate, the balloon bursts (and not in a sexy, cherry-popping sort of way).

If you attend graduate school, you may be surrounded by a large number of individuals again, but many of them will be older or married. Those who are not will still probably have their own thing going on. Chances are, you won’t be attending loose sexual dance parties themed “bros and hos” when you’re 25.

As a working professional, you can’t expect your colleagues to be young, single or ready-to-mingle. You may meet singles at bars, but you’re entering at your own risk. You have no way of knowing anything about the random hottie you approach. At least here, when you’re at the delis, you can expect the chick you’re approaching to be a little nerdy, very smart and touchy about the whole “applying to UVA” thing.

What it comes down to is that the real world is scary. As in, scary because there aren’t enough opportunities for safe fucking.

The beacon of hope for our generation is online dating. Services such as match.com and eHarmony are becoming more and more popular. Most of you probably scoff at the idea of using one of these services, but the stigma of needing help in the dating scene is being sloughed off in favor of a modern approach to seeking a mate. Many of my older friends and family have used these services successfully.

But, here’s the catch: Online dating is vicious. You may be matched on 1,500 levels of compatibility, but the first thing prospective daters do is check out all of your pictures. Even with Myspace angles, sepia tinting and sixty different shots of your gorgeous face, a dater may find one picture they don’t like and fixate on it. Or they might check out what you’ve written about yourself and decide that you don’t seem that great.

When you meet someone in person, you get the benefit of the doubt. Your personality and charm may win them over, even if they’re not used to dating girls who are taller than 5’6’’. Online dating essentially allows people to filter out potential mates for idiotic reasons. Sure, I’d love to date a man with a body that looks like it’s cut from marble, but in real life I’m going to give the guy with a few extra pounds a chance. Whereas on match.com, I’d probably click away and never look back.

Here’s an example: What if you are a mustached divorcee who is a former smoker with six kids. Gross, right? I would never go out with a man of that description. But if I met Brad Pitt in person, I’d probably rip my clothes off and tell him to park his pink rocket ship in my garage of love immediately.

The lesson of today’s sermon is: Enjoy the college life while you can. I have looked into the crystal ball that is my older cousins’ and siblings’ dating lives, and the future ain’t pretty. Or, at least, it didn’t seem pretty from its eHarmony profile pictures.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.18.08 at 8.49 am
permalink | Categories: • Singles Only! • Cool Resources for Singles • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 1 Comments

Attitude, attitude, attitude … luck and hard work don’t hurt either!

This is such a nice, positive piece about Internet dating that I just had to post it here.  The author has it just right: Online dating is what you make it to be.  See her suggestions below…

Whats Online Dating? And How to Make Online Dating Work For You

Submitted by ricky776 on October 24, 2008

There seems to be two distinct opinions about online dating in existence today. The first is that it is a fantastic service that caters to the modern man and woman that does not have the time to conventionally date or wises to screen dates first. The second is more negative and seems to imply that online dating is in fact a scam or worse, a marketplace for the sad, lonely and weird. No matter which camp you fall into now, if you ever have a good experience on a dating site then you will perceive it in a whole new light.

In actual fact, your online dating experience depends on what you make of it. You have to make the experience work for you as opposed to the other way around. You should be proactive and cease the opportunity presented to you with both hands. The tips below will help you to make the most of online dating and find exactly what you are looking for at the same time.

1. Choose A Positive Approach - Never join a dating site thinking it will be a disaster. Online dating will be a disaster for you if you take that approach because you will not allow yourself to enjoy the experience. Look upon it as a bit of fun that could lead to some lasting friendships and perhaps a little love. Amy negativity or contempt you feel for others on there will shine right through and you will not get anything from the experience at all.

2. Keep An Open Mind - Never judge a book by its cover, and never judge the person you meet on the site via one email or conversation. Take the time to get to know the individual a little before you make up your mind about someone. Everyone wants to make a good first impression and so will be nervous. Allow at least a couple of conversations before you judge.

