Kathryn's Blog: Technology, Academia, and Dating

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

iPod to love?

Here’s another resource for the time-challenged, thanks to iPhone.  Do you have one yet?  Can’t say that I am not tempted, but my Blackberry isn’t ever two years old yet.  However, as we know, it was already an antique the day I started using it, right?  Anyway, this iPhone app seems a little less eerie than outsourcing your love search that I wrote about in the last posting.  I can actually see using it some myself, though not to look for love.  Is there a stained glass craftsman nearby in this restaurant?  How about other Romance Coaches?  Wouldn’t that be fun, to know the interests of those around you?

Viewpoint: ‘Serendipity’ takes online dating to the next level

By Sarah Raghubir

Apple’s iPhone can play music, it can play videos and soon, it will be able to play matchmaker too.

“Serendipity,” Apple’s latest work in progress, could put a whole new spin on dating, giving Ottawa singles who have their hands full with a hectic schedule a chance to meet someone special.

The program will require its starry-eyed users to input a few personal details into their phone and be on their way with their regular routine: coffee and a newspaper at a local café, a bus ride down Elgin to work, or stopping in at the bank at the end of the day. “Serendipity,” using GPS technology, will vibrate to alert registered users that a possible love connection is in the area, making date-finding as simple as a thumbnail photo reading “Do you want to meet this person – yes or no?” This new technology makes speed dating and singles websites seem like a thing of the past.

Online dating services like Fastlife.ca suggest that though numbers change daily, they have over 10,000 registered users in the Ottawa-Gatineau area at any given time. So with Internet dating becoming a norm in today’s society, Apple seems to have spotted the market and jumped right into the deep end.

The iPhone’s target demographic has always been an entertainment-oriented crowd, especially compared to Blackberry or the new Nexus One’s business-minded users. If anyone has the potential to pull off an application like this, it’s certainly Apple.

But are Ottawa singles having so much trouble finding dates that they need a real-time software program playing cupid in their love lives? What happened to meeting people through friends, coworkers or family?

Just when we thought society couldn’t possibly be more dependent on their cell phones, it seems that even our relationships may be left up to technology.

Still, Apple might have its work cut out for it trying to get users to sign up for this program. Regardless of questions concerning privacy, costs and safety, dating in general is hard enough without a 24/7 fear that the love of your life, an avid iPhone user of course, could be around the corner at any moment. Dating is hard enough as it is without incorporating the constant mental stress and nerves of a first date (especially a blind one) into daily routine.

But maybe Apple could use this romantic gesture of a phenomenon to influence more than just the lives of hopeful singles.

Forget, for a second, the premise of the application as a dating tool. The idea of digitally connecting people with common interests could serve a useful purpose in a technology-based world of business. Perhaps on a personal level, “Serendipity” pushes the boundaries of unnecessary a little, but the concept of uniting partners, clients or companies with common goals and interests could be a more realistic use of this progressive new tool.

Nonetheless, if Apple is going to go forward with this application, they have some kinks to work out. “Serendipity” may take the work out of finding a date, but it certainly doesn’t ease the dating process itself.

So what’s next? A followup tool fully equipped with personalized date-night tips and pointers?

For all the romantics out there, let’s hope not.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 01.27.10 at 6.54 am
permalink | Categories: • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

When and when not to text

New technology and ways of communicating seem to be cropping up daily.  While I have not succumbed to texting, seems like a lot of folks love it.  But texting and romance do not always mix well.  Here are some guidelines to the whens and wheres of texting when it comes to love. 

To Text Or Not To Text - Dating In A Web 2.0 World

Sending a text message can be a fun and flirty way to communicate with members of the opposite sex. However, depending on the nature of your relationship, more often than not, texting can damage your relationship, create hurt feelings, and send your status from “hot” to “permanently deleted” as quickly as it takes to press the send button.

Here are some of my online dating tips as it relates to text messaging someone you are involved with.

1. Running late? Send a text message to let your date know, if you are unable to call instead.

2. In a meeting? Of course you can’t call, so go ahead and quickly send an update of your status if your plans have changed.

3. Flirting by text. If you are in a relationship and have discussed the use of text messaging, let your honey know you are thinking about them and go ahead and send a cute text. “Thinking about U” will always make your partner feel good about your relationship, but only if you have continuity and a regular phone and dating schedule.

4. Reconnecting with an old flame? Forget about it. It screams booty call. If your intentions are sincere, please pick up the telephone.

5. I Love You! The first time you tell your sweetie that you love them should always be in person, without alcohol, and while you are fully clothed. The anticipation of those three special words should never be done initially in a text message.

6. Breaking Up. Please give someone the courtesy of ending a relationship in person, or at least via phone. Only a coward would break up with someone in a text message.

7. The Morning After. If your date ends up with a pile of clothing on the floor, please don’t text the them to say you had a good time. If you truly hope to see them again, pick up the phone and tell them how special the evening was. Better yet, if it’s in your budget, send flowers or a box of chocolate. If you are a woman, don’t text the man to say, “How are you?” It could send a message that you are needy and you may not hear from him again.

Keep in mind that text messaging can end up being a unilateral form of communication. You don’t know for sure if the other party has read your text, if it got lost in cyberspace, or if they deliberately chose to delete it.

Julie Spira is a dating coach and author of the bestselling online dating book, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. She helps single create Irresistible Online Dating Profiles. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com. Email Julie Spira.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 01.03.10 at 10.53 am
permalink | Categories: • Relationship builders • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

How long do you email?

Here’s a question I hear all the time: How long should we email before meeting?  Internet dating has evolved to the point that many folks have little or no patience with emailing at all and want to move right to the phone or that first meeting at Starbuck’s.  I do think that meeting too fast is a lost opportunity to get to know someone before having to deal with the physical reality, but it does seem that the physical reality is what many people want first and foremost.  But as a general rule, it is not a good idea to let the email relationship continue on too long.  First off, it is too easy to “fill in the blanks,” idealizing what you do not know, and then falling in love with what you have made up.  And it is too easy for your email partner to hide behind the computer screen.  Do not let an email relationship go on much more than two or three weeks before meeting and getting a grounding in reality. 

GadgetMonkey’s Advice Column On Online Dating

DEAR GADGETMONKEY: At what point should I be meeting an Internet connection in person? I have been chatting with this guy online for three months and he still hasn’t committed to actually meeting me in the real world. Signed, Penelope Stuck Online.

DEAR PENELOPE STUCK ONLINE: At some point, you have to quit rooting for the Chicago Cubs to go to the World Series, for a French automobile that doesn’t suck, and yes, at some point, you have to ditch a loser online. If he’s not willing to meet you after three or four emails (much less three or four weeks), then it’s time to have them put up or shut up.

There’s probably a reason that they’re not willing to meet. Either they’re married, have a girlfriend, they’re quite ugly, or they’re working you remotely as part of a scam from Nigeria. I would say that it’s probably the last one, so hopefully they haven’t sent you any attachments that you opened or have asked you to wire them money by Western Union because they’re “stuck in Great Britain without their passport.” If you send me $200 and your social security number, I will be more than happy to send you more information on these types of scams on the Internet.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.21.09 at 9.05 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

Technology to check liars

A bugaboo since the dawn of Internet dating has been how easy it is for people to stretch, fudge, or bend the truth—let’s be blunt: Lie.  What folks have a hard time understanding is that whatever you put in your online dating profile will eventually be checked out in reality, on that first coffee date and beyond.  Now, not only is it left to the wits of the individual to figure out if their date is lying or not.  Resources are popping up all over the Net that allow you to check out the veracity of anybody.  Google was the first biggie.  Now it is routine to Google a date.  Then background checks.  And now, even your smartphone can do the job.  See the article below for “The future is now.”

Is your date a ‘stud or dud?’ Ask your phone
By Doug Gross, CNN

If that dreamy blind date seems too good to be true, or the guy at the bar with a martini and a pencil-thin moustache looks a little sketchy, the truth about them—or at least some of it—could be found on your phone.

Designers at a pair of companies say their new applications for smartphones can tell you in real time whether someone is married or divorced, has a criminal record, has filed for bankruptcy or has any number of potential red flags in their past.

Using Google to search for information on a prospective romantic partner is standard practice for many single people in the digital age. But these new apps, combined with the growth of smartphones and wireless networks, now allow for quick background checks on the go, potentially before a date is even over.

The lighthearted iPhone apps Stud or Dud? and Are They Really Single?—from online information broker PeopleFinders—have far-reaching potential for convenient snooping, and not just on potential dates. Their makers say that in today’s society it’s increasingly important to check out people’s backstories.

“There are more and more strangers in people’s lives,” said Bryce Lane, president of the PeopleFinders Network. “There’s this digital awakening where people are in online communities—they’re meeting people they don’t have information on.

“We think that’s a problem. Yes, there are a lot of opportunities to meet great new people, but a lot of people are misrepresenting who they are.”

