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I just scanned a long report from Pew Internet & American Life Project which contained the following snippet specific to online daters:
From Pewresearch.com: Digital Footprints: Online Identity Management and Search in the Age of Transparency
9% of online adults say they have searched online for information about someone they are dating or in a relationship with. Perhaps due to safety concerns, online women tend to do their dating homework more than online men.
I frankly think that 9% is an underestimate, from what I have been hearing, especially from the ladies. Most routinely now Google prospective Internet generated dates. While the article really deals with managing online information about yourself, it’s worth a read. Regularly Googling yourself is just plain a good idea. And be ready to explain what comes up, even if some porn star has the same name as you. You’ll probably need to prove it somehow.
January’s almost over now, but there is still two weeks to catch the surge that occurs every year on dating sites after the winter holidays. Just like joining the gym to work off those holiday pounds, the six weeks or so between New Year’s and Valentine’s show a huge jump in the numbers of singles joining a dating site. January and February is the best possible time to get online to find love, and to cruise all the new faces. See the movement described in this article that appeared in the Seattle Times:
It’s hunting season… for love
By Tan Vinh
Seattle Times staff reporter
When it comes to finding love, even Cupid can’t spur singles to action faster than a New Year’s resolution.
January marks the busiest and most profitable month for online dating services, with singles going online in record numbers to find soul mates or dates for Valentine’s Day, many industry watchers say.
“You get this massive surge. People start to re-evaluate their lives. They don’t want to marry this person. Or they want to break up with their boyfriends. Or they haven’t had a date in a while. And they all set their New Year’s resolutions to find someone,” said Markus Frind, founder of plentyoffish.com in Vancouver, B.C., one of the largest dating sites in North America.
Plentyoffish.com, with 10,000 members in Washington state, projects a 30 percent spike in traffic from new and current members this month.
Perfectmatch.com in Bothell, the largest dating site based in Washington, expects a 15 percent jump.
“We have an annual poll that we do relative to New Year’s resolutions, and finding love is at the top of the list,” said Perfectmatch.com founder Duane Dahl, one of the pioneers of online dating.
Hitwise, which tracks Internet traffic, found that more singles visited dating sites in January 2006 than in any other month that year, mostly due to New Year’s resolutions.
As a result, many dating sites now start major advertising campaigns around New Year’s Eve.
For the online dating industry, this time of year is like a perfect storm, serving up the family holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas, then the going-out holidays, New Year Eve’s and Valentine’s Day.
“You have the November and December effect with family gatherings, and all those questions get asked — ‘Who are you dating? Are there wedding bells?’ “ said Mark Brooks, editor of onlinepersonalswatch.com, which tracks the online dating industry. “And New Year’s Eve, people want to go out with their other halves. And of course, you have that build up toward Valentine’s Day and you get the loneliness factor rising.”
The surge is similar to the gym phenomenon, where a record number of shorts-and-spandex-clad newbies will hit the treadmills and Pilates classes every January to fulfill their resolutions to lose weight.
Of course, as any gym rat knows, most of those resolution-inspired members will eventually fall to the lure of happy hour or return to their old after-work routines.
Same with online dating. Traffic starts to drop after the week of Valentine’s Day and faces a steep decline by summer, Brooks said.
Robert Glover, a Bellevue-based therapist and dating coach, explained: “By spring, you start to go outside. There are things to do. All of the sudden, you are not sitting at home on a holiday such as Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Valentine’s Day, thinking ‘I’m a loser.’ I strongly believe that the holidays bring out a person’s strong sense to feel connected to somebody. When the holidays come and go, it’s not on our minds as much.” Feeling lonely “might still be there, but not [with] quite the same intensity.”
Danell Long, a 37-year old single mother from Federal Way, didn’t find Mr. Right in 2007. But January, she said, marks a new beginning. With all the singles logging on this month, “That’s good news,” Long said. “Hopefully, the choices will be a lot better, because I’m tired of seeing the same old faces online.”
When I was researching the previous blog posting about the con man on Dr. Phil (“Faking it?”), I ran across this article on Phil’s site on how to spot a con man (or con woman). The tips are so good that I have reprinted them below. Every single ought to be well-verse in the attributes of a con:
Tips to Keep You Away From a Con Man
Con artists charm their way into a woman’s heart, lie to her, and too often, take her for all she’s worth. Candace Delong, former FBI Profiler and author, shares tips to keep you away from a con man.
Signs You’re Involved with a Con Artist:
* Pressure to get married.
Marriage is far too important in life to be rushed. Be wary of a wedding or proposal out of the blue. If a man makes you believe your marrying him is a matter of life or death — he’s up to something.
* Vague answers to questions about his past.
Always ask questions about your mate’s background or past. If he refuses to answer these questions, be suspicious. If he does answer the questions, and you wonder if he is telling you the truth, look up the information he gives you on the Internet.
* Questionable financial worth.
If a man brags about how much he is worth or claims to be broke because he is paying child support, that can be checked out also. Have him show you income tax records for several years before you merge finances. Always get proof if you aren’t sure. Also, be aware if he is always asking to borrow money.
* Lies about his age.
A man lying about his age is cause for concern. He may try to change the date because the real date of his birth is on a warrant for his arrest somewhere. If he claims that there was a mistake on his birth certificate, or his job made a mistake, he is lying. It’s illegal to change your birth date.
* Multiple social security numbers.
Having more than one social security number is illegal. If a man has more than one, he is using it to scam money or avoid the criminal justice system. If he claims to be a victim of identity theft, have him show you documentation.
What You Have and Do That Makes You Vulnerable to a Con:
* You have something worth getting.
These types of men are looking for a woman with something they can take. You don’t have to be wealthy or be an heiress to a huge fortune. If you have a job and a little bit of room on your credit card, this may attract him.
