A while back, I was taken on a tour of Second Life and walked through a choosing and purchasing of an avatar there, and was it a scary experience! Try as I might to tone down what my Second Life life would look like, all I could some up with was a body and image that looked like I had taken an extended vacation at a plastic surgery mall. I have been increasingly concerned about the pressure on women (and men too) to be perfect, young and hot. Clients I have from the Los Angeles area report how stiff the competition is with the surgically gorgeous. Now here is an article from the New York Times where is says Hollywood—yes, Hollywood—is now looking for “real” unaugmented actors for parts. Take a look below, and hope that it spreads to the rest of the country. Wrinkles and gray hair are beautiful!
A Little Too Ready for Her Close-Up?
By LAURA M. HOLSON
Published: April 23, 2010
In small but significant numbers, filmmakers and casting executives are beginning to re-examine Hollywood’s attitude toward breast implants, Botox, collagen-injected lips and all manner of plastic surgery.
Television executives at Fox Broadcasting, for example, say they have begun recruiting more natural looking actors from Australia and Britain because the amply endowed, freakishly young-looking crowd that shows up for auditions in Los Angeles suffers from too much sameness.
“I think everyone either looks like a drag queen or a stripper,” said Marcia Shulman, who oversees casting for Fox’s scripted shows.
Independent casting directors like Mindy Marin, who worked on the Jason Reitman film “Up in the Air,” are urging talent agents to discourage clients from having surgery, particularly older celebrities who, she contends, are losing jobs because their skin is either too taut or swollen with filler. Said Ms. Marin: “What I want to see is real.”
Even extras get the once-over. Sande Alessi, who helped cast the “Pirates of the Caribbean” movies, said she offers to photograph actresses in their bathing suits, telling them they can keep the photo for their audition books.
Professional courtesy? Not exactly. Moviemakers prefer actresses with natural breasts for costume dramas and period films. So much so that when the Walt Disney Company recently advertised for extras for the new “Pirates” film, the casting call specified that only women with real breasts need apply. By taking a photograph, Ms. Alessi said, “we don’t have to ask, we will know.”
The move toward “less is more” is being propelled by a series of colliding social and technological trends, more than a dozen film and television professionals said.
Cosmetic enhancements remain popular, with 10 million surgical and nonsurgical procedures performed in the United States in 2009, according to the American Society for Aesthetic Plastic Surgery. At the same time, the spread of high-definition television — as well as a curious public’s trained eye — has made it easier to spot a celebrity’s badly stitched hairline or botched eyelid lift.
Men, of course, are not immune to the youthful lure of a surgeon’s scalpel. But it is women, to the surprise of no one, who are being scrutinized most closely.
Botox is the enemy in a post-“Avatar,” 3-D infatuated Hollywood, where the ability to crumple a mouth into a frown is as vital as remembering one’s lines. More startling is how young plastic surgery devotees have become. In January, the actress Heidi Montag was on the cover of People magazine touting the 10 cosmetic procedures she received in one day. She is 23.
“The era of ‘I look great because I did this to myself’ has passed,” said Shawn Levy, the director and producer of “Date Night” and the “Night at the Museum” movies. “It is viewed as ridiculous. Ten years ago, actresses had the feeling that they had to get plastic surgery to get the part. Now I think it works against them. To walk into a casting session looking false hurts one’s chances.”
Few in Hollywood are willing to admit to a chin reduction or mini eyebrow lift. (Remember when Jennifer Grey admitted to a nose job, a move some say hurt her career?) Celebrities instead are more open to discussing a former drug problem or sex addiction, because there is less concern a confession of that sort will harm their careers. But with so many types of cosmetic rejiggering, results are often painfully obvious and difficult to correct.
Ms. Shulman of Fox met with an agent recently to discuss hiring an actress who clearly had work done. “What did she do to her face?” Ms. Shulman said she asked the agent. “He said, ‘Nothing.’ I shrugged. I’m just not going to argue. I said, ‘She’s not for me then.’ ”
Head shots, too, are no longer reliable. Ms. Marin said she sometimes checks AwfulPlasticSurgery.com, a celebrity Web site that chronicles the surgically enhanced, to confirm suspicions about who has done what. When Ms. Alessi was casting “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” in 2007, she received hundreds of head shots. Some of the actresses who arrived for auditions, though, looked nothing like their photographs.
“They would have these huge puffy lips and frozen foreheads,” she said. “You said to yourself, ‘Oh, I can’t use you.’ I don’t mind if they do a tiny bit of something, but it can’t be obvious.”
An actor can even lose a role if a director suspects surgery, whether it was performed or not. John Papsidera, a casting director for the “Batman” movies, said he and a director (he declined to say which one) recently debated whether to hire an actress in her early 20s to play a teenager falling in love. The actress was talented and naturally pretty. But what stopped the director was his suspicion that, at such a young age, she already had breast implants.
“We looked at film where she was topless and it was like, ‘Maybe,’ ” Mr. Papsidera said. It wasn’t a period film, so authenticity was not an issue. Instead, the possibility of implants became “a point of reference,” he said. “It was more of, ‘Where is that person coming from as an actor?’ ” She did not get the part.
To outsiders, such conversations can seem almost cruel. Youthful perfection is prized in Hollywood despite the seeming canonization of older actresses like Meryl Streep, Helen Mirren and Betty White. But a talented 35-plus actress who has had particularly good surgery can still find work. At that age the backlash is not against plastic surgery or Botox itself — everyone seems to be doing it, right? — but its poor execution.
“Behind the scenes, you have so many conversations,” said Mr. Levy, the director, referring to his discussions with studio executives about leading ladies. “Why did she do that to herself? She was beautiful. She was great. But now we can’t cast her.”
Rarely, though, do studio executives share their concerns with actors, he added, citing politeness as a reason.
Perhaps they should discuss it. After all, the executives and producers who criticize others for having too much plastic surgery often feel the same pressure to look young and attractive. Their judgments about others, then, are not only subjective, but deeply personal. (Several studio executives did not return calls or declined to comment on their views on cosmetic procedures.)
Carrie Audino, a casting director on “Mad Men,” said: “I do think there are times when you sit in a casting session and listen to what someone thinks is beautiful or handsome, and there is this very skewed outlook based on their own insecurities. Because they have issues, they have an issue with someone else.”
Still, there is something to suggest that the new attitude is beginning to take hold. Last week Sharon Osbourne told Matt Lauer on the “Today” show that she was going to have her breast implants removed this summer and give them to her husband as paperweights. Lisa Kudrow, in a recent interview with New York magazine, seemed happy to own up to the fact that the face viewers saw on an episode of “Cougar Town” was hers, age lines and all.
“Look, time marches on,” she said. “You still want to look good, but there’s a line between looking like yourself and looking like a character from a Batman movie.”
Of course, there are still times when having cosmetic surgery can pay off. The buzzworthiness of a reality television star seems to soar depending on her cup size or clipped waist. (Think of Jwoww from “Jersey Shore.”)
Last November Ms. Montag, who starred in “The Hills” on MTV, underwent 10 cosmetic procedures including liposuction, buttock and breast augmentation and Botox. Her reward? A torrent of media attention kicked off by a flattering January cover story in People magazine, including before and after photos.
Critics made fun of her, and her own mother was shocked. “She was looking at me almost like I was a zoo animal,” Ms. Montag told People of her first visit home.
But she said in an interview that she is convinced she made the right move. She wants to be a movie actress, and some parts have begun to come in. She recently starred in a video directed by Ron Howard, and she said she was hired for a cameo in an Adam Sandler movie.
Both parts poke fun at women who’ve had too much plastic surgery.
Nothing to say here but eeeyick.
Cindy Margolis tests sperms on her new dating reality show!
Washington, Jan 7 (ANI): Former Playboy model Cindy Margolis is set to unveil a new dating reality show where participants are made to give sperm samples.
The show titled ‘Seducing Cindy’ will be aired on Fox Reality Channel from January 30.
Margolis has some knowledge about infertility as she gave birth to her three children through IVF and later penned a book “Having a Baby… When the Old-Fashioned Way Isn’t Working.”
“I am the spokesperson for Resolve, the National Infertility Association, so we could get away with it. We had one competition where the guys had to go through what I went through and give a sperm sample,” Fox News quoted her, as saying.
She said: “It was interesting to have 25 guys go off into a room and bring you back a sperm sample. Clinically, I know how to test sperm, and I tested each of the guy’s sperm on my show. It was the craziest thing.”
Men aged 18-49 are participating in the show and will go through a string of interesting tests to win Margolis’ love.
And according to the 44-year-old beauty the guys were quite delighted to play the “sperm” game.
Margolis said: “The looks on the guys faces [were] priceless, I don’t think that any man would ever think in their lifetime they would be asked to give their sperm sample on national television! They were in pure shock! But I will say that I do give the guys a lot of credit. Each one of them was ‘up’ for the challenge.
