We never think of this level of micromanagement, so we’re glad that Marie Claire did with her five rules for your online dating handle. That’s the user name you have to create for yourself when you sign up.
What’s in a name? When you come to think of it, using a name that’s too creepy, sleazy, cheesy, or boring has blitzed your first impression before you’re even said “hello”! We’ve seen plenty of user handles that just scream “loser.”
For instance, putting your politics first: AynRandFan is a handle that will never get you a date. Even another Objectivist who loves Ayn Rand as much as you do is likely to want to think that there’ll be some other dimension to you besides just that. Ditto with fandom: BobaFett69 lets people know that you live in the science fiction world so much that you’re barely on Earth at all. Using your Myers-Briggs type indicator in your handle also lets people know that you’re shallow, naive, and are falling for the 21st century version of Astrology.
We could go on and on. There should be more guides like this.
We love us some recursion, so here’s some online dating advice about ignoring online dating advice. Which actually does make some good points about how the Internet is full of strangers who don’t know you, as opposed to your friends or relatives who are in a better position to know what works best for you.
But see, there’s a reason why we’re all talking about this: today’s society no longer makes it possible to have a wide circle of warm bodies around you. Our families are scattered satellite systems where everybody takes off on their own independent orbits. Nobody lives in the town they grew up in any more. It just isn’t possible to have Aunt Bea and Uncle Murray introduce you to the nice young girl they found for you at church.
The concept of “wing men” and “wing women” was born of this; friends who act like a social buffer between you and the dating world. It really does “take a village” to nurture a relationship. So that’s part of what the Internet is is a global village, a replacement. The web doesn’t know you, but it can try to think of advice for your individual situation. Now you have to decide whether to take our advice and don’t take our advice…
Now that psychiatry has become a garage science, it seems like it’s impossible to find somebody who’s in one mental piece and not taking any pills.
ADHD, bipolar, depression, panic disorder, mood disorders, autism, Asperger’s syndrome, and even schizophrenia all seem more common to encounter, and they’re all likely to be treated with medication and the individual continues to function in day-to-day life. Sometimes it seems like it’s impossible to find a completely together person; instead it’s a question of finding someone with a disorder compatible with your!
Here’s some tips for dating the disorder-affected as more and more modern psychiatry patients enter the dating pool:
Medications have side effects. Most medicines for depression and bipolar symptoms affect mood, attitude, and especially libido and sex drive. Just remember when your partner does something weird, it’s more likely to be their medications talking than anything else.
Take an active role in your partner’s treatment. As their romantic partner, you are in a unique position to observe their mental state in ways that they themselves cannot see and maybe their doctor can’t either. Be sure to weigh in on whether they might need to decrease dosage, switch to something with fewer side effects, or have closer monitoring of their condition. While you’re not the doctor, understand that the way pills are prescribed like candy these days and the high error rate of pharmacies make it a good idea to keep an eye on those bottles.
Learn what the disorder is about. As time goes by, you might notice signs that your partner’s situation is changing. You might especially be attuned to their drifting into cycles or patterns of behavior. For instance, if a manic-depressive is suddenly up for days with hyper energy, you know a crash is coming and you might want to check if they’re on their meds. Or if your depressive suddenly withdraws from the world into a dark room with the curtains drawn all day, that’s a warning sign of trouble.
Make some considerations in your activities. For instance, check that alcohol doesn’t have a bad interaction with their meds before planning that night out on the town. Someone with panic disorder might not like the roller coasters at the amusement park as much as you do. An intense horror or thriller movie might be a bad idea for the schizophrenic.
Mental conditions, like any handicap, are more manageable today now than ever. But they change the game for the dating scene.
Posted in Relationships
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Tagged dating
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We’re falling all over ourselves with glee seeing Cracked take time out from its busy booger-joke schedule to blow away the top five dating myths. We’ll even go so far as to amplify them:
#5: Gamers. Actually, we’re still thinking the WoW fans are the pimply-faced virgins. Blizzard-heads just tend to be drawn that way, and Starcraft didn’t become the national pastime of South Korea for nothing. But anybody who thinks all video game players are lonely nerds forgets that video games have been with us since at least the 1970s, that casual web games now draw in even grandma, and that the simulator/ sandbox type games (The Sims, Roller Coaster Tycoon, Minecraft) draw a larger female audience than male.
#4: Online dating sites. Well, thank you for noticing, but yes, we do advocate online dating here. It’s just a reality for modern life; trying to date without technology now is like trying to get a job without computer skills.
