Archive for May, 2011

Is there anything worse than being on a date with a person whom you never want to see again?  Okay, aside from disease, starvation, and the WNBA, is there anything worse than being on a date with a person whom you never want to see again?  It’s miserable.  Your date is so annoying.

You think the date is going well at first, because dates always start out great.  You pick her up and you’re both smiling like idiots and she seems really interested in everything she has to say.  Then you worry that her sensibilities are too delicate for your tastes, but then she makes a joke and you think that everything is going to be okay.  But everything is not okay.  You slowly realize that you don’t like this person and the $50 lobster that you ordered will not be enjoyed with good company.

However, not all is lost.  Remember, you are never going to see this horrible person again.  Go ahead, tell her your deepest secrets.  Ask if she will pay for dinner.  Since most people don’t like confrontational situations, she probably will.  Now that lobster isn’t going to be so bad.  You are going to enjoy it for free with the knowledge that you can do whatever you want to in front of this person.  Tell her that you just got out of prison on appeal for murder.  Who cares.  When life hands you lemons, eat a lobster.

Alright, that’s enough, both sides stop it! Stop it right now before someone really gets hurt!

Guys – if you go out with a woman, and don’t want to see her again, then don’t make ANY indications that you are going to call her. Because when you do that, you lead her on, and that leads to the development of expectations and her eventually being let down.

Ladies – if you go out with a guy, and aren’t interested in going out with him again, then just say so.  Please don’t say that you want to go out on another date in order to “spare our feelings,” because we all know you really aren’t doing it for us.

You see all this game playing and posturing is nonsense! Utter nonsense!

How old are we?

At 27 I consider myself to be a “big boy,” and think I am quite capable of handling the rejection that results from being turned down by a woman for a date. However, when I do begin to lose my patience, and act like a baby, is when women tell me they had a great time and want to go out again but never return my calls or texts trying to make plans.

I am fully aware that on the other side of this, women experience the same frustrations when it comes to men saying, at the end of the night, that they’ll call them, but never do; which is why I am calling out both sexes in this piece.

So just stop it. Stop all the game playing and rhetoric because that leads to people being led on, which I promise you hurts them more than if you would have just nicely rejected them in the first place.

Dear Tamar,

I have been approached on 100hookup by much younger men and it confuses me.  I am widowed and, for me, the comfort of being with a widower makes wonderful sense so I’m sad to see that some of these men are this much younger than I and with a loss already.  There is someone that I feel a connection with at this time and I’m nervous that he neglected to see my age. Is this younger man/older woman (Ashton and Demi) becoming trendier?  I’m battling grey hairs and wrinkles!

Dear May-December Romance,

There is no way that age can be ignored on 100hookup, so believe me this guy knows EXACTLY how old you are and he likes it! Age is one of the first things people look at and next to location it’s probably the most utilized tool to separate your prospects.  It sounds like you’re a hot widow that looks young for her age and is doing a great job battling the gray hairs and wrinkles! Your youthful appeal is probably also emanating from the inside out, so enjoy the attention and be open to the possibility of falling in love with a younger man!

Diamonds should not be the symbol of love that they are today.  Aside from the fact that people die while mining, acquiring, and selling them, diamonds are dangerous.  They’re super hard, and can cut the skin easily.  Didn’t think of that, did you?  Since the only thing that can cut diamond is a larger diamond, you will keep having to buy larger diamonds to trump the smaller.

Besides, diamonds are still a bad idea.  I think that a symbol of love should be something which doesn’t cost so much money that it drains you of any money that you could have spent on health care, food, or clothes that your loved one desperately needs for life and hygiene. If you are okay with a malnourished, body-odor covered naked person, then it is okay to buy your loved one a diamond ring.

I think an equal token of love should be just that; a token.  Go to Chuck E. Cheese and buy a token.  Then, on your tenth anniversary, give her the token and tell her that because you don’t want people’s blood on your hands, this token represents your love.  She will leave you immediately.  You will have to rebuild your life until you are okay to date again.  You will eventually fall in love with someone.  When your tenth anniversary comes, be sure to give her a diamond necklace so she won’t leave you.

For those of us that are new to learning to become skilled at online dating, pulling off a successful date is a new and exciting feeling.  Making the transition from merely receiving a date, to receiving a date that is actually into us, is a big step.

But what happens when you want to extend the date back to your apartment or house because you are simply having a great time and want to keep it going?

This is a part of the date that many men forget to prepare for.  What you want to do is set up your apartment or house for the “after-date.”

What this means is you want to leave interesting things around, or have entertainment ready and prepared, so that when you return there won’t be the awkward moment of, “what are we going to do now?”

An example of preparing for the after date is to have a photo album around; invite your date up to show her pictures of your recent vacation.

This is just one of the many ways that you could extend the date flawlessly and keep the fun going as smoothly as possible.  But one thing is certain: Always prepare for the “after date.”  There is nothing worse than wanting to extend the date, only to bring your date back to an apartment full of nothing to do.

Look, I know I’m not exactly “Mr. Perfect” when it comes to dating, and I’m sure that during the course of a date I’ll say or imply something that might not be exactly right for the occasion, but I assure you it all comes from a good place. Additionally, I will freely admit that I am not someone who is particularly good at reading signals during a date, which has led me to interrupt much of how the night went based largely on how things end. However, in saying all of that, regardless of how I think a date went, at the end, no matter what, I am going to offer two things; 1) That I pay our bill and 2) That if she didn’t drive I either walk her home or give her a ride.