Meanwhile, another data company, Intelius, is offering a similar app called DateCheck for the Android and BlackBerry, with other platforms in the works.

Marketed with the slogan, “Look up before you hook up,” the application has such features as a Sleaze Detector, which checks for criminal offenses, and $$$, which uses property ownership records to gauge someone’s financial assets.

DateCheck offers some less-serious information, too. Its Interests feature trolls for information on educational background, social networking activities and professional history while Compatibility compares the subject’s horoscope and astrological sign with the user’s.

With Stud or Dud? the user punches in as much information as they have on their subject. Results can range from past addresses, real estate ownership and business and professional licenses to bankruptcies, evictions, criminal records and what the company calls “possible relationships.”

Are They Really Single? scans marriage and divorce records.

Accurate searches also require a date of birth, which may be tricky to extract tactfully from someone on a first or second date.

Lane said all information comes from public records that are available to anyone. But PeopleFinders, which has been collecting data for more than 20 years from sources all over the United States, pulls it all together into one database.

“We’re hoping they’re fun apps and they’re helping you learn about the people that you come into contact with,” Lane said. “They’re easy to use and we’re pretty hopeful that they’re going to be popular.”

Both PeopleFinders apps will only return results on people 18 or older.

Advocates of online privacy say they see some problems.

Paul Stephens, a director at consumer group Privacy Rights Clearinghouse, said the main danger lies in thinking you’ve dug up dirt on someone when you’ve actually found someone else.

“If you only have limited information about the individual, it’s going to be culling from various sources that may or may not [find] the person you’re trying to investigate,” said Stephens. “You need to take the information with a grain of salt.”

While the iPhone apps are aimed at dating, the information is bound to be used in other ways, he said.

“In the case of a person not dating somebody, it’s not that big a deal,” said Stephens. “But we’ve had cases where somebody might not get a job because of an inaccuracy [from online information brokers], so it does become a big deal.”

He said his group, based in San Diego, California, would like to see more organizations regulated by the same federal laws that monitor fair and accurate credit reporting.

Lane, whose PeopleFinders Web site offers detailed background checks on people for a fee, said he’s providing a public service by making legally available information more accessible.

“We feel very strongly that it’s educational, it’s informative, it’s actually helping the public,” he said. “It’s what you don’t know about people that could potentially hurt you.”

He said the applications clearly show when results include multiple people and tell users that the more detail they provide, the more likely they will get an exact match.

Lane said anyone who asks can be removed from the company’s database, but he suggested that most of those who do have something to hide.

“Criminals ... of course they don’t want this information out there,” he said.

In a column on technology Web site Gizmodo, editor Rosa Golijan described the PeopleFinders apps as fun and joked that it was depressing to find out how many of her ex-boyfriends were “duds.”

She also noted at least one apparent glitch, when Are They Really Single? told her that a former high school sweetheart might be married to his grandmother. (In fairness, the app did say it was unlikely.)

Golijan dismissed privacy concerns, saying most of the info on the apps could be found “from a few clever Google searches.”

“I don’t think there’s reason to panic about privacy due to this app,” she said. “The same information and searches have been available for a long time.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 12.03.09 at 4.57 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Tell the Truth • Be Safe • Scams and Scam Protection • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

The after-date contact, high-tech style

Texting.  I don’t get texting any more that I get emoticons.  Except that you can do it from a phone and you don’t have to be in front of a computer.  But whatever, here are some guidelines for dating and texting from Geek Sugar.

Tech Dating 101: Decoding Post-Date Texts and IMs
by GeekSugar

The men of Swingers championed a rule that fundamentally changed how fellas of the ‘90s plotted post-date communication. They said a man should wait three days after a date to call a woman so she would want them more. Preposterous, right? Today the possibilities for contact are so varied — email, work email, IM, gChat, Facebook, Twitter, text and so on — that it can be harder to gauge interest or commitment based on the time frame and way someone reaches out. In this installment of my Tech Dating 101 series I will address how technology and texting have changed the moments and days after a good first date. To see what I think (spoiler alert: it’s complicated), read more.

* The same day text: Most women I have talked to say they like it when a guy follows up a first date with a short text. It doesn’t have to be sexy, or even offer the promise of a second date, but texting is a simple, quick and sweet way to say thanks, without an immediate call. If you had a great time and want him to know, text him yourself. It is one of the most relaxed forms of communication (no login required!) and will keep both of you from getting too wordy.

* The three-day text: Consensus among friends is that the day three text could be a cop-out (as in, he isn’t ready to commit to a phone call and he’s using the antiquated Swingers mentality to make you want him more), but it does count as contact and an effort.

* The instant reach out: If a guy initiates communication via instant messaging in any form (iChat, Yahoo Messenger, gChat, Facebook chat etc.) less than two hours after a date he can come off as eager to get the party started. Do with that what you will. I do; however, think it is polite for him to acknowledge he sees you online if you pop online right after your date or in the days following. It’s ridiculous to pretend you don’t see one another online. That being said, instant messages are not a phone call. If he really wants to talk to you he should still call you up, or at the very least send an email to plan your next get-together.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 10.26.09 at 7.24 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

Looking for love online 2.0

Online dating is definitely maturing from what it was when I was first on Match.com in 1998.  Here’s some observations about where things are now from the tech world:

Dating 2.0: Looking for Love in All the Online Places
by Ashley Laurel Wilson

February 17, 2009, 02:01 PM — CIO.com —

Sometimes looking for love takes a back seat these days-especially with demanding schedules that include working long hours and furthering educational goals. While technology is a very large factor in causing people stay so busy, it’s also helping people connect more, even in the romantic sense.

Not every person who dates online is as horribly geeky as Napoleon Dynamite’s brother Kip—there are some cool geeks out there just waiting for you to meet them. In fact, more than forty million Americans have tried online dating at one time or another and some have walked away very happy.

“My wife refuses to let me try it. Go figure.” Bryan C Webb, technical marketing professional from Ontario Canada

Though different people swear by certain online dating websites, the number one free online dating website in the U.S., U.K. and Canada is Plentyoffish.com, run by CEO Markus Frind. Since its 2003 launch, the site has grown by word of mouth to more than 13 million page views each day.

According to Frind, there’s always a jump in site traffic between the day after Christmas through the Wednesday after Valentine’s Day, as well as just before Thanksgiving. Singles tend to join the site around family-related holidays-anytime they’re reminded of being single, Frind says.

The mastermind behind this website, Frind claims anyone in his position has to be a romantic after reading so many happy stories from users who’ve met someone great on his site. “It’s part of the reward of doing this site,” he says. (Frind, however, met his own girlfriend offline.)

Denver-based Jon Freeman, however, chose to use an online dating website to as a platform to increase his chances of finding a suitable person.

“I was a two time ‘loser’ having used less than intelligent methods to find the ‘right person’ and figured I needed a better process-the Web gave me just that ability (I know, so romantic),” Freeman says. “I’d tried other sites and even online personals, but in the end I went for the site with the most people on it to increase my odds on finding the perfect one.”

While using Matchmaker.com, Freeman realized that the “percent match function” wasn’t helping him so he made some minor changes-his favorite color turned from orange into blue and his pet lizard became a dog-which actually helped him meet his future wife. Within a year of their initial online connection, Freeman got married. “We finish each others sentences and rarely argue or fight. We are very much in love with each other,” Freeman says, still satisfied with his online dating experience.

Brad Thomas, from Kentucky, met his wife through instant messaging and agrees that there isn’t any special recipe for meeting people online. “I’ve never used a dating site or agency. So I think online “dating” encompasses a whole lot more than just eHarmony, virtual worlds etc. You don’t need a virtual meeting “place” as such, just a mode of communication.”

Thomas—who met his sweetheart in the U.S., invited her to the U.K. with him, proposed in Paris and now lives with her in the U.S.-isn’t afraid to go the extra mile for love.

But even for those that never meet their love interest in person, some, like Jared Ubriaco from Florida, find online relationships rewarding. In 2007, Ubriaco was an online gaming fanatic, and after regularly playing World of Warcraft (WOW) for a few months, he realized he didn’t know anything about the other online gamers, especially one female player in particular.

“Sometimes we had this mind connect,” Ubriaco says about his relationship with the female player. After the two players began talking during game play, they realized they hit it off and kept in touch for more than a year while Ubriaco worked in the States and she taught English overseas.

Normal people write letters and talk on the phone, but we kept in touch through voice chat rooms and e-mails, Ubriaco says, adding that they also sent small presents to each other for holidays and birthdays. The two were, in a sense, dating.

However, after she returned home to the States, they lost touch for a few months before he found her on World of Warcraft again. Though they’ve still never met in person, they keep in touch through e-mail and he’s been invited to visit her in Washington.

While technology is streamlining how we meet others, sustaining a long term relationship with someone only online is tough. At some point, signing offline and meeting up for a cup of coffee is a much needed next step.