* Gullibility.
You have a willingness to believe anything the con artist is telling you. You may think you’re a good judge of character, but these guys are really slick. They start learning how to lie at age 3.
* Believing the grand gesture.
Willingness to interpret questionable behavior as love. For example, a man goes to a woman’s house when she is not there, gets her stuff and puts it in his place. This is not the loving gesture it might appear to be. For one thing, it’s theft. Secondly, it is meant to control her and get her in his world as soon as possible. Also, be wary if he proposes quickly in the relationship.
* Testing boundaries with money.
Usually, this occurs early in the relationship. For example, he may ask you out to dinner and when the check comes say, “Oh, honey, I left my wallet in the car.” Your response should be, “Oh, honey, I left mine at home.”
Was it just three years ago when I was writing here about the new tool for singles: Googling potential dates? Does new stuff more into the mainstream fast or what? Back then, Googling a date was very controversial. It felt invasive and prying. But now, it seems that folks take it for granted that they will Google and be Googled. See the article below for more.
Pew survey: Half of us have looked up people we know on Internet
Ellen Lee, Chronicle Staff Writer
Monday, December 17, 2007
About half of the online adult population has looked up themselves or someone else online, according to a survey released Sunday.
A good 36 percent said they have searched the Web for someone with whom they’ve lost touch, and 9 percent have dug up information on someone they were dating.
At the same time, 60 percent said they are not worried about how much information about them is on the Internet.
The findings, published by the Pew Internet & American Life Project, reflect how people are sharing more and more of their lives on the Internet, as well as how Web 2.0 sites such as YouTube, Flickr, Facebook and MySpace are encouraging users to post their home videos, photographs and personal profiles online, including data ranging from their favorite movies to their cell phone number.
The increasing amount of personal information online has drawn concern among privacy advocates, who worry about how it could be used and who controls it. Most recently, they decried a new Facebook advertising program that broadcasted its users’ online purchases and other online actions to their friends and network. In response, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg apologized and gave users the ability to permanently shut off the program.
But the Pew report suggested that most Internet users are not concerned about their personal information online. The study found that 61 percent have not felt compelled to limit it, while 38 percent have taken steps to control it.
Among adults who have a visible social-networking profile, 60 percent said that anyone who happens upon it can see it, and 38 percent said they restrict access to their friends, the report said.
“People aren’t being super cautious about what they’re doing or presenting online,” said Mary Madden, co-author of the report and a senior research specialist with Pew.
The report also found that 47 percent of Internet users have searched for themselves online, up from 22 percent in 2002. And 53 percent, mostly those under the age of 50, have looked up an acquaintance on the Web.
Women were slightly more likely than men to have researched someone they were dating or someone they were about to meet. More men than women, on the other hand, said they have looked up friends, someone from their past or a colleague or competitor.
In light of recent recommendations that job hunters not post photographs or personal information that could hurt their chances with employers, 11 percent said they have searched online for someone they were about to hire or work with.
Oooh, I hate seeing these scamming stories. I’d much rather post tales about happy couples, but alas, not all pairings are. Thank goodness, by far the most prominent are the successes, but there are folks out to get you, in all areas of life. In love, just as in every day, you need to keep your guard up and your brain engaged. This guy did not.
SA man ‘duped’ by internet dating, brother says
Fifty-six-year-old Desmond Gregor from Adelaide travelled to Mali last month to see a woman he met through the internet.
But after arriving, he was held for 12 days by people demanding a $100,000 ransom.
State and Federal Police worked with Mali national police to secure Mr Gregor’s release, by tricking the kidnappers into taking him to the Canadian embassy.
His brother, Phillip Gregor from Hoyleton, north of Adelaide, says Mr Gregor has learned his lesson.
“Definitely it was an internet romance, I guess you would call it, and certainly he was very taken by this and completely tunnel-visioned and couldn’t see the scam behind it,” he said.
“To him [it was] obviously very convincing but as soon as I had seen some of the material that was found at his place, anyone should have seen through it.”
Authorities in Mali want to question three men over Mr Gregor’s kidnap.
Mr Gregor is expected to arrive back home in Australia tomorrow.
Internet dating is MADE for people who like to write and are good at it. Never underestimate the seductive power of a well-written email. But if you can’t write well, or can’t close your editor’s eye when reading an email from a new suitor, you are in big trouble. While there seems to be no excuse for misspellings, it does seem that many do not know how to use a spell check. Or write right into those boxes on the dating sites, rather than off-line where you can use your word processor and polish away.
My clients find over and over that love can come in the most unexpected packages. Poor writing (or a spelling mistake or two) may mayn hid a sterling character. Try to hold your word snobbery (as well as other forms of snobbery) in check when you go looking for love.
Sentence Sensibility
By JAIMIE EPSTEIN
Published: July 8, 2007
I promise this is on topic, so please bear with me. . . . One day, as a cure for a broken heart, a heart that had only barely survived a head-on collision with another heart, a heart just out of intensive care, bruised and limping and still shying at the sound of any traffic, I decided to go online to find distraction in the arms of other, virtual men and maybe, as a bonus, a suitable replacement for the one no longer in my life, to meet someone the normal way, as opposed to the archaic, anachronistic, so 1970s way I had met HIM — I’d had my skis (nearly) charmed off me at 10,000 feet by my instructor, who was trying, with a dribble of luck but gallons of patience, to teach me how to jump turn on telemark skis. A broken heart, like the crack of dawn, can’t be fixed, said a wise friend, but I was hoping that the splint of male attention might at least encourage healing — and it would mean I’d have less time to waste obsessing over you-know-whom.