Call me old-fashioned but since most of my dates are at night I’m just not going to part ways with a woman until I know that she can get home safely. Since I always arrive at dates straight from work, and therefore have my car, there is no reason why I can’t extend the evening a few minutes in order to give my date a ride home. However, even though I originally began offering rides to my dates because it seemed like the gentlemanly thing to do it has caused an unexpected problem to arise.

You see, whenever I have what I consider to be a good date, and afterward I give her a ride home, the moment that I drop her off is always very awkward. The problem is that when you are sitting in a car there is really no good way for her to say goodnight that would give me an overt sign as to whether or not she wants to go out again. If we parted ways outside of the restaurant, or after walking her to her car, then I might be able to get a better feel for how she thought the evening went based on how we say goodbye.

Unfortunately, when I give a woman a ride home there is really no opportunity for any type of physical goodbye, such as a hug, which makes the moment the date ends an awkward one where we are both caught in goodnight limbo. Sure, she can still say that she had a nice time, but I’ve heard that from too many woman who have ended up declining my request for another date. Therefore, that goodbye is no longer enough to fill me with confidence. Ultimately the onerous is on me to pay more attention to the signs she gives me as to how things are going between us during the date since I know that if I give her a ride home, I may not get a good opportunity to judge things at the end.

The opposite of Halo Effect is “Beauty Bias.” The Beauty Bias is a term created by Stanford Law Professor Deborah Rhode to explain the phenomenon in America of why the less attractive you are, the less likely you are to be married and more likely to be poor, the more likely you are to receive a longer prison sentence, a lower damage award and a lower salary and poorer performance reviews. It’s the first part of the description “less likely you are to be married” that concerns me as the 100hookup expert.

Just as good looking people are incorrectly judged as automatically being good people, less attractive people are erroneously judged as being less desirable. We’re all guilty of it, regardless of how attractive we deem ourselves. If we believe someone is less attractive than us, we don’t give them a chance because we assume they don’t have any other qualities we would be interested in. It saddens me to see less attractive people getting rejected without a second glance by people who think they look too good. And, conversely, I give a little chuckle when a really good looking person who is lacking in personality is rejected by a less attractive but incredibly great person!

My hope is that a better understanding of the Halo Effect and the Beauty Bias will help people look past looks. I hope singles that are putting forth effort on 100hookup or at hookup singles and networking events or on shidduchs will also put forth the effort to get to know someone before passing judgment based on their attractiveness quotient. Of course, attraction is important, but attraction comes from many places, not just from outward appearances.

I challenge all singles to stop judging people based on their looks and to give people a chance whom you wouldn’t necessarily have previously considered.

The “Halo Effect” is a term coined by scientists to explain that when something looks good on the surface we tend to broaden the scope of that positive judgment to include other characteristics. The Halo Effect is incredibly prevalent in dating. It works like this: We see someone we’re attracted to and therefore believe them to be just as great on the inside as they are on the outside. Oftentimes, we subconsciously convince ourselves the other person must be an all-around great guy or gal simply because they have thick hair, shining eyes and a bright smile. Con-artists also tend to have those physical characteristics which is why they are successful at getting people to trust them. In the dating world, we call con-artists “players,” or people who know others are falling hard for them and don’t feel the same way yet still choose to play with their hearts and minds until they’re tired of the game and move on to the next victim. They know they can reel someone in and do so just for the fun of it. The Halo Effect in dating doesn’t always mean the guy or gal is a player; iit could be you’re then blindsided by their good looks and aren’t willing to admit to their faults.

Time and time again we pass judgment on people before getting to know them – whether good, bad or indifferent – and sometimes we get hurt in the time it takes to correct our initial opinion. Not all good looking people are jerks and not all average (or less than average) people are perfect citizens, we simply have to take the time to get to know someone and stop making snap judgments.

If you are looking to lose some weight, look no further.  If you have been packing on the carbs and saturated fat, all you need is an erosion of the mucous membrane caused in part by the corrosive action of the gastric juice.  In short, you need for your body to tear a hole in your stomach.  This is extremely painful, and makes eating even more painful.  Every mouthful of food will feel like you are eating the fire that engulfs Osama bin Laden. Soon, your appetite will be gone, and you will be able to shed roughly 15 pounds per week.  It happened to me, and it can happen to you, too!

A few weeks ago, I started experiencing weird sensations in my body.  I felt like I had a fever, I sweated profusely, and it was incredibly painful to eat.  After every bite, I experienced a tightening in my chest and a burning in my throat.  I looked up symptoms on my sister’s phone and convinced myself that I had an ulcer.  In the first week, I lost about ten pounds.  It turns out I didn’t have an ulcer, it was probably just acid in my body.  Though the pain is over, my smaller appetite remains.  I’m just not as excited about food anymore, which is amazing, because there was nothing more excitable to me than food just a month earlier.  I am losing roughly four to five pounds per week.

So, ask your doctor if you have an ulcer, and if not, ask how you can get one.  You won’t find this weight loss plan in any health publications because it is extremely unhealthy.  But who cares about health when you have abs! Abs!

As someone whowrites about online dating for a living, my brain seems forever connected to online dating ideas.  No matter where I look or turn I can’t seem to disconnect my life from what I write about so frequently.

And as I sit here staring at my dog, thinking how dogs are such female magnets, I ponder to myself, how can this be used to help our online dating lives?

Profile pictures.

Those familiar with my online dating advice know that one of the many goals to creating a successful photo gallery in the online dating world is to come up with pictures that will generate interest or spark conversation.  Well most women LOVE dogs.  If you have one, throw it up in your profile picture.  If a girl is a dog lover she will, without a doubt, throw a comment your way about a dog.

If there is one thing I have learned since getting one its that doglovers LOVE doglovers.  So, if you are one, use it to your advantage.  After all, they are supposed to be man’s best friend!