Just remember, to get to the coffee phase, make sure your Internet connection is strong enough so you don’t accidentally sign off in the middle of a getting-to-know you conversation or your potential love muffin might get miffed.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 03.16.09 at 6.06 am
permalink | Categories: • News About Dating Sites and Types • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 1 Comments

Hey Shana Kopaczewski, call me, okay?

Hey Shana, why didn’t you call me?  I’d love to talk to you about my very favorite topic!

Control alt meet

Dec. 29--Welcome to New Year’s Eve—the official No. 1 Date Night of the entire year. Let us hope that all you singles out there are happily matched up and ready to ring in a new year with that special someone ...

Or perhaps not.

Perhaps you are among the 10 million American Internet users who say you are currently single and looking for a romantic partner, as reported by the Pew Internet and American Life Project. And maybe, just maybe, you are among the 7.5 million who have actually gone to an online dating site, looking for a partner.

Come on, don’t be shy. There’s nothing wrong with this, says Shana Kopaczewski, an assistant professor of communications at Southern Connecticut State University, who has spent the last few years studying the online dating habits of single Americans.

The verdict: More people than ever are meeting dates this way, and yet the stigma still remains.

“Hardly anybody wants to admit that it’s something they’re doing—not until it works, at least,” says Kopaczewski, who first got interested in the topic of online dating the same way a lot of people did: She saw the commercials on television of all the happy couples, smiling adoringly into each other’s eyes, or dancing the jitterbug while a fatherly voice said that finding a partner this way is an OK thing to do. “When I saw all the ads, I thought, is this reality?” says Kopaczewski, whose specialty is studying the way people communicate. “Is everybody a happy couple? I had some friends at the time who were trying out online dating, and I was definitely hearing different stories from them. So I decided to research it and find out what the truth is, and then—well, it turned into my doctoral dissertation.”

Kopaczewski has studied three popular online dating sites: eHarmony, match.com, and Yahoo Personals, by reading comments that their users posted on a site called edatereview.com, which allows people to tell their stories of what happened to them.

There were many more negative comments than positive, she reports, but, she says, that is to be expected. “Many are from people who are ticked off at the process, not the happy and satisfied customers who are off having a good time,” she says. “I did see people who had met their soul mates and think it’s wonderful, but many more who are unhappy about their experience as a whole. It’s a place where people can go to vent.”

Yet, in analyzing the results, Kopaczewski found it interesting that people complain about the population who seek out dates online, and yet don’t seem to notice the irony that they are doing this, too.

“It’s almost like they want their cake and to eat it, too,” she says. “The thinking is they can go online and find someone, and if it works, then it’s awesome. But if it doesn’t, then they say to themselves, ‘I’m a great catch, but I was thrust into this world with crazy, abnormal people in this crazy, abnormal way of dating.’”

The trouble, she says, is that we’re a society in transition. “There’s still a stigma to being single, and everybody is expected to get married, have children and settle down—and yet the dating infrastructure has changed. There aren’t any more matchmakers, and if you don’t meet someone at school or at work or get fixed up by friends—then how are you supposed to meet people? People go online because that’s how we communicate with each other these days. And yet there’s still a shame about admitting that the ‘traditional’ way didn’t work for you and that you’re looking online.”

But Kopaczewski says this perception is changing over time, as more people know someone who’s met their life partner this way. “If you think about dating from a historical perspective, there have been a lot of changes. And every time there’s something new, it’s strange and takes time for the new to become the norm.

“When you tell your family you’re looking for dates online, believe me, they’re most likely going to be upset. They’re going to tell you that it’s not safe. The perception of online dating is not helped by stories about online predators. But all in all, the truth is you have to use caution just the same as you would in meeting someone face to face.”

And there are actual advantages to online dating, Kopaczewski found. “When you meet someone on one of the online dating sites, you know from the start that this is a person who is seeking a romantic relationship. That’s not necessarily true when you meet someone in a bar. And chances are a computer has found that the two of you have something in common. Some groundwork has been done.”

Online dating can also work because you have the chance of meeting so many more people, whereas if you only have the pool of people from school or work to count on, you may go a long time without meeting anyone new. And with the online dating sites, you have a chance to talk online and weed out any people you’re not interested in before actually meeting them. You can actually find out a lot about them before you ever get to the face-to-face part.

But of course, no questionnaire can predict the most important thing of all: Is there a chemistry between you?

“They haven’t found a computer program that can predict that certain intangible something,” Kopaczewski says. “And maybe that’s where the problem is. The sites are attempting to objectify something that is entirely subjective and can’t be explained.”

Some people complain that they feel that going online and paying a dating service is a blatant attempt to purchase love and companionship, and that it’s taking a consumerist approach to love.

Still, Kopaczewski, who recently presented a paper at a professional conference on communications, says that online dating is here to stay, and that it will grow in popularity as more and more people do it. “It just fits society’s needs so well that I can’t imagine it won’t be more widespread. Soon it will just be seen as one of the ways people use to meet their partners.”

Her conclusion is that online dating is just another way of meeting the need to meet people, with no more magical power than any of the traditional ways.

“It’s simply an opportunity to broaden your horizons, get in touch with more people than you might meet in your ordinary life,” she says. “It’s got its ups and downs, its bad and good experiences. Be careful and be safe. And ... well, you just never know.”

posted by Kathryn Lord on 02.20.09 at 1.26 pm
permalink | Categories: • News About Dating Sites and Types • Online Dating Facts and Figures • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 1 Comments

The end of sex as we knew it?

Here’s a rather long article from the British press about Internet dating taken to its illogical extreme—oh so casual sex, and the deadening of sex in general.  Not to mention the encouragement to people in committed relationships to cheat.  What do you think?

The web of desire or just deceit?
The internet has made it easier than ever to find a partner for casual sex, but having it all on a plate could mean that we end up losing our appetites. By David Smith

* David Smith
* The Observer,
* Sunday October 26 2008

Attractive college professor wants good student for fun hookup Fri.’ ‘Very Hot American in town looking for someone to show him the ropes.’ ‘Monday night - in Edinburgh on business.’ ‘Looking for some fun.’ ‘Inexperienced but curious?’. ‘Sophisticated pleasure for busty lady.’ ‘Ladylike Asian submissive wanted.’ ‘One night stand.’

Just another typical week in Edinburgh, as glimpsed in the ‘casual encounters’ section of the popular website Craigslist. Residents, tourists, businessmen and women passing through - anyone who fancies a bit of sex with ‘NSA’ (no-strings-attached) can announce it to the world and watch the offers roll in. On Craigslist, they don’t have to pay anything or even go through the motions of registering a username and password. This is internet sex: as free and easy as it comes.

The homepage of Craigslist, one of the world’s most popular listings sites, offers flats and houses, holiday rentals, bikes, boats, books for sale, and jobs in just about every sector imaginable. Alongside this classic classifieds fare are personals, some romantic, some for one night only. Just a few mouse clicks away, it seems, the logical conclusion of a consumer age where time is short and convenience expected. Or as the title of Mark Ravenhill’s play had it: Shopping and Fucking.

‘It’s like ordering a pizza,’ says Emily Dubberley, author of Brief Encounters: The Women’s Guide to Casual Sex, and founder of the charity campaign Burlesque Against Breast Cancer.

‘In the past if someone suddenly felt horny they probably wouldn’t bother going to a pub, or even joining a dating site to say, “Do you fancy it?” because that would be a bit weird, so they’d just sort themselves out. Now it’s very available and convenient. But there’s something a bit more sordid about it when you don’t even have to make the remotest connection such as, “Do you fancy a pint?” At least then there would be a flirtation and catching of the eye. Now you can just go online and order genitalia. It’s taken sex to its absolute base level.’

Entire histories have been written about how the growth of the internet had nothing to do with knowledge and everything to do with pornography. But just as the net has transformed from a passive one-way street into an interactive ‘Web 2.0’ where users are creators, so the days of computers being little more than digital porn magazines are gone.

The web has become a place through which to contact, meet and have sex with real people, to fulfil the wildest fantasy in the flesh. Cybersex is no longer about merely looking; it is about doing. What no one can yet understand is how this will change the social etiquettes of the past, or how fundamentally it is shifting the dynamics of sex and relationships.

Some sites are quite explicit about their offerings. AdultFriendFinder claims to be the world’s biggest adult social network and sex personals site. Its homepage proclaims, ‘Meet real sex partners tonight!’ beside a picture of a young woman taking off her bra and pouting at the camera. Below there are a series of photos and videos of women with names like ‘sexygirl’, ‘freakychick’, ‘angelfirelady’ and ‘sugarbabe’. The site claims to have more than 2.5 million members registered in the UK, and that tens of thousands are logged in at this very moment. Just log in and you could meet your match.

