Kathryn's Blog: Mind Your Manners

The post-breakup technology bonfire

There’s nothing like New Year’s for starting fresh, and if you have an old relationship that needs some housecleaning, here’s an article below that will tell you just how to do it.

The Post-Breakup Technology Cleanse
by Melissa Noble

If you’re one of the three people out there who endures a completely mutual, pain-free and friendly as a bouquet of roses break-up, then read no further. The below is not intended for you. Now, if you fall into the category of “everyone else” and your recent split caused a rush of heated double-clicks and jealous scrolls through a flurry of screens large and small, then you really ought to fumigate your technology like you would a roach-infested kitchen.

Here’s how:

1.) Delete every single e-mail ever given or received
As cathartic as it might sound to keep an archive of sweet messages, witty one-liners and even the cruel and brutal (as a remembrance as to why you should never reconcile) just don’t. Instead, search and delete every received and sent message. It might sound time-consuming and dramatic, but you’ll come to realize how much you’ll enjoy having an ex-free inbox.

2.) Cleanse your smart phone
Deleting someone’s number isn’t good enough. Nay. Go in and scrub away every trace like you would shower grime. In one broad stroke, eliminate every missed, outgoing and dialed call, plus every sent and received text and picture. You want no excuse to cave, crumble and call.

3.) Un-friend from Facebook and possibly block
Facebook is the Mecca of peeping Toms and an all-access pass to an ex’s status updates, wall posts from attractive members of the opposite sex, and pictures with said attractive members of the opposite sex. Unless you’re a masochist, it’s just bad, bad, bad news. Absolutely un-friend, and if you want to take it one step further (and why wouldn’t you?) use that nifty “block button.” Blocking eliminates you from coming up on a search and showing up on a mutual friend’s list of friends, so your ex likewise won’t be reminded of you and reach out in a fit of nostalgia. 

4.) If you met on a dating site, remove from favorites and block
If you met on an online dating site, definitely remove your ex from your favorites and block him/her from contacting you. This one is a no-brainer.

5.) Un-follow and block on Twitter
The same rational for Facebook goes for Twitter. If you and significant other were tweeters and hung on each others posts, it’s time to unfollow and block. Life is just too short for 140 characters to unleash the millions of angry memories. Just trust us on this.

6.) Remove from IM
In Gmail, it’s possible to suppress a contact from appearing in your Gchat list. You can also remove or block a buddy in AIM, Skype and other such instant messaging systems. When you’re trying to write an e-mail to your mom or cruise a dating site for new love interests, what benefit is there in seeing your ex’s name in your chat list?

Yes, this technology cleanse is extreme. Think about it this way: seeing your ex online/in your phone will only make you think about what he/she is doing, realize you’re no longer privy to that info (at least not right now, maybe friendship lies ahead), and—as any human would—suffer as a result. Why not make technology work for you and remove the catalysts for this negative reminder?

If your ex wants to reconcile, he/she will find you. Or, given your freedom to exist without constant reminders, maybe you’ll see him/her in a new light and decide to reach out. Either way, keeping an ex’s fingerprints all over your technology will only help keep you jailed in breakup pain. We say, cleanse and be free. You’re too fabulous to wallow.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 02.06.10 at 4.53 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • Handling Rejection • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

Scour the Internet for info on your date—and about you!

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.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 11.06.09 at 9.14 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Tell the Truth • Mind Your Manners • 1 Comments

Hmmm…A Pre-Date Contract?

Now, this may be just another step down the road of busifying and de-romancing dating, but actually I think it has some good possibilities: the Pre-date contract.  What do you think?

PS Here’s a funny take on the whole idea.

A Pre-date Contract, Really?
How getting it in writing can lead to the altar

PRLog (Press Release) – Jul 17, 2009 – We’ve all heard about pre-nuptial agreements, but a pre-date agreement? Why would you need one? What’s in it? Is it legally binding? Are people really making their dates sign one prior to going out?

More than a mere trend, pre-date agreements have become more commonplace in recent years. While not legally binding documents, these agreements do put in writing the expectations people have of the other person going into the date, during the date and in the aftermath. Not surprisingly, laying your cards on the table and letting the person you’re dating know you’re serious has many beneficial results.

The Right One and Together Dating, one of the world’s largest brick-and-mortar dating services with more than 60 offices nationwide, doesn’t require its clients to sign a pre-date agreement. Yet you can count CEO Paul A. Falzone as a support of pre-date agreements.

Said Falzone, “Most people’s initial reaction to a pre-date contract is ‘what about romance?’ and ‘doesn’t a written agreement get in the way of chemistry?’. The truth is a pre-date contract acts like a checklist for yourself to make sure you’re in a good place to begin a relationship. If anything, it’s pretty healthy way to go about it.”