“The intention of my asking the men to give me their sample was for them have some insight into my real life. They came to the show to vie for the love of their ‘fantasy woman,’ Cindy Margolis. I wanted the men to see that my real life has not been a fantasy.”
And Margolis also revealed that she has had her own share of loneliness.
She said: “[For a while] I couldn’t even get a date. So then to have 25 men vying for my love, then to say goodbye to each of them one at a time was the toughest part for me. I didn’t know it would be that emotional, my heart was on the line.” (ANI)
If you think it is only losers who use online dating, get a load of this story:
ESSENCE ATKINS ENGAGED TO MATCH.COM DATE:
Actress puts profile on Internet dating service and strikes gold (as in a ring).
Actress Essence Atkins got herself a fiancé through Match.com.
The former “Half and Half” star got engaged to Jaime Mendez in February following a year-long courtship that started when they came across each other on the popular Internet dating site, reports TMZ.com. Their wedding is set to take place on Sept. 26.
Atkins, who started her career on “The Cosby Show,” says she preferred using Match.com because she didn’t have to post a picture of herself. She ended up sending Jamie a message on Valentine’s Day because they were 97% compatible.
Drew and I were sitting in our RV on our way south to Tallahassee a couple of weeks ago when I got the first phone call on my cell phone in ages (no phone reception on our island in Maine). It was Laura Bennett from the Boston Globe. She asked me a zillion questions (it’s a wonder I could pull myself together to answer at all, since we had been on the road for two days). Here’s the result below—the two quotes are probably all you need to see how tired I was. But thanks, Laura!
The art of cyber courtship
By Laura A. Bennett
When online dating coach Laurie Davis saw my Facebook profile, she winced. She tried to hide it with a polite smile and a demure toss of her shiny hair. But the damage was done.
“What’s wrong with it?’’ I said.
“The photo,’’ she sighed.
It was a snapshot of me, looking rumpled and grinning toothily, with a friend from school. It wasn’t flattering, and the crop was weird, Davis explained. And you should never have a friend in your profile picture - particularly not one who is attractive.
“A profile is a personal marketing campaign,’’ she said. “If you went online and saw a newly launched product with bad photos, you would just close the page. You wouldn’t wink at it. You wouldn’t buy it.’’
Granted, Laurie Davis is an expert in the art of cyber courtship, and my Facebook profile was not engineered to reel in mates. But no matter. These days, we’re refracted through so many media - Google, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter - that our social lives are inevitably a tangle of the virtual and the actual. And over the past few years, a cadre of e-dating professionals has sprung up to help people master the delicate craft of digital self-presentation.
“Now, anything you have online can be cross-referenced, searched,’’ said Melanie Dodson, an Internet dating coach based in Tampa Bay. “You have to be more aware overall of the persona you’re putting out there.’’
Davis, who splits her time between Boston and New York, offers several services. There’s the eMakeover, where she combs your dating profile and provides line-by-line analysis: move that comma, fix that grammar, leave out the reference to your dead grandmother, change that clumsy phrasing. Or she can choose your photo and invent a new profile on the spot. She will also help you write introductory e-mails and replies to matches.
Common pitfalls include adjective overload (“Some people say, I’m sweet, funny, sexy, witty,’’ Davis says. “Show me, don’t tell!’’), vague photos (“If I can only see half a face, it looks like you’re trying to hide that you’re not cute’’), and sloppy orthography (“Uh, hello, spell-check’’). Dodson likes to take clients to a local resort so she can photograph them lazing by the pool or leaning invitingly on the mosaic-paneled bar. “You should look like you’re having fun,’’ she said.
Kathryn Lord, a self-dubbed “cyberromance coach’’ in Tallahassee, cautions against showing too much skin. “And webcam pictures make you look like a bug,’’ she said.
Davis, who is in her early 30s, has been on Match.com since she was 19. Her first online date was a disaster. “He had at least 40 pounds on his profile photo,’’ she said. She had to pick him up. He was a backseat driver. He asked her to change the music in her own car. “But somehow it didn’t turn me off of Internet dating,’’ she said. Instead it made her curious about how profiles represent the people behind them. After years of advising her friends about e-dating, she launched her coaching business several months ago. She already has a core client base and close to 400 followers on Twitter.
“The Internet is an atmosphere of plenty,’’ Lord said. “The effect is that people get jaded and start thinking there might be someone better out there. They move on too quickly, without giving someone a chance. I try to get them to slow down.’’
Davis begins by assessing your target demographic. At a recent meeting with a 25-year-old Boston woman named Kerry, Davis tapped her pen on the table and leaned in conspiratorially. “We need to turn off the guy who is gonna wine and dine you and then drop you.’’ Davis opted to pepper Kerry’s profile with quirky details: her affinity for high-tech gadgets, her shoe fetish, her enjoyment of kayaking.
“I’d never get a makeover in real life,’’ Kerry told me later. “I think it’s harder to write about yourself than it is to make an impression when you actually meet someone.’’
A 29-year-old California man named Devin had Davis revamp his Match.com profile after several months of minimal dating success. She deleted the photos of him wearing funny costumes, making weird faces, or, in his words, “being shamelessly drunk.’’
“Instantly I was getting more unsolicited attention,’’ Devin said. “Winks, e-mails, you name it.’’
Within a few weeks, he had met a woman with whom he clicked. They are about to move in together.
Watching romantic movies and someone pays you to do it? Great job—how do we sign up?
The dangers of romantic comedies Who knew such movies can inflate fans’ expectations and even ruin their lives?
Gregory Rodriguez
I thought it would be the other way around, that my tastes would become more refined as I grew up. But I confess that the older I get, the more stupid movies I watch. I mean, the other day I sat through Adam Sandler’s “You Don’t Mess with the Zohan” on pay per view. Was it good? Not really. But it made me chuckle a few times, and it was cold outside and, most important in this economy, it was only $3.99.
I figured, what’s the harm? I read and write for a living, and at the end of the week, I’m not really craving deep intellectual content. I had the same attitude going into this last week of the year. I was hoping to shut off my brain, head to a little hut in the desert somewhere, read popular fiction and rent feel-good movies.
But that was before a Scottish university issued an alarming news release warning that romantic comedies “may actually damage your love life.” What, are they joking? My first instinct was to dismiss this little tidbit as no more than a gimmick, but then it struck me that romance is not a part of my life that I can afford to jeopardize any more than I already have. The matter definitely merited further inquiry.
Not surprisingly, the British press sank its teeth into the story. “Have Hollywood’s romantic comedies stolen our hearts?” asked a headline in the Daily Telegraph. “Slushy movies bad for lovers,” screamed the Daily Record. The Daily Mail wrung its hands over what it called the “Notting Hill effect.”
But what exactly is the “Notting Hill” effect? Does it have anything to do with Hugh Grant on Curson Avenue in Hollywood? No, frankly, it’s much worse.
According to a few enterprising social scientists at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh, romantic comedies can raise unrealistic romantic expectations among fans and may therefore set them up for personal failure and a lifetime of disappointment.
I called up Bjarne Holmes, the lead researcher on the project at the university’s Family and Personal Relationships Laboratory, to ask him if he wasn’t severely underestimating the intelligence of the moviegoing audience. “Oh no,” he responded. “Audiences are able to see that movies are not reality. We know this. But there’s a little emerging evidence that it still has an impact on our emotional lives.”
Holmes isn’t arguing that contemporary romantic comedies invented today’s outlandish expectations of romantic love. “Such fantasies have been around since antiquity,” he says. But that’s part of the point. Until recent times, marriage was more a matter of joining families and property than it was about love. Romantic myths, Holmes said, arose in a time when people longed for a personal connection to the lucky fools with whom they would share their short, brutish lives.
Today, however, argued Holmes, when we have the great good fortune to marry for true love, we don’t need all those overwrought narratives about finding your soul mates. “The myths have outlived their usefulness,” he said.
But here’s where he loses me. Now that we don’t need fanciful stories about meeting our Princess Charming, Holmes said we need narratives about how to get along with each other. Can you imagine how entertaining a movie that would make? Maybe one starring Matthew McConaughey and Jennifer Aniston learning how to tolerate one another’s personal hygiene rituals.
Still, after sifting through 200 of the top-grossing romantic comedies to come out of the Big Six Hollywood studios between 1995 and 2005, Holmes and his colleagues found some interesting common denominators: In the movies, new relationships are portrayed both as exciting, as most tend to be, and offering the intimacy that usually takes years to develop in real life. Past transgressions are easily forgiven. (You cheated on me with the mailman? Big deal! I still love you; let’s live happily ever after!) And finally, older, more committed relationships are frequently portrayed in a negative light, with couples bickering and backbiting. More often than not, married couples are depicted as long-suffering.
