Online Dating Archives

Stigma-Smigma… Why STD Specific Dating Sites Are Really Popular

January 13, 2016January 22, 2024 by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

DATING can be difficult enough, but what about if you have a sexually transmitted infection?

Online dating has grown massively over the past few years and there’s a niche site to cater to pretty much every kinky fantasy under the sun.

But there’s a little-known sector that’s secretly thriving – dating sites for people with STDs.

Believe it or not the market is so popular that there’s tonnes of different sites out there. From STD Friends to Herpes Passions and HIV Mingle, there’s a whole host of websites for people with sexually transmitted infections looking for love.

Many have tongue-in-cheek taglines such as: “Stay positive! Find love, support and happiness” or “A seriously cool place to make friends with something in common”.

The most well-known of the sites is Positive Singles, which boasts that it’s the largest dating site and app for those with herpes, HPV, HIV, AIDs and Hepatitis.

It has the ease of Tinder, which is no doubt how it’s racked up more than 818,000 members across the world since its launch in 2001.

A recent survey revealed that most of it’s users are in their twenties and thirties.

Meanwhile, the site Date Positive lets users search for a partner according to which infection they have. Typically it’s free to join but members can pay to unlock advanced features.

Sexpert Brigitte Bard, founder of Sexual Health Revolution, Last Taboo and CEO of BioSure UK, said: “I believe websites which match people who are open about their STI status serve a really good purpose.

“They make people feel comfortable and safe when re-entering the dating scene. People I’ve spoken to say they provide hope for the future.

“For example, we must remember HIV is only three letters, not a sentence; so there is a whole life after diagnosis, even children.”

Unsurprisingly, the growth of STI-specific dating outlets goes hand-in-hand with the rising number of people getting diagnosed.

According to the American Sexual Health Association, more than half of all people will have an STD in their lifetime while the World Health Organisation says that roughly one million people catch an STI every day across the world.

In fact, herpes is one of the most common diseases in the world and it’s highly likely that you have it and don’t even realise.

A massive two thirds of the world’s population – more than 3.7billion people – under the age of 50 have herpes simplex virus type 1 (HSV-1).

The virus, also known as oral herpes, usually causes cold sores around the mouth.

But another 417 million people aged between 15 and 49 have the second type (HSV-2) which is best known as genital herpes.

And 90% of those who have the infection aren’t aware of it because it isn’t really screened for during general sexual health check-ups.

So it means you have to take it on yourself to make sure you get the all-clear.

Brigitte said: “If you think you have an STI, the most important thing is to get tested so you can get treated.

“This protects your own health and stops you passing the infection on to anyone else. The sooner treatment starts, the better the outcomes.

“You can get tested at any local sexual health clinic, some GP surgeries also offer testing services or alternatively if you can’t get to a clinic there are many self tests available now – but make sure they are CE marked so you know your result is accurate.”

If you’re still worried about your sexual health but don’t know who to talk to, here’s all of your most embarrassing questions answered.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

Have Something Uncomfortable to Share? Here is When

July 28, 2016January 22, 2024 by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE

After a long stint of online dating, Gemma Halliday had finally found the needle in the haystack she’d been looking for: an attractive, gainfully employed guy with “nothing weird or scary about him” — or so she thought.

“He seemed really nice,” the 31-year-old romance novelist from Los Gatos, California, says of her first phone call with the suitor. He even had “cereal-commercial cute” kids and a picture-perfect home. Halliday learned something else, too.

The man also had a wife — who was in a coma.

“At first I was a little shocked,” Halliday says. “It was very ‘Desperate Housewives.’ In the back of my mind it was like, ‘What happens if she wakes up?’ ”

When to drop the bomb

As strange as the news was, Halliday appreciated his honesty. “Had he waited to tell me, I would have felt he was hiding something,” she says.

Undeterred, she decided to meet the guy for a coffee date, but as it turned out, “the chemistry just wasn’t there,” she says.

But for other daters with secrets — a history of sexually transmitted diseases, a conviction for drunken driving, an obsession with “Star Trek” — the tell-and-then-kiss approach doesn’t necessarily work.

Take Tony Gilbert, 46, from Los Angeles. Throughout his 20s and 30s the body-care products salesman suffered from severe psoriasis, a red, scaly skin condition that covered 20 percent of his body. Besides the itching and discomfort, there was the painful matter of having to tell a date that things might look a little “unsightly” but that “it’s not contagious.”

Rather than share those details over an initial cup of coffee, “I got to know [the person] first, and if I thought we might get intimate, I would tell them,” says Gilbert, who is now married and completely psoriasis-free, thanks to medication he has been taking for five years.