So what terms can you find in a pre-date contract? Some things to include:
• Punctuality – arriving on time and ending at a reasonable hour
• Attire – agree on type of attire prior to date (casual, business casual); bathing and other hygienic measures prior to date mandatory.
• Terms of discussion – agree to not talk about exes and the big three (sex, politics and religion); also no complaining about work, the weather, etc.
• Physical contact – keep it to a minimum; friendly pecks on the cheeks or abbreviated hugs are acceptable; spending the night, not so much.
• Alcoholic intake – with respect to the above bullet, stick to a one drink per hour maximum.
• Paying the bill – as equal partners in this first date, split the bill evenly.
• Honest post date feedback – agree to provide your date with an honest appraisal of the outing within a 24-to-48-hour time period.

“Most things in a pre-date agreement are fairly common sense. Yet there’s something about putting these things in writing that make you think about what it is you’re doing,” said Falzone. “That’s not a bad thing. In fact, once both people know the expectations and the ground rules, it makes it easier to enjoy the date and let the relationship begin or end.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.28.09 at 6.33 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Proactive Dating • Mind Your Manners • Be Safe • 0 Comments

FICO before the safe sex talk?

Remember when it was not okay to Google a prospective date?  Those days are definitely over, and how fast time flies!  We’ve skipped right over background checks and are now talking about FICO scores as part of a responsible dater’s resume. 

Recession Has Some Daters Checking Credit Scores

WASHINGTON - The recession has some singles being more careful about who they date. A recent survey shows more than 80 percent of singles are being more selective because they don’t want to get involved with someone who needs their own bailout.

Money may be all the talk these days but at a speed-dating event in D.C., singles say they’re not bringing it up—yet.

“Money thing, that’s serious stuff. I’ll worry about that later,” said one participant.

But concerns about job security and financial stability are close to the surface.

“I know a lot of my friends, their financial situations are difficult right now,” added another participant.

In addition to their own tight finances, many worry about a potential date’s money troubles.

“I met a few female lawyers who told me that they had extreme—like $240,000—debt and yes, that would be an impediment,” said Mel Hutson.

Finance guru Suze Orman shared her advice about that with Oprah and guests.

“Before you get involved in a relationship or anything, FICO first, then sex,” she said, producing laughter in the audience.  “That’s a new dating question,” replied Oprah, “‘What’s your FICO score?’”

For many, one’s credit score is a touchy subject. But it’s not taboo at CreditScoreDating.com, where singles weed out low-credit score holders.

But Michael Karlan, founder of the Professionals in the City dating service, says those restrictions are a double-edged sword.

“What the credit score dating site does is you’re getting people that are pre-selected,” he said. “So within that group, you can find somebody that you’re attracted to and you’ll already know that they’re pre-selected so it helps in that regard. But it still doesn’t avoid that situation of, you have to find the person with whom you’re attracted.”

If not specifically dating by credit score, 84 percent of singles admitted in a Match.com survey they are at least more selective about who they date in a down economy. And online dating Web sites are reporting a surge in business, because many singles say it’s cheaper to find a date online then heading out to the bar and restaurant scene.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 05.01.09 at 5.00 pm
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Search Smart • Mind Your Manners • Money Matters • 0 Comments

Hey Patti!

I miss Patti Novak and her show on A&E Confessions of a Matchmaker.  But Patti’s come out with a book (haven’t we all?) and her voice rings loud and clear.  I sat next to Patti at the first Matchmaker’s convention.  So you are two degrees of separation from the Buffalo matchmaker.

Hello, Patti Novak!
BY CRISTINA KINON
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

Sunday, January 11th 2009, 5:40 AM

Love is recession-proof. Just ask matchmaker Patti Novak.

The Buffalo native, who stars in the A&E series “Confessions of a Matchmaker,” about her personal matchmaking business, is expanding her brand with a book, “Get Over Yourself! How to Get Real, Get Serious and Get Ready to Find True Love” (Ballantine Books, $24), which hit bookshelves this past week.

“My father once told me, ‘Patti, the world will never not need love,’ and I believe that’s true, especially today,” Novak told the Daily News. “If you can only afford popcorn and a six-pack on a Saturday night, you certainly don’t want to be doing that alone.”

“Get Over Yourself,” co-written by best-selling novelist Laura Zigman, is like a dating workbook. It features Novak’s rules, strategies, insights and even surveys and questionnaires to be completed by the reader in an effort to better understand what kind of daters they are. Chapters include “Understanding Your Relationship History,” “Self-Diagnosis,” “Facing Your Demons” and “First Date 101.”

What sets “Get Over Yourself” apart from the thousands of other dating-advice books is Novak’s unique style of tough love. Just like on her show, Novak shows no mercy as she pinpoints love-seekers’ issues and what to do to overcome them.

“I’m going to be able to get away with telling someone that the extra 70 pounds is a problem because I’m a blind party,” said Novak. “Imagine trying to tell a friend that! That’s not a good situation, so people need me to be objective.”

Novak, who’s been bartering love connections since she was 10, also includes a chapter on Internet dating in “Get Over Yourself,” though she’s not a big advocate of it.