All this does make sense, I guess. But I’m still not certain that it’s going to change my DVD rental schedule for the remainder of the holidays. I asked Holmes whether watching movies that depicted casual, meaningless sex would be better for my love life than romantic comedies, but he wouldn’t bite.
In the end, however, Holmes loosened up and tacitly gave me approval to shut off my brain for the rest of the year without further endangering my romantic life. He admitted that he too liked the occasional ridiculous romantic comedy.
“As skeptical as I have to be as a scientist,” he confessed, “I’ll watch these movies and go awww.”
Heck, if they’re good enough for the guy who’s warning us about them, they’re good enough for me. Let’s see what’s on pay per view.
Ah, April Baer! Why didn’t you call me for your NPR piece??? You probably didn’t know that I met my husband via Tech Nation—sort of. Call me up for the full story. I’ve been doing Romance Coaching since 2002!!! That’s the Middle Ages as far as online dating is concerned. Certainly before Herb Vest started True.com. True.com gives me the willies, but in this article below, Vest actually gives some good advice: Be truthful, and concentrate on getting that first date. Excellent.
For Online Daters, Coaches Help Craft The Message You can listen to this article rather that reading it—follow the link for the audio version.
by April Baer
All Things Considered, December 1, 2008 · One of the many miracles the Internet was supposed to work was to reduce the number of dating disasters — or at least make perfectly calculated matchups.
Online dating hasn’t exactly worked out that way, but millions of people have used the Internet to find love, or something like it.
And there’s help for singles who want to create the perfect profile: online profile coaches.
Dozens of consultants have sprung up in recent years to offer coaching services for online daters. And for those who don’t want to spring for a coach, even the dating Web sites offer some help.
Polishing Profiles
Straight white female, 41, athletic, with a knockout smile, sits in front of her computer checking out the prospects on JDate, a Jewish dating site. Shula Neuman recently moved to Seattle from St Louis, and when she decided to start ramping up her social life, she, like millions of others, went online.
“Even though it would be, of course, nice to find a date hot and heavy, really I’m just more interested in meeting people at this point,” Neuman says.
Neuman has turned up some intriguing possibilities on JDate. She sees one guy looking for a special lady to appreciate him as much as he appreciates himself. The profile says “Mystery Charmer,” but he is pictured with a blonde on his arm. Neuman laughs.
Imagine this guy walking into a party — maybe with the blonde in tow — and introducing himself as he does online. His profile reads, “Passion! So important for a fulfilling life!”
Neuman calls that a turnoff.
“I just want somebody who sounds like they’re talking,” Neuman says. “And at the same time, I don’t like it when they’re listing off their criteria in their little ‘About Me’ section: ‘Are you someone who likes to do this and skydive and take romantic walks on the beach?’ “
If there’s hope for people with crappy profiles, it can be found with consultants like Sierra Faith, an online profile coach in the Bay Area who helps people retool their virtual selves. She’s noticed most customers want help with their profiles.
“Either they’re looking for greater traffic, or they’re busy,” Faith says. “And a lot of women and men that are very busy tend to present themselves in the romantic arena the same way they present themselves in the business arena. And energetically, it’s totally backwards.”
Advice: Get ‘As Close To The Truth As Possible’
Herb Vest, a former banker from Dallas who now runs the matchmaking site True.com, says to write a profile that reflects who you are.
“You want to get it as close to the truth as possible,” Vest says.
Vest says a lot of people are thinking too far ahead when they’re writing profiles. Stop looking for Mr. or Ms. Right, he says, and just find that good first date.
“What you’re looking for here, like a fisherman, is fish,” Vest says. “You want to attract fish. Once they get into the boat, you can throw them back out.”
In recent years, his site has started offering help with profiles and pictures. It is even working on a service that identifies customer preferences and changes your profile picture based on who is looking at you.
More and more 50’s and older are turning to the Internet when it comes to looking for love. See the article below about PerfectMatch. Mark Brooks of OnlinePersonalsWatch Match, eHarmony and Lavalife have also experienced double digit growth in the 50+ segment. I have underlined parts of the article that I think are most interesting.
Dating Site Seeks Same Audience as Grandparents.com
By Brian Steinberg
Published: February 08, 2008
NEW YORK (AdAge.com)—Think about online dating, and what likely comes to mind are 20-somethings trolling web pages in the hopes of finding a love connection. But increasingly, those trollers are more like 50-somethings, single baby boomers looking for dates.
That’s why during Valentine’s Day week, online-dating service Perfectmatch.com will be woven into “Another Chance for Romance,” a dating show aimed at boomers on Retirement Living TV, a niche channel that appears on DirecTV and Comcast. Perfectmatch CEO Duane Dahl said the site has seen a 60% spike in the 50-plus audience from 2005 to 2006, and estimated growth of 140% in the 50-plus audience for 2006 to 2007.
That doesn’t surprise John Erickson, Retirement Living’s founder, who believes older consumers are more dynamic than marketers care to admit. “If you approach these people with ‘Murder, She Wrote’ reruns and ‘Matlock’ or ‘Little House on the Prairie’ and think that’s going to satisfy them for the next 25 years, you’re missing the biggest opportunity in the market,” he said.
Importance of individualization
Consumers over 50 do represent a big opportunity, but more often than not, advertisers treat them all exactly the same. Studies have found that marketers over-generalize, misrepresent and sometimes ignore the generation, lumping them together and, in the process, alienating them. “The longer that marketers keep treating [boomers] as a huge mass as opposed to individuals, the longer it’s going to take them to enter the market,” said Jody Quinn, exec VP-general manager of the Boomer Insights Generation Group at Edelman, which did the latest study.
Market-research firm Yankelovich has identified at least six different flavors of boomer, ranging from “due diligents,” who think ahead and plan for the worst, to “re-activists,” who want to support social causes and do all they can to fix them before age makes it difficult. There are other challenges to navigate as well: A “mature” consumer in his or her 70s should not be approached in the same way as a recent retiree. “There are some really big differences,” said Gerald Carrafiello, president of Carrafiello Diehl & Associates, an Irvington, N.Y., agency that has studied marketing to older consumers.
Going at older consumers by mining a particular niche interest seems to be a way for some emerging media to lure advertisers. Mr. Erickson, a retirement-community magnate, launched Retirement Living TV in September of 2006. Filled with programs such as “The Prudent Advisor” and “Healthline,” the network has attracted the likes of Pfizer and Prudential, who seek consumers 55 years or older that are active in retirement. The channel can appeal to a broader audience, said Gig Barton, VP-advertising sales and sponsorships, but the focus is concentrated on people looking forward to retirement or those who have recently retired and are looking to stay active.
Savvy grandparents
Grandparents.com, a website aimed at baby boomers with grandchildren, has attracted ads from Johnson & Johnson and Hasbro, said Jerry Shereshewsky, CEO, Grandparents.com. The toymaker is not your typical elder marketer, but is based on the principle that grandparents tend to buy lots of toys for the kids. The site has about 35,000 registered users and about 150,000 unique visitors per month, he said.
AARP also targets different segments of its membership with its eponymous magazine. In 2001, the group decided to publish two different magazines, “My Generation” and “MM: Modern Maturity” aimed at the 55 age group and the other for 56-65 and 66 plus, said Hugh Delehanty, editor in chief of AARP Publications. Two years later, the group found that more readers were familiar with the organization’s name, AARP, and the magazines was rechristened just that, though different versions are published for different age segments—50-59, 60-69, and 70 plus—with about 25% of each version’s content varied according to target.
In years past, older consumers were looked upon as doddering, addled or even useless. Clearly, that view is changing, as seen in recent Ameriprise commercials that feature actor Dennis Hopper casting aside the traditional idea of retirement. But not all retirees or elders are the same, and marketers will have to focus as closely on them in the near future as they do on their younger counterparts. “Young marketers perceive someone to be ‘over the hill’ at 57; the 50-plus consumer perceives someone to be ‘over the hill’ at 75. So the people doing the marketing don’t truly understand the demographic they’re targeting,” said Jennifer Kaltia, a marketing consultant who has studied older consumers.
I feel like Santa on the day after Christmas. Wouldn’t you know that everyone in the world wants to talk to me on Valentine’s Day or thereabouts? I did three radio interviews this year, one with “The Changing Family” on a station in Vancouver, one a podcast with The Red Hot Mama in St. Augustine, FL, and the third (I am proud to say) with an NPR station out of Boston, the noontime show “Here and Now” with Robin Young. Three out of four corners of the map, huh? Not bad coverage.
Here are links to the shows:
Today (Feb 15) the show is here, but I suspect it will be moved any time to the archives here. Check February 14th’s show.
My interview with The Red Hot Mama is posted here.
As of this writing, my show on “The Changing Family” hasn’t been posted on the show’s site, but check anyway. You may get lucky.