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I didn’t realize, however, what a huge boulder I would be rolling uphill — what with my being a “literary person,” a sometime editor of this column, someone whose ear is as tuned to the pitch of language as a cellist’s is to music — until the misplaced modifiers, dyslexic spellings and grievous abuses of syntax started pouring in. One seeker of a woman to call his own allowed that the last book he had read was “Atonement,” which was about to earn him a gold star, Ian McEwan having his own section on my bookshelves, except that he didn’t quit while he was ahead — he had to add that it was written by . . . Ian McGregor! O.K., no big deal, you say, they’re both Brits, it’s hard to keep all the Ians (or, um, Ewans!) straight, you know what/whom he meant and at least he reads something besides Gawker. Well, yeah, but couldn’t he have malapropriated a lesser writer’s name, one whose first and last aren’t tattooed on my forehead, one not sitting on a pedestal in front of my computer? Couldn’t he have checked his sources?
Speaking of mis-namers, I am sure the Spielbergs and the Kings of the world are used to the “Steven or Stephen?” flip of the spelling coin, and some of my closest friends have been known to lose one of my “i”s, but you’d think that a man trying to impress a woman would get her name right. Well, you would be wrong. After an intense flurry of e-mailing that involved the seductive vocabulary of maple farming — “splitting maul”! “peavey”! — and even more seductive pictures of said maple farmer, I decided that we had reached the point in our relationship where I really needed him to spell my name correctly, and I told him so in a gentle mama-bear-like way. Next thing I know I get a quick response: “oops, bad timing — I just started a new relationship”! O.K., maybe he did, or maybe he took offense at my comment about the grin of satisfaction slathered over his end-of-the-workday face in his latest photo attachment: “for all i know you’ve just put a family of four through a wood chipper!” (Dude, where’s your sense of humor? Did you not love “Fargo”?) But maybe he was one of those men who would sooner ask for directions than have their punctuation or grammar corrected. Can you spell “thin-barked”?
I know what you’re thinking: No wonder she’s single, no wonder she got dumped, who would want to feel those eyes/ears of judgment upon his every utterance? (Please include a RECENT photo and a list of the five things you can’t live without when you e-mail your diatribe to me at .) But just imagine what it’s like to be afflicted with an excess language-sensitivity gene. I mean, how would you feel if someone extolled your “skillful verbage”? Maybe he liked the way I threw my verbs around, but my nose picked up a whiff of “garbage.” And what about the onomatopoeticist who enjoyed the “slurshing sound of the waves”? “Slurshing” made me think “drink sloppily and quickly,” and combined with the motion of the water, the effect of his words was to produce welling seasickness, not the soothing rock and roll of the ocean crashing and uncrashing with romantic abandon along the shore of a secluded beach that he must have been aiming for.
Uh-oh, I just ended a sentence with a preposition! Hey, I know I fall far short of the lofty standards upheld by Strunk and White, Fowler, Bernstein and Garner. It’s not like, whoops, I mean as if (see!), I’m perfect, as if I have, after all these years, mastered the subtlety of who/whom, as if I never use “media” in the singular or accidentally type “their” when I mean “there,” as if I ever get the comma or not before “too” 100 percent right. I know people don’t proofread their myriad daily e-mail messages, and I have certainly been chagrined to discover, say, that I fired off “bike” when I meant “back,” but isn’t dating online like sending out your résumé, aren’t you trying to sell yourself to a potential employer (i.e., friend, lover, hand-to-hold-until-the-end-of-time)? When you write to a new someone, that someone who just might be the answer to your dreams (yeah, right), don’t you want to show him/her that you care, that you are paying attention?
Alas, there does not appear to be a 12-step program for usage addicts, but while pondering what to do about my little weakness, I recalled that my baby brother, while working on his Ph.D. in math, once mentioned an “encumber” in a letter to me (yes, a real letter — it was eons ago), referring to the green vegetable, sometimes peeled, sometimes not, that you slice into salads or turn into raita to accompany your Indian feast. His spelling, if that’s possible, has only devolved since (maybe that’s why he finds numbers so elegant), but I still love him as much as I always have. So, channeling sibling tolerance, I began to leap over stray commas and words-run-into-periods and managed to go out with a cool downtown daddy-o “tommorow” who has “distain” for organized religion. And guess what? I even enjoined myself! Unfortunately, I won’t be able to discuss the financial wizard who basically wanted to know whether I could squat his weight (160; I can) because his affliction would indeed be off topic.
Jaimie Epstein, a freelance writer in New York, is really rather low maintenance.
Reading between the lines and photos takes some experience. Here’s an article written for gay men, but that also has something to say for straights too.
OUT AND ONLINE: CRACKING THE CODE TO GAY PROFILES
By NICK BURNS
July 1, 2007—When I first discovered online dating, I felt like I had won the lottery. As a young gay man who grew up in a small conservative town, I found it hard to meet potential love interests by bumping into them at Barnes & Noble or waiting in line at the DMV. Online, there are tons of prospects-but the sheer quantity came with its own problems. How could I separate the guys I’d really like from those who weren’t my speed? Sure, there were photos and write-ups explaining who they were and what they were looking for, but I soon realized that these profiles didn’t always match the person once I met him face to face. Some guys would say they were looking for a long-term relationship when they were really out for no-strings-attached sex; others weren’t entirely out of the closet, which brought its own set of complications. These experiences made me wonder: Is there a way to check out someone’s profile and get to the truth of whether they’d be a great match? To find the answer, I consulted a dating expert for tips on reading between the lines. The advice below has helped me immensely, as I hope it’ll work for anyone else in search of the right man among many.