#3: Men and emotions. This should be old news. We can forgive the first two stereotypes about computers since they’ve only been with us for 50 years now, but for heaven’s sake, men have been around much longer and women still can’t read them. If men don’t feel anything about relationships, how come they react to being dumped by punching holes in the wall, roaring off on their chopper, and spending the rest of their life crying into their beer in a bar every day?
#2: Feminism. Well, heck, hooray for strong, character-driven women! Yeah, we could use some other flavors of women besides decorative ornament and frumpy housefrau. Here again, what took everybody so long to get the news?
#1: Cohabitation does not equal compatibility. Well, uh, yes. It is true that shacking up first doesn’t guarantee that the marriage will last. Here’s the thing: when you live together, you play the fun side of living together: wild sex, going out to dinner, playing on the rug with the dog, dancing in your socks… When you get married, now it’s time to take all the non-fun stuff along with the fun stuff, like changing diapers, hanging wallpaper, catching each other’s colds, and picking hairs off the deodorant stick. If couples practiced more non-fun activities together during the shack-up stage, they’d get a much better picture of how they are going to do at sharing a life.
Posted in Dating
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Tagged Dating Myths
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So, ladies, there’s this guy you are interested in, and he’s never so much as glanced at you. In fact, he seems largely oblivious to everyone around him. Every day you try to get his attention at school, work, or around the neighborhood. How are you ever going to get started with him if he’s not even at “hello” yet?
1. Try different outfits. Maybe you’re sprucing up in your best clothes, trying to dazzle him with your fashion sense. But maybe he goes for tomboys? Maybe he likes casual, understated women? Try to mix it up. Remember it’s not what you wear on any given day – but changing your outfit every day will catch his attention because he sees you doing different things. It might penetrate his consciousness.
2. Get interested in what he’s interested in. Isn’t it funny how many women say they want an educated, intelligent man with something interesting to talk about, but hanged if you can get his nose out of the book long enough to find out? Take up some of his interests in order to get some common ground. Then you can talk about his favorite author, or the manga you see him drawing on his laptop at the coffee shop every day, or the breed of dog you see him walking in the park.
3. Be confident. Guess what? Men are drawn to confident women the same way women want confident men! So you could just boldly go right up to him and strike up a conversation. You might not make an impression on day one, but by day five it might penetrate his thick skull that there’s an opening here.
4. Know that your attention is welcome. If we had a penny for every time some lonely geek has complained “I never have any luck with women. They never seem to like me!” and meanwhile they’re surrounded by simmering gals every day who are racking their brains trying to figure out how to pierce his wall. In the 2000s, the electronic age seems to have made people fatally shy in person because they’re so used to texting. Go ahead, open your mouth, talk. We promise he won’t explode.
This newscast from BBC is alarming, to say the least. It seems there’s been a four-fold increase in online dating fraud – people who sign up for profiles on dating websites and flirt with male and female alike, only to scam them for money and leave them high and dry.
If you don’t want to share that story, here’s some tips on spotting and avoiding a dating fraud scammer. While none of these are hard-and-fast rules by themselves, several of them taken together form the dangerous pattern.
1. Be careful with dating across international borders. Fraudsters are confident hiding in another country while working you for money, because they figure they can’t get caught. Unfortunately, international policing of online fraud of any variety is still lagging far behind technology.
2. Your potential partner has broken English, while claiming to be a native speaker. They might be lying, and have poor English skills because they’re actually writing from South Africa.
3. Feeling like you’re being rushed into something. That’s a big, red warning light. You just contacted them and they address you as “my eternal love” already?
4. The photo looks “too good.” Just about anybody who is for real these days has either a professional portrait from a photography studio, a casual picture taken with friends, or the classic self-portrait in the mirror. None of them look like a spread in Maxim magazine. (and here we’ve been nagging people to upgrade their photo skills!)
5. They only have a post office box for an address or a phone number that never answers and never goes to voicemail.
6. Their life is a constant drama. This is a big one; they’ll be full of sob stories about how they got mugged, their daughter is in the hospital, they’re dying of lupus, they’re stranded, and so on. Here comes the money request! Be especially leary if they sound like they’re living in a soap opera.
7. Asking you for any money, period. Nobody should be using an online dating site as their only contact in case of emergency anyway.
Don’t let us stop you from trusting somebody if you really feel that they’re trust-worthy. But beware the warning signs. Along with 419 scams and other versions of online fraud, dating fraud is becoming big business in many third-world countries.
Another excellent article on the subject, showing the patterns of speech that fraudsters use.