Other sites quite evidently do as they promise, such as Hookuparea.com and BeNaughty.com. And when a marriage is under strain, spouses no longer have to go very far out of their way to cheat. Illicit Encounters asks on its homepage: ‘Married but Feeling neglected? In need of some excitement? A discreet and confidential extra-marital dating service for women and men… Whatever your reason, we can help. You may be locked in a loveless marriage, starved of attention and affection, partner away or too tired to pay you the attention you deserve, nonexistent love life? Or just looking for some excitement in your life? But you don’t want to end your marriage either. Here you can meet people just like you, in absolute confidence.’

Peter Lines, 43, from West Yorkshire, met his current partner through the site when he decided that his marriage was loveless and beyond salvation. He did not want to ruin his children’s lives so continues to live with his wife in an entirely platonic relationship. He says his current partner was in an identical predicament. ‘Morally, we haven’t got a leg to stand on, but what’s a person to do?’ he asks.

Lines has since become a co-owner of Illicit Encounters, which launched in October 2003 and now has 245,000 members, mostly in the UK. Sixty-five per cent of them are male, and 35 per cent female, a smaller disparity than most dating sites. Women are on average 36½ years old, men 38½. Applicants are required to answer up to 50 questions and fill in a profile. Of around 800 applications received every day, on average 550 are rejected for reasons such as age (people under 25 are discouraged) or personality (self-evident sex maniacs are not welcome).

Lines says that the site is made up of very ordinary people like you and me. ‘It’s the man and woman in the street, the person in the Sainsbury’s queue, the person in the office you would never expect. There are no raging tarts or slobbering lotharios. The membership are primarily people trapped in a marriage and they can’t get out for all sorts of reasons. We did a survey and 71 per cent of people said that if they weren’t having an affair they’d be getting a divorce.’

The internet has made it possible in ways that would have been unthinkable 15 years ago. Lines adds: ‘People in this situation are far more active online than they would be in real life. They wouldn’t go to a bar or another public place to chat to people for many reasons, some of them obvious.’

The site provides a guide on how to conduct an illicit affair, with advice tips including using a separate SIM card in their mobile phone, paying with cash instead of credit cards and never giving their surname, exact location or workplace. But he denies the site is providing an immoral cheats’ charter. ‘We say to everyone that we don’t encourage them to have an affair. We make it very clear on every page that you’ve got to think hard about this; it’s not a substitute for working on your marriage; only do it if your marriage cannot be saved and there’s no way back.’

Not for the first time, homosexuals have been at the cutting edge of sexual and social trends. Gaydar, the networking site for gay men - tagline ‘What you want, when you want it’ - has arguably done more than any other site to make casual sex an integral part of the web. Founded in 1999 by Gary Frisch and his partner Henry Badenhorst in a tiny office in south-west London, it soon became the online equivalent of the gay bar, a safe place to meet, talk and, of course, ‘get laid’. Gaydar is now one of the biggest dating sites on the web with millions of members around the world. The ‘A’ countries alone with registered users are Afghanistan, Albania, Algeria, Angola, Argentina, Aruba, Australia, Austria and Azerbaijan.

Gaydar is sex shopping writ large, with every specific taste catered for. A user’s profile has a basic checklist: height, body type, ethnic origins, out (of the closet, that is), dick size, body hair, orientation (gay or bisexual), role (active, passive or versatile), safer sex (yes or no), smoke and drink. Anyone who fails to

...#8592; post a photograph is less likely to be successful in finding an assignation. Those who do can turn up in a new city anywhere in the world, advertise their availability and be having sex an hour later.

This is perhaps the most spectacular illustration of how the internet has changed everyday behaviour. Gays bars and clubs are said to have suffered a downturn because men are sitting at computers instead; an article in the Economist magazine attributed a slump at Manchester’s Canal Street gay quarter directly to Gaydar. Cottaging in toilets or bushes, in places such as Hampstead Heath, has reportedly declined or even vanished because sex is so readily available via broadband. The author and Gaydar user Mark Simpson once observed: ‘If Joe Orton had his time again his diaries would have been just printouts of thousands of Gaydar profiles and alarming digicam photos.’

The process even formed the subject of a one-man show, Sex Addict, which caused controversy in 2004 when author Tim Fountain invited Edinburgh Festival audiences to watch him trawl Gaydar each night to arrange a sexual encounter, then report back the following day. Fountain has since admitted that the site can become addictive, a confusion of ends and means. ‘I know so many gay men who will literally have Gaydar ticking away all the time, wherever they are, in the corner of the room while they are watching TV,’ Fountain, the author of a new book about the sex lives of the British, Rude Britannia, told the Guardian last year.

‘That’s the worst thing, it’s a terrible time waster. You can very quickly think, “Oh, I’ll just log on and check my messages,” and four hours later you find yourself weeing on someone’s pillow in Willesden Green wondering, “What the hell am I doing here?” Sometimes you think, “Christ, am I still online? I was meant to being doing something else.” The whole web dating thing, gay or straight - on the one hand, it does link people up, but they are not socialising, they are not meeting in bars. They are just sitting talking down a line, ordering what they want, when they want it. That can be a very narrow thing.’

For all its popularity, Gaydar can be regarded as a niche. Not so Craigslist or its rival, Gumtree, which published research last year showing that one in 10 British adults between the ages of 25 and 40 had gone online for casual sex. Nor, indeed, the darlings of the web, social networking sites such as Facebook. This runs the gamut, bringing together business contacts, old school and university friends and former lovers. At one end of the spectrum, a site which invites members to ‘poke’ each other and features countless photos of drunken revelry inevitably features casual sex too.

Earlier this year it emerged that Laura Michaels, 23, had set up a group called ‘I Need Sex’ on the Facebook site and, she claimed, slept with 50 men. Within 10 minutes the group had 35 members and soon attracted 100 men, 50 of whom Michaels slept with after vetting their pictures. One of her Facebook conquests was called Simon from Swindon, whom she met for drinks in a bar in her hometown of Bristol before going back to his hotel room for sex. Facebook later removed the page.

Michaels told the Sun about her experiences: ‘We always met somewhere like a bar first and I would get dressed up and treat it like a date. I know that some people will really look down on me for it. They might even say that I may as well have been a prostitute because then I would at least have been paid for sleeping with so many different blokes, but I don’t see it like that at all. I was satisfying my own desires by setting up the group. I feel like a free, liberated woman and I think it’s fantastic that the internet gave me a chance to do this. I know that it was risky behaviour but that was part of the thrill. I always made sure to tell a friend I trusted where I was going.’

Facebook, MySpace and Bebo’s tens of millions of members can communicate with each other via Zoosk, which claims to be the biggest social dating network in the world. It offers the chance to ‘choose a network and start mingling with thousands of cute singles in your area’. It could well appeal to people who would never dream of visiting an all-out casual sex site but don’t see the harm of a simple mouse click which adds the Zoosk application to their profile page, the first step on a slippery slope. The web abounds with questions such as ‘What would you do if you found your husband added the “zoosk” application on Facebook?’ and ‘Does Zoosk randomly flirt with people’?

The online sex revolution is posing new questions for experts who have not seen anything quite like this before. Phillip Hodson, a psychotherapist and broadcaster, says: ‘I do believe the internet is the world’s largest sex aid, largely functioning to augment, magnify and super-speed the processes of dating. Therefore it does represent a “step difference”, a difference of kind and not just one of degree over traditional mating behaviour. You could never flirt with so many people in your entire life in, say, the Fifties as you can today in one un-enchanted evening. The web - soon to be the instantaneous grid - allows people of high libido (and flexible morals) to find each other as never before.’

But, according to Hodson, the web might be making sex too easy, so we end up having less rather than more. ‘All new media have pros and cons, pluses and minuses,’ she says. ‘Undoubtedly adultery is easier to organise by email but there is a new risk of detection given the electronic trail and the dangers of interception or misdirection - for example “Hello Lover!” ending up in your boss’s inbox.

‘I think that the internet, by providing pornography and promiscuity on a plate, does tend to lower the nation’s overall libido. In order to feel sexy, we need a few more challenges than unlimitedporninanyposition.org or Hookersin30minutestoyourdoor.co.uk. Men in particular seem to me to be in danger of becoming “sex lazy” as well as more fickle.’

Indeed the paradox of the throwaway, instant gratification subculture could be that, like a drug, gratification becomes less and less satisfying. No one can share the sentiment expressed in Oscar Wilde’s play The Importance of Being Earnest: ‘This suspense is terrible. I hope it will last!’ It is not only romance that is dead but also the theatre of seduction, the hint of stocking replaced by a brazen sexuality that is about as erotic as a prostitute’s calling card in a phone box. Cinema and restaurant dates are replaced by profiles and pokes.

The era when you married the boy or girl next door, or your childhood sweetheart, in the same village church as your parents, has long been on the wane. But when love is cheap, the internet generation may be less inclined to get married at all.