A picture is worth a thousand words…
Photos, of course, are an easy way to gauge how attracted you are to someone. But there are other messages you can glean from the kind of pics they post. Photos that are a little too good - he’s bare-chested, giving his most fetching glance at the camera, or wearing tight jeans that hint that he’s well-endowed - could indicate he’s out for some no-strings-attached fun rather than a relationship. Why? Because anyone who makes his sexuality his key selling point is probably more interested in what you have to offer in the bedroom versus out of it, says psychotherapist Joe Kort, author of the forthcoming book 10 Smart Things Gay Men Can Do To Find Real Love. And while posting a few photos indicates a desire to give viewers a sense of who a guy is, posting a plethora (like more than 10) could mean he loves the way he looks a little too much and is as vain as a peacock.
...And having no pics says even more
And what if a profile shows no photos at all or promises to email you one if you get in touch? It could mean he’s not out of the closet. “If someone doesn’t show photos or if he shows photos just of his body without his face, chances are he’s not comfortable with certain people knowing he’s gay,” says Kort. That doesn’t necessarily mean he’s ashamed of who he is; it might just mean that he’s worried that certain people in his life - relatives, coworkers - might react badly to the news. So before you initiate contact, make sure you’re fine using some discretion in your relationship.
Spot the scene queen…
Certain gay guys live to party and dance all night at clubs. Want to know who they are so you can join them-or steer clear and find a more mellow relationship? Look for ads that mention “keeping up with me” or “no drama!” More often than not, they are drama, so be prepared for one really intense time with them. Another dead giveaway? Hip spellings of certain words like “boi” for boy. Encounter a string of slang like “Hot boi ISO a VGL str8 acting guy 4 LTR or NSA fun,” and you don’t need your decoder ring to tell that this guy is probably a veteran online dater (how else would he know all that lingo?) who’s most likely trolling for a good time. If that’s your thing, go for it-but if your idea of a great date is dinner and a movie, don’t expect this “boi” to jump on board. (Incidentally, the shorthand above translates as “Hot boy in search of a very good-looking straight-acting guy for long-term relationship or no-strings-attached fun.”)
Know if he’s just up for a one-night stand…
When surfing profiles you’ll probably encounter the phrase “Fun and possible LTR” (LTR stands for long-term relationship). And while this might lead you to believe that this guy truly wants to settle down once he finds Mr. Right, don’t be fooled, says Kort: People who want “fun and possible LTR” are probably more into fun, less into the LTR. They merely want to avoid scaring away the more relationship-minded men who are attracted to their profile. Keep in mind, they may not be intentionally trying to deceive you, they may truly think they’re open to long-term commitment. But any emphasis on “fun” should be noted as a “caution ahead” signal by anyone whose priority is to settle down for the long haul.
…Or if he truly wants a relationship So how do you separate the guys who say they want a commitment from those who truly want one? For starters, there probably won’t be anything strongly sexual mentioned in their profile, says Kort. He may even go so far as to say “friends first, relationship later” to ward off the guys who are just looking for action. And since he’s probably not spending his days sleeping off last night’s outing, he’ll probably list lots of hobbies or activities he enjoys.
He also won’t give a laundry list of things he doesn’t want in a mate, like “no fats/fems” or “one-man gay pride parades need not apply.” This could indicate he’s burned out on dating, or that he’s just a negative person, or that he harbors a strict, fantasy-like image of who he wants to be with-three signs he’s probably not ready for the less-than-perfect reality of a relationship.
Nick Burns is a freelance writer and editor living in Brooklyn, New York.
I always like seeing some facts and figures come out about online dating. Here are a few from a new poll by Vizu Corporation for OKCupid.com. The numbers I found particularly interesting were in the last paragraph, which lists the factors that singles use to eliminate candidates. If you are chubby, smoke and have kids, your chances of making the cut are slim. One thing that is hard to judge by an oline profile is character, which I think is THE most important attribute in a potential mate. Maybe the chubby mom who smokes would be thebest risk of all. Who will know if you don’t give them the chance?
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
From New Opinion Poll Benchmarks the State of Online Dating
Of the 49 percent of survey respondents who claimed to have interacted with an online dating Web site, more than 20 percent were committed users, either by paying for a subscription or using a free service. Another 29 percent admit to at least browsing profiles, even if they don’t take that final step of signing up and making a connection. Those who do commit tend to stick around - 62 percent trying their luck for two months or longer.
Sixty-eight percent of respondents prefer services that provide personality questionnaires, analyze compatibility and offer matchmaking recommendations. And users want that service for free, too. Free sites are preferred over subscription services at a ratio of five-to-one.
Despite the reach of the now ten-plus-year-old industry, 72 percent still feel there is a social stigma to online dating. Yet that perception appears attached to those who are less involved in the experience. Once daters embrace the online path and actually meet their match, they become more comfortable. Nearly two-thirds will admit that, upon meeting their significant other online, they would tell the truth if asked about how they met.
Finally, the report shows online daters to be highly selective. Most (58 percent) rely primarily on photographs to quickly filter their field of prospective matches. Deal breakers that tend to cause prospects to be rejected include smoking (23 percent say no) and having children (32 percent aren’t interested). As for physical characteristics, 45 percent will reject someone because of his/her weight, and another 33 percent will disqualify those outside their age range.
While I opposed the move in Florida backed by True.com to push background checks by dating sites (see the piece I wrote about it for the Tallahassee Democrat here), I am a firm believer that singles need to be very cautious about who they decide to date. Here’s an article that gives some suggestions for how to check out your date ton to find if he or she is really who they say they are, or if they have some trash in their background that they haven’t told and you need to know:
Online dating aids uncover red flags
CEDAR RAPIDS - It’s a little warped, I know, I know, but my first thought when Linn County’s warrants list went online? It’s another source to check out the backgrounds of potential dates.
Surely, I’m not the only person who thought that.