“The Internet is here and it’s not going anywhere, so I put it in the book to highlight the safety aspects of it. But I want people to only use it as a tool to practice their dating skills,” said Novak. “Don’t go into it thinking you’re going to find the love of your life. You may, but go into it as a practice forum.”

Some of Novak’s first-date “do’s” include:

1. Dress to impress.

2.  Less is more when it comes to makeup.

3. Carry breath mints.

4. Be yourself.

5. Be on time.

Her list of “don’ts,” however, is much longer.

“I no longer assume that anything is common sense,” said Novak. “You won’t believe what some people think is a good idea to talk about to someone they just met. One woman I matched told her date she was on Prozac. Half the country is, but the fact that she brought it up on the very first date scared him.”

So don’t talk about your medication. Also, don’t get wasted, don’t forget your date’s name, don’t interrupt your date, don’t talk about sex, don’t talk about exes, don’t talk on your cell phone, don’t flirt with anyone that isn’t your date, don’t chew with your mouth open and don’t wipe your nose on your sleeve. And that’s just a sampling.

Novak says “Get Over Yourself” is appropriate for every kind of dater of every age.

“Everybody’s different, but I’d say 27 years old and up is when people really start calling me,” she said. “They’re out of school, moving out of the bar scene and don’t have many alternatives to meet new people.”

Others are stuck in a pattern of bad dates or are recently out of a long-term relationship or marriage.

“The motivation to put this all down into a book is the realization that dating is a universal problem for all people,” said Novak. “There are so many people looking for love and don’t want to be alone, so it becomes a burden in our heart when we are.

“Dating shouldn’t be as complicated as it is, but human nature makes it that way. But if you can just love yourself, be kind to others, get out there and look your best, your world will change.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 03.12.09 at 4.50 pm
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • 1 Comments

Knickers for sale

Ah, revenge is sweet.  I love these ingenious ideas for getting back, with no blood being shed.  Ya know, guys and ladies, you think that you are fooling around in private, and you are counting on your partner to behave as is he or she is sane, but don’t count on either.

The wife, the cheating husband, his lover and her ‘humongous’ knickers

Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned – especially when she has access to eBay.

At least that appears to be the motto of an Australian woman who is seeking revenge on her cheating husband by selling an empty condom wrapper – “size small” – and a photo of his lover’s underwear on the internet auction site.

“Empty Ansell condom packet (size small) and a photo of The Tart’s black lacy knickers (size humongous)” reads the ad, placed by ‘Annastella’ who says she discovered the items in the bed she shared with her husband of 22 years.

Anna, who also plans to auction her ex-husband’s Harley Hog motorcycle - “his pride and joy” for 99c (46p) - originally had the actual knickers up for sale but was asked by eBay to take them down due to the website’s policy against selling second-hand underwear.

“Personally, I did think 99c was a bit ambitious,” she writes of the bloomers on eBay

“But, as they are so huge, I thought they may make someone a nice shawl or ever better, something for Halloween perhaps”.

Explaining in some detail why she is selling her rival’s knickers, Anna says she caught her husband out when he accidentally sent her a text meant to be for his lover, apparently named Kylie, and how she returned home from work early to find him watching a DVD and discouraging her from entering the bedroom.

She describes how she found the condom wrapper under her husband’s pillow and ‘The Tart’s’ knickers at the end of the bed, and explains in detail his rather comical explanations for how a condom and underwear which was not hers appeared in their marital bed.

She said her husband claimed he used the condom to fish his mobile phone out of the toilet and that the knickers were his because he was a closet transvestite.

“10 out of 10 for trying buddy but your (sic) out of here…” Anna wrote on eBay.

Since the ad was placed on August 7, 47 people have placed bids for the items, with the top bid currently standing at £71 ($US132.50). The auction finishes on Sunday.

EBay, which is full of odd items up for sale, is becoming revenge site for the broken hearted selling off bad memories.

In March, Canadian political pundit Rachel Marsden used the auction site to sell the dirty laundry of her ex, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales, who had broken up with her via his blog.

And earlier this year an Australian man, wanting a fresh start after separating from his wife, auctioned off his entire life and belongings for just over £186,000 ($AU400,000).

posted by Kathryn Lord on 02.02.09 at 1.20 pm
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • Just for Fun • 0 Comments

Steaks.  It’s what’s for dinner…

Golly!  Can being vegetarian now be not cool?  Thank you, thank you, for all the times I’ve had to adjust dinner party menus for assorted dietary wierdnesses.  BTW, I ate vegetarian for about 10 years (with occasional nights off if I couln’t resist BBQ).  Gee whiz, New Yorkers, stop reading so much into everything.  Let women have what they want to eat, okay?  I’d go at least three dates before I made too many assumptions about anyone based on what they ordered to eat.  Well, maybe not if they drank a gallon of Pepsi with the whole business....