3. Take It At Your Own Pace - Do not rush into anything. If you do not feel ready to concentrate on one person then do not do it. If you wish to keep your options open then say you are looking for friendship rather than a relationship. Never commit to anything before you are ready because it really could burn you later if you do.

4. Remain Mysterious - Only ever reveal the details about yourself that you are happy for individuals that you have never met before to know. If you do not want to use your date of birth then stick to the month and year. If you want to be known by a nickname then you can be. Never give your address or phone number out at all. This is all for your own safety as much as for the sake of the experience. Just relax and enjoy it but never put yourself in danger.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 11.21.08 at 6.49 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 4 Comments

DocLove’s advice to men

I’m not a complete fan of AskMen.com, but let’s face it, it’s written for (young) guys, and maybe they’ll glean some wisdom between the sales pitches for “The System.” This following letter and answer is a good example.  I’ve underlined what I think are the gems, and particularly like the summing up:  “exchange e-mails, then ask for the home phone number and a 45-minute date at Starbucks.”

Doc Love on AskMen.com gives some great advice to guys on how to use Internet dating to meet women:

reader’s question
Hey Doc,

Thanks for your years of great service to men. I am an adherent of “The System,” which you so humorously and effectively speak of in your weekly column. Now I’ve become addicted to your radio show, too. What are the chances that you’ll become syndicated? I think that we can all do with a dose of your advice!

I’ve been thinking about starting to use Match.com to meet women. It seems that these days the bar and club scene is dead, and instead everybody is online getting dates. I don’t know if it’s an effective way of meeting women, but it seems to be worth a shot since that’s where the game is, right?

So here’s my question: Do you have any suggestions for what to say when contacting a woman on Match.com? In fact, can you give us guys a blueprint for how to do it? In other words, what do you say in your intro, the next paragraph and the next paragraph, and how do you wrap it up? I’m okay when I meet a woman face to face, but frankly, I’m not exactly sure how to deal with her when I can’t see her. It seems to put a guy at a disadvantage.

Here’s something else: The women’s screen names are usually not their real names. Is it a good idea to go after their real names right away, or should I let that come later when a beachhead has been established?

Also, are there any signs to look for when exchanging e-mail with Match.com women? Now that I think of it, the question I guess I’m really asking is how can you gauge a woman’s Interest Level across the computer? Don’t you really have to be in a female’s presence to accurately assess it?

I’m asking you this now before I actually take the plunge. Like you always say, it’s better to be completely prepared before going out on the battlefield.

Thanks, Doc. Looking forward to your response.

Jared - who feels awkward at the computer terminal

Hi Jared,

I really appreciate what you said about me, and thank you for being so supportive. But I want you to do me an enormous favor. It’s extremely important that you set “The System” by your bed and read it every night. And remember to do it for the rest of your life, even after 35 years of marriage. It’s the most airtight safeguard you can give yourself when it comes to dealing with women, and its principles are eternal.

But let’s get back to meeting her…

Here’s the truth about the bar and club scene: It’s not the greatest place to meet women. It’s too dark, there’s too much smoke, too much booze flowing, and that’s when people have a tendency to tell lies. If you go out to a club, you want to be there with your buddies, having fun talking about the good old days, boxing, business, and, of course, women. But if you happen to see somebody you dig in a bar or club, you have to ask her to dance. But don’t go there hoping to pick up Miss Right. The odds aren’t good.

Jared, online is where the dating game is these days, make no mistake about it, and in front of the terminal screen is where you have to be. Even my Uncle Jethro Love says “Boy, you’s dead in the water with the girls without your Macintosh!”. But before you log on, you have to be prepared and you have to have a very strict game plan.

And the aim of this plan is to get the girl through the door of Starbucks. There you are at home, pal, with just your laptop and no girlfriend, and your goal is to eventually say: “Caprice, very nice to meet you! Have a seat.”

When she arrives, you buy her a Mocha Valencia and you talk for 45 minutes. Afterwards, you walk her out to her car and she says, “Wow, Jared, I had a nice time! Please give me a call and we’ll get together again.” Then she hugs you, gets into her car and drives away. Guys, if we’re going to sell ourselves, we have to get the buyer in front of us for 45 minutes at Starbucks.