In other words, dating is not just about checking out a guy’s backside, but also his
background.
How many of the Linn County warrants list’s first 24 hours of hits—a whopping 117,000 page views—were girlfriends, boyfriends or potential dates? Hmm?
``You’d be surprised by the people who are checking out someone they’re dating or thinking of marrying,’’ Linn County Sheriff Don Zeller said.
Employers also are using the site to check on employees, the sheriff said. I hadn’t thought of that. I figure I also can check out my son’s friends or their parents, just to be on the safe side before a party or overnight stay.
``It’s been an interesting little process,’’ Zeller said of the site’s many uses.
As a divorced mother, I not only have to be careful about whom I hang out with, but need to know as much as I can about any person I eventually might introduce to my son.
Maybe it’s my years of covering crime that have me thinking this way. Or perhaps it’s the horror stories I’ve heard about the children of single and divorced moms being victimized by the ``perfect’’ boyfriend. Either way, I’m going to research a guy for any obvious court-related red flags.
If you live in a small town where everybody knows everybody else, and you have friends in common with the potential date, a background check hardly seems necessary. However, if you meet a person who recently moved to town, or through an online dating service, digging is a good idea.
For the second year in a row, Illinois state Rep. John Bradley, D-Marion, introduced a bill, the Internet Disclosure and Safety Awareness Act, to require online dating sites in Illinois to disclose whether or not they perform background checks on members. A similar push was made in New Jersey.
Few sites do checks. And, their searches are only as good as the information members give them. Match.com doesn’t do member background checks, but offers tips for doing your own checking before a face-to-face meeting. Tips include running the potential date through http://www.ask.com or flat-out asking them to submit to a background check.
Whoa.
A lot of online sites offer more thorough checks of a person’s background for a fee. I haven’t gone that far. I stick to a few basic freebies.
I know a lot of ways to piece together basic information such as first and last names and age to find out a person’s full name, date of birth, basic criminal history and more. It can be tricky gathering basic information without sounding like a reporter or private investigator, but the effort is worth it.
Guy says he’s recently divorced? I head to http://www.iowacourtsonline.org
If the divorce was final within the last 15 years or so, it’ll be there. You also can check the same site for state criminal charges and civil cases, such as small claims, child support or orders of protection. Any cases with warrants won’t show up here.
In this way, my friend found a guy she had just started dating owed people money in small claims cases, and had a felony arson charge. The charge eventually was dropped, but he had some explaining to do. My friend never got that out of her mind. They broke up.
So far, none of the men I’ve met and checked out, either for dating or friendship, has been a debt-dodging/child-molesting/wife-beating psychotic.
But ya never know. So, I’m going to keep checking.
Web sites to help background checks
# http://www.ask.com
# http://www.iowacourtsonline.org
# http://www.iowasexoffender.com
# No divorce online? If you have a person’s address, you can do a reverse address search on http://www.411.com to see if the potential date is listed with a spouse.
# For federal court records—criminal, civil and bankruptcy—try PACER, Public Access to Court Electronic Records. Account set-up is necessary, and the charge is 8 cents a page.
# Want to know if a guy has moved around a lot? Type his name into http://www.zabasearch.com and you
can search one state or all 50 at a time. A list of addresses should pop up, sometimes with a birth month and year to help you figure out if you’re looking at the right person’s records.
I’m not quite sure what to think about the topic of this story below. On the one hand, what worse place can you look for love than in a prison?
On the other hand, at least you know where the guy or gal IS, and for the time being, you are physically safe. Some people for sure are attracted to the edginess and risk of dating a convicted criminal. A big step beyond the traditional bad boy or Hell’s Angel.
But you do know that these guys have plenty of time, and many of them are skilled manipulators, though not skilled enough to stay out of jail. And if they don’t have the skills, they have access to good teachers.
In Internet dating, it’s “Buyer beware.” For sure if you are thinking about looking for a Sweetheart behind bars.
Best. Kathryn Lord
Your Romance Coach
Prison Love
YouNewsTV™
Story Created: May 11, 2007
By Angelica Thornton
Video
PORTLAND, Ore. - Mike Andes looks like quite a catch.
His online personal ad shows him as a clean-cut, athletic man with a friendly face, a sense of humor and a love for the outdoors. Many women would consider him a serious prospect, based on his ad.
The problem is, Mike Andes is a convicted murderer. He’s in prison for killing a teen girl with a baseball bat and then burying her body in a wooded area near Longview, Washington.
Andes’ ad is just one of thousands placed by convicts looking for love online. Many of the ads feature lighthearted descriptions and photos of smiling men who are rapists, murderers or bank robbers.
Imprisoned convicts do not have Internet access, but family and friends outside of prison help them get their ads up and running on sites like writeprisoners.com.
And the love letters are flowing into the jailhouse.
Even notorious prisoners like serial killer Ted Bundy and “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez have hooked up and gotten married while serving time for heinous crimes.
Mary Elledge heads the Portland chapter of Parents of Murdered Children. She says she is stunned by the amount of match-making going on.
In 1986, Elledge’s son was beaten to death by three men who wanted some car titles he had in his possession. She says she recently found out one of the men convicted of his murder was looking for love online.
Elledge says she fears for the thousands of women writing to the incarcerated men, afraid they are turning a blind eye to their past crimes and the possible future dangers.
“This turns my stomach because I know what these guys are capable of doing,” Elledge says, holding a large stack of ads printed from Web sites that charge the prisoners between $40 and $70 for their ads.
She pauses and looks at one ad, saying the subject looks like an attractive man, but “you’d have no idea that he raped and tortured a 73-year-old woman.”
At the prisons, mail rooms are filling up with responses to the ads.