Good decision, says Kimberly Flemke, a therapist on staff with the Philadelphia-based Council for Relationships, a nonprofit relationship-counseling group.

“If you have a big secret, you want to have that trust established first so you know that the person is going to honor your privacy,” she says. “You can’t do that in a new relationship because you don’t know the other person yet.”

How soon is too soon?

Besides, waiting to reveal a potential deal breaker such as herpes or $300,000 in credit-card debt is just good dating decorum, says syndicated sex columnist Dan Savage, author of “The Commitment: Love, Sex, Marriage, and My Family.”

“You don’t want someone to reveal too much at first because that itself is a deal breaker,” he says. “If somebody sits down on the first date and says, ‘I’m into spanking,’ even if you are into spanking, [too], you might react negatively to that.”

On the flip side, “withholding information like ‘I’m a cross-dresser’ till the wedding night” is bad form, he says. Once you’re seeing the person a few times a week and sleeping together, it’s time to come clean about any secrets that could affect the relationship.

Even then, Flemke says, there are no guarantees your secret will be met with open arms.

Jude Chosnyk, a 48-year-old technical writer from Seattle, can attest to this. Once she became sexually involved with her then-boyfriend, he revealed that he thought he was “a woman in a man’s body” and began wearing women’s underwear and stockings to bed.

“At first I thought it was a fantasy thing,” says Chosnyk, who didn’t mind a little role-playing. But then, “it kind of overtook the relationship, especially in the bedroom. It turned me off, and that’s why I broke up with him.”

Context is everything

When spilling the beans, giving your secret a bit of context can greatly help your case, Flemke says.

“Instead of dropping a bomb and watching the person sit there and absorb the information, say that if you didn’t see the relationship going somewhere, you wouldn’t have said anything,” she explains.

It’s perfectly acceptable to tell your partner you’re nervous about how your big reveal might impact the relationship, she adds. That way, your partner’s likely to have “a little more compassion and empathy.”

Caitlin Weaver, 29, is banking on this.

After breaking off her engagement to her fiancé and canceling the wedding earlier this year, Weaver, who runs a financial research institute in New York, started an anonymous blog about her newfound singledom.

“The idea was to chronicle my commitment to staying single for six months,” she says. “But the problem is that now I have started dating someone, and I’ve been blogging about him.”

Her solution? To stop blogging about her boyfriend (although she still blogs about other aspects of her life) and fess up that she did. “We weren’t serious when we started dating,” says Weaver, who has been with her beau a couple of months and hopes the back story — that she started her blog as a way to “process” how she feels about dating — will help soften the blow.

“I think the fact that I do want to tell him means that we’ve built up some trust,” she says. Now, “it’s just a question of if the blog is a big deal to him.”

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

Protecting from Dangerous Cyber Encounters

October 4, 2016January 22, 2024 by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

The UK’s National Crime Agency recently reported that sexual assault associated with online dating had increased by six-hundred percent. That’s a shocking statistic at odds with what has become an accepted way to meet people romantically. And while many individuals have had pleasant, or at least neutral experiences with online dating, those promoting the activity are often simultaneously selling it.

Mary Aiken sees herself as a bulwark against the commercialism of romantic encounters. Her aim is not to tear down technology that has widened our social circles marvelously, but merely to balance what she calls “the army of marketers” telling us that cyberspace is good. What is not good, says Aiken, or at least very different from normal behavior, is how quickly we disclose personal details online.

Called “hyper personal interaction,” it is well documented that people disclose personal details at double the rate the normally would when they are online. What results is a false sense of intimacy between two people, and while this feeling may aid the romantic connection promised by dating services, it can equally result in misunderstandings. And sometimes those misunderstandings occur over serious matters such as one person’s desire to become physically intimate.

Of the sexual assaults documented by Britain’s crime agency, “71 percent of these assaults took place on the first date and either in the home of the victim or the offender,” says Aiken. It is not the case that sex offenders have migrated en masse to online dating platforms. Instead, navigating new social rules introduced by the Internet is complicated. Though to be clear, sex without consent is a crime.

When a cyber encounter moves offline into the real world, there are four identities parties must navigate: two real identities and two cyber identities, i.e. avatars that present an idealized version of an individual often for the purpose of attracting a mate. Unfortunately, sex crimes that result from online dating are likely to be unreported, partly because victims fear their online exchanges will compromise their case. If anybody has been a victim of a sexual assault associated with online dating, however, it is essential to report it immediately.