So here’s what you say when you’re at the keyboard. Since the ladies always ask what you’re looking for, you’re going to tell them, “I’m looking for a Self-Reliant, Flexible Giver who will laugh at my corny jokes. Let’s meet at Starbucks and see if I can make you giggle.” There’s your icebreaker.

You want a blueprint? A piece of cake. Like my cousin Fast Eddie Love says, “The point is to make ‘em laugh and tell ‘em nothin’.” If you get a positive response on Match.com—a wink—toss into your e-mail that you’re a busy guy and that you have tons of fun on the weekends. In your second paragraph, keep on keeping it light. Does she like to dance? Does she like to travel to Vegas or New York? What babe doesn’t like to dance or go places? Then ask her about Match.com to remind her that you don’t want to just be her e-mail “buddy.”

Jared, you’re afraid of the wrong things. The fact is that it’s a lot easier to deal with a woman when you can’t see her. You’re most definitely not at a disadvantage, because on the Internet you can check out up to 200 pictures within a half-hour. Then you pare it down to 45 or so, and out of that 45 you give the best ones a wink. You’re going to dance back and forth with a few e-mails, then you will go in for the home phone number.

And she’s going to say (hopefully), “Here it is,” or “I’ll give it to you when we meet.” Then you have to get her to show up for her coffee. Make sure you give her the Starbucks telephone number and detailed directions, and that the place has plenty of parking because a lot of these girls won’t show if they have the slightest excuse.

As far as her onscreen name goes, if she wants to call herself “Anita The Hun,” that’s her right. You’ll get her real name if she’s really interested.

So to sum it up, break the ice, exchange e-mails, then ask for the home phone number and a 45-minute date at Starbucks. Of course you can’t completely gauge a woman’s Interest Level over a computer, but to you Psych majors, the more detailed her responses are to your e-mails, the easier she makes it for you to contact her in person. And the more questions she asks you, you can bet her Interest Level is clinically alive.

Remember: Some women will meet a guy for coffee. When she walks in the door, you’ll witness her female presence in the flesh. Then you’ll sit down with her for a chat, and it’ll be easy to assess whether she likes you or thinks you’re the worst thing since Osama Bin Laden.

When it comes to being completely prepared before going onto the battlefield, like my cousin Brother Love down in Watts says, “Amen, Bro!”.

Remember, guys: If you don’t go packing, you can’t go off to war.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 09.04.08 at 5.35 am
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 3 Comments

The Boston Globe tunes in on mid-life dating…

I like this article that just came out in the Boston Globe.  It features just the folks I write for and coach, those singles over 35 or 40 who want to find the love of their lives.  Too bad the author didn’t find me, because as you all know, I found my love on Match.com, am a Romance Coach, and am from Maine—so is Stacey Chase!  Oh well, maybe next time.  But anyway, back to the article.  I LOVED how the author treated the gay male couple exactly as she would have a heterosexual couple, right down to the question of getting married.  I do think that the women’s expectations of the guys at the dating event were too high.  Go easy, ladies.  Thye may not see you as that much of a catch, either. 

Older, Wiser, and Available The middle-aged dating scene, filled with singles weighing one another’s emotional baggage, isn’t for the weak of heart.
By Stacey Chase
July 27, 2008

IT’S A MONDAY NIGHT AND Gretchen Grufman, a home remodeler with freckles and strawberry-blond hair, has just met eight men in a series of six-minute “predates” - the romantic round robin better known as speed dating - at a Portsmouth, New Hampshire, sports bar. There was the soft-spoken, baldheaded Briton; the goateed general contractor who loves ballroom dancing; the 48-year-old grandfather of seven in a suit; and the Harley-riding IT manager who divorced a second time three months ago. * Single since 1992, Grufman is herself twice divorced with two grown sons. “I’ve been engaged a few times, but I haven’t worked up the courage to get married again,” says the 55-year-old who recently moved to Amesbury from Wells, Maine. Still, middle-aged dating is not for the faint of heart. Baby boomers like her, born between 1946 and 1964, are more likely than previous generations were to find themselves - graying and with badly bruised egos - on the youth-obsessed dating scene. The high incidence of divorce, declining marriage rates, and longer life spans have contributed to the single-boomer phenomenon. An AARP analysis of 2007 US Census Bureau data found that of the 76.7 million baby boomers, 18.5 percent were divorced or separated, 10.6 percent had never married, and 2.8 percent were widowed, making nearly a third of the generation (24.5 million) single.