Randy Greer is in charge of making sure letters get to inmates on time before they become disruptive. He says that even though the men are in prison, corresponding with them does “open up certain doors.”
Corrections officials say these matchmaking Web sites do provide a positive service by keeping inmates connected to the outside world, but that they can also cause problems.
Corrections investigators know crafty convicts often prey on women. They start by sending very innocent letters, then they’ll ask for money, contraband, even help escaping.
In many cases, the prisoners are corresponding with several women at a time, hoping at least one will fall for it. They often do.
Sociologist Randy Blazak says “the letters written by inmates to women on the outside are often the most romantic things you ever heard in your life and that’s because they only exist in a sort of fantasy world.”
Blazak says there are several theories as to why women pursue prisoners. They may be attracted to “bad boys,” they’re lonely, or they lack self esteem. Or, they’re afraid of real commitment.
“In sort of more traditional relationships, the man kind of determines when he’s there and when he’s not,” Blazak says. “This is the opposite of that, so the woman can kind of be in control with the level of contact.
Mary Elledge’s group wants to shut the prison love Web sites down, saying the women writing in “are messing with dangerous, dangerous men.”
She’s also hoping lawmakers will look into legislation than would ban inmates from indirectly using the Internet.
But prison officials say that kind of law would be impossible to enforce.
Mail room organizer Greer says “you don’t control what’s talked about in a visitation session, you don’t control what’s being talked about on the phone, you can look at the mail, but what they’re asking isn’t illegal.”
So for now, Donald Cathey, who helped murder a couple during a home invasion and robbery, can keep searching for his soul mate, and Eric Smiley, who killed a police officers in Seattle, can continue to share his deepest thoughts with well-deserving women.
Thanks to the Internet, love has no bounds, not even prison walls.
Most prisoner dating Web sites do provide tips to protect the public. The president of writeaprisoner.com sent KATU a statement saying:
“Scams are much rarer than they seem. We currently host over 5,000 inmate ads. We receive about six complaints a year from members of the public who feel that they have been manipulated or misled by our members for financial gain… Any inmate found misusing our web site to defraud the public out of money will be permanently blacklisted from our site. We have a zero-tolerance policy for such behavior.”
Thinking about love is a lot different than experiencing the real thing. When you are thinking, you can fantasize, make all the details perfect.
It’s sort of like a rape fantasy: No sane woman or man wants to be raped. But many enjoy the fantasy of not having to take responsibility for sexuality. A fantasy rape allows you to do that, while having complete control of the messy details like who the rapist is and whether you will really get hurt.
Many people spend a good deal of time thinking and fantasizing about finding a Sweetheart and falling in love. Those fantasies are always better than reality. A real man or woman has a very hard time measuring up to a juicy creative fantasy.
Add the Internet, with its limited information (the printed word and maybe a very nice attractive photo or two), add a reasonably good writer, and you’ve got the recipe for real life disappointment.
“Getting to know you” has a tendency to disappoint. We fill in the gaps of what we don’t know, and usually we fill those gaps with what we want. Reality does not measure up.
And then, the not-so-nice realities mount up and the disappointment takes over.
Internet daters, like all romantics, need to recognize the power of fantasy and imagination. Both are great, but not real. People, wives and husbands are real people, not any more perfect than you are. And the fantasy—and resulting disappointment—that you have painted is yours.
Get grounded. Get real. Look around you at the real people who are roughly your age and see what they look like. See what you look like, too.
Assess what you are bringing to the table, and do not be unrealistic about what you can expect in exchange. Be charitable, and at least kind and polite to those who don’t meet your inflated expectation.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
The more educated and successful a man is, the more marketable he is for love. Just the opposite for women. Ergo, the complaint of women in their 30’s, 40’s and up: Where does a high-powered, successful woman find a date, let alone a mate?
It’s a real conundrum. More women are going to college and grad school now than men. Younger women are at least as concerned and focused on their career as men have traditionally been. Men have tradionally “married down,” paired with women who were younger, less educated and career-minded, and perhaps even lower on the social ladder. Women have tradionally done the opposite: “Married up” to older, more successful men. As women rise in education, success and finances, there is a dwindling pool of men who are more and better than they are.
Then you have the “I don’t want to ‘settle’” attitude, meaning “accept less than what I think I deserve.” And then you have an gigantic demand (highly qualified women) meeting an extremely limited pool of applicants (well-qualified guys, who may be wanting to do what guys have always done, marry down).
Women need to rethink what “settling” would be. What might fit the traditional model of “more than” for the women might be nice for a date, but not so good for the longer haul. What if both parnters were heavily career focused? Who does the important support functions that a marriage and family needs? And remember that careers don’t go on forever. But hopefully a mate will.
Qualities that work better in a mate than tall, dark, handsome, and more successful might be trustworthiness, dependability, and persevereness. What women—and men—might want in a date (handsome or beautiful, exciting, fun) might wear thin rather soon in a marriage.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Elline Lipkin wrote an interesting piece recently for Salon.com called “The Mating Game.” 35 and certainly entering the “Ticking Clock” time zone herself, she fled New York for Texas to save herself from becoming “a particular stereotype that I’d sworn never to become: the overanxious, time’s a-tickin’, neurotic single woman over 35 living in New York.” Instead, she found herself suddenly thrust into middle age, since marrying before 30 is not the unknown in Texas that it is in NYC.
So she hit the Net to try her luck, and found herself bombarded with men 10 to 15 years or more older, who suddenly “wanted it all” and were most concerned about the state of her womb and age of her eggs. These guys looked primarily for women under 35. Lipkin writes: “Now that they’d set the goal of getting married, they seemed more than a little surprised (bewildered, in fact) that this was one goal they couldn’t make happen by simply applying their will.” and “I didn’t disavow that someone 10 years older might have something in common with me, but when I met these men, it was rarely the case. Their grizzled hair (or what was left of it), paunchy bellies and lined faces placed them in a life stage that seemed distant from mine—still finding my way into a new career, longing to start down the path to family with someone also navigating the way for the first time.”