Be Yourselves, Girls, Order the Rib-Eye

By ALLEN SALKIN
Published: August 9, 2007

MARTHA FLACH mentioned meat twice in her Match.com profile: “I love architecture, The New Yorker, dogs ... steak for two and the Sunday puzzle.”

She was seeking, she added, “a smart, funny, kind man who owns a suit (but isn’t one) ... and loves red wine and a big steak.”

The repetition worked. On her first date with Austin Wilkie, they ate steak frites. A year later, after burgers at the Corner Bistro in Greenwich Village, he proposed. This March, the rehearsal dinner was at Keens Steakhouse on West 36th Street, and the wedding menu included mini-cheeseburgers and more steak.

Ms. Wilkie was a vegetarian in her teens, and even wore a “Meat Is Murder” T-shirt. But by her 30s, she had started eating cow. By the time she placed the personal ad, she had come to realize that ordering steak on a first date had the potential to sate appetites not only of the stomach but of the heart.

Red meat sent a message that she was “unpretentious and down to earth and unneurotic,” she said, “that I’m not obsessed with my weight even though I’m thin, and I don’t have any food issues.” She added, “In terms of the burgers, it said I’m a cheap date, low maintenance.”

Salad, it seems, is out. Gusto, medium rare, is in.

Restaurateurs and veterans of the dating scene say that for many women, meat is no longer murder. Instead, meat is strategy. “I’ve been shocked at the number of women actually ordering steak,” said Michael Stillman, vice president of concept development for the Smith & Wollensky Restaurant Group, which opened the restaurant Quality Meats in April 2006 on West 58th Street. He said Quality Meats’ contemporary design and menu, including extensive seafood offerings, were designed to attract more women than a traditional steakhouse. “But the meat is appealing to them, much more than what I saw two or three years ago at our other restaurants,” Mr. Stillman said. “They are going for our bone-in sirloin and our cowboy-cut rib steak.”

In an earlier era, conventional dating wisdom for women was to eat something at home alone before a date, and then in company order a light dinner to portray oneself as dainty and ladylike. For some women, that is still the practice. “It’s better not to have a jalapeño fajita plate, especially on the first date,” said Andrea Bey, 28, who sells video surveillance equipment in Irving, Tex., and describes herself as “curvy.” “You don’t want to be labeled as ‘princess gassy’ on the first date.”

But others, especially those who are thin, say ordering a salad displays an unappealing mousiness.

“It seems wimpy, insipid, childish,” said Michelle Heller, 34, a copy editor at TV Guide. “I don’t want to be considered vapid and uninteresting.”

Ordering meat, on the other hand, is a declarative statement, something along the lines of “I am woman, hear me chew.”

In fact, red meat on a date has become such an effective statement of self-acceptance that even a vegetarian like Sloane Crosley, a publicist at Random House, sometimes longs to order a burger.

“Being a vegetarian puts you at a disadvantage,” Ms. Crosley said. “You’re in the most basic category of finicky. Even women who order chicken, it isn’t enough.” She said she has thought of ordering shots of Jägermeister, famous for its frat boy associations, to prove that she is “a guy’s girl.”

“Everyone wants to be the girl who drinks the beer and eats the steak and looks like Kate Hudson,” Ms. Crosley, 28, said.

Not all red meat, apparently, is equal in the dating world. The mediums of steak and hamburger each send a different message. Dropping into conversation the fact that steaks of Kobe beef come from Wagyu cattle, but that not all steaks sold as Wagyu are Kobe beef, demonstrates one’s worldliness, said Gabriella Gershenson, a dining editor at Time Out New York. It holds the same currency today that being able to name Hemingway’s four wives held in an earlier era.

Hamburgers, she added, say you are down-to-earth, which is why women rarely order those deluxe hamburgers priced as high as a porterhouse.

“They’re created for men who want to impress women, so they order the $60 burger, then they let the woman taste it,” Ms. Gershenson said. “The man gets to show off his expertise and show that he can afford it.”

When Paris Hilton was arrested for driving under the influence, she announced that she had been on her way to In-N-Out Burger, the Southern California chain revered for its gut-busting Double-Double, as if trying to satisfy a craving for two slabs of meat and cheese was an excuse for drunken driving that anyone could understand. And twice last year, Nicole Richie, persistently facing rumors that she suffered from an eating disorder, was photographed biting into burgers in Los Angeles, an effort that seemed designed to demonstrate her casualness toward calories.

Of course, there are always those rare women who order what they want and to heck with what a man might think.

Saehee Hwang, 30, a production director at Artnet.com, found herself out with friends at DuMont restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when she started feeling attracted to a new guy in the group. She said she had wanted to order a burger, but started having second thoughts. “I didn’t want to appear too much of a carnivore,” she said. “It might be off-putting.”