Dr Aric Sigman, a psychologist and biologist, says: ‘I would be concerned that what we are seeing is unrealistic. Yes, you can have sex, but you are now having more people than ever living alone and never getting married. Even as the technology advances, men and women are less engaged than ever before. There is something about chemistry and nuance that is not conveyed by this IT.

‘This is doing something odd to the human condition that isn’t clear yet. In luring people away from strong personal relationships, it could be that people are having less sex, not more. I’m not convinced that it’s making us any happier.’
How to identify cheating spouses

1 They touch their nose often. Research suggests that internal nose tissues swell with blood when one lies. Beware of this when they communicate with you.

2 They avoid looking directly at you. Lying takes concentration and makes them suddenly divert their line of sight.

3 They stare at you too much. They do this to make sure you believe them.

4 They lean forward and get close. Closeness is usually a sign of trust. But sometimes it can be a sign of deceit. They try to exaggerate how close you are by leaning forward when they lie.

5 They pull their earlobe. Some police forces are trained to watch for this very mistake when interrogating criminals.

6 They give you too much information. Their stories are too complex, structured, polished or complete.

7 They tend to give you multiple ‘reasons’. If they were honest, they would have the confidence to give just one reason.

8 They stumble in speech, with mistakes in the story to try and cover it up.

9 They use ‘um’ and ‘ah’ more than usual, where they have to think of lies quickly.

10 They are hesitant at the start of a sentence. They have to come up with lies fast and they hesitate.
Mistakes many cheaters make

1 They forget about a ‘love note’ left in their pocket.

2 They come home smelling of a lover’s scent.

3 They are too protective of their handbag or wallet.

4 They come home wearing different clothes from when they left.

5 They choose too many different excuses too often.

6 They forget about itemised mobile phone bills.

7 They spend too much money on their affair and less on bills at home.

8 They come home smelling of smoke, but they don’t smoke.

9 They use a friend as an excuse but don’t tell the friend.

10 They forget about the caller ID and redial button.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 11.17.08 at 6.39 am
permalink | Categories: • News About Dating Sites and Types • Online Dating Facts and Figures • Outside the U. S. A. • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 19 Comments

More choice: Confusion or better partners?

Barry Schwartz in “the Paradox of Choice” wrote about the phenomenon the following article describes, the dilemma of having too many choices.  Dating sites, the big ones particularly, can overwhelm you with numbers of possible mates.  Developing good search techniques is key to keeping overwhelm at bay.  What I think the researchers miss here is while getting the numbers of choices down to reasonable is important, having a large pool to draw from is preferable.  Particularly when you are older and probably choosier.  I’d go for Match or Yahoo! any day.  The more to pick from, the more likely a good match.

Online Dating: Where Technology and Evolution Collide
When searching for a soul mate, you might think that the more options, the better. But the rise of technology – notably, the Internet – has thrown a wedge in that perception.

The Internet offers us an abundance of options when selecting everything from bicycles to mates that is unprecedented in human history. Although we may think that the extra options are good, new research has shown that we may be more satisfied when choosing from fewer options – and we may not even be cognitively equipped to correct this misconception.

Throughout most of human history, we’ve had significantly fewer options for choosing a mate, and so we would strongly welcome any additional options when they came along. For instance, when our neocortex was developing, in part to deal with social networks, the average human group consisted of roughly 150 individuals. Healthy group members of reproductive age of the opposite sex would total about 35 – slim pickings, by the Internet’s standards.

Because we developed in this kind of social environment, we have a tendency to desire ever more options. That’s why, for example, people are enticed by dating Web site Match.com’s offer of “millions of possibilities.” But, as a team of researchers has shown in a recent study, this abundance of options may not make the chooser feel or choose any better than a pool of just a half dozen or so options. Psychologist Alison Lenton from the University of Edinburgh, Barbara Fasolo from the London School of Economics and Political Science, and cognitive scientist Peter Todd from Indiana University have presented their findings on this subject in a recent issue of IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication.

As the researchers explain, people tend to anticipate that they’ll feel better about “shopping for a mate” when there is a large number of options. However, in actuality, people feel equally good when faced with few as opposed to many options. The scientists performed two experiments demonstrating this clash between anticipation and experience.

In their first experiment, the researchers asked 88 participants (with an average age of 22) what they thought was the ideal number of potential mates to choose from, with a range between 1 and 5,000 options. Participants judged each set (very small to very large) of potential mates on four criteria: expected difficulty of making a selection, anticipated satisfaction with their decision, anticipated regret after making their decision, and expected enjoyment of the selection process.

On average, participants predicted that they would be overall most satisfied when selecting from about 20-50 possible mates. So, in the second experiment, the researchers investigated how satisfied people were when choosing a mate from this range compared with the less favored fewer options. Interestingly, they found that participants who chose from 20 personal profiles had roughly similar experiences compared with participants who had to pick from just four profiles. Also, participants’ actual experiences when faced with four options were significantly better than anticipated.

As the researchers summarized, “the expected preference for the larger set-size in terms of more enjoyment and satisfaction and less regret did not materialize.” Instead, there is a significant mismatch between what people think they will feel and what they actually feel, the team concluded.

Misjudgment of an optimal number of options has been observed in several other situations besides choosing a mate. Generally, the greatest disadvantages when having more options include being more frustrated by the complexity of the selection process, sometimes not making a selection at all, and experiencing decreased satisfaction and increased regret after making a selection. (When you’re faced with a million possibilities, you have a much smaller chance of picking the “right” one than if you had to pick from just four.)

The study also offers suggestive evidence that people aren’t paying very close attention to all of the various information provided in the profiles when they have many profiles to sift through and, thus, they might be missing out on interesting/suitable potential mates in this choice context.

“The information overload result was well known to consumer researchers since the ‘70s,” Fasolo told PhysOrg.com. “But the context was always consumer – a bit artificial and more ‘novel’ in an evolutionary sense. It was not at all obvious that the same result would occur in the more naturalistic context of mate choice. True, we are examining a more modern mate choice world – not sequential encounters in the jungle, but simultaneous fast-paced encounters with men zooming from one café table to the next – to which humans are relatively less accustomed (though lekking animals are). So, all in all, I would say that the fact that greater variety backfired even in the context of mate choice was non-obvious.”

Researchers have previously tried to explain our misjudgment of option number in evolutionary terms. At the time our brains were evolving to deal with making decisions, humans rarely had too many options to deal with. Therefore, we’re not adapted to deal with the excessive numbers of choices available today. The Internet, which has no physical space limitations, presents us with a problem that never existed for our ancestors. (As the researchers note, about 1% of the 600,000,000 people who use the Internet visit online dating sites.)

After millions of years of seeking more variety under conditions where variety was relatively limited, it may be very difficult to persuade people that more isn’t always better. For one thing, people may not have a point of comparison where they can experience the benefits of fewer options. Also, recognition of the disadvantages may not come until much later on.

Further, even if we do learn from our experiences, it may not matter much. Research has shown that people’s expectations, rather than previous actual experiences, play a larger role in determining whether they will participate in the same event in the future.

In light of these findings, the researchers suggest that Web designers of online dating sites consider this contrast and try to appease people’s desire for more options while making it easier to narrow down large sets. Currently, some sites do the opposite: when a search results yields fewer than 50 (or more, in some cases) profiles, the site encourages users to broaden their search criteria. Instead, the researchers encourage developers to keep in mind that they must balance people’s desire for more choices with the knowledge that giving people such choices may lead them to evaluate potential mates in a more superficial way.

“I find it interesting (and a bit worrying) that the underestimation of the costs of too much choice which we (and other consumer researchers alike) find plagues not just the daters, but the designers of dating Web sites,” Fasolo said. “If we want people to make sensible choices, researchers need to ‘nudge’ (to say it with Thaler and Sunstein) dating Web site designers towards simpler and more manageable Web sites.”

More information: Lenton, Alison P.; Fasolo, Barbara; and Todd, Peter M. “’Shopping’ for a Mate: Expected versus Experienced Preferences in Online Mate Choice.” IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication, Vol. 51, No. 2, June 2008. 

posted by Kathryn Lord on 07.07.08 at 5.24 am
permalink | Categories: • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

Is Internet dating too slow for you? Try this…

I just don’t get it.  People now complain that Internet dating takes too much time, the process is too slow and time-consuming, too much work, blah blah blah.  Man, have we gotten spoiled or what?  Internet dating is not even 15 years old yet (Match.com started in 1995), has evolved with breakneck speed, particularly since 9/11/2001, is the greatest thing that has ever happened to romance, EVER, and we bitch?  Don’t you remember how hard meeting ANYONE was prior to online dating?  People now go from no dates in years to six in a month or even a week!  What’s to complain about?

Well, as will happen, when a need is identified, a solution will be invented.  Who knew that we needed garbage bags?