Happy listening, and thanks to my interviewers! It’s so nice to be asked.
And here’s something about Match.com’s new ad campaign, too—see article below. This one actually seems to mimic eHarmony’s featuring of successful couples who met on the site, but what is better for business than success? Hey, Match: I met my husband Drew on Match in 1998. Why not feature us, huh? I do wish we could see something more creative like the ads Match is running in the UK—see my blog posting about Cupid and Fate. But it probably is a good decision to keep those ads with the Brits. Americans just don’t have the same sense of humor. Unfortunately.
Match.com Aims for ‘Regular Folks’ With New Campaign
December 20, 2007
By Vanessa L. Facenda
Match.com’s new campaign aims to inform singles-looking-for-love that online dating works—especially via its service.
Darcy Cameron, vp-advertising and marketing, Match.com, said the new campaign dubbed “Rewind,” is the next step in breaking down the alleged stigma of online dating.
“In “Rewind,” we’re showing people who have found [love] online, that Match works,” she said.
Cameron noted that this year’s campaign, “It’s Okay to Look,” which also featured ads with TV’s Dr. Phil, aimed to break down some viewers’ aversion to online dating. “Rewind” raises the bar by telling stories of couples who found love on match.com. The three spots (60-, 30- and 15-seconds), titled “Baby,” “Vacation” and “Dating,” feature couples of differing ages in various stages of relationships (one couple just had a baby, another is on vacation, etc.).
The spots begin with the end result—what happens when you look online—and retraces how each couple’s “love story” began. The spots open with the question, “How did it all start?” and conclude with, “It starts with a look. At Match.com.”
“‘Rewind’ ties into our current campaign but brings it to the next level,” said Cameron. “The campaign is designed to show that the couple who met on Match are just like any other couple; they just met online.”
The campaign also highlights a new function on Match, “MatchMyFriends,” which enables friends (or relatives) to fill out a profile for someone, write a testimonial, upload images and even pay for the person. Cameron explained that a letter is then sent to the person to approve before anything is posted.
The campaign, via Hanft, Raboy & Partners, New York, features TV, radio, print and online. The print ads break in the Dec. 31 double issue of People that hits retail stands today. TV, radio and online ads launch Dec. 26.
TV spots will appear on networks, primarily ABC and NBC during Match’s busy season—now through Valentine’s Day. ABC programs include Desperate Housewives, Brothers and Sisters and Grey’s Anatomy. “We are also partnering with abc.com [to run ads] before Grey’s Anatomy,” said Cameron.
The ads will also appear on cable and in syndication throughout the campaign’s run.
Match.com, Dallas, which was founded in 1995, is the largest online dating site with 15 million members. Cameron says the membership is evenly split among men and women and is fairly split between all demographic groups.
Match spent $92 million in media in 2006, and $145 million between January and October 2007, per Nielsen Monitor-Plus for broadcast, print and outdoor, and Nielsen Online and AdRelevance for online.
I watched the first episode of Millionaire Matchmaker and I have to say that even though I have set the Tivo to tape the whole series, I dunno if I am going to be able to stomach watching. The Yick Factor was VERY high.
I sorta liked last year’s Confessions of a Matchmaker. Patti Novak in Buffalo worked with average folks and did what she could to pair them up. I even sat next to Patti this last fall at a conference. She’s “just plain folks” herself. Doesn’t look like A&E has continued the show for another season. Maybe later.
But Millionaire Matchmaker—oooeee! These are not just plain folks at all.
Patti Stanger started The Millionaire’s Club in 2000. From the website: Patti realized that busy, upscale men simply didn’t have the time to go looking for a relationship, weren’t meeting the kind of women that they dreamed about, or were looking for a certain “type” that they couldn’t currently find. These men needed a service where they could be introduced to exceptionally beautiful women in a relaxing, discreet and confidential manner.
The Millionaire Club is based in Los Angeles, and it shows. Money money money— in exchange for looks looks looks. The guys? Puhleeze! On the first show, one of them made his money selling sex toys online, and the other was in his mid 40’s and wanted to date women in their 20’s. Even Patti thought the cradle robber was seriously deluded and told him so. Mr. Sex Toy had to be told to hide the sex toys in his office, but couldn’t be convinced to move the stripping pole there too.
Now, the Millionaire Club staff got together a bevy of gorgeous women for these two to look over—and amazingly enough, none of the ladies left when they found out about the source of Mr. Sex Toy’s money. They were all coiffed and made up to the 9’s, in teensy dresses that they hung out over on all edges, and were teetering around in high heels.
Both guys pick one for a date, both guys wanted to see the ladies again, and both ladies dropped out. Glad to see that the girls at lease had some taste. Mr. Sex Toy and date (Harvard educated, can you believe?) had a nice dinner in a restaurant, then HE TAKES HER BACK TO HIS PLACE AND DOES A DANCE ON THE POLE FOR HER. At least he kept his clothes on. Minus for her that it took her a couple of more dates to say “No thanks.”
Mr. Cradle Robber took his date out on what looked like a huge yacht with its own crew. Even though she said she’s see him again, she didn’t return his calls to set up the date. Bully for her.
I’d like to know what y’all think of these millionaire matching sites. Do they creep you out like they do me?
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.
You are probably too late to win this year, but you might get an invitation ...
Wanna Win a Wal-Mart Wedding?
Wal-Mart is giving seven lucky couples wedding packages worth more than $5,000, including rings, wedding cakes invitations and flowers and other related items.
The nuptials will take place in the lawn and garden sections of the couple’s local Wal-Mart Supercenters. The couples are to tie the knot in ceremonies all on July Seventh.
Here’s the New York Times’ take on “Confessions of a Matchmaker”:
Specialist in Tough (to) Love
By SUSAN STEWART
Published: June 16, 2007
Hype and hokiness aside, some reality shows are appealing because they seem real. Buffalo is the setting for “Confessions of a Matchmaker,” tonight on A&E. Nobody will confuse that town with Hollywood, Manhattan or the castle on “The Bachelor.” Establishing shots show us a gritty, snowy industrial city in the unforgiving north, with a heroine to match.
Patti Novak, who runs a dating service within spitting distance of Niagara Falls, is a fine representative of Buffalo and a fine character for the reality genre. She’s plainspoken but not rude, a classic dispenser of tough love. When Charlie, her first customer comes in, she sizes him up pretty quickly.
“You’ve made a choice between doughnuts and sex,” she says.
“Life takes its toll,” Charlie responds with a shrug. He’s a former Mr. Nude Universe, but those glory days are long gone. Charlie now weighs 346 pounds and was recently kicked out of an all-you-can-eat Chinese buffet. Still, there’s hope.
“I see sensitivity and a great pair of blue eyes,” Ms. Novak says. She takes him out for a test dinner and cringes as he slurps pasta: “For God’s sake, chew with your mouth closed.”
Charlie learns his lesson better than another client, Ashley. A cocktail waitress, she refuses to give up her fake tan and layers of makeup. “He might want to take you home and roll you over,” Ms. Novak tells her, “but I bet your bank account he won’t want to take you home to Mother.”
Some reality shows are predicated on cruelty, or at least a survival-of-the-fittest mentality. That “American Idol” seems increasingly to fit both those models may be why its ratings are slipping. Sometimes a little kindness is preferable to a freak show. Ms. Novak’s clients are not weird enough to be laughable or pathetic enough to pity. They are people with whom a lot of us could identify, at least on a bad day.
A very bad day, in the case of John. At 41, he says he has never had sex. He blames it partly on the economy. Ms. Novak tells him to get real.
“It’s not cute that you’re a virgin at age 41,” she says. “It’s a red flag the size of Texas.”
It takes John two dates to figure out his problem. (The viewer may guess it sooner.) Over a shared plate of appetizers, dawn breaks. At least Ms. Novak, who is watching, detects “chemistry.”
Ms. Novak’s criteria for success may be debatable. I know a lot of happily married couples who would probably fail her chemistry test, but her heart is in the right place. And heart, on a dating show, is what counts.
I don’t know about you, but I’m setting my Tivo to record this new show on A&E that I just heard about: “Confessions of a Matchmaker.” Read Kate Harding’s blog entry about it below:
TV Preview: Confessions of a Matchmaker
Written by Kate C. Harding
Published June 15, 2007
With the growing acceptability for finding love through online dating, personal ads, and many other forms of outside help, it is no surprise that a television show about a professional matchmaker would soon be in the works. Enter the A&E Network and their new show, Confessions of a Matchmaker.
The unscripted, half-hour series follows Patti Novak and her all-in-the-family-team in the wilds of Buffalo, New York as they set about finding perfect matches for their many clients. It is surprising, and more than a little encouraging, to see Novak making her matches not through cold and clinical computer programs (á la eHarmony), but by sitting down with each file and going with her years of tested experience and, believe it or not, her gut.