Curated by Erbe
Original Article

Two Years Later My Tinder Date Finally Paid Off!

October 19, 2016January 22, 2024 by Lisa Lauretain LOVE

“I’m in finance.”

Oh, great, that’s a decent response to the ever common, “so, what do you do for work?” dating question. I was especially relieved at this response considering the fact that on my Tinder profile I specified, “no comics.” I had just broken up with a comic, the third of which I had dated, and I was, as they say, “over it.”

There’s a certain unmatched immaturity and weird competitiveness that comes from these special little beings, particularly when they’re paired up with a female comic such as myself. Now, don’t get me wrong, not all comics are assholes. But a great many of them are, and when they’re not, they’re often quite immature, or very sexist, or extremely egotistical, or unbearably cynical and insensitive, or terrible with their finances and in incredible amounts of debt, or just overall difficult to have any real conversations or sweet moments with. But again, they’re not all like that. Just the ones I’ve dated. And met. And heard about.

But it wasn’t just comics I was trying to avoid. I wanted someone far away from the entertainment industry as a whole, which can often be a challenge when dating in a place like Los Angeles, but here we were. Finance. Lucky me!

We were both really excited to meet, but I was working a day job in addition to an internship at a comedy theater in exchange for free classes. My schedule was slightly hectic and he and I lived a “far” distance from each other. (I was in the valley and he was in Hollywood, which in any other part of the country would be close, but in LA we might as well have been in different states) These circumstances meant that it would take awhile for us to set something up.

As time went by, he was seemingly more frustrated with the wait. His impatience was becoming quite clear, but he was cute and I was still serial dating at the time. We had sexted a couple of times and he seemed like he might be fun in that area of life. My policy at that point was to say yes to a date with anyone and everyone because at the very least I’d have a great story. So when someone got an attitude with me, I didn’t really care. I wasn’t looking for “Mr. or Ms. Right” at the time. I was looking for someone to have wild sex with, or at the very least give me something entertainingly bad to talk about later.

Eventually after a bit of whining and attitude, he told me he might be able to meet me during his lunch hour on a Monday. He worked from home but could pull himself away at around 1 if that was okay with me. Best part about it up until this point was the meeting place he chose: Target. There’s a Target in Hollywood with outdoor seating, in a sort of strip mall-type atmosphere. So that’s where we met. Not for lunch, just to meet. It was clear by this point that he wasn’t even intrigued enough to pay for a meal, or even go halfsies. Despite my policy of saying yes to everyone, I hadn’t had a super douchey date yet. Up until this point, that is.

I couldn’t really figure it out. He would sip on his green can of Monster energy drink while telling me things like, “you’d probably be a pretty good cam girl. You could make like…15 bucks an hour I bet.” He talked about his ex girlfriend a little more than most would consider to be polite on a first date. We also talked about my comedy a little bit. I told him I just received an email about the Last Comic Standing audition at the Hollywood Improv. I showed him the email because I was excited, and he said, “Oh, so, it’s probably like an open mic or something.” I explained that, no, this was an invite-only type of situation, to which he replied, “But probably a lot of people get invited, like thousands I’m sure, right? ‘Cause they have to have bad people to film at those things.”

I didn’t get it. Why was this guy being such a jerk, and why was he acting like every comic I’d ever dated? Was I wrong in thinking that the competitive asshole element would be removed if I dated someone outside of my chosen career path? Why was this guy starting to turn into the green monster that he drank before very my eyes?

I left the “date” feeling strange and almost defeated. What was it all for? I wasn’t even left with a good story. It was just…icky. I put it out of my brain for the most part but every now and then I would think about how odd it all was. About four months ago I deleted our message thread, which I had forgotten even existed, during a phone cleanse.

A few weeks ago I asked a neighbor if she had any good dog watchers/walkers that she could recommend. I was preparing for a trip and wanted to get a good person at a decent price so I was asking around. She texted me the contact numbers of three people and said they were all great. I went to contact the third one and realized…he was already in my phone! IT WAS HIM!!! The asshole “finance” guy was a dog walker?! No WAY!? I texted my neighbor to tell her and here’s how the conversation went:

Me: One of your dog walkers is a guy I went on a TERRIBLE tinder date with! I went to message him and he was already in my phone! Eep!

Neighbor: Wait whaaaaaaat!!! (Dog Walker’s Name)??? Lololol

Me: It’s funny too cause I saw him walking (Dog’s Name) once and was like, that looks like that (Dog Walker) guy, nah, no way, he said he was like a big shot finance guy. Can’t be (Dog Walker).