Onto the stage comes CrazyBlindDate.com.  Looks like it is a branch of OKCupid in beta, and it looks like it helps if you are in Austin, Boston, NYC, or San Francisco, but by going through a bit of a sign up process, you could be on a blind date in 15 minutes.  You really should go to CrazyBlindDate.com and go through their sign-up process just to see what is possible.  They even set you up with a place to meet!  Ah, technology.  See the article below for one woman’s experience:

Speeding up love at first site

By MEREDITH BLAKE

Thursday, February 7th 2008, 4:00 AM
Braganti for News

The rigors of Internet dating had always seemed daunting for author Meredith Blake, but here she’s got a ‘crazy blind date’ with destiny.

Twenty minutes was all I had to give.

Okay, technically 40 minutes, but for the sake of my own sanity, I was telling myself it was only 20 minutes. It was a Friday night in the dead of winter, and I had not one but two blind dates to look forward to. Oh, and a photographer would be there to capture my date in all of its awkward glory.

A mere 24 hours earlier, I had logged on to a new dating site, CrazyBlindDate.com. Launched this past November in New York, Austin, Boston and San Francisco, the site is completely free and lets users go on a blind date almost immediately - in as little as 15 minutes. All you have to do is fill out a brief questionnaire and be willing to commit to at least 20 minutes no matter who or what shows up (anything less would be rude, of course).

The brainchild of Sam Yagan, also the CEO and co-founder of OkCupid.com, CrazyBlindDate was designed to address the perceived shortcomings of many other sites.

“When I talk to my friends, they have two complaints about Internet dating,” explains Yagan. “They say it’s too much work - working on the profile, browsing, sending e-mails. And they say that it lacks spontaneity. You can’t go online and set up a profile and get a date that night.”

Unlike other services that offer hours of fruitless distraction, CrazyBlindDate is not a destination for anything other than getting a date as soon as possible. You can’t view profiles of other users, or communicate with them in any way before your date, and there aren’t even any ads.

“With CBD, we want you to spend as little time as possible on the site, all your time out on the dates,” says Yagan.

Once you’ve requested a date, the system tries to find a match for you based on the criteria you request. If a match is found, you get an e-mail with a very brief physical description of your date, and a suggested location chosen from a standing list of bars and coffee shops. Once you accept, there’s no going back.

I had never tried online dating, with the exception of a few quasi-dates way back in the age of Friendster.

On the other hand, I have been on plenty of blind dates before. To ease the pressure, I follow this advice: Treat your date like an interview for a job you don’t want. With that in mind I usually enjoy myself.

So in theory, CrazyBlindDate seemed perfect for me.

“It’s a forced adventure, so I knew there would be something to talk about” says CrazyBlindDate.com veteran, Brianna Klemm, 30, of Astoria, who rationalized her first date as fodder for her blog.

“It’s great because it reminds you that dating is not that big a deal, that really it’s just two people sitting in a bar.”

But while Klemm was dubious about finding a serious relationship on CBD, Richie, 27, of Brooklyn, was more optimistic about its prospects. He recently ended up dating a guy he met through the site. “I tried Match.com a few years back, but never actually went out with anyone because the process is really tedious, “ he says. “But [CrazyBlind Date] is good for anyone.”

So, with these encouraging thoughts in my mind, I headed out on my dating adventure. First up was Michael, “Asian, 31, highlights, carrying an iPhone,” according to his CBD description.

I was the first to arrive at our meeting spot - 71 Irving, a Manhattan bar and cafe. I sat down and immediately started drinking my glass of Cabernet, waiting for Michael to walk through the door.

A few minutes later, an Asian man walked in, with telltale white headphones in his ears. I deliberated for a second about whether the barely noticeable reddish streaks in his hair qualified as highlights, and decided it had to be him. Michael joined me at the little table in the corner, and we both tried to ignore the photographer taking our picture. Not that she wasn’t nice.

Michael was eccentric, funny and totally unfazed by the situation. Even though there wasn’t a romantic connection, he kept me entertained with stories of seducing older women as a teenager and his plans to buy a plasma television for each wall in his bedroom. The only lull in conversation was when he answered a business call on his beloved iPhone, which provided a welcome opportunity to dig into the chocolate macaroons he bought for me. After about an hour at 71 Irving, Michael upped the ante and suggested getting dinner in Chinatown, but I had to decline since I had another date scheduled.

Emboldened by two glasses of wine, I headed for my second date at Greenwich Treehouse, a laid-back bar in a corner of the West Village . I awkwardly made a lap around the crowded bar, not seeing anyone fitting Brian’s description: “27, white, dark hair, clean-shaven.” I got a beer, and took a very conspicuous seat by the door so as not to be missed.

I felt strangely liberated and not self-conscious about the fact that I was a woman in a bar by myself on a Friday. This turned out to be an especially good thing, since 20 minutes passed with no sign of Brian.

To be honest, I was relieved. I’d had a great night, despite being stood up by a total stranger.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 02.16.08 at 6.52 am
permalink | Categories: • News About Dating Sites and Types • Speed Dating • Just for Fun • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 4 Comments

Is Pepper Schwartz’s New Book a Must Read?

I first heard of Pepper Schwartz years and years ago (well, it was published in 1985) when I read her book with Philip Blumstein “American Couples.” It was a heavy tome filled with eye-popping charts and graphs of their work with couples, gay and straight.  I loved it and it heavily influenced my thinking about couples and how they relate.

Schwartz writes prolifically (just go to Amazon and type in her name), but she is most relevant to my work with helping singles find love in her incarnation as the expert behind the matching system at PerfectMatch.com.  She just came out with a new book Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years which sounds right up my alley, right?  I thought so too, and ordered and read it.

Eeeesh.  I wish I could say I liked it, but I didn’t.  Sprinkled in amongst her own pretty exhibitionistic stories about having lots of great sex with lots of great guys in lots of great places was some sound advice about online dating, but nothing extraordinary, frankly.  That advice is just about all contained in the article below that appeared in the Seattle Times where she lives.  I’ll underline it in the article so that you can see what I really did like about what she wrote.  But frankly, you can skip the book, unless you want to torture yourself by reading some over-the-top sex pieces that strain credulity, or if they are true, are out of reach of 99.99% of women over 60.  I found it pretty embarrassing, actually.  I’d prefer the more academic Pepper Schwartz.

Relationship expert finds herself dating again

By Pepper Schwartz

Special to The Seattle Times

Pepper Schwartz
Schwartz is a sociology professor at the University of Washington and author of 15 books, including her latest, “Prime: Adventures and Advice on Sex, Love, and the Sensual Years” (Collins, 2007; $24.95), a personal account of re-entering the dating world after divorce. Schwartz, a Ph.D., is also the relationship expert for Perfectmatch.com, where she co-developed the Duet personality profile matching system.

There is nothing quite as disconcerting as having to follow your own advice. After 30 years of answering people’s questions about their emotional, sexual and romantic lives, I found myself in the somewhat ironic situation of having to pose, and answer, some of these same questions for myself.

At first, like most people who have just gotten a divorce, I wanted to stay home, do some soul searching, figure out what went wrong and what part I had in it.

But soon there is that familiar itch: the desire for intimacy, connection, sex and, in my case, adventure. Love would be nice, too, but honestly, when you have just disconnected from a 23-year marriage, sex and companionship seem a lot less complicated than love and commitment do, and therefore a lot more imaginable.

As a relationship expert, finding that connection should have been a piece of cake, right?

Wrong. As every doctor knows, it’s different when you’re the patient. I had many of the qualms of re-entry that everyone does. So I had to embark on a fix-up campaign to get myself date-ready — and think about what I actually wanted and who I was looking for.

One thing I knew: I was starting over again at 55.

I started out by creating a new philosophy about sex and love. I decided that the only way I would figure out who and what I wanted was by meeting a wide range of men — cowboys, poets, fishermen, chefs, CEOs, or whoever else crossed my path. The “how” of it was pretty easy — I knew the online dating scene as the relationship expert for Perfectmatch.com — now I just had to go explore dating online myself.

That the dating expert would be looking for a date was a little embarrassing, so I didn’t put my picture on the site. Instead, I looked at men’s profiles, and if they were intriguing, I’d invite them to look at a description of me. If they liked that, I promised to send a picture.

Thus started a chain of “coffee dates” that online daters know only too well. These short encounters exist for a reason; a quick in, then out if the guy’s not OK. I learned this the hard way when a guy who said he had always admired me wanted to take me out to a really nice dinner. I relented when he suggested Canlis, one of my favorite places in Seattle.

Once we got there, however, I might as well have gone alone. He talked so fast and so much that all I could do was sit there and time him, thinking maybe I was witnessing some kind of world’s record for self-absorption. At 45 minutes, he looked up, a little dazed with his own chatter and said, “Am I talking too much?” I said, “Yes, actually you are.”

He looked abashed and then, I kid you not, talked on for another 20 minutes. I had time to listen, chew my food very carefully, and learn not to allow more than a half-hour for a first meeting.