In the first episode we meet Charlie, a former Mr. Nude Universe who has deplorable and disgusting table manners, and Ashley, a barely-out-of-college woman who tans too much and wears inches of make-up. Novak ushers them through a harsh reality check (“That’s disgusting,” she admonishes Charlie at a mock dinner), pre-date advice, and reports from their respective dates.
The singles depicted are to be either congratulated or committed for their willingness to have their experiences taped, but these stories do make for interesting television - even if it is at times physically uncomfortable to watch. While witnessing Ashley drink her way through a disaster of a first date is cringe-worthy, seeing Charlie power-walk in the mall is both accessible and endearing.
Matchmaker Patti Novak
The crux of the show, though, is Novak’s candid honesty. She pulls no punches and spares no feelings. It is also what makes this quality reality television. She manages to walk the infinitely fine line between sincerity and cruelty. With such insights into her clients’ lives it is no wonder she has a fantastic track record as a matchmaker.
An engaging narrator, Patti Novak will worm her way quickly into the hearts of reality television fans everywhere. And for those of them who are single…well, they just might learn a thing or two.
Confessions of a Matchmaker premiers on Saturday, June 16th with back to back episodes at 10:00 and 10:30pm.
I just finished THE most interesting book I have read in a long time: “Self-Made Man” by Norah Vincent. The subtitle says it all: “One Woman’s Journey into Manhood and Back.”
Vincent mastered male disguise and surreptitiously made her way into one traditional males-only bastion after another, all the way from a men’s bowling league and strip joints to a Catholic monastery and a Rober Bly-style men’s group. And not once for each of these venues, but over and over and over again.
Both female and lesbian, Vincent was a double outsider in these all-male and mostly heterosexual groups. Her struggles to master male dress and behavior (and subsequent constant fear of discovery of her female-ness) and her constant surprises as her experiences of these men belied her expectations made for fascinating reading.
Interestingly, Vincent used Internet dating for her forays into heterosexual love (if you can call a lesbian masquerading as a man, trying to date women, as heterosexual love). The Internet part is rater incidental to Vincent’s main point that dating and love, which she thought would be the easiest for her as a man, were the hardest. You’ll have to read the book to find out why.
As a Romance Coach working with heterosexuals who are trying to meaningfully connect with each other, I found “Self-Made Man” a page-turner, and am almost ready to say it is a “must-read” for all my clients, female and male. Vincent’s attempts to span the gender gap, her struggles to fit in, and the realization that she never would, plus her guilt and discomfort with being in disguise and essentially fooling these often endearing men, made for riveting reading. I think this book can definitely help women understand men better, and interestingly, men have more understanding for women. Plus help both to gain an increased appreciation for the “unbridgeable gap” between the two. Five chocolate dipped strawberries!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I’ve found myself in a nasty quagmire a few times lately over
meanness. When I heard about the shows “Ugly Betty” and “The
Biggest Loser,” I couldn’t believe the shows’ titles. Whatever
the actual shows were about, those titles are MEAN. I decided
not to watch either just on principle. Not even to see what they
were about.
Around the same time, “Borat” hit the theaters around here. What
did “Borat” mean? No negative connotations that I could
determine, but the reviews both piqued my interest and turned me
off at the same time. I did have what I called a perverse
interest in seeing it, even though I was worried that I would
laugh and then be embarrassed that I had found something funny.
I couldn’t talk anyone into going with me. Drew doesn’t like
comedies. Meg wasn’t interested. But then we were all at a
party where several people raved about how much they had liked
it. Meg went without me, and then reported back that she hated
it and found it had “no redeeming social value at all.” Since
Meg has a finely tuned ethical barometer, I believed her. She
did say that the guy she went with laughed and that made her mad
—at him. Since the premise of “Borat” seems to be tricking
real people into acting like their real selves on film, no matter
how caddish they are, I am glad I did not go. Tricking people
and laughing at them is not something I find funny. No matter how
boorish they are.
Then, I slid into some very disturbing conversations with “The
Biggest Loser” fans who tried to convince me how great the show
was, how it was really educational (fat people would learn how to
eat and exercise by watching it), and how the
biggest loser was really a winner. Somehow, I couldn’t be
convinced. How could a show that played on the commonly
understood phrase “the biggest loser” (as in “He is the biggest
loser”) possibly be construed as a positive experience for people
struggling with weight? Which more and more people in this
country are doing every day.
Rather than break my pledge to myself not to add to the Nielson
ratings of “The Biggest Loser,” I Googled the show and found this
Entertainment Weekly review which put my
worst fears into words. Here are a few of them:
But there’s a loathsome, mock-the-fatty undertow to Biggest
Loser. Part of the ugliness comes courtesy of the editing. ....
Loser’s challenges are even more manipulative: Many of the stunts
have no goal but to ridicule - or punish - the contestants. One
can argue that forcing out-of-shape folks to climb to the top of
that L.A. building was a lesson in perseverance. But what’s the
point of making them squeeze in and out of car windows too small
for them? Or forcing them to build a tower of pastries using only
their mouths? Or compete for a bag of lard? (Thereby forcing a
nation to make an immediate, collective ‘‘tub of’’ reference.)
More Googling, this time on “Ugly Betty”, brought up the ABC
“Ugly Betty” website. The banner across the top reads: “Ugly is
in! Go to the ABC store to buy this T-shirt and get an Ugly
Betty ring free! ABC’s net proceeds to benefit Girls Inc.,
inspiring all girls to be strong, smart and bold.”
Then I go to girlsinc.com where I find the following:
BE UGLY ‘07
Girls Inc. is teaming up with ABC on the “BE UGLY ‘07” campaign.
The campaign encourages people to be real in a superficial world,
just like the title character of ABC’s hit show, Ugly Betty.
Girls Inc. kicked off the partnership at a luncheon event hosted
by ABC Entertainment and CosmoGIRL! magazine, where Girls Inc.
girls met the show’s star, America Ferrera. Congratulations to
America Ferrera and the Ugly Betty team on their recent Golden
Globe wins!
First off, the girls in the accompanying photo with “Ugly Betty”
start America Ferrera (what a name) did not particularly happy or
in on the joke. And Ferrera was by far the prettiest girl in the
picture. And co-host COSMOGIRL??? Go on over to that site.
No ugly girls there.
ABC has made a half-hearted attempt to defend the show name “Ugly
Betty” by starting a “movement” to reclaim ugly and make the term
a positive one. Like black folks reclaiming n****r and gay folks
reclaiming queer, faggot, and dyke. The difference that self-
serving ABC does not see is that n****r, queer, faggot and dyke
are only okay when used by the minority group with each other,
usually affectionately. Those terms have a far different
connotation when used by the non-minority group members. Ugly
has a long ways to go. Who would ever want to be called “ugly,”
whether or not the namer was ugly, too?
Even more ridiculous is that the “Ugly Betty” character is not
ugly! The actress who plays her is beautiful, and the “ugliness”
seems to be glasses, braces, and a bad fashion sense. She looks
like a gawky 13 year old girl who could easily become a real
beauty in just a few years. What about someone truly ugly? A
disfigured actress who looked it? Would that be so funny?
What about a reality series about people who were messy and
needed help getting organized? We could call it “The Dirtiest
****”! You name the minority. Lots would fit. They could get a
free house makeover. Why stop there? How about a free new house
to the dirtiest?
Segue to a story from the Netherlands:
Dutch shock at proposed dating show for ‘visibly disfigured’
The Netherlands, the country that has pioneered reality shows
like “Big Brother”, is planning a new first - a dating programme
for the visibly disfigured.
The broadcaster SBS 6 is seeking candidates for its “Love at
Second Sight” show due to be launched in February.
“Do you have a visible serious handicap and are you looking for a
partner?” says an appeal on its Web site.
“The programme is a platform for people with such problems to
share experiences and feelings in a positive way with the rest of
the Netherlands and to show that they are absolutely not
pitiful,” the broadcaster said.
“The main aim of the programme is to remove prejudice about these
people, to create more acceptance and respect and, of course, to
find the love of their lives.”
But the majority of Dutch viewers are turned off by the show that
was initially set to be called “Monster Love”.
A poll by the mass circulation De Telegraaf daily showed 85
percent do not like the idea, with only 9 percent in favour.
“MosterMonster Love”? Need I say more???
What to Buy for Your Single Friends Who Wish they Weren’t
Single (And Maybe for Yourself)
Holidays can be tough times for singles. You included. How
about thinking of your single friends (and you!) for some special
treatment this year? P. S. New Year’s is coming too, and what a
perfect time to resolve never to go through this time of year
alone again! Here are my best suggestions to help singles change
their status to coupled:
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Books
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When I was doing online dating back in 1998, I couldn’t find ANY
books that helped. I was on my own. Now, thank goodness, lots
of writing has come out. My “Top Ten” list is posted on my
website.