“Fifty, 60 years ago, dating among this age group would be unheard of,” says 46-year-old Mary Elizabeth Hughes, a demographer at Johns Hopkins University and coauthor of a 2004 study The Lives and Times of the Baby Boomers. “Most people would already be married, and if they weren’t married they probably weren’t dating.”

For those looking for love with like-minded and like-aged people today, it’s a brave new world often complicated by love-gone-wrong histories with ex-spouses or lovers, and by children and grandchildren, dependent elderly parents, careers, health problems, and emotional baggage that won’t fit into the overhead compartment. Framingham State College sociology professor Virginia Rutter says all that can be good: “The baggage is actually part of what makes the person you’re with a human being, and you have this opportunity to connect with them in the middle of the plot of their story.”

Many older daters, like those at the speed-dating event sponsored by Cupid.com/PreDating, are embracing Cupid and other online dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony.com. Though helped along by modern technology, much of the conversation Monday night was painfully predictable: weather and work. One man mentioned the diarrhea outbreak at his mother’s assisted-living facility. Another told Grufman afterward that he’d frequented a strip club in her old town.

Sally LaRochelle, a 49-year-old two-time divorcee and administrative assistant in Dover, New Hampshire, sporting ultra short white hair and dark-rimmed glasses, was turned off by the potential suitors. “On a scale of one to 10 . . . they’re probably like twos,” she says. “They seemed a little desperate, and some of them just seemed to be too old.”

The newly re-divorced IT manager, Charlie Petrikas, 56, from South Berwick, Maine, confesses: “I still think I do need to heal a bit, but I don’t want to sit around.”

Susan Fox owns Personals Work in the South End, a matchmaking service that provides its largely female boomer clientele with tools such as ghostwriting personal ads and flirting and style tips for finding a mate. Says Fox: “I’ve even told women who’ve come in that they need to color their hair.” She helps singles to first figure out who they are and what they’re seeking - physical characteristics, occupation, religion, interests, smoking habits - and then create a list of “non-negotiables” for Mr. or Ms. Right, often disregarding a client’s “wish list.” (One client rattled off 142 deal breakers and, needless to say, was not a success story.)

Her advice? Forget love at first sight. Take a second look - and a third, and a fourth.

“We’re not all pulled together with the same level of hormonal urgency that we were when we were 27 or 33,” says the 50-something Fox. “People really need to be able to say, `OK. I like this person well enough to see him or her again and see if something develops here.’”

Bostonian Beverly Summer is a slender brunette in her mid-40s, never married, childless, Ivy League-educated, and runs her own financial-services company. “If I were a guy,” she quips, “I would be the most eligible bachelor in Boston.”

Having tried everything from charity events to pub crawls, Summer turned to Personals Work two years ago in her hard-charging hunt for a husband. Since then, she has viewed dozens of profiles and dated two men from Match.com, going out for several months with each of them, but she still hasn’t met The One. “There’s no science to it,” she says. “It’s a just a matter of time, kissing frogs.”

THEY SPARKED THE SEXUAL REVOLUTION, but for many boomers - those in the first wave are turning 62, while late boomers are hitting 44 this year - reentering the dating game, sometimes after decades, or continuing to search despite long odds, is both unnerving and liberating in ways that hooking up in their younger days was not. “The romance of your 20s - whether you actually decide to have children or not - is the script about how, especially in the heterosexual ideal, we get together, and we make a family, and we have our little dream world,” says the 44-year-old Rutter, who became a widow at age 35. “That is no longer on the table when you’re in your 40s, 50s, and 60s.”