There were other colorful characters, some so unusual that I learned to think of dating as anthropological fieldwork. I decided each person would have something to teach me, no matter how dreadful a match we might be for each other.

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My favorite oddity was a man who was handsome, smart, nice and accomplished. He seemed like a perfectly fine bet for a relationship. There was only one problem: he could not pass a beast without making that animal’s noises. We decided to go hiking in the Methow Valley and stay over at Sun Mountain Lodge. But the ride there killed the possibility of anything more physical than climbing up a few hills. If we saw a horse, he neighed, a dog, he produced a bark, a cat — well, you know. I was afraid to order a steak.

Of course not all of these dates produced a humorous or strange story. Some produced all kinds of satisfaction: intellectual, emotional and sexual.

Dating, though difficult and disappointing when love didn’t last, was clearly possible and often fabulous, no matter that my 20s and 30s were distant memories. I have come to believe that love is possible at any age, that romance and passion are no less intense at middle or old age than they were when we were barely out of our teens, and that all of this can be ours if we put ourselves out there, learn how to handle loss or rejection, and have the resilience to pick ourselves up and start the process all over again.

This is the very cycle that many women and men just can’t bear to face, but I have to say, the happy moments justify having to deal with the sad ones. Love is life-giving, passion helps sustain our youthfulness, and relationships help us to grow and develop heart and character. All of that is just too good to miss.

I met the man I am dating now online. Honestly I don’t remember why I picked him out except that he was attractive, wrote well and sounded like a sincere, bright, athletic, nice person. I contacted him and said I was interested. He replied that he thought he knew who I was, and he was a little put off about meeting another ambitious, busy, Type-A woman. He had gone that route before and wasn’t sure it was a good fit.

I wrote him back that yes, he had guessed who I was and what I was like. But I thought we should meet anyway. I mentioned the scene in “Notting Hill” where Julia Roberts has to convince Hugh Grant that her world isn’t all she is. She says something like, “I’m just a girl, standing in front of a boy… .”

He replied, “OK, you got me with that one.” We met for coffee. He was even more handsome in person than in his picture, and a genuinely nice and witty man. This was last autumn, and we have been dating ever since.

The Internet is your friend

The Internet is one of the most efficient and safe ways to find romance. I still hear women and men voicing fears of who’s on there, but believe me, it’s a godsend to older people who aren’t meeting loads of eligible partners.

You get a lot more information about someone you’ve met in cyberspace than you do in other kinds of one-time contact. There are bad dates everywhere, but the Internet has no more than other parts of the dating world do — and probably less.

Writing a profile

Put out your best stuff. Don’t lie, but you can omit your flaws. Everyone has them and they don’t need to be in your first sentence. Leave out anything but a brief mention of children — you are looking for a partner, not a father or mother. If they are partner material, then you can see if they will fit into your family or vice versa.

Use a good picture, but make sure it’s yours and wasn’t taken for your high school graduation. Avoid anyone who has a blurry picture, sunglasses or won’t show you a picture on request.

Talking on the phone

Don’t wait too long before making this relationship aural. If you like each other online, then relatively quickly transfer it to the phone. (Use a non-traceable number just in case you do meet Mr./Ms. Wrong and don’t want them to know your phone number.)

If you let the e-mail relationship go on too long, you may be caught in a fantasy perception of this person that gets you way too attached before you have a better sense of who she or he really is. Hearing their voice and talking is the first test of finding out who they really are.

Meeting someone

Likewise, once you’ve talked, arrange to meet fairly soon. I’ve known people who were just about saying “I love you” because of the intimacy and beauty of what they wrote to each other — until they met in person and one of them realized there was no chemistry.

Use the half-hour meeting rule (you can always extend it). If it’s really a great match, there will be a second date.

Remember to listen and ask questions — both of you are being interviewed — each of you should know more about the other than when you started. Do not complain even if your day was a horror and your kids robbed a bank.

Don’t dump on your ex even though you are sorely tempted. Everyone will always be thinking, “… and what would he/she be saying about me?” Try to see if there is any reason you two should know each other that is not readily apparent — i.e., explore hobbies, values, lifestyle, talents, passions.

Don’t give up

I don’t care if the first 15 dates are duds. There is someone out there for you.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 10.09.07 at 4.24 pm
permalink | Categories: • Over 50? • News About Dating Sites and Types • PerfectMatch.com • Books, Movies, and TV • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments

Heavy Reading, But Interesting…

Here’ s a turn from an Australian scholar about Internet dating....

The commodification of intimacy
By Millsom Henry-Waring - posted Monday, 9 July 2007

The increasing popularity of online dating is self-evident. We live in a global consumer-oriented world. We appear to be comfortable with the idea of effectively shopping online for love. Yet something remains missing.

Instead of offering radically new options for connecting, online dating merely reinforces traditional forms of intimacy, where “man still meets woman” according to explicit and implicit social criteria. Some innovative online dating technologies can offer us a real opportunity to reshape the ways in which we connect intimately, but so far, any developments have been curbed primarily by the commercial interests of the online dating and to a lesser extent, technology industries. And this is a real failing.

We all know someone who has dated someone they have met online. Yes, we do. It is OK to own up - really. Everybody’s doing it. Online dating 21st century style might create an occasional titter or a knowing look, but there is no longer a deep-rooted social stigma attached to finding a partner online.

Unlike traditional forms of dating via newspaper ads, or introduction agencies, online dating is no longer viewed as an activity of sad, lonely, or desperate people. Such unflattering perceptions are firmly a thing of the past. More often than not, the image today is more likely to be a professional, mobile, technologically literate person who may be time and “intimate network” poor, but who has a thoroughly postmodern, consumer, criteria-driven idea of what to look for in a partner.

As a consequence, there has been an exponential rise in the number and type of online dating sites to meet and connect individuals with each other, both locally and globally. Today, most people meet and connect with someone through specific online dating sites such as RSVP, Matchmaker.com and LavaLife.

Many of these online dating sites charge an average monthly subscription of between $40-$50 for members. Members have to place a brief written profile (usually with a photo) of themselves online, based on a prescribed set criteria such as age, gender, “racial” heritage and occupational status. Members can then browse and search through the site to find likely matches. In addition, members can then contact each other via the sites’ many interactive communication tools such as email, chat and SMS services.

This is where online dating sites make money. It is big business. The online dating industry is a major global commercial enterprise. According to Jupiter Research in 2006, the online dating industry had a turnover over US$649 million.

As with most market-driven enterprises, the online dating industry has responded to demands from people with a diverse range of needs. There are now a plethora of niche or speciality sites, which attempt to cater for a wide range of preferences such as “race”, religion, sexuality and disability - such as Blacksingles.com, CatholicMatch.com, Gaydar.com.au, Planet Sappho or CupidCalls.

In addition, a number of online dating sites which claim to be more selective have emerged. These include sites such as eHarmony which aims to attract singles who are serious about finding a long-term partner based on highly selective and detailed compatibility measurements. And the True.com site which endeavours to ensure that members are bona fide single people of good repute, with warnings about being sued if they are not. And more recently, the rise of online dating sites like Meet People With Herpes (MPWH), or Prescription4Love for people facing the stigma of special conditions, such as HIV or Herpes.

While all of these sites appear to be responding to demand and supply in the marketplace, they do raise more serious questions about the lack of any liberating or emancipatory vision for online dating. More on this in a moment.

Recently a number of economic commentators have claimed that the online dating industry has reached its financial peak. This is linked to the variable nature and quality of dating online and the unwillingness of singles to pay to remain online for the long-term. In addition, the emergence of social networking sites such as MySpace, Facebook, Udate, Club Intimate have enabled people to find, meet and connect, intimately or not, for free.

So what are the factors that have led to this change in perception and behaviour? They are many, but the key drivers are the developments in new technologies alongside fundamental global changes in our economy which are impacting not only on the ways we trade, but also more crucially on the ways in which we live. Sociologists such as Ulrich Beck, Elisabeth Beck-Gernsheim and Anthony Giddens, have pointed out that there are now many more risks and far less certainties, in both our public and personal lives.

We live in a time which sociologists describe as characteristic of the post-modern global society, where there is a decline in traditional norms and values that used to guide society and individuals - moving from one which was more collectivist in nature to a focus which is now more individualistic.

For those of us fortunate to live in a country like Australia, we know that we have greater prosperity than in the past and compared to some parts of the globe. We know that our standards of living and health are higher. And like other affluent countries, we also enjoy and demand the right to consume.

Yet, we also know that despite this material wealth, we are more likely to face uncertainties in our careers. We are more likely to move several times for work across towns, regions, the nation or the globe. We are also more likely to be in and out of intimate relationships. It should not be a surprise to find that people are actively seeking different ways to meet, to connect, to date and ultimately to form intimate and other relationships with.

While there are some positives to this social shift, such as more personal forms of freedoms and choices, there are also some negative consequences, particularly in the ways in which we connect intimately and otherwise.