Here are three more books that I discovered this year and than I
have been recommending over and over:
“A Fine Romance” by Judith Sills. This is a fine, fine book.
The full title is ” A Fine Romance: The Passage from Meeting to
Marriage,” and Sills beautifully describes just that, the step-
by-step process from singlehood to being paired. Best of all,
Sills identifies “stuck points” along the way, common and
expected hitches in the process that can derail the best of couples.
And she tells you how to manage and move through the morass. A
“must read” for anyone contemplating looking for love.
“The Sociopath Next Door” by Martha Stout. Now, here’s a book
for the other, less optimistic side of love. We’ve all heard the
scary stories about cyberlove gone wrong. I’m skeptical about
the real frequency of fraud and deception, but the stories do
sell papers, so we get them. And I also believe it is just as
easy (if not easier) to meet a fraud, rapist or murderer in
church as it is on the Internet. If we read all the news, we
know that. But some folks are out to get us (Stout says 1 in 25
Americans feel no guilt), and it is in our own best interest to
be able to spot them before they do us in. Martha Stout
describes with chilling clarity the sociopathic personality and
how to recognize it. Be prepared to recognize folks that you
know, particularly politicians. Maybe even family members.
“Did You Spot the Gorilla?” By Richard Wiseman. I’ve been
enjoying Richard Wiseman’s books for a few years now. Wiseman
is a British psychologist and former magician who researches all
kinds of interesting phenomenon like ghosts, the paranormal and
luck. He’s got a new book out that’s a short, easy read, and
that should be mandatory for online daters: “Did You Spot the
Gorilla? How to Recognize Hidden Opportunities.” It’s
essentially a training manual for learning to see what’s under
your nose—and often missed. Unfortunately, “Gorilla” doesn’t
seem to be available in the U. S. A. yet, but you can buy it
through the U. K. division of Amazon. http://www.amazon.co.uk/
I didn’t know that it was possible to order books from Britain,
but Wiseman told me how to do so, and it works.
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Dating Sites
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If you have done any nosing around online, you know that there
are jillions of dating sites, and most come and go. Really,
unless you are part of a small minority and want to go where
others like you go too, then stick with the big sites that
everyone knows and lists on.
I ALWAYS suggest either Match.com or Yahoo! Personals or both. I
met my Sweetie Drew on Match.com, so I hold a special fondness
for Match. But I have come to appreciate Yahoo! Personals
equally. And Yahoo! Personals appreciates me, too: I write for
Yahoo! Personals online magazine. Here’s the first article of
Yahoo! Personals offers a gift certificate. Go to
Personals.Yahoo.com and scroll down to the bottom of the
page, third line from the bottom, second hyperlink from the right
will take you to the page to set up the gift. It’s $24.95 for a
month.
Now, if this is a GOOD friend—or yourself—I’d suggest the
real deal of 6 months on Yahoo! Personals for $74.95—that’s a
dirt cheap $12.49 per month. Or what I consider the First Class
Option, Yahoo! Personals Premier at $124.95 for six months (which
works out to $20.85 a month). If you would like to know why I
particularly recommend Yahoo! Premier, check out my blog entry
I’m not sure if you can give those longer subs to another person,
but you could offer to pay for your chum!
Match.com is slightly more expensive than Yahoo!—$24.99 for
one month, $14.99 if you sign up for six months. But I
discovered a deal that Match.com has running: If you sign up
for six months and follow their guidelines (very important that
you understand the rules and follow them), and have not met
someone special in that amount of time, Match.com will GIVE you
another six months. Who can pass on a deal like that? If you
find you need the next six months, then your costs are a measly
$7.49 per month. Find more info here.
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Profile Resources
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If you have looked around on dating sites, you know what a
profile is: Just about all the sites base their listings around a
personal essay of sorts, photos, and list of likes and dislikes.
Virtually every one of my clients has needed work to shape up
their online presentation. After all, it’s you 24 hour a day
billboard, and you hope that it finds you the very best partner
for life. It should be the best you can make.
I do profile reviews (looking over and critiquing what you
already have posted), rewrites (new essays), and complete work-
ups (starting from scratch). It’s a deal at $99 total. An even
better deal? Sign up for a basic coaching package (Four 1/2 hour
sessions) and get the $99 Profile Work up for free! Email me to
set up a profile review gift: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
The most important part by far? A great photo. Just about
everyone needs a better one, and I ALWAYS suggest using
LookBetterOnline.com My clients have had very good results and
just those new photos would get them much more attention. The
cost is a very reasonable $129 for twelve Internet ready colored
photos. A deal. If you use LookBetterOnline.com, let them know
I sent you. They know me and treat my folks well.
Here’s what a Romance Client wrote me recently about her
LookBetterOnline.com photos:
“Here are my new photos taken last Friday. I look spectacular!!.
The photographer took 96 shots and I had to only pick 12 OH MY
GOD!” The difference between the photo this woman had been
using and the new ones was astounding.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
While last summer’s “Hooking Up,” was not perfect, beside this summer’s offering of “How to Get the Guy” (and it also seems, Australia’s “Yasmin’s Getting Married”), “Hooking Up” could get an Oscar. I hadn’t even seen “How to Get the Guy” when I wrote about it here on June 13th but I was already sure it would be pretty awful, and it was. Very stagey, and the “coaches”??? From that show’s point of view, if you were married, attractive, and good on TV, you could be a dating coach. Forget about knowledge and experience. Yuck. Well, I was not the only one who thought this series was a very bad idea . ABC canceled the series before anybody got anyone. (By the way, if you were a fan, you can see the canceled shows on ABC’s website. Isn’t that a TREAT??!!)
I read a couple of weeks ago that in Australia, they were getting ready to air what sounded like an equally cheesy show called “Yasmin’s Getting Married,” where a single woman would pick a guy while planning her wedding and marry the poor sap. Well, now it seems that Australians have as much good sense as the American audience. After just one week (the showed aired every night), it was canceled. Still eight weeks before the supposed wedding. Well? Will Yasmin get married, really? Who knows?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
PS Wikipedia writes about everything. Even Yasmin. Well, almost everything. They don’t do “How to Get the Guy.” No big loss.
From a brand new posting on ContactMusic.com:
Newly single UMA THURMAN is so desperate to get back on the dating scene she’s considering joining a showbiz dating service. The statuesque KILL BILL beauty, who is twice-divorced and recently ended a two-year relationship with ANDRE BALAZS, insists it’s hard for celebrities to find love because potential suitors are put off by their fame. But Thurman is convinced she’s found the perfect remedy for showbiz singletons. She says, “Wouldn’t it be funny if there were a celebrity online dating service for all the lost and lonely, socially inept, dysfunctional celebrities… who don’t know how to meet anybody?”
My reaction:
Ugh! Desperate??? Uma’s just being smart! Online dating is now second only to friends and family as a preferred way for singles to find a sweetheart. And if Uma gets online, you can be sure that there will be many smartees that will follow her.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Do you remember where you were around the first of June 20 years
ago? While not etched in my memory as firmly as when JFK was
shot (I was in ninth grade gym class) or when the Twin Towers got
hit (I was watching “Good Morning America” and husband Drew was
in a plane heading for Washington, D. C.), I know that I was
single, trying yet again to figure out the dating scene, and
living on an island in Maine where the pickings were pretty slim.
Twenty years ago from this past June 5, Newsweek published it’s
famous/infamous cover story called “The Marriage Crunch: If
You’re a Single Woman, Here Are Your Chances of Getting Married,”
illustrated in a glaring red, white, and blue graph that look
like the ski jump the unfortunate guy crashed off in the old
“Wide World of Sports” intro. The story’s most memorable line,
branded into every woman’s memory to this day, was that a 40 year
old single woman was “more likely to get killed by a terrorist”
than to ever marry.
I had been reading Newsweek faithfully since high school, and
figured “If Newsweek says so, it must be true.” But GHADS! What
a horribly depressing message. While I wasn’t quite 40 yet and
had already been married once, this news felt like the marital
kiss of death.
Well, it has taken 20 years, but Newsweek has finally eaten it’s
words. The June 5, 2006 issue’s cover story re-looks at the
original article, and admits “Why we were wrong.” Seems like in
general, Newsweek was reporting on a study that used past models
to predict the future, and they were wrong. Read the whole
Here are three pieces of info I found most interesting:
1. At least 90% of Baby Boomers have married or will marry.
2. Fourteen single women were profiled in the first article 20
years ago. Newsweek went back and found 11 of the 14. Eight of
those 11 women had subsequently married, AND (drum roll please)
have had no divorces.
3. The infamous line about a 40 year old single woman “more
likely to get killed by a terrorist” than to marry was a throw-
away line that the editors thought was so clearly over the top
that everyone would get it was a joke. Well, we didn’t.