Neighbor: What?? Rly??? He is like an unemployed comedian.

Boom. And there you have it. The explanation. And a justification. It suddenly all made sense! The way he always came back with a snarky remark when I texted, “Tonight won’t work, I have a show.” The way he acted when I told him about my audition, and the way he acted in general. Everything finally added up! He was just another in a long line of asshole comics.

So the date wasn’t completely pointless. I guess I did get a pretty decent story out of it after all.

Even Though It Can Be Maddening, Why It’s Great to Be Dating

April 10, 2017January 22, 2024 by Kelley Lynnin DATING ADVICE, LOVE

It true, here is how it can be rewarding, fun, and even powerful.

One of the hardest things in life is starting over. It is true with anything, really. If you’re a writer, the hardest part of writing any piece, is formulating those first few words at the beginning. If you’re an artist, the hardest thing is looking at that blank easel or paper, and trying to narrow down your topic of inspiration. And if you are a female who finds herself single again – the absolute hardest thing, is starting over. Whether you are single by circumstance, due to a break up, or because you were widowed young – navigating the dating scene and modern dating sites can be extremely frustrating, maddening, and even downright depressing.

But please know that in addition to all of that, it can also be rewarding, fun, and even powerful. It’s true.

The Maddening Part

There are some real whack-jobs on these dating sites such as the guy on that one site who wanted to pay me to smell my feet and then clean my apartment or the other guy who had a fetish for watching fuller-figured women shove spaghetti in their mouths. You get the idea. And the ones who aren’t can be plain old-fashioned rude. Guys who stop all contact out of nowhere, otherwise known as “ghosting.” Guys who lie in their profiles and then for weeks, telling you they are single when in fact they are very much married. Guys who just want sex and aren’t very smooth about getting it. These characters are out there.

All I could think, at first, in having to deal with all these lunatics online who didn’t seem to be too worthy of my time, was: “Dammit. I wouldn’t have to do ANY of this, if my husband weren’t dead forever. Can I just have THAT LIFE BACK NOW PLEASE???” But the thing is, the answer on that Magic 8 Ball always comes back the same. “No.” So I have no choice but to begin again, and once I began to accept that, I could start to see the dating sites in a whole new light.

There are a lot of genuine, real, kind men out there. Men who are just like me, and who are just trying to navigate their way through the life they have right now, and find something or someone they connect with. So, while the rest of you fellow single people are out there navigating like I am, here are a few reasons why starting over with dating can be positive, freeing, and powerful. Read on:

YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU WANT:

I need and want different things. I require someone who has an empathetic heart. I need someone who makes me feel safe and protected. I need someone who is emotionally stable and healthy. I need for the person I’m with to understand that my late husband is a piece of me, forever. And that my love for him and his for me, is the very reason that I’m able to want and desire a great love again now. I need someone who is secure enough in themselves to understand that the heart expands, and that they are not in a contest. Each love you have is unique, because each person and each connection is unique. Being jealous of a love from the past is not something I will put up with, and not the kind of person I want in my life today.

YOU KNOW WHAT YOU WON’T PUT UP WITH:

In my earlier days, before I was fully grown emotionally, I would have put up with a lot more from a partner than I do today. Today, I will not accept racism or hatred, however veiled, of any kind. I will not date anyone who treats other people with disrespect or unkindness. A long time ago, a friend told me that if a man is rude or standoff-ish to their waiter/server on a first date, she considered that a sign of how he will treat HER in the future when he is in a bad mood or life isn’t going well, and she wouldn’t see him again. I have adopted this same principle. It’s a very clear and easy way to show a lot about someone’s character. How do they treat people in the service industry? It’s very telling. Lastly, if I sense any red flags at all, or if something just feels “off” with someone I just began dating, I’m going to go with my instincts and assume that something IS off. Every single time I have ignored my instincts, I have regretted it. That’s not going to happen again.

When you’re a little older, these are the types of things that you start to get better at. You have to get your heart broken open a few times too many, in order to be able to spot the ones that might not be truthful. And let me tell you, there is a lot of power and freedom in saying to someone: “No. I deserve better than what you have to give me.”

YOU DON’T TAKE EVERYTHING SO SERIOUSLY:

Remember back in high school, or even college years, where every little thing that happened to you in your personal life, was literally the end of the world? Where every break-up, every fight, every boy that didn’t return your feelings, sent you into a spin-cycle of depression and endless sobbing? When you are older, those things just don’t matter much anymore. They slide off your back a lot easier than before. Because you have lived. You have experienced life, and it isn’t always pretty. You know there are disappointments. You know that people can hurt you. When you know all this, and then it happens from some stranger on a dating site, it doesn’t sting quite as much.