Leading sociologist Zygmunt Bauman for example, laments the type of intimate relationships that now exist. Bauman talks negatively about love in postmodern societies - love has become so fluid that it is “liquid”, devoid of real shape and meaning.

Another prominent sociologist, Anthony Giddens takes a slightly modified view of relationships in the 21st century, by explaining how we now enter relationships no longer out of obligation or duty, but out of a demand for reciprocal partnership as an end in itself. Thus, if relationships do not work out, we simply leave. Both regard the rise of online dating sites as evidence of the commodification and ultimately, the disposability of intimacy.

This commodification of intimacy has been aided by the commercial nature of the online dating and technology industry, which inevitably regards dating as a type of commodity in which individuals can consume each other. The market is therefore a key influence shaping online dating. Unfortunately, this has meant that any liberating or radical changes to conventional forms of dating have been neglected. As a result, the online dating and technology industry has been a major obstacle to truly altering the ways in which people can connect intimately.

For example, most features of online dating sites tend to reinforce existing norms about dating, especially from a gendered or racialised perspective.

Often the act of dating online involves browsing and filtering the visual cues of photos, which tends to prize beauty and attractiveness through a largely exclusive western, Anglocentric lens. You do not have to go far to read from the front pages on, whom or what is rated as an attractive male or female.

Further, on some of the online dating sites, the assumption remains that men do most of the courting or chasing via “kisses” and “smiles”. In a collaborative study on online dating in Australia, a colleague (Dr Jo Barraket) and I found that while the possibilities offered by new technologies should enable individuals to meet others regardless of geography or conventional social criteria - people are still focused on finding people whom they would otherwise meet in a conventional sense.

Despite the opportunity to shop for love then, it appears we are still looking at the same labels or brands, with only a few of us willing to take the risk of trying on a new label.

The online dating industry at the moment reinforces the status quo of how “man meets woman” (or woman meets woman and man meets man). A key example can be found on almost all online dating sites as they focus on conventional forms of beauty, age and attractiveness - some are more explicit such as BeautifulPeople.net, GorgeousNetworks.com and MillionaireMatcher.com. Or sites like WildMatch.com or IwantU.com who draw a fine line between dating, sex and soft pornography. Even those which appeal to singles who want to meet others from different cultures are problematic, as they often stereotype groups of people as the exotic, submissive Other. These include sites such as InterracialSingles.net or InterracialMatch.com, AsianSinglesConnection and CherryBlossoms.

What I find disappointing and frustrating is that although there is a huge potential for technologies to connect people more innovatively, online dating sites have largely ignored any efforts to challenge the very ways in which we date. This neglect has been detrimental. So the status quo remains. Men still look in a certain way. Women still are objectified. Businesses make money as people consume.

Key questions remain - what about finding viable alternative ways of really connecting with people outside the square? Why don’t we demand more positive ways of connecting, intimately and otherwise?

Connecting to each other is a key human activity in the 21st century. We just all need to work much harder at connecting in the real world. It is too easy to shift tack and forget the real world in favour of alternative worlds offered by SecondLife and others. We know that humans desire and actually need to meet others physically to connect, especially in an intimate way. Despite all the promises of cybersex, there is something very false, alienating and artificial about it. Nothing can replace skin-skin contact. Anything else will always be second or third-best.

Online dating via deliberate or social networking sites looks set to continue to be a way in which people connect. Online technologies still have the potential to offer new ways of connecting. I believe that we just need to find much more radical and inspiring ways in which we can break free from traditional stereotypes about dating which particularly continue to place women and Others as objects and commodities rather than as equal, active partners.

In order to be viable in the long-term, the online dating (and the technology) industry will have no choice but find more innovative ways of encouraging us all to connect. Until then, maybe some of the answers lie firmly with all of us to find practical, creative and transformative ways of truly connecting with each other, intimately or otherwise.


Dr Millsom S Henry-Waring is a Lecturer in Sociology in the School of Political Science, Criminology and Sociology at the University of Melbourne. She has conducted a small study on online dating entitled “Virtual Connections” with a colleague Dr Jo Barraket also from the University of Melbourne.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 09.04.07 at 5.23 am
permalink | Categories: • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 1 Comments

Establish Identity and Background Checking Resources

Trufina.com: Prove you are you with a free Trufina ID Card Share your Trufina ID anytime you need to prove your identity online

Here’s how the Trufina site says you can use it’s services for online dating.

Intelius.com:  Background Check By Social Security Number
Background Check Includes: Criminal report, sex offender check, lawsuits, judgments, liens, bankruptcies, home value & property ownership, 30 year address history, relatives & associates, neighbors, marriage records, and more.

You can view a sample report by clicking a link on the Intelius site.

The Corra Group This service does background checks for businesses, but will also do searches for individual uses.

Also, don’t forget to Google your date’s name, or do a search on MySpace, remembering that many people may share the same name.  I just searched my name on MySpace and got five girlie’s, some of them pretty young.

If you live in the Pittsburg, PA, area, you can check out the website maintained by the Allegheny County Sheriff’s Department to catch dead-beat parents.

posted by Kathryn Lord on 03.13.07 at 10.43 am
permalink | Categories: • Dating Tips • Tell the Truth • Be Safe • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 2 Comments

Compatibility Testing Comments

I found this comment below on Mark Brooks’ Online Personals Watch.  It’s from James Houran, Ph. D. who used to be associated with True.com and now is not.  I don’t know the “why’s” of either.  Regular readers of my blog know that I don’t think much of True.com.  But Dr. Houran does sound like he knows what he is talking about, and if you are interesting in compatibility testing or have taken them (a la eHarmony, True.com, PerrfectMatch, etc) you should read his comments here and the article he sites at the end “The Truth About Compatibility Testing.”

Despite their potential power and value, all assessments have limitations. Both online dating sites and their customers need to have realistic expectations about what types of information assessments can and cannot deliver. The strengths and limitations of a given assessment are based on its technical and theoretical underpinnings.

Below are some important points to remember in this respect:

1). Assessment feedback is derived from mathematical extrapolations of behavioral data. As such, feedback reports describe statistical predictions of what attitudes and behaviors a given test taker will likely exhibit. Mathematical models are consistently more valid than subjective observations, but even the finest assessments are never 100% percent accurate 100% of the time.

2). The validity of a report is limited by the reliability of the test taker’s responses. Test-takers may answer assessments unreliably for a myriad of reasons: lack of motivation or interest due to less than ideal testing conditions or test taker’s mood, fatigue from answering a long set of questions, an attempt to answer questions in a socially-desirable way or difficulty understanding particular questions for linguistic reasons (e.g., when English is not the test taker’s first language).

3). All test scores are statistical estimates. Thus, each score is accompanied by its margin of error [also called a confidence interval or standard of error (SE)]. However, properly constructed employee assessments provide information on the statistical reliability of a particular test taker’s test scores, as well as measure the degree to which a test taker seems to be answering the assessment truthfully.

4). Finally, the quality of an assessment (and hence its feedback) is associated with its methodological and statistical principles:

Self-referential vs. normative instruments: Some assessments provide feedback based simply on how a test taker perceives him or herself. In other words, these instruments describe individuals only in a self-referential way, i.e., against themselves. Examples of self-referential instruments are the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (the inspiration for PerfectMatch.com’s test) and the DISC assessment (offered by Thomas Technologies). By contrast, normative instruments are inter-individual because they describe test takers against a reference group. This approach is significantly more valid than the self-referential approach.

Classical test theory vs. modern test theory: Most assessments on the market today are constructed and validated using classical test theory, which essentially treats all assessment questions as equally weighted “points.” A great example is the assessment offered by eHarmony.com. Such assessments consequently provide a total score that is the sum of those points. This approach has been outdated since 1960. Today, test and measurements experts rely on modern test theory (Item Response Theory and Rasch scaling), which yields unbiased, scaled scores for test takers. Modern test theory is the same gold standard statistics used in such well-known assessments like the GRE, MCAT and LSAT. This approach can identify and remove response biases related to age, gender, cultural background and employment level of the test taker. Besides greater technical precision and the protection of meeting legal requirements, modern test theory also yields richer information that traditional approaches miss.

For detailed scientific information on the realities behind compatibility testing, see:

Houran, J., Lange, R., Rentfrow, P. J., & Bruckner, K. H. (2004). Do online matchmaking tests work? An assessment of preliminary evidence for a publicized ‘predictive model of marital success.’ North American Journal of Psychology, 6, 507-526.

For a lay-person’s guide to the subject, see:
http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/features/compatibilitytesting.html

Thanks,

James Houran, Ph.D.
Online Dating Magazine

posted by Kathryn Lord on 02.12.07 at 2.22 pm
permalink | Categories: • News About Dating Sites and Types • eHarmony • PerfectMatch.com • True.com • Technology, Academia, and Dating • 0 Comments