By shedding stereotypical gender roles, Rutter says, midlifers have a lot more freedom to be themselves, and romance becomes less of a fantasy than a practicality that involves negotiating complexities such as child-custody arrangements, retirement planning, and medical directives. “That isn’t less romantic,” she says, “but the romance is different.”

Michael Walsh, a 50-year-old landscape designer in Braintree, and his partner, David Richman, 52, of Aventura, Florida, had a whirlwind courtship after viewing each other’s profiles on Match.com on October 2, 2006. That Monday night, they exchanged e-mails. Tuesday morning, they talked by phone. On Friday, Walsh was picking up Richman, a commercial property manager, at Logan Airport. By Sunday, they were in love.

The blissful pair, who currently maintain separate homes in their respective states (and another in Seattle), are together roughly 70 percent of the time. They have yet to decide whether they’ll marry, or to work out the logistics - primarily their careers and assets - in order to live in the same city. “My home is where David is,” Walsh says, “and his home is where I am.”

“It’s such a relief [not to be looking anymore] because that was my life - I was always looking for a partner,” continues Walsh, who eats only organic food and advertised himself on Match as Upbeat Buddhist Jock Seeks Attachment. “Other people stop looking; they give up.”

Boomers still on a quest for a mature, meaningful relationship say they have learned from their mistakes and heartaches and - though the peer dating pool is significantly smaller - seem to even cherish the peculiar bittersweetness of middle-aged love: that the biological urge to reproduce is typically over, that expectations of love are more realistic, that women tend to have a greater level of equality, that partners understand neither person will be molded to fit the other’s desires.

“With the mush comes the gloom,” Richman says. “I want to be able to be naked in front of somebody . . . and be completely comfortable. And naked in even more than the physical sense, emotionally be naked.”

Annie McCormick, a 51-year-old graphic artist in Burlington, Vermont, has had her heart repeatedly ripped out in a series of long-term, monogamous relationships since her 1984 divorce. “I tend to choose men who have addiction problems,” she says. “One cheated. One was violent. One was an alcoholic who drank. And, then, the last one was a pothead.”

McCormick blames herself, not the men. “I’m not honest from the start, as far as: `This is me. These are my needs,’ “ she says, “I’m a people pleaser.” Five years ago, after she and her last, live-in boyfriend split, McCormick says she “kind of went into hiding” but is timorously ready to seek love again. “I do get lonely lately, a little bit.”

Boomers, who took the first birth-control pills and campaigned for women’s rights, are leading active sex lives, surveys show, but those out of practice and on the prowl can be as nervous as fumbling teenagers when it comes to physical intimacy. “Generally, for people who are widowed or gone through a really painful divorce, there’s a fear,” says Fox, the matchmaker and a trained psychologist. Others are free-lovebirds who want “to get back out there and have sex to kind of get them in the swing of things again.”

“I’ve worked with women clients who regularly have sex on the first date!” she adds. “And older boomers!”

In 2004, a sexuality study by AARP revealed that slightly more than a third of the midlife and older respondents - and half of those with regular sexual partners - reported having sexual intercourse once a week or more. In addition, 53 percent said they engage in sexual touching or caressing, while 69 percent reported they kiss or hug their partner on a regular basis.

Leonard Steinhorn, a communications professor at American University and author of The Greater Generation: In Defense of the Baby Boom Legacy, predicts boomers will continue to transform American society even as they age. “Boomers are going to also reinvent the idea of what it means to be elderly,” says the 52-year-old former political speechwriter. “They’re going to look at being elderly as being vital, as vigorous, as still irreverent. Boomers are going to grow old but stay young.”

They may, or may not, decide one is the loneliest number. Cathy Chamberlain, a 59-year-old human resources manager in South Burlington, Vermont, has had boyfriends but never gotten married or had children and says she’s committed to her singlehood. “The loss I feel is more the sense of family,” she says. “I have it with a variety of girlfriends - you create your own family - and I just don’t know what that’s going to look like 10, 15 years from now.”

Meanwhile, Grufman, the speed dater from Amesbury, continues her pursuit of a mate. On her Cupid.com score card, she selected the option “Let’s Talk!” over “No Thanks” for five of the eight men she’d recently met; three men indicated they would like to hear from her again. (She believes some of them didn’t pick her because they thought she was an actress or model hired as a ringer.)