Sure, its never awesome when somebody makes you feel bad or makes you feel unattractive or unwanted. But really, when you think about it, anyone who would go out of their way to make someone else feel bad, has a lot of issues going on within themselves. Most of the time, when someone treats you poorly, it has nothing to do with you and everything to do with them and all their unresolved issues. Once you know this, it’s much easier to just accept things for what they are and try not to read too much into them, or predict the future. A text exchange with someone on a dating site is just that – two people talking and attempting to get to know each other. Sometimes these conversations will go well. Other times they won’t. Sometimes they will go nowhere or be boring or you wont click or connect. Other times you think that you did connect, and then he stops contacting you.

There are a million different variables and reasons why some things just don’t work out. If you try not to take it all so seriously, and take the pressure off of yourself that you NEED TO MEET YOUR SOULMATE RIGHT NOW!!!! – the entire dating experience becomes not only more tolerable, but sort of fun. Think of it as meeting lots of potential new friends. There are quite a few guys on the sites that I didn’t connect with on a relationship level, but who have become good friends. The ones that went nowhere, they probably weren’t meant to. Keep trying, and don’t take any of it to heart.

YOU HAVE MORE CONFIDENCE:

There is beauty in wisdom. In strength. And there is beauty in living a life of struggle and surviving. These days, even though I will admit to still being insecure about my fuller figured body, I am also a lot more secure in my own beauty, and I know that a lot of that beauty comes from an inner-light. If you show confidence and joy and an ease within yourself, that is reflected, and others see it as beautiful. Its an attractive quality. That is why when you are in a relationship and really happy, it seems like other guys are hitting on you and flirting with you all the time. They ARE! Because you’re giving off this joy and this peace as you strut your fine ass down that street, they pick up on that, and they want to be around it.

ADMIRERS AND COMPLIMENTS:

It’s the same way on the dating sites. Your inner-glow shows up and makes an appearance in your profile pictures. Men pick up on this, and they want to be around you. I will admit also, it feels really nice to be told, even by total strangers on dating sites, that you are indeed attractive, that you have a great smile, pretty eyes, anything like that. We are all human, and we want to feel wanted and cared for, and it feels good when someone else recognizes things in us that maybe we didn’t even see .

When I first started dating again one of my biggest worries was that I was convinced that nobody would or could ever love me in the beautiful way that my husband did. And in a way, I was right. Nobody WILL love me the exact way that he did. But why would I want them to? Someone new will love me in their beautiful and unique way. Once I figured that out, the fears about it started to drift away, and I started to get more excited about the idea of “someone else.” And now I’m finding that although I will always miss my husband, it is exciting and fun to discover someone new that you begin to care about, and all the many ways in which they choose to show you love.

YOU ARE BRAVE

The big thing about getting out there again and diving into the dating scene, is that it’s actually quite brave. It takes a lot of courage and energy to literally “put yourself out there” in mind, heart, and soul – and take the chance of getting hurt or rejected. But after having my heart broken a few bazillion times, I have started to figure out that someone’s rejection of me simply means that they are not the person who will appreciate what I have to offer and who I am and what I have been through. So I don’t want them. Which means, technically, I’m the one rejecting them. See how I turned that around? All it takes is a bit of humor, and a little perspective.

It can feel really good, and really powerful, to be able to get into the world of dating. There are so many interesting people in this world, so many to choose from. Some are so totally wrong for who you are, and others are so totally right. Some might be right if the timing were different, and others might be right if you were more compatible. And then, there is that someone, that could be the exact right person, at the exact right time, and you never would have known that, had you not taken that chance.

Love is a beautiful thing, and love is always worth the risk.
Every single time.

“Behind the Swipe” with LOVE TV — The Story of 10 Tinder Dates in One Month

January 23, 2018January 22, 2024 by Rebecca Leibin DATING ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS

My name is Amor Yates and I’m the girl who went on ten Tinder dates in one month for a podcast. That’s my pitch. If you’re questioning my sanity right now then you’d be right.

Ten Tinder dates in a month is a huge undertaking even if you weren’t trying to produce a show. But I was trying to produce a show. So, I set myself a target goal: ten dates in one month, ten interviews, ten hours worth of audio. Easy, right? It seemed like enough material to make a compelling story, especially when online dating has become as ubiquitous as it is today.

I thought the show would write itself. I was wrong.