Congratulations! You posted a profile that managed to attract some interest, somebody contacted you, and you’ve exchanged a message or two. How are things going to go from here? It’s up to the two of you, but on your end, here’s some mistakes for both men and women not to make.
#1. Calling/texting too much. – Of course, if they give you their offline contact info, you’re expected to use it. Sure, drop them a line or a voice message every now and then. But buzzing them 20 times per day screams “stalker!”
#2. Herding. – “Herding” is when you have several interesting someones that you keep up contact with, trying to bring them all along at once. It’s not a cattle ranch!
#3. Talk only about yourself. – Don’t worry, the other person will ask about you anyway. When you run right over whatever they were about to say with more stories about you, you send the message that you’re vain and self-centered.
#4. Not know when to drop it. – Everybody has their own speed. Some people want to get this over with in a few days, some people want to take their time and correspond for months, and some people seem like they’re less interested in getting a date and more interested in writing a book in email installments.
#5. Not communicate enough. – On the other hand, if you’re going to send an email, do try to make it more than one line. Same on the phone; try to stretch that vocabulary a bit. If you let the conversation lapse into embarrassed silence now, what will it be like to live with you?
#6. Stalk online. – By all means, you should double-check with a dating partner to be sure they’re not scamming you. However, there’s a line between checking up on your date, and hacking into mainframes the world over to dig up every moment of their lives from early childhood on. We know you’re good at Internet, but try not to unnerve people with it!
#7. Being bitter about your ex. – Obviously, you’re single or you wouldn’t be here. And yes, some of us are recycled singles. Now can you please drop the past and focus on the now?
It’s probably a side effect of the Internet age that we’re seeing, but its troublesome. More and more, we see people who are socially paralyzed. They can chat, text, instant message, email, and even make phone calls, but as soon as they get another human face in front of them, their brain shuts down. Men and women become meek little monks and nuns with an oath of silence. Then after they’re done with their missed connection, both of them rush to the Internet to cry that they’re too shy to make the first move, and ask how they can do better next time.
This article on shyness and dating gives some good advice, but we’d like to emphasize another point which we just don’t see being addressed these days. That point being, don’t be afraid to fail.
Because you’ll fail. You’ll have your intended date laugh in your face, dump a drink on your head, stalk away, and complain to everyone about what a creepy stalker you are. This will happen, male or female. Get it into your head that it’s a necessary risk you’re going to have to take, and then dive in anyway.
Perhaps we can start a new kind of social function: the rejection party. Everyone get together, pair off, and then practice role-playing, where one of you hits on the other, and the other one turns it down in the rottenest way they can imagine. Then you switch roles and it’s your turn to be the dumper. Doesn’t that sound like fun? Do it a few times, and you’ll realize that it doesn’t kill you.
Ladies and gentlemen, straight, bi, and gay, we’re going to give you the edgy gift of Dan Savage. His videos are NSFW (Not Safe For Work). He is not only a premier sex and relationship advice columnist (and a very hissy queen while he’s at it), but he is also the funniest commenter on same. Once again, warning that this is the most NSFW thing you could possibly click on here, Dan Savage’s YouTube channel.
We recommend Dan Savage for all single people interested in the dating scene. Why is this? Because he cuts through a lot of the tippy-toeing around that we all do. Because he’s bluntly to the point. Because he has written the newspaper column Savage Love for going on two decades now, and that’s a lot of experience to draw on. Because he has a refreshing perspective on all matters regarding relationships – for instance, gay or not, he’s a father. Because he has piercing insight into just about any category of the messy, spastic, random, and haphazard comedy we call “relationships.”
That is all.
In a car, brakes are there for a reason. It acts as a safety measure when going full throttle, so that you do not fall into an unforeseen abyss. Online dating, too, is somewhat similar. You need to take things slow, if you are to enter into a secure relationship or a long-lasting friendship, as the case maybe.
Firstly, all those who engage in online dating, should put in some time and effort to look for appropriate sites which meet most of their requirements, be it in terms of interest, orientation, religion or relationship status. Finding free online dating sites which are authentic and reliable will set a firm foundation for you to build a solid relationship on, at a later date.
When you do narrow down interested candidates to a selected few, it is always wise to put in some effort to establish good communication with each person, so that you can get to know them better. True, this may take time, but it is well worth it, in the long run. However, at the same time, it is recommended that you do not divulge too many personal details to strangers, at inception; as fraudsters generally prey on the more trusting.
Once such basic advice is adhered to, you are on your way to successful online dating. Because under these circumstances, taking things slow and steady generally paves the way to the heart of your potential soul mate.
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