“My uncles, and my dad, and my grandfathers all treated their wives like they were on pedestals,” Grufman says. “I don’t really expect to be on a pedestal, but I sure expect to be treated pretty good.”

Looking wistful in a dark corner of the bar, she adds: “I’m not an unhappy person, but I definitely don’t want to grow old alone.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.30.08 at 4.57 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 4 Comments

Matchmakers Meet

Last weekend, Drew and I were in New York City (or more precisely, Weehawken, NJ, which is right across the river from Manhattan) at the “Worldwide Conference” of Matchmakers. This was the first one ever, or at least in recent memory, and what an interesting group of people to spend some time with!  Graciously, or perhaps to improve the attendance, the matchmakers also included dating coaches, which is why I was there.

I’ve written about matchmakers here in my blog before. Frankly, I am such a do-it-yourselfer that I just can’t see paying someone else to do the work for me.  It’s hard for me to take people seriously when they complain about how much Internet dating costs.  It’s CHEAP, particularly when you start looking around at matchmakers.  One guy at the conference was with a business that charges $60,000 to $120,000!!!  Yup, that’s the right number of zeros you are seeing.

Matchmakers have seen a surge in business by riding on the coattails of Internet dating.  While dating sites do take a chunk of business that matchmakers might have gotten before, Internet dating has paved the way for people to actually think about hiring someone to help them find love.  And the theme I heard over and over was the potential market for matchmakers in frustrated online daters.

Still, the fantasy that many may have about matchmakers being able to find you a mate when you can’t find one yourself has many limitations.  First, you still better be pretty marketable yourself: Attractive, in good health, not too old, and with something to offer.  Particularly if you are female.  ALL the matchmakers complained about the shortage of men, where do you find dates for these ladies?

And remember, matchmakers can only match you with people they have on their own roster.  What if your perfect mate lives outside the matchmaker’s area, or would never sign up?  Most matchmakers do not allow browsing through their roster either.  You are subject to who they pick for you.  Me?  Uh uh.

Matchmakers also remind me of eHarmony, in that they do not take on people they don’t think they can match.  Or the less ethical may take a client regardless of their match-ability, simply for the money.  Yick.  In fact, matchmakers used to routinely reject all women Over a Certain Age (like 40 or 45).  For sure, the older you are if you are female, the greater your chances of being turned down by the matchmaker.  Let alone a date.

So if you are male, have the bucks to spend, and no time to waste, you might do okay with matchmaking.  However if you are female and over 40, you’d do much better getting online and doing the work yourself.  That’s where the guys are. 

posted by Kathryn Lord on 10.07.07 at 7.23 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • News About Dating Sites and Types • About Matchmakers and Dating Services • 5 Comments

Hooray for Internet Dating and Niche Sites!

Articles like the one below about how Internet dating is “in” have been popping up all over everywhere lately.  While they are similar in tone and get repetitious, I find them so welcoming after what I have seen over the years. Five years ago when I was just getting started as a Romance Coach, searches yielded practically nothing, and what did show up tended to be scary.  Not so with articles like this.  Yea!

The Many Faces of Online Dating

By Erika Morphy

“Match.com is not for everybody,” says Todd Creager, a licensed clinical social worker and coauthor of Finding Life’s Passions. “There are those that thrive on generalized dating sites, but typically those are people who ‘show well’—whether it is due to looks, an extroverted style of writing, a natural sense of humor, social confidence or some combination of these qualities.”

Shoshanna Berman, an intern in New York City, is happily dating her ideal future husband: a nice, young—and tall—Orthodox Jewish man who is also outgoing and easygoing.

On date two, they bonded while scalping tickets at a Knicks game. Date ten, she remembers, was an all-night drive to Philadelphia.

“I would have married him if he asked me after the first date,” Berman tells TechNewsWorld, “but it took him a few months to realize the truth.” Now they are unofficially engaged.