There were a few factors that I did not consider when I got the idea for “We met on Tinder.” I thought that once I had done the interviews, collected the tape that the hard part would be done. However, that wasn’t the case. It also wasn’t the case that I was entirely interested in documenting this dating digital age. I wish it were that easy.

Instead, I had a few hundred different motivations, but one in particular that was compelling me more than ever. So I had to make the show. There was no question that I had to make even when friends and family thought it was a weird concept. But I don’t want to ruin the story for you. Instead, I want to let you in on a few “We Met on Tinder” secrets.

I am teaming up with LOVE TV to showcase a behind-the-scenes of “We met on Tinder.” As I release the swipes on iTunes and anywhere you listen to podcasts, I’ll also be releasing articles discussing what happened behind each swipe. Swipe 1 has been released and is available to listen now. Enjoy the swipes.

9 Ways To Meet People Besides Scrolling Through Dating Apps

February 17, 2018January 22, 2024 by Ola Faletiin DATING ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS

Don’t let your phone do all the work.

Your fingers are sore from the constant swiping, your mind tired from constantly thinking of witty quips for your next dating profile. I hear you. I’ve been there — in fact, I’m there now.

The good news is that you can always take a hiatus. The better news is that you can still meet new people, sans screen.

Here are some ideas for how to meet people in real life.

Volunteer

The benefits of volunteering are limitless. I got my current full-time job through being a committed volunteer. I’ve made lots of friends volunteering. The same extends to finding a date.

While you shouldn’t volunteer just to meet a date (because gross), volunteering is a major way to expand your network. Lots of volunteer programs have mixers of volunteer appreciation nights – try going to one and seeing who catches your fancy after a few drinks.

Go to meetups

I’ve used meetup.com for poetry workshop groups and for practicing French conversations. It’s an excellent way to meet folks you’ve never met before.

Creating a profile is pretty straightforward, it’s mainly a matter of choosing what your interests are. This way, you’ll definitely meet folks you share a common line with. If nothing else,you’ll make new friends – especially if you go consistently

Partake in an artistic community

Are you a painter, writer, dancer, or musician? Or do you appreciate those art forms? When I say get involved in your town/city’s art scene, I don’t just mean going to the big museums; I mean going to open mics, local shows, small gallery openings, and community theater performances. I’ve gotten the chance to meet so many awesome creatives by simply going up to the performers later and telling them how great they were.

Most local art is reasonably priced, and because it’s so small, when you see the lead of Antigone the musical that wowed you, you can tell them in person (and slip your number if you’re feeling flirty).

Take classes

Learning is the thing I miss most about school. Luckily, there are plenty of adult learning opportunities.

Want to brush up on your college pottery? Or learn to make pots like Sam in “Ghost?” Look into a local class and meet other folks who want to expand their minds, too. You’ll always have a discussion topic – class!

Accept your friends’ party invites

Easier said than done. I am the #1 champion of calling it a night early because it’s 10:00pm on a Friday and sometimes, bed is just a nice place to be. But I’ve also forced myself to go out and ended the night with two new numbers in my phone. Go to your friends’ birthday parties, or random club meetings and expand your network. Most job opportunities (and romantic opportunities) tend to come from folks like acquaintances, or people who aren’t part of your immediate friend circle.

Eat out/go to bars alone

I know, I know – wild. More people do this than you would think. Try picking a bar that’s on the quieter side and sit at the bar, so you can at least chat up the bartender. I’ve done this before and had plenty of friendly, non-creepy conversation. Plus sitting alone makes you look confident, and confidence is way sexier than bona fide good looks. If you’re still nervous about it you can bring a good book as backup.

Join a book club

You’ve been telling yourself you want to read more for years. Just join a book club already! You can find one through a friend, or through websites like meetup. Nothing’s hotter than someone with a working brain. Ask your book club crush about their thoughts on Zadie Smith and go from there. This is much better than eyeing the book titles of strangers on the train and mentally appreciating their choices in literature – which I do a lot.

Don’t work from home all the time

While working from home can be a blessing, it’s not so great on the social side of things. You’re missing out on all the office gossip and potential for flings (which, on second thought, might be a for the best after all). Get out of your PJs and hit up your local cafe. Once you become a regular, you notice the other regulars too, including the handsome barista at the bar.

Go to the dog park

Few things are as joyous as playing with a pup in the park, while low-key scoping for potential dates. A guy with a dog obviously has a soul, so the dog park works pretty well as a vetting location!

See if you can borrow a friend’s dog for a tousle in the park. If they have a busy schedule, I doubt they’d resent their dog getting more outdoor time.