So if you are over 40 and still single, rejoice! Newsweek was
wrong, your odds of getting married if you want to are getting
better all the time, and the chances are you won’t get killed by
anyone, let alone a terrorist.
From Your Romance Coach , Kathryn Lord
I can’t believe a commercial I just saw on TV. It was one of those mushy ones of women looking for wedding dresses, then a shot of the bride and groom in front of their guests, when come to find out, it was the older woman getting married, rather than the young ones who were her daughters. “How nice, what a terrific twist on the wedding theme,” I thought, until the product being plugged came up: Depends. Adult diapers. Can you imagine? Using a wedding of an older couple to advertise diapers. Really. That’s a stretch. I wonder if she told him before the ceremony?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Well, you know when online dating and matchmaking has hit the mainstream when tv shows come out using them as themes. Last year, ABC did “Hooking Up” which was great fun (and painful) to watch and quite an education. I wrote about it many times on my blog when it was on—you’ll find the entries here.
This summer brings two offerings: “Lovespring International” on Lifetime and “How to Get the Guy” on ABC. We had such bad weather here last night (Alberto) that “How to” did not record, but I saw “Lovespring International” last week and this, and my goodness, it is a hoot.
“Lovespring International” is a comedy and meant to be so, in the same vein as HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm.” It is so tongue-in-cheek and sharp, I love it already. It’s hard to say who I like best, but when Tiffany the receptionist is on the screen, I am straining for her every whispered word. The psychologist character is too much. If you are in the mood to laugh at dating and matchmaking foibles, you’ve got to check this out.
I’ve already got a negative edge about “how to Get the Guy.” This purports to be a reality show, but the two folks that they call love coaches J D Roberto and Theresa Strasser seem to have much more media experience than coaching know-how.
Here’s what my reader Ben wrote me this morning:
I saw How to Get the Guy last night, and I thought
that it was pretty funny. As a reality show, it
seemed more fake and contrived than others (for
example, the cheesy voiceovers that the women give).
Also, I have my doubts about the “love coaches”.
However, the women and their situations appeared to be
real.
Anybody else want to chime in on these two offerings?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I was so lucky when I got the satellite dish TV system installed here in our new Tallahassee house. The special deal at the time included a DVD recorder, and I am hooked. I know, most of you probably have had this technology (like Tivo) for years, but it was all new to me.
I’ve got it set to record all kinds of things so that I always have something interesting to watch when I am in the mood. My big find this past week has been PBS’s ““Secrets of the Sexes. I watched the first two parts the other night. Wow! Fascinating.
So I did some Googling around about the series (one more left, which will be on next week), and found out that it is a British series that first aired last week. I went to the BBC site and Bull’s Eye! Lots of free info, AND tests that you can take that were the type of tests used by the sex researches who took part in the series.
If “Secrets of the Sexes” shows in your area, set your Tivo to record, or if you are behind even me in getting current with DVD recording, try to catch the shows when they air. If you are at all interested in the scientific reasoning on why people (men. women, and attraction) do what they do, you will get some great info.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
If you get the cable channel “W Network” (cable channel 34?), you
might want to check out a series they are playing called
“Manhattan Matchmaker.” I don’t get the channel, but the show
looks interesting. Click here for the program schedule.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
eHarmony has Neil Clark Warren. I don’t know if he designed eHarmony’s testing himself, but the site sure uses his Dr. status up front. Pepper Schwartz designed the matching tests for PerfectMatch.com. I’ve followed Pepper Schwartz’s work for years, ever since her landmark book “American Couples” in the late &0’s. And now Match.com has Helen Fisher.
Who’s Helen Fisher? She’s an anthropologist and researcher at Rutgers who wrote the terrific book “Why We Love” that I reviewed in my enewsletter *eMAIL to eMATE* some months ago. I’ll copy the review below for your enjoyment.
What’s Helen Fisher doing for Match.com? Looks like she has designed the matching test for Match’s new site Chemistry.com. Fisher takes the angle in the test that she took in “Why We Love,” using questions to ferret out your brain chemistry to help in the matches. You can read more about it in this Yahoo! interview of Fisher “C’mon, Baby, Light My Brain Cells.” Love that title.
And here’s another reason to read the article: At the very end is a test on how to determine how much testosterone you were exposed to before birth. You’ll be carrying around a measuring tape, and not to find out the length of what you are thinking….
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Here’s my review:
“Why We Love” by Helen Fisher
I’m always interested in what’s new on the romance and love front, and get my best leads from my eMAIL to eMATE readers and my romance coaching clients. Sure enough, “Why We Love” joins my “Recommended Reading for Romantics” list. Thanks for suggesting it, Doreen! This book is a goodie.
The author Helen Fisher does a terrific job of presenting the latest information on the biochemistry of emotions and love in a fascinating and readable style. Her own theorizing on falling in love, the facts that support and lead her ideas, and poetry, literature, and contemporary examples are woven seamlessly into a readable whole. Understandably, with my psychotherapy and now romance coaching clients, I’ve done a lot of thinking and talking about love and romance myself. And I’m pleased to see that Fisher’s thoughts and the research support and parallel my own theorizing.
Fisher thinks (and the research she quotes agrees) that romantic love has played a vital and important in human survival and development. “Normal” romantic passion lasts between one and two years, which, when you think about it, is just enough time for a new couple to get pregnant, set up housekeeping, and start raising a new infant - not necessarily in that order. Then a new kind of attachment develops, hopefully, that keeps the family together to raise the child. As we well know, that is not a foolproof arrangement.
Fisher’s booked is crammed with riveting detail about the physiology and biochemistry of love and attraction. Fisher also extrapolates from her data and gives advice on how to use the findings in real life. She writes about how to make romance last, how to negotiate the end of a relationship quicker and easier, and even how to encourage someone to fall in love with you as well as make yourself more receptive to the in-love state.
Some of what she says sounds terribly familiar - men like to do things together, women like to talk about it, for instance - but Fisher goes ahead and explains why. She also adds some brand-new, contemporary details, like the role of serotonin in the falling-in-love process, and how elevated levels of serotonin inhibit your ability to fall in love. For those of us (and there are millions!) who take anti-depressants that are SSRI’s (selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors, prozac is the best known), take heed. Your medications that are helping your feel better may be getting in the way romantically.
If you’ve wondered about romance and why men and women do what they do - and who hasn’t? - Fisher has a lot of the answers. And if you want to be “in love,” this book will explain the whole process. This is a “must read”!
Okay, y’all, what did you think of “Hooking Up” episode #2? I am already worrying about what I am going to do on Thursday nights when this series is over in three weeks.
Here are my thoughts on the July 21 show:
Cynthia was less caustic on her sexy dancing date with new date Nathan. The date did not disintegrate into the bickering we had seen before, thank goodness, and I didn’t notice her labeling it “another bad date.” She did focus a bit too much, I thought, about his being younger than her. But then she hops in the taxi at the end of the date and proceeds to set up a “booty call” (ie go off to have sex with someone else). Does that seem odd to anyone but me?
Lesson: Dancing lessons are a great date idea! So sexy, and any guy willing to put himself in that position disserves lots of points. And a more positive attitude in Cynthia pays off. But what’s this “booty call” business, and what does that have to say about looking for a mate?
Maryam—now here’s a sad story. The episode shows her with two first dates. In the first, she complains that the guy does not look like his picture. The show puts his profile picture up next to his current look, and while he looks as if he put on a few pounds (his cheeks are not as chiseled as in the photo), he does appear to be the same guy. Maryam is a professional photographer, and the guy has to go on and explain to her about lighting. His photo was clearly professional, and Maryam should have known that reality might not match the digital. Then in an aside, the guy complains about her photo and reality, saying something about her looking sexier or more sensual in the photo.
In date #1 with guy #2, Maryam asks him if people think he is gay. Then says “I feel like the man in this relationship.” And more on this line. These are very strange statements on a first date. Then she takes him home and they SLEEP together, though it is unclear if they have sex. This is very strange date behavior.
And did anyone besides me think that Maryam might have been drunk on both dates? While the camera did not trace her drinking at all, her behavior looked definitely impaired by some kind of substance.
Lessons: 1. Reality and the photo often do not match. Be prepared for that possibility. And don’t post a photo that would make you out to be a liar on the first date. 2. Watch alcohol and drug consumption carefully. All your senses need to be fully engaged so that you can do your part in helping the date go well and absorb the details of what you date is presenting you with.
Amy—oh Amy! Hot to trot with gambler Chris—and she has sex with him the first time at her sister’s house??? Then Sis doesn’t like him, Chris starts to get on Amy’s nerves (though it is unclear how), and she dumps him. Then on to next date David. By the third date with Dave, she says he’s not going to “get lucky” that night, but after the date, she complains that she doesn’t know him and “Maybe if I sleep with him I’ll get to know the real him.”