Take away a few details here and there, and this could be anyone’s “how we met” story—including the fact that Berman met her beau at SawYouAtSinai.com, a dating Web site.

“My friend met her husband there, so I thought I would give it a try,” Berman says.

These days, anyone who scoffs at online dating is either married or in the priesthood. The U.S. online dating market—typified by such Web sites as Match.com and Yahoo Personals—will reach US$932 million in 2011, according to figures from JupiterResearch.

Soul Mate Search

More than 20 million Internet users visited such a site last December, reported comScore. The top destinations were Yahoo Personals, Match.com, True.com, Spark Networks and Singlesnet.com. In short, from 18-year-olds in college (where there should be no dearth of potential suitors) to senior citizens, multitudes are logging on in search of love or companionship.

To be sure, not everyone who goes online finds a happy ending. Horror stories abound from the horrifying—stalking incidents and worse have befallen many online daters—to the annoying. (Hint: Using photos more than a year or so old always backfires.)

Sometimes it just takes a little patience to find your soul mate, says Robert Schwartz, author of Courageous Souls: Do We Plan Our Life Challenges Before Birth? Schwartz met his partner at JDate, another popular Jewish dating site. Several years ago, he posted a profile there but nothing came of it. Recently, though, in the most serendipitous manner possible, he connected with a woman, and they’re about to move in together.

“I had been living in Oregon but thinking about moving home to Cleveland to look after my father, who was needing assistance,” he tells TechNewsWorld. Idly, he perused the profiles in Cleveland and immediately gravitated toward the woman who would become his partner. “What I loved about her profile is that I could tell immediately she is spiritually aware. That is very important to me.”

Fast-forward over several months of phone calls and visits. Schwartz is now moving to Cleveland.

Specialized Sites

It may be no accident that both Schwartz and Berman met partners on specialized dating sites. Mainstream dating site memberships are stagnating—or, in some cases, shrinking. The proportion of paying customers has stayed the same—5 percent—over the last five years, according to Jupiter.

Another Jupiter metric that suggests interest is beginning to decline: Only 10 percent of Internet users visited an online dating site in 2006—a decrease from 16 percent in 2005 and 21 percent in 2002.

One way the online dating industry is counteracting these trends is by introducing specialized Web sites that focus on commonalities that would-be daters hope to find. Many focus on religion; some focus on hobbies or professions.

Sparks Network, currently one of the top online destinations, operates over 30 online personals—all but one of which is targeted toward a specific religious, ethnic or special interest group. JDate, launched in 1997, was its first site.

It makes sense, some say.

“Match.com is not for everybody,” Todd Creager, a licensed clinical social worker and coauthor of Finding Life’s Passions, tells TechNewsWorld. “There are those that thrive on generalized dating sites, but typically those are people who ‘show well’—whether it is due to looks, an extroverted style of writing, a natural sense of humor, social confidence, or some combination of these qualities.”

Singles who do not make great first impressions end up feeling frustrated, he continues. “On a specialized dating site, one attraction may be the similarity of interests, vocation, religion, life challenges and so on.”

Next Evolutionary Step

Specialized sites are the way to go for today’s daters, says Steve Monas, author of several books about online dating and social networking, including Chemistry and Numbers: The Online Dating Guide.

“When I used JDate, there was already a feeling of comfortability, knowing that there will be some commonality moving forward,” he tells TechNewsWorld.

However, the specialized sites may follow the path of the generic dating Web sites, he cautioned—unless they evolve once again.

“Dating Web sites are now trying to get appealing features that will compete with free social networking sites such as MySpace.com and Plentyoffish.com,” Monas notes. These sites, after all, are de facto meeting places and have come to compete with some of the larger, specialized dating sites.

Revenue from major sites will have to come from more personalized services—such as selecting and contacting potential matches on behalf of members, he suggests.

Indeed, some of the newer specialized sites are focusing on what happens once you get past the third or so date and become a couple. eHarmony, a dating Web site known for its hour-long application—and, more controversially, for not matching gay people—has launched a Web site aimed at married couples who want to strengthen their relationship.