You can totally meet people without relying on a screen. It’s as simple as getting the hell out of your house. Easier said than done. But once you get going, watch your phone fill up with contacts.

If you’d like to read more like this, check out: “Behind the Swipe” with LOVE TV — The Story of 10 Tinder Dates in One Month, 7 Love Lessons I Learned from the Amazon Show “The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel”, and Is Your Dating Out Of This World? Here’s How to Find What Planet You Are

When Finding “The One” is Nothing More Than Just a Numbers Game

May 18, 2018January 22, 2024 by Nikki Yeagerin DATING ADVICE, LOVE, RELATIONSHIPS

When people want something (a job, a house, a change of scenery), the advice is always the same: “work hard and go get it.” But what about love?

When we want to find love, we’re told to follow an all together different approach: “wait and it will find you.”

In my experience, that’s a bunch of nonsense.

When I was in my early 20s I moved back to NYC after a year of working abroad. I found a reliable job doing something I loved and an apartment that I could afford. Everything was falling into place and I was ready for a relationship that matched where my life was; I wanted something serious. If you’re in the same boat, don’t forget to check out the LOVE TV membership.

I decided it was time to find “the one.”

So I started to look. By my calculations, there were about 8 million people in the city. Since raising kids outside of New York was a non-starter, I could keep my search local. Once I accounted for my gender preference (male), my native language (English) and my desired age range (20-30), I figured there couldn’t be more then 2, maybe 3 million men that fit the bill.

Those were numbers I could work with. After all, I was still pretty young.

To me, love is not serendipitous, it’s something we can seek out with intention. By meeting more men, I felt I could increase the odds of finding the right one for me. He was out there somewhere, I just had to comb through my options until I found him.

Everyone gets a number!

I started the easiest way possible, by giving out my phone number. Everyone who asked, regardless of my initial attraction level, would get a chance.

Walking into a bar was like stepping into Oprah’s shoes. Instead of giving out cars, I was giving out digits. “You get a number! And you get a number!” I remained as open minded as possible, unless someone reeked of out-right danger, they got a follow up.

Even with that, the process moved slowly. I felt as thought I’d put my resume up on a job recruitment site without a cover letter – sure, I was getting a lot of calls, but no one knew what I was really looking for.

So I flipped the script. Instead of me giving my number to men who asked, I started approaching men myself. If this was a numbers game, I figured I’d meet more people if the effort was coming from both sides. I also had more control over who I approached, which felt more targeted.

Because I was the one initiating the conversations, I’d choose locations I loved (the bookstore, a coffee shop, a museum during free nights) and strike up conversations with anyone I found even mildly appealing. I figured we already had something in common based on the location, so I was already a step ahead.

Online dating

A month or two later I’d been on a lot of dates, but the process felt inefficient. The men I met were nice, but they weren’t necessarily looking for something serious. So I started to explore online dating. I wanted to put my exact requirements out there so I could weed out anyone who wasn’t interested.

I found a website that was mostly text based, rather than just a profile picture with text boxes – Tinder wasn’t going to cut it for finding a soul mate. I’m a writer, and as a writer, I wanted to express myself and my relationship goals. To me, a well worded profile is more effective at introducing two people than a coffee date.

So I sat down and crafted a call for submissions, so to speak. Titled “Not a psycho killer or a scary stalker. Yay!!” I explained what I was looking for: someone who wanted to find their forever partner, who was passionate about what they did in life and would have patience with my long office hours (which I intended on keeping).

I didn’t put a picture. I didn’t describe my looks. This wasn’t about physical attraction, this was about finding my match.

After it went live, I refreshed my inbox to find at least a dozen replies. They just kept coming over the next day or so.

Anyone who wrote more than three sentences got an answer. Anyone who replied with several paragraphs got a date.

One of the first men I met was my age, which made him stand out considering everyone else was at least three years my senior. He had long black hair like Severus Snape and a face that made him look fifteen.

That being said, the date was perfect.

He took me on a historic tour of Chinatown pointing out underground gambling rings and discussing the history of human trafficking. Before meeting up, he’d googled me and read years of blog posts about my travels abroad, learning the things I cared most about. Then we wandered to one of the original pizzerias in NYC, his favorite when he ranked them for a college paper on the subject. He was odd and interesting and I spent the whole date laughing.

As the night was winding down, I asked him where he lived. The answer blew the whole date to bits. He still lived at home. For someone whose main identity revolved around independence, it was a no-go for me.