But then she decided she should not change her order to fit a preconceived idea of what a man might want. She ordered the house specialty, a half-pound of beef on a toasted brioche bun with Gruyère cheese. “We started dating afterward,” Ms. Hwang said. “And he told me he liked the fact that I ordered the burger.”

What about when the tables, so to speak, are reversed? Can a man order a juicy New York strip on the first date and make a good impression? Gentlemen, be careful. Real men, it seems, must eat kale.

“When a guy sits down and eats something fatty and big, you wonder if they eat like that all the time,” said Brice Gaillard, a freelance design writer. “It crosses my mind they’ll probably die early.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 09.11.07 at 5.22 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • Just for Fun • 0 Comments

Does Your Living Space Need Pre-Dating Attention?

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

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

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

From the New York Times:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Make that 41. Why does he live here?

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

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

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

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

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

No Stuffed Animals, Even If You Are Dying

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

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

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

Why do men dislike stuffed animals?

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

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

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

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

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

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

What did her date do for a living?

“He was in the real estate business.”

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

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

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

Although the Stasi Were Said to Love It

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

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

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

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

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

We Aren’t Kidding About the Klimt

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Then his boyfriend returned.

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

It’s Not My Place, It’s You

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Mr. Podell’s girlfriend lives in Moscow.

She has never seen his apartment.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

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

Who Pays for Dates?

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

From InsideBayArea.com

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

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

Coffee Date? Starbucks is Watching

Flirtations a-brewing at coffeehouses

Minneapolis — Justin Fogel usually can spot them. One comes in first, sits near the door. “Can I get you something?” Fogel asks, even though he knows the answer.

No, thanks. Just waiting for someone.

Someone arrives. They shake hands, order coffee, try not to look shell-shocked if the online photo that screamed “dreamy!” has turned into a caramel-Frappuccino-no-whip drinker whose reality screams “dreaming!” They find a seat and, they hope, common ground. Fogel said it’s sometimes hard not to assess from afar.

“I see if they’re laughing or having a good time,” said Fogel, 25, a graduate student at Bethel University who has worked on and off at the Dunn Bros’ in Minneapolis for two years. “Sometimes they walk out after 10 minutes. Maybe they’re going somewhere.”

Uh-huh.
Coffee shops are choice stops for an increasing number of internet daters ready to meet face-to-face. The biggest perks: They’re safe, cheap and easy to exit quickly.

Coffee shops are choice stops for an increasing number of internet daters ready to meet face-to-face. The biggest perks: They’re safe, cheap and easy to exit quickly. (Laurie Harker/Minneapolis Star-Tribune)

Coffee dates aren’t new. But the proliferation of dating dot-coms such as match, perfectmatch, yahoo and eHarmony, coupled with coffeehouses on practically every corner, have taken the quaint concept to new heights. Wired to the Internet, why not do the first face-to-face while wired on caffeine, too?

“Coffee shops are the new neutral zone,” said D.J. Gramann, 39, a Minneapolis clothing designer who met his partner at Wilde Roast in Minneapolis. “It allowed me to get to know him in a casual way that didn’t have the pressure of a first date.”

Cynthia Parker, 58, chose a Starbucks for her first date with her now live-in boyfriend, Gordon Taylor. That was after another blind date she met on the internet not so blindly reached across the table at a restaurant and adjusted her blouse “to see if I had cleavage.” Coffee shops, said Parker, a real estate agent and makeup artist in Bloomington, offer a hubbub of people and activity. “You find a chair and have a not-so-intimate conversation.”

Many people still meet in bars, of course, where noise and dim lighting can be very precious things. Some optimistic souls even insist on first-date dinners. But, as Jason Koltes, a 31-year-old physical therapist, said, the coffee shop “takes the pressure off. If the date goes poorly, there’s a little less commitment than if you had to try to fill a whole evening.”

Well, not all the pressure’s off. Like everything else, there are rules of engagement, even in a Caribou. Internet sites for singles are full of advice on how to make the most of a coffee date, or whether you should.

One lively thread on coffee dates offered the pros ("Let me get to know them first before I find out if they can keep their mouth closed while eating"), the cons ("I always feel as if I am at a job interview") and the amusing ("Never dated coffee. I did have a brief and intensive affair with a half-pound of Darjeeling tea. Dark. Brooding. Mysterious. Sexually ambiguous. ... “).
Coffee date tips

Want your coffee date to be smooth? Here are some tips from chemistry.com’s contributing writer Kimberly Dawn Neumann:
• Appear laid-back. It’s just coffee. Take off your jacket, unbutton your collar.
• Check out the place first. Make sure there is adequate seating, good lighting, a nice ambience. Find out if there will be music or a poetry reading, in case you do or don’t want such a thing.
• Don’t be late. It’s that first-impression thing.
• Look him/her in the eye. Don’t let your gaze wander to other people walking in. It’s rude.
• Don’t make an issue over who pays. It’s just coffee! The general dating rule is, “the person who asks pays.” One idea: Have a pre-paid coffee card ready.
• Don’t freak if you can’t find a table. You don’t have to date sitting down. Or get to-go cups and take a walk.
• Don’t arrive famished. Coffee isn’t great on an empty stomach. But arriving a little hungry is OK. If things are going well, you can suggest sharing a sandwich. If things are going really well, you can suggest moving to a restaurant. If things are going south, you can excuse yourself for a dinner “commitment.”
• Close the deal. Did you have a good time? Then say so. And suggest another date at a specific location.