Certainly a huge complaint of women who are in the same age range as these over 40, 50 and 60 guys is that the men are looking for much yournger flesh than theres. Who knows, maybe they’ll find it—particularly if they have the assets (ie money) to pay for it. But most men are going to find that like Lipkin, most women 35 and under are looking for guys their own age. Read my earlier blog posting to see what eHarmony’s Neil Clark Warren has to say about the same subject.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
A man wanted for robbery and murder was spotted by an Internet dater who was looking at profiles on PlentyofFish.com. 26 year old Calvin Bennett had posted a profile and photo on PlentyofFish.com and had been contacting women while he traveled north from Arkansas, where he had committed the crime. “America’s Most Wanted” had shown Bennett’s photo on the show, and a viewer called the U. S. Marshall’s office to say she recognized him.
In a path worthy of a terrific movie, the Marshall’s office contacted the website owner, who was able to trace messages that Bennett has sent to various women, and locate him in Wisconsin, where he was staying with a woman he had met on PlentyofFish.com. The Marshall’s moved in and arrested Bennett.
Lessons:
1. You are not private on the Net. If you are a criminal, it is probably not a good idea to post you photo on an Internet dating site.
2. Murderers and robbers have the same access to online dating sites as everyone else.
3. Internet daters, beware. Your potential mate has the duty and obligation to prove who they are and that their intentions are positive. These people are strangers, and need to be treated as such until proved otherwise.
4. Do not invite someone you don’t know into your home.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Grrrr. A new size for women’s clothing, and it’s a subzero??? See the article below.
I passed on the cutest Christmasy jersey that I bought at Target to a friend of mine. The jersey was an extra large, so I thought it would be okay for me. I do like my clothes loose, but I figured even if it was more form fitting than I usually buy, that would be okay. When I got it home and tried it on, not only was it “form fitting” through the body, the sleeve fit like panty hose. When I offered it to my friend, she said “Oh, it’s cute. But kind of small for extra large, don’t you think?” Even extra larges are shrinking down in size.
I get lots of cataloges, but the ones that really get me riled have extra larges comparable to a size 14. The average American woman is a size 14. See in the article below.
Get real, marketers. There a lots of women size 14 and over buying clothes. And who would buy more if you made the cute stuff big enough.
And get real, guys. Slim, slender, and athletic (what just about every guy specifies) cuts out well over 50% of likely candidates. Probably more like 75%.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Subzero: Now it’s a size?
Experts worry it could cause eating disorders as some women try to shrink to fit into the fashions
By Melissa Dahl - Bee Staff Writer
Published 12:00 am PST Friday, November 17, 2006
Could subzero become the next status symbol for size-conscious women?
The ideal women’s size has been shrinking for years, and now more designers and retailers are introducing a less-than-zero size, sometimes called “subzero” or 00.
Designer Nicole Miller plans to introduce the size in next fall’s line, and last spring, Banana Republic started selling size 00 online.
The subzero sizes are intended for the naturally slender—women who find they are swimming in the waist of a size zero or 2. But some experts worry that the proliferation of such a tiny size could cause eating disorders as some women aspire to shrink to subzero.
As one character from the movie “The Devil Wears Prada” quips, “2 is the new 4 and zero is the new 2.”
Could subzero now be the new zero?
“They love the size zero,” Tony Paulson, clinical director for Summit Eating Disorders and Outreach Programs in Sacramento, says of some of the women he treats. “For some reason, that’s almost a badge of honor to them, to reach a size zero. Now they have another goal, to reach this sub-size zero.”
Take a minute to size up today’s reigning fashionistas (think Mischa Barton, Nicole Richie, Lindsay Lohan and Kate Bosworth) and one common trait is obvious: They’re all itty-bitty, even bordering on scary-thin. Today, models weigh about 23 percent less than the average woman, according to the Social Issues Research Centre.
“If those are the people that our young girls want to emulate, that is terrifying,” says Nichole Zidenberg, director of the teen clinic at Kaiser Permanente Medical Center, Roseville.
If this decade’s ideal body type is superskinny, a glance down the fashion timeline is a reminder that it wasn’t always this way.
• In the 1950s, a size 12 Marilyn Monroe wrote the body-type rules.
• The 1960s shifted to a shape more familiar to today’s runway—Twiggy’s long and lanky frame.
• Contestants in the Miss America pageant from 1960 to 1978 increasingly shrank, and winners of the pageant were consistently tinier than the other entrants, according to a 1980 study by psychologist David Garner.
• In the 1980s, the beauty ideal stayed slim, but also fit and toned.
• And in the 1990s, Pamela Anderson summed up the ideal: impossibly slender with impossibly large breasts.
“What happens is that the beauty ideal keeps on changing, and you have a lot of adolescent girls who are striving for that,” Paulson says. “Unfortunately, for most of the girls, it’s completely unrealistic; it’s impossible for them to reach these goals they’ve put out there.”
It’s impossible because most women just aren’t built that way. The average American woman is 5-foot-4, weighs about 155 pounds and wears size 14.
The average model?
She stands at 5-foot-9, weighs 110 pounds and wears a zero or a 2, according to the Social Issues Research Centre in Oxford, England.
“Why “double zero” scares me is I don’t want to see any more 00 models,” Zidenberg says. “The more that (are) out there, the more our young girls think that’s realistic.”
Of course, not all girls are starving themselves to subzero status. Those who are naturally tiny welcome the new lines of clothes because subzero sizes have been difficult to find.