When we parted ways, he gave me a hug and asked to see me again. I politely let him know that that probably wouldn’t happen.

The next day I continued with the dates, but I found myself comparing other people to that first guy. I texted him despite the standing rejection that I’d issued.

Two weeks later, during a particularly emotional evening, I called him on a whim. He showed up 45 minutes later, the exact time it took to get from his parents house to my apartment.

And in that moment, I let the fate-driven part of love take over. I’d done my job, I searched the entire city for the right person. It turned out that person lived at home deep in Brooklyn, but despite that, he was better than anything I could have hoped for.

Since then he’s cut his Snape-like hair so the world can see his beautiful eyes and at nearly 30, his face looks just as boyish as it did ten years ago. He stands by me through all of my crazy whims and understands that “settled” often means “let’s take our newborn baby to Thailand just because.”

His weird fits mine in a way I never anticipated, and it only took about a thousand dates to find him.

The 4 Essential Photos You NEED on your Dating Apps

August 8, 2018January 22, 2024 by zfortadminin DATING ADVICE, RELATIONSHIPS

The Fab Four Of Online Dating Pics: Know Them. Love Them. Use Them.

In all my years of dating and coaching, I’ve developed many rules that have helped clients (and myself) sail the tumultuous waters of the online dating world. There’s one rule, however, that I believe so wholeheartedly and never deviate from (and has always found the highest success when in use). The rule? That you only need FOUR photos on any online dating platform or app. Just four. No More, no less. This holy quad showcases exactly who you are and shows the most important facets of you. Like many parts of dating, too much or too little can often hurt your case. But four pics? Four pics are just enough! So what are they? I lovingly call them: the Showstopper, The Wedding Party, The Politician and Dr. Interesting.

The Showstopper

This is the photo of you looking amazing, closely cropped (but not too close- mid-section to face preferred, nobody needs to see any pores) to showcase that beautiful mug of yours. This photo should be CURRENT, have you looking like yourself, in good lighting and if not smiling, at least seeming playful, mysterious or sexy. And if we’re being honest (as I hope we are!) this photo really does do most of the heavy lifting, and should be the photo of you that people see first. This can definitely be a selfie so you have control…but try to make it a subtle selfie. Nothing filtered, softened, duckface-y, blurry, or obviously taken from your friend’s futon. Actors, beware: while you’re made up and looking good in a headshot, NONE OF YOUR DATING APP PHOTOS SHOULD BE HEADSHOTS. Mmmkay? Thanks byeeee.

The Wedding Party

Another incredible asset that not many people use is the wedding photo! In these photos, you’re often looking great, all dressed up, having fun and being your badass self. And the best part? They are usually taken by someone who knows what they’re doing (aka a professional photographer!). That means that the angles are good, the lighting is on point and the photographer is super aware of what the subject is doing/how they’re looking. Often, this is the photo I say to use to showcase your body (a body shot- crucial!) but it isn’t necessary. Just don’t use a wedding photo that remotely suggest that YOU are getting married…as one might guess, that will backfire. Don’t have a wedding photo? A picture at a party with friends works, too!

The Politician

This is the photo that says, “hey, I have pals and people like me! See?” It can and often is your “body shot” to show people what your whole bod looks like. The Politician is the photo with a couple close pals, having brunch, hanging with your niece, etc.” Men generally have these photos but fall into a common mistake- having ALL politicians, Politician photo as Showstopper or having The Politician photo with too many people in it. While we want to know you’re social and fun, we also don’t want to have to pick you out of a lineup of 30. Keep it to 15 people or less, please; preferably just a few people who are the same attractiveness level, so as not to take attention away from you. Animal photos will also work for the Politician slot (an animal-friendly person is in my mind, just as good as a people-friendly one).

Dr. Interesting

So you’ve got a great close up, a fun flattering wedding photo and a photo with pals. Now, you need that niche photo: that photo showcasing something you love to do, a place you love to be, preferably performing an activity that is distinctly you! For example, if you like rock climbing, it could be you at a climbing gym or on a summit (also a very flattering body shot). Or, if you love to cook, how about a picture of you doing your thing in the kitchen, smiling ear-to-ear? Ideally, it’ll be easy to get these photos because you’ll actually be doing these things on the reg. Just don’t mislead with your Dr. Interesting: don’t put a hiking pic in if you hate to hike (and no matter how good your hair looks). As a note: Dr. Interesting can often be combined with others or be a form of the other photos. For example: if you are a nurse and you have a photo of yourself and two nurse friends, it does double duty!

Now get to snapping- and dating, people!