Gregg Millett, founder of Singles Outreach in Albany, N.Y., recently asked members what they can learn on a short coffee date. In a word: alatte. Did they lie about their age? Do they make eye contact? How do they treat the server? Do they tip? Do they only talk about themselves?

One single woman cut to the chase by saying she wants to see what kind of car he drives, something that’s easy to assess from the coffee shop window. “I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t be happy with a person who drives a gas-guzzling supersized SUV or, heaven forbid, a Hummer!” Another writer was more practical. Forget the coffee date. Want to really learn about someone? Take “a three-day camping trip, preferably on a rainy weekend.”

Bean there, done that

Or consider something a little less drastic. Tammy Hauser, 43, owner of a management consulting firm in Minnetonka, Minn., doesn’t drink coffee. And if she did, she’d avoid coffee shops, which she feels shortchange those looking for the experience of a real date. “I like the romance, the evening out. It just elevates it from lunch or coffee.” Her top choice: happy hours for a drink or two, where she’d always have a friend meet her after an hour or so “unless I called her from the bathroom and said, ‘Don’t come.’ “ She met her fiance on Yahoo; they’ll be getting married in a few months.

Judy Malmstrom, 65, of North Oaks, Minn., preferred a nice glass of wine, too, in the many years she enjoyed or endured more than 100 dates. “Wine is a little more intimate, relaxing,” said Malmstrom, who married Douglas Malmstrom, 67, this past November.

During her post-divorce dating days, Heather Wells, 37, considered herself the “anti-coffee” dater. Wine didn’t quite do it, either. She only met men for first dates (and a few seconds) in fine restaurants, after heavily screening them via the Internet and telephone.

“I’m a foodie,” said Wells, owner of Executive Events. “It was really important to me that my mate appreciated the fine art of dining.” Besides, she said, you can tell a lot about a man by his menu etiquette: “How he treats the waitstaff, how he orders or admits that he doesn’t know how to order.” Wells met her now-husband at an Italian restaurant. “He was very chivalrous, very classy, but also had a humility about what he didn’t know.”

Ultimately, though, the coffee date, the dinner date, the bar date or even being fixed up by well-intentioned friends can’t guarantee success. The best recipe is probably trying a little bit of everything, and making only one commitment, which is to be open to possibilities wherever you are.

While Parker’s first date with Taylor was in a coffee shop, they actually first met by accident in a less romantic setting: Home Depot, where he works. A phone call got them to Starbucks, but it was that magical je ne sai quoi that turned the brief coffee date into a full day of activities, including trips to Ikea and Menard’s, lunch at Leeann Chin, then dinner and a movie. Soon after, Parker sold her house, moved into his and hasn’t gone on a first-date coffee rendezvous since.

“Internet dating can be safe,” said Parker. “You just have to be smart about it, and one of the ways to be smart is where you meet, like at a coffee shop. You can always move on from there.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 05.25.07 at 11.49 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Mind Your Manners • Just for Fun • 2 Comments

Two Online Daters Talk and Kathryn Comments

In an article from the Examiner.com we find two nice folks talking about their online dating experiences.  The article is in red, my comments in black.

BALTIMORE - This week, the intrepid Joan Allen has braved the wilds of online dating and returns from her dangerous expedition to tell the tale.

Joan: I went on my first Match.com date last week and would like to share some red-flag signals. First of all, the man asked very personal questions, such as “Why have you never gotten married? You’re beautiful and intelligent,” and “What red-flag signals have you observed about me?” This was our first date, and I felt like he was interviewing me. I decided I had nothing to lose, so I answered him honestly. I said, “The first red-flag signal is you’ve just had two double martinis, and I would be concerned about your drinking.” His answer? “My sister is an alcoholic, but I’m not. And I’m not going to change.” Needless to say, I never heard from him again.

Dan: Sounds like the date worked out perfectly. For me, a first date IS an interview situation: who are you, what are you about, now stand up and give us a spin. I don’t think his questions, or yours, were out of line, as you both learned what you needed to know — and isn’t it better to do that right off the bat rather than down the road after you’ve been dating this person five or six months?

I’d agree with Don about this.  The first meeting/coffee date should not really be seen as a date, but as a screening to see if you WOULD want to date this person.  It is a time for gathering facts and impressions, just like the email and phone contacts before the meeting.

Joan: When I told my friend Carol about my date, she offered a few of her favorite red-flag signs about Internet dating: men who’ve never been married, men who don’t call when they say they will, men who are very critical, men who say negative things about their former spouses, and best for last — after a third or fourth date with the same man, when you get home from that date and check your e-mails and find that he’s already online chatting with other women.