Lesson: Stay with what you know. Amy seems way out of her league. Her small town origins are showing, both in her push to get married soon (she says she is old by her home town standards to still be single) and her ability to protect herself. She seems like a sitting duck.
Kelly’s dates with guy #2 Chris go pretty swimmingly, it appears. She does worry that she has heard he is older than his stated age (not clear what that was, but under 40), and indeed he does come clean, saying he is 40. She lets it go, but Chris has lots on his side, including a very big boat that they go out on the first date and a Hummer that Kelly gets sort of tricked by Chris into washing. In a bikini.
Lesson: Don’t lie, not ever, unless your boat and car will get you forgiven, and think twice about it even then. And watch that caddish behavior, no matter how many toys you have. Kelly, don’t let the glitz distract you from his character, which is showing.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
If you are hooked on ABC’s “Hooking Up” or missed the first of five episodes that aired last Thursday, you’ll love the resource I just found: Jill Jones on RealityNewsOnline has written a character summary that will help you keep track of who is who, and then practically a frame by frame report of the first episode. Jill, like I did, gets frustrated with all the fast editing back and forth, so her show summary is all the more helpful for us all. And when you read the comments that my posting about the first show has generated, you’ll be glad that you have a reliable place to go to check what happened.
Jill makes a great point early in her first episode summary:
I had lunch recently at an Indian restaurant with a group of friends. While we were standing in line for the buffet, a woman who was eating Indian food for apparently the first time surveyed the buffet and then said to another diner, “I think I better look at the menu to see what else they serve.” Later on, I told my boyfriend that the same rules should apply to experiencing a new type of food and dating; don’t take one look at something (or someone) and dismiss it without trying it first. Immediately after making this comment, I thought of ABC’s new summer television program, Hooking Up. .... Just from their bios on the show’s web site, I get the feeling that many of these women have stood before the buffet, but left with an empty plate simply because of first impressions.
That reflects what I felt after the first show, too: These folks need to take a little TIME to get to know these perfectly nice other people. And unfortunately, Internet dating in its abundance encourages going on to the next person after the slightest error or insult. After all, Mr. or Ms. Next might be perfect, right? Wrong. No one is perfect. You included. Give your date a break and hope he/she gives you one, too. Unless you feel a clear-cut NO, try a second or third date before you say “Thanks, but no thanks.”
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
In another signal about how Internet dating has entered the mainstream, “Must Love Dogs” is a movie centered around cyberlove. Here’s the description from the movie’s webiste below:
Story:
Dating is never easy. Early in the search for love, people find the golden formula for meeting a soul mate is one part humiliation, two parts aggravation, and a little blind luck thrown in for the fortunate.
Today’s dating game is a blur of websites, speed lunches and hordes of friends and relatives who know just the wrong person for you.
Thirty-something pre-school teacher Sarah Nolan (DIANE LANE) has been divorced for eight months, which is much too long for her co-workers and family to bear. With the best of intentions and only her happiness in mind, Sarah’s sisters, Carol (ELIZABETH PERKINS) and Christine (ALI HILLIS), begin lining up less-than-savory potential suitors. Meanwhile, their widowed father, Bill (CHRISTOPHER PLUMMER), is way ahead of the curve, having already cornered the market on internet dates, including his new web squeeze, the free-spirited Dolly (STOCKARD CHANNING).
Eager to launch her sister’s cyber-dating debut, Carol pretends to be Sarah, goes online and puts her profile on perfectmatch.com, with the last line being “Must love dogs.”
Sarah soon endures a torrent of eager wannabes and one very possible maybe, the handsome and accomplished but surprisingly awkward web date Jake (JOHN CUSACK) as well as Bob (DERMOT MULRONEY), the newly-divorced dad of one of her students, a hot prospect who may prove too good to be true.
As she braves a series of hilariously disastrous mismatches and first dates, Sarah begins to trust her own instincts again and learns that, no matter what, it’s never a good idea to give up on love.
ABC has a reality series about Internet dating called “Hooking Up” starting July 14. We are everywhere. I do not think that I will wait for it to come out on CD. You’ll get a review.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
I wrote about Richard Roe (www.SeniorBachelor.com) earlier here (4/24, 4/29, and 4/29) and told that I discovered he and his son had made a movie about an earlier round-the-world trip they had taken together. (Roe was on “Oprah” on April 24, talking about looking for a woman for an around-the-world trip that he would finance.) The movie is called “Pop and Me” and I found it listed on Netflix and ordered it. Drew and I watched it last night, and here’s my promised report:
“Pop and Me” is quite a coup. Roe’s son Chris had not made a movie before, and when his Dad invited him to go on a six month trip around the world, Chris decided to film the experience. Dad Richard funded the venture and suggested adding the theme of interviewing father and son combinations. Chris thought the idea cheesy, but went along with it. That’s a good thing, because the interviews are so good that they save the movie.
If you like watching men share real and intense loving emotion, then this is the movie for you. Just about every one of the interviewed father/son combos are sweet and touching, some men using the film time to say words and feelings they might never otherwise. Almost every conversation brings participants and observers to genuine tears.
Beside these extraordinary interviews, Richard and Chris Roe seem rather shallow and self-absorbed. Chris is whiney and angry, Dad Richard alternately controlling and forlorn. The one scene with Richard that feels as rich and emotionally believable as the interviews is when Chris and Richard visit Richard’s father’s grave. Richard’s father was an alcoholic and institutionalized from age 44 until he died. Richard clearly dreaded the visit and just exploded with conflicting and overwhelming emotions at the grave site. Chris seemed embarrassed and hardly knew how to react, shuffling off to the side, and then awkwardly half-hugging his dad.
Both, especially Dad, love the camera and the attention, and the camera loves them both. Richard is a handsome man in his mid-fifties, clearly at a turning point in his life. Recently divorced after what he describes as a happy marriage (no telling what happened to bring about the divorce), Richard clings to his memories and connection to his three sons. He’s floundering, and using his life savings for this trip is an attempt to recapture a similar trip that the family made together when the children were young. Richard and Chris even visit some of the people they had spent time with on the previous trip years earlier.
As a movie about fathers and sons, “Pop and Me” works well and is a “should see” for men and women. Both will get a rare glimpse at the emotion possible in such relationships.
If you are at all interested in taking Richard Roe up on his offer of yet another world trip, this movie is not only a “should see,” it’s a “must see.” The film provides a close-up view of Richard that would be impossible to get otherwise, especially before even meeting him. But also, you’ll get a background of his trip-taking as well. It’s hard not to speculate that this next venture he proposes, of round-the-world with a willing female sweetheart this time, is yet another attempt to recapture what is long past. Frankly, it feels rather pathetic.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Here’s more of the relevancy of Malcolm Gladwell’s writing in"The Tipping Point”:
Gladwell writes about the Power of Context, how everyday signs of disorder like graffiti and subway fare-beating can help fuel crime, or how most people will lie, given the opportunity and context. That got me thinking about the Internet and online dating—of course! What else do I think about, right?
One of the biggest concerns online and what daters worry about most is lying. And the Internet provides just the conditions that make lying easy: You can be anonymous, create any persona that suits your fancy, and chances are good you’ll never be caught. Unless you form a relationship that leads to a meeting in real time and space.
A good part of the “fun” online is based on fantasy. Sometimes that’s clear, and sometimes it’s not. Role playing games on the net are very popular (that’s the total extent of my knowledge, right there). Most game-playing folks know when they are playing a role and have an awareness that everyone else is playing too.
On the XXX rated sites, it may be less clear that some of the “actors” involved are “playing a role.” The anonymity of the computer screen allows all kinds of fantasies to be projected and played out.
Years ago, I worked with a woman in therapy who earned her living talking hour after hour on the phone with men who fantasized and masturbated while she talked dirty. She had a wonderfully throaty and sexy voice and a terrific imagination that kept these guys going for hours, but I don’t think she could have been anything like the guys thought they were paying for. She weighed at least 500 pounds. That’s why she earned her money doing phone sex—she couldn’t do anything else that would earn her as much without having to go out of her house and be seen. Believe me, if she could have figured out anything else to do, she would have. That work took an enormous toll, and played a big part in her self-hate and self-destruction.
The point I am making is this: We all contribute to the whole that the Internet is. We can spray paint graffiti or jump the turnstiles or be deceptive about who we are or be rude, crude, or a cheat. Or we can contribute to “the greater whole” of the web by acting responsibly, by being kind and polite, by telling the truth and being willing to prove that we are who we say we are.
Keep the gaming on the sites where the fantasy is clear, but when you are looking for a life mate, act like you deserve a good one. Leave the pretending where it belongs, where everyone knows the rules and understands the fantasy.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
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