At 5-foot-5 and 95 pounds, 15-year-old Julia Hethcoat and her sister Stephanie are grateful to find pants in tiny sizes such as 00.
“We really love it, ‘cause we need it,” says Julia, a sophomore at Capital Christian High School in Sacramento.
But body image remains a big issue for many women and teenage girls. Fourteen-year-old Jasmine Johnson often hears girls at her school complain about their weight.
“Everyone wants to be size zero, and I think that’s kind of stupid,” says Johnson, a freshman at Health Professions High School in Sacramento. Her classmate Robbie Ginther agrees, and he wonders if girls realize the skeletal look is something most guys aren’t into.
“I mean, I like girls that are thin, but not so much that their ribs are showing,” says Ginther, who’s 15 and a sophomore.
Zidenberg and Paulson tell the teen girls they treat that shrinking celebs such as Nicole Richie and Kate Bosworth aren’t normal—no matter if magazines insist they’re “just like us.” Zidenberg says constantly seeing such images can be very destructive to girls and women.
“If I see one more picture of Nicole Richie, I’ll scream,” Zidenberg says.
Zidenberg would rather have the perception of beauty be the “healthy at any size” image she tries to promote. And there is evidence the attitude in fashion may be heading that way, says fashion expert Sam Saboura, former host of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover” and author of “Sam Saboura’s Real Style: Style Secrets for Real Women with Real Bodies” (Clarkson Potter, $12.21, 192 pages).
During Madrid’s fashion week in September, Spanish officials banned severely underweight models from participating in the shows, blaming the super-thin models for helping spur eating disorders in young women.
And Dove, already running print ads featuring “real” women of all sizes, this fall launched a viral video ad campaign called “Evolution.” A YouTube favorite, the video shows a normal-looking young woman with limp hair and acne scars getting made up into a flawless supermodel, with the video sped up to show the entire process in a minute and 15 seconds.
It’s encouraging, Saboura says, but it’s not enough.
“I think what’s happening is it’s becoming in vogue to protest against all these things, but it’s really not catching on,” says Saboura.
“It really has to come from the top of the fashion industry, and I don’t think that we’re ever going to give up that lean, tall model look, because the clothes look best on those types of bodies,” Saboura says.
Still, health care providers hope for a positive change in the ideal women’s body type.
“I really hope so,” Paulson says, “ ‘cause my business would go away, and I would love that.”
Here’s a newer twist on the relatively new practice of Googling (see my posting on Googling below): an article in “Wired” posted 3/21/05 describes a new service offered by zoominfo that allows you to search your own name and get a summary of what’s available publically on the web under your name. Then—and here’s the good part—you can make changes for free. Zoominfo can’t erase what’s on the web or make it not come up in searches, but you may be able to influence the order that comes up in such a search.
I did my own name, and came up first of five listed. I clicked on my name and found a page of my personal summary that included a variety of places on the Net where my name appears, as well as articles I have written that are posted all over everywhere. Then I could click on a link “Is this your Web Summary? You can update ithere...” and be led through a series of steps to make any changes I’d like.
Just as it is a good idea to check your credit report for irregularities, running your name through zoominfo might be a precaution you’d like to add to your to-do calendar as well. As you may be Googling your prospective partners, they’ll likely be Googling you, too. You should know what the web says about you, for your own information, but also, just in case you may need to do some explaining.
Here’s a article I wrote awhile back about Googling—I’m posting it here because of a new resource I discovered this morning. I’ll write about it in the next blog entry, but this is background material:
Google: (GOO.gul) v. To use an Internet search engine such as Google.com to look for information related to a new or potential girlfriend or boyfriend.
Have you Googled yourself yet? Can anyone resist? If you haven’t had the pleasure, here’s how:
Go to Google.com, type your name in quotation marks, and see what comes up.
A lot depends on how common your name is (like John Smith). I tend to get references to nobility (that’s the Lord part), and the genealogy citations are many. But sure enough, there’s my house in Maine (I rent it during the summer from an Internet ad) and stained glass courses that my husband Drew and I have taught. When I add my middle initial B, then the references are pure cyber romance. Yea!
Drew’s name gets his scientific publications. If I had googled him when we were courting, I would not have made the embarrassing gaff of bragging about my publications (2). He had me beat hands down. But also, that google search would have added to his credibility, because he is cited over and over as a scientist and connected with the Army Corps of Engineers. I would have been reassured.
But what if other connections had come up? Somebody with my name is a personnel expert. Also, it sounds as if my name is common in England. Maybe there is worse, buried under my name in the Net.
Seems like it is a good idea to be aware of what comes up if your name is Googled, sort of like keeping track of your credit report. If something negative comes up under your name and it’s not you, you need to know that and be able to explain it to another. If it’s not so good and IS you, you need to know and explain that, too.
While visiting some of my older relatives recently, they were quite interested in being Googled. My favorite uncle, who has an unusual spelling of his last name, shares that spelling with a rather well known gay porn star. Or at least, we assume the gay porn star and my uncle are not the same guy. The porn star does sound like he has some rather amazing physical attributes.
That’s the kind of google citations associated with your name that it is good to know about!
There seems to be some embarrassment associated with Googling a prospective date or partner, but I can’t see why that would be so. Unless it appears being a little too interested, like “I can’t be bothered to check credentials, even though I have an easy way to do so. This person just doesn’t matter that much to me.” Why would you want to convey that message?
Especially if you are using the Internet for a mate search, it only makes good sense that you would use one of CyberSpace’s best tools to help you make a safe and secure match.
But it also points out the need to keep one’s cyber nose clean. It follows that if you are doing something that you wouldn’t want anyone to know that you are doing, maybe you shouldn’t be doing it.
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