Beware, both men and women: It is very common practice for online daters to check on the dating site to see if their date is active on the site.  Of course, checking makes you active too, so your date may be doing the same thing: checking on you.  But until you have had the “Let’s be exclusive” discussion, do not assume that your date is being exclusive, even if you are.  In fact, dating more than one at a time may be a very good idea.  Having sex with more than one at a time may not.

Now ladies, sing it to the tune of “My Favorite Things.” “When he’s negative, when he’s sneaky, when he won’t call back, just let your account expire from Match, and then it won’t seem so bad.”

Dan: Then I’m a walking red flag, as I’m 44 and never been married ... and neither have YOU! Actually, all of these apply to women as well. And here’s a few more: women who write, express interest and then disappear off the face of the earth. Women who take you for granted. Women who can’t deal with a man’s female friends. Women who say you’re great but then start dropping comments about your clothes, hair, home — ladies, men may be lumpy, but we’re not lumps of clay for you to mold; take us as we are or take yourself elsewhere. Women who see perceived slights in every word or gesture and demand apologies, free dinners and pedicures, but have no problems dropping atom bomb-sized insults about aforementioned clothes, hair, home, and if WE demand apologies, are informed we’re being wimpy.

And I don’t think to never have been married counts as a red flag. This is usually espoused by people who HAVE been married, realized they made a dumb mistake, got divorced and now embrace that “misery loves company” concept, encouraging everyone else around them to do the same dumb thing. I think, my dear Joanie, that you and I are too intelligent to marry just for the sake of being married. We want that person who is best for us on all levels, emotionally, mentally, physically, spiritually, so that if and when we do marry, it is once and for all!

Joan: Amen!

The suspiciousness about never marrieds is really about never having had and maintained a long term relationship.  A person learns skills in a long term relationship that they cannot learn anywhere else.  And if you have had long term relationship experience, you should be wary about someone who had not.  Particularly if they are 40 or older.  How does one live that long and NOT have a long term relationship?  In our culture that values and pushes relationships so, not getting involved takes real work.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 04.17.07 at 12.20 pm
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Proactive Dating • Mind Your Manners • 1 Comments

Dating Advice Tidbits

Here’s a collection of little bits and pieces that have been collecting on my desk and are not long enough for full article treatment:

“Guilt coffee”—what you agree to when you can’t say “no,” even when you know this is not a match.

“Don’t ask for anything that you can’t bring to the table, and beware of those who do.” Like good finances, youth and vigor, good health, basic truthfulness.

Especially on the first date, turn off your cell phone, pager or Blackberry and do not talk about you ex.  Do not make or take phone calls, answer a page, or check or send emails during a date.

Act and dress your age, in other words, like an adult, and one who is on a date.  Spare the flip flops and cutoffs.

Ask questions.  You want to find out as much as you can about the other person.  And people like it if you ask about them.

Be honest so that you can back up what you say later if you have to.  While you shouldn’t be afraid to mention accomplishments, do not brag.

Be attentive and listen for clues about your date.  You may need or be able to use them later.

Do not use a date as a confessional. 

Not everyone is going to like you.  In fact, at least 95% of people won’t.  You don’t like everyone, do you?  So why do you expect everyone to like you, or get upset when they don’t?  Get real.  And if everyone DID like you, you would be completely overwhelmed.  Thank the universe for doing much of the sorting for you.

Know the expression “No pain, no gain”?  In dating, it’s more like “No risk, no gain.” Falling in love means taking risks.  Sometimes you get brusied.  It’s part of the game.  And then you are back to the pain part. 

Dare to make the first contact.  If you don’t, you will be limited to those few weho contact you first.  You are much more likely to get what you want if you do the picking.

Try to get some distance on the whole “Looking-for-Love” business and not get too attached to the outcome.  Particularly with specific individuals.  Always send out multiple first contacts and do not allow yourself to get focused on one potential candidate.  You have no idea if they will respond to you at all until they do, and even then, take your time.

You can’t win if you don’t play the game.  And your chances are much better than winning the lottery.

Singles often lie or distort in an attempt to get an edge over others, to “get their foot in the door,” with someone who might otherwise not contact them.  It’s a waste of time, because they are much more likely to get the opposite reaction: anger.  People who discover they have been lied to feel tricked.

Have an exit strategy.

If you lie, you can’t complain that others do.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 01.11.07 at 4.51 pm
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Proactive Dating • Tell the Truth • Mind Your Manners • Handling Rejection • 2 Comments

Duty to be Truthful

I’ve had an article sitting on my desk for a few months now, “We have a duty to be respectful and truthful” by Bruce Weinstein, who bills himself as The Ethics Guy.  I can’t find the link to a web page with the article so that you can read it yourself, but here goes my take on it. 