On the other end of the spectrum—the far end—is HoochyMail, a service that “brings couples closer together by safely and securely allowing them to create and share their mutual fantasies,” according to site spokesperson Rob Frankle.

Basically, HoochyMail allows each couple to compose and e-mail Email Marketing Software - Free Demo fantasies customized with their own details. There are about 35 different occasions—from Christmas to Thanksgiving to basketball playoffs—in the system Manage remotely with one interface—the HP ProLiant DL360 G5 server..

Thus far, the site has been very successful, judging by almost every metric, Frankle says, including opt-in numbers and click-through advertising rates. “Plus, we have never received even one hate mail.”

In the online dating world, that’s as good as it gets.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 09.15.07 at 6.06 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • News About Dating Sites and Types • Online Dating Facts and Figures • Niche Dating Sites • 1 Comments

Single Dads Prefer Dating Online

Ya’ll know I have my problems with True.com (see my postings here), but I am not above quoting their surveys (minus their self-promoting ya-ya).  This is from a True.com press release:

Survey results showed that most single fathers agree that online dating is a safer and easier method for meeting other singles:

—75 percent of respondents said that online dating is the easiest way
for single parents to meet others
—67 percent said that online dating is a safer way to date

And:

The survey also revealed that saving time is considered the most popular convenience of online dating:

—37 percent said that online dating helped them balance time between
work, dating and family
—More than half (53 percent) go out on traditional dates less than once
a month

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.17.07 at 1.25 pm
permalink | Categories: • For and About Men • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • Where are the Good Men and Women? • 2 Comments

Screening Date Candidates

Ever since I started working to help singles find love using the Internet, I have been astounded at the numbers of people who get impatient at the process and try to hurry it along or quit altogether.  “Three emails and then meet for coffee or I am done.” “I met three different guys and they all lied about their age, so I pulled my profile.”

Folks who rush the process are depriving themselves of one of the chief advantages of meeting online: The ability (if you use it) to prescreen potential dates. 

Because you get information via a person’s online dating profile that you would seldom get before a traditional date with a relative stranger, and because you are meeting online rather than in real time and space, you can study what the other presents, ask questions, look for gaps or inconsistencies, and read the lines as well as between them.  You can learn a lot by what and how a person writes, as well as what they don’t.  And all without dealing with the nerves and worries of a first date. 

You are bound to waste a lot of time (and drink a lot of coffee) if you move too fast from first contact to first “real time and space” meeting.  You could also be inviting trouble.  Move gradually, starting with emails through the website, then through a safe email address (Have you set up a Yahoo! or Hotmail email account that is not traceable to you?  You can email me for instructions on how to do so).  Then, phone contact: Use a cell phone, block your phone number using *67, or set up an anonymous phone number (see my blog piece on how to do so)

We all have the responsibility to prove that we are normal, real and truthful people to potential dates—and they have that responsibility to us, too.  Regular, predictable contact over time will allow you both to build trust—or not. 

From Your Romance Caoch, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 03.09.07 at 6.42 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • Scams and Scam Protection • 1 Comments

About.com Takes on Online Dating for Seniors

Here’s a great Q & A on About.com about online dating and seniors, so good that I posted a comment.  Here are my words below:

This link to “Is Online Dating Right for You?” gives a great positive overview of the wonderful resource that Internet dating has provided for singles of all ages, but for seniors in particular.  Where are all the nice older men (and women)?  Online and looking!

I am a Romance Coach working mostly with singles over 50. Internet dating is THE best resource, and best of all, online, it is okay for women to make the first move.  Men LIKE it.

I would also add that singles should be prepared to devote plenty of time to their search.  We often wish that finding romance should be easy and “just happen,” but we should expect that the older and more certain of ourselves that we become, the fewer the “right” partners there will be. 

Please visit my website at http://www.Find-a-Sweetheart.com and feel free to brouse the copious information there.  And subscribe to my free email newsletter *eMAIL to eMATE*

Best, Kathryn Lord
Your Romance Coach

posted by Kathryn Lord on 08.05.06 at 7.34 am
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • Dating Tips • Internet Dating Advantages • 0 Comments