Life, Love and Online Dating

I’ve often heard friends (and strangers in online forums) complain that dating in a small town is almost impossible.  That makes sense in the abstract:  in a small town, there are fewer people, and you already know more of them.  On top of that, I suspect that people in small towns might be more inclined [...]

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As Mike pointed out, it is true that most of us form relationships with people we come in regular contact with.  That’s not just romantic relationships, but friendships and business relationships as well.  There are many reasons for this:  familiarity breeds comfort; often we’re in the same place as others on a regular basis because [...]

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In Mike’s recent post about online dating, he argued that advertising that you’re single and looking on an online dating site really wasn’t all that much different than advertising that you’re single and looking by getting dressed up and going out to a bar to “try and get noticed”.  I actually believe there are [...]

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I suppose it isn’t the most romantic story, telling your friends and family that you met your new spouse online because it was more convenient for you. But, I also think that it’s better than starting a collection of cats because you don’t want to be alone and meeting someone in person doesn’t seem [...]

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Many of the online dating sites offer incentives to get people to use their services. Just by logging in you can earn points (or coins). If you log in every day you’ll get placed higher in the search results. And some sites even allow you to pay more to get noticed. [...]

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You may recall that I’m not a big fan of online dating.  I did sign up for an online dating service once, about the same time that we started this blog, and with a lot of fortitude and chanting of “give it a chance…give it a chance…” under my breath, I was able to hold out [...]

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I don’t mean that you should know what you want in a partner or in a relationship; I definitely don’t advocate checklist-style mate-shopping.  No, the idea that it’s important to know what you’re after–something that should have been a no-brainer but that I hadn’t consciously considered before–came to me while I was reading Lori Gottleib’s [...]

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We don’t form relationships anymore: we shop for mates, or friends with benefits or one-night stands.  We scan for what we want, not even registering the prospects as human beings with their own hopes and desires and feelings unless they look like something we might want to toss in the cart.   Speed dating is mate-shopping [...]

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One of my favorite lines from Steven Wright, “I put instant coffee in the microwave and actually went back in time”.   I think it points out the absurdity of our own invention.  We live in a world where faster is better.  Who wants to wait five whole minutes for a pot of coffee to [...]

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I’ve seen websites offering DVD’s that explain how to become a “player” and other sites offering stories and tips on how to pick up women.   Isn’t this basically saying, “This is who you have to be to get this type of woman”?   If you have to learn skills and techniques and study what [...]

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