While Weinstein gets a bit heady and philosophical, the bottom line is “You have a right to be respected and told the truth, and therefore others have the responsibility to be respectful and truthful to you.” And I would add, you have similar duties to everyone else.  With Internet dating, we have an obligation to present ourselves accurately and not lie.  Others with whom we may be involved have a right to know anything that may effect them. 

Good, solid, lasting relationships are built on a foundation of trust.  Respect and truth build trust.  Practice both.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.23.06 at 6.09 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Tell the Truth • Mind Your Manners • 1 Comments

Handling More Than One at a Time?

Way before I was in high school, it sounds as if dating meant going out with more than one person at a time.  That sure wasn’t my experience: People paired and stayed that way, sometimes even marrying the first person they ever dated.  My brother and sister both did that, and are still married to the same people, so maybe it wasn’t so bad an idea.  I didn’t exactly have a slew of boyfriends—married #2 actually—and even when I was dating online, I did one at a time and really was only serious about Drew.  There just weren’t that many eligible guys on Match.com in 1998.  Boy, have things changed.

Jessica Yadegaran in the Contra Costa Times writes about the new dating etiquette brought with lots of choices: Corresponding, seeing, dating more than one person at a time.  It reminds me of when I had a mental health client who was in a committed relationship and having an affair at the same time: She was “very busy.”

Here are some pointers from the article:

• Do ask, do tell: It will come up. If it doesn’t, ask. Are you dating other people? Listen to yourself. Are you jealous? Or unaffected?

• Untimely encounter: If you run into Date B when you’re with Date A, be courteous and friendly. It might be the catalyst for having that confrontation, “Should we be exclusive, or not?”

• How long is long enough? Generally, you date lots of people between relationships or to actually find that special someone. But if you’re on the dating treadmill for years, it might be time to start asking why.

• Milestone mania: All relationships move at a different pace. So don’t rely on a week or month mark. You’ll feel it, once you’re spending the night or meeting the parents.

• Dating memory: You can keep a journal about your feelings or progress, but if you can’t remember the details of your dates, you’re probably seeing too many people.

Most important, don’t conceal information.  And if any of the relationships begin to get intimate (ie sexual), it’s certainly time for the conversation about exclusivity.  For everyone’s safety.

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 11.06.06 at 6.48 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Tell the Truth • Mind Your Manners • 1 Comments

When to Take Down Your Profile?

New technologies shape new behaviors.  Did you know that “Hello” as a greeting was sort of invented because telephone users needed some sort of greeting that signaled one had answered the ring?

Internet daters have had to develop whole codes and shadings of behaviors not in existance before online dating.  Men and women are now on equal footing as to who makes the first contact. 

How long do you email before moving to the phone?  I’d say within two weeks, not longer than a month or two, because that leaves too much room for fantasy.

When and how do you meet for the first time? How long do you allow for that meeting?  What about safety rules?

An altogether new wrinkle is when to take down your Internet dating profile.  Do you leave it up until the both of you decide to be exclusive?  It kind of has the feeling like the old-fashioned being “pinned.” Do young folks still do that?  Not like getting engaged, but a sign of seriousness. 

The underside of leaving your profile up is that your date can go online and check if you are still there and looking.  Of course, you can do the same for her.  Here’s what Shirly Malove had to say in the Miami Herald:

Q: I’ve been dating a great guy for three months, BUT he still has an active profile on http://www.match.com. I took my profile down after we started dating. I casually asked if he was still seeking dates online and he said, ‘No. I have you.’ Why is he still checking his profile every night? And why am I checking to see if he is checking his profile? Am I insecure?

A: You have some specific questions about your boyfriend and yourself that are difficult to answer without being able to see inside of you. However, what I do notice is that you seem to have sensed something was amiss between the two of you, which led you to check up on his online activity.

For some reason, both of you are reluctant to candidly express your feelings or concerns about where your relationship stands and where it is going. Because you are both engaged in activities that are kept secret from the other, establishing a trusting relationship becomes difficult. Trust and communication are the building blocks of a solid relationship. Feeling uncertain about his commitment to you is both uncomfortable and puzzling and probably explains your tendency to secretly monitor his online involvement.

However, if you each continue on this path, your relationship will be mired in deception and doubt. You must find a way to openly express your concerns and needs in this relationship, along with your hopes and dreams for the future while encouraging him to do the same. By doing so, you discover things about each other which will likely give you better insight and enable you to decide whether investing in a long-term relationship with this person is right for you.

No matter how awkward it may feel to raise the topic, it would be more harmful in the long run for these issues to be ignored. Unless you can openly talk about the unspoken feelings between the two of you, a barrier will continue to grow and interfere with the establishment of a caring and fulfilling relationship, which is most likely what you were both searching for when you began dating. Perhaps this is the source of the insecurity you are experiencing.

What do you think?

From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.03.06 at 8.16 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Proactive Dating • Mind Your Manners • 0 Comments