Archive for June, 2011

Whatever Morgan Spurlock was feeling after about twenty days of nothing but McDonald’s® in the film, Super Size Me, I am feeling the exact opposite after my third day of only Subway®.  I have more energy.  I miraculously somehow have 20/20 vision.  I have the same sense of smell as a dog, the same amount of memory as an elephant, the adorableness of a kitten.

In reality, it has only been three days.  Not much feels that different.  However, my weight is coming off nicely, and hopefully by July 15, I will at least appear presentable for my open casting call for a date.  Either that or I will starve to death with a sub sandwich in my mouth and an unattainable dream of being skinny in my heart.  My craving for non-Subway® food is still bearable.  I am not yet sick of turkey, applicable vegetables, or honey mustard.

Next, I should pick a location for the event.  A restaurant, though cliché, would be a good venue as I will want non-Subway® food more desperately than I will want a girlfriend.  I should warn the Western world that I will probably pay little to no attention to my date during the commencement of the eating of the food.  Maybe I should call the date off and go by myself to a steakhouse.  Or I could take my talents to an all-you (I)-can-eat buffet.  Or I could take a tour of an ice cream factory or a slaughterhouse.  That is maybe a little too morbid.  The poor ice cream.

I believe though, that this date may be great because my main objective will be to fill my stomach.  Once that is satisfied, there will be no pressure or disappointment.  I think that this may turn out to be great.

Dear Tamar,

I’ve belonged to 100hookup for many years, but the format has definitely changed.  I am 75 and want to see men 75-79.  HOW DO I GO ABOUT THIS???

Dear New Profile Format Help!,

It always takes me time to get used to new formats. It took me months to stop noticing and getting annoyed by the new Facebook and Twitter formats so I’m sure it’s frustrating when your favorite dating website changes things on you. But don’t fret, I’m here to help! First, take some time to explore the new site. Play with different levers: change your preferences, fill out the Color Code personality quiz, use the Click!® and Flirt features, send messages, play Secret Admirer or answer the fun trivia questions and so on. You have a realistic age range, so then be flexible and tinker with the other categories. Most importantly, be patient while you adjust to the new format.

I’m going to apologize to all the smokers out there in advance.  I’m sorry ladies, I know you’re beautiful but…

I just absolutely hate females that smoke and I just don’t understand it.

For starters, women smell so beautiful naturally.  The natural scent of a woman, a woman that showers every day that is, is sexy, and seductive.  Smoking = making yourself smell like my Uncle Tony.

Secondly, it makes women taste like an ash tray.  I know that’s cliche, but its true.  Trust me, I used to eat ash trays as a child.  Is it any wonder I have such a crazy, or should I say, beautiful mind?

For me, smoking is a complete dealbreaker.  Nothing makes a girl go from completely attractive, to me having no interest, in a heartbeat.

So ladies, help me out.  Please don’t smoke.  And call me when you quit now that you have some extra money in your pocket.  I do like to be pampered. ;P

A few years ago, I took Jared Fogle’s lead, whom according to jewornotjew.com, has a ninety percent chance of actually being hookup, and decided to try to lose weight by eating nothing but Subway sandwiches and exercise (minus the exercise). It went okay, but after losing about twenty pounds, I somehow started gaining weight after I stopped eating Subway® subs and started eating steak. The steak diet’s patent is still pending, as there is no way that it can lead to any form of weight loss.

I eventually gained all of my weight back. Last night, I decided to re-try the Subway weight loss challenge. I am happy to report that I have not deviated from the diet yet have yet to lose any weight. This may partially be because the sandwich I ate today had bacon, avocado, roast beef, and ranch dressing. Perhaps the ingredients of the sandwich are more important than the fact that it is a sandwich. I suppose Jared Fogle didn’t lose weight by eating the Chicken Bacon Ranch sandwich.

Okay! So my diet starts tomorrow. I am still trying to figure out how to build a healthy sandwich out of beef, bacon, and guacamole. When this happens, revolution will materialize as people recognize the futility of lettuce. If I went the rest of my life without lettuce of any kind, I think my life would be full and happy. My first report on the progression of my new Subway®  diet will be posted on Thursday. If you would like to join me, and are a girl, I would definitely be open to that.

I have arbitrarily decided that July 15 will be the first day that I will eat food that is not a Subway® turkey sandwich. I have already created an event on Facebook inviting women to a date with a skinny me on that evening. People have started to RSVP, but I’m pretty sure they did it as a joke. I don’t think anybody realizes how not much of a joke it is. I would really like to go out on a date as a thin person. I would like to cordially extend this exclusively Facebook invitation to 100hookup. If you will be in Houston on July 15, I am completely open to dating you. Also, I am open to dating you on any other date ever.

The other day a female friend of mine who had recently joined 100hookup asked me to take a look at her profile in order to potentially identify any areas that she could change or improve. While I am far from an authority on what people should put in their profile I did agree to take a look at hers since I have a pretty good idea of what the average male is looking for when he reads through a woman’s profile. Unfortunately, the problem I encountered during this process was that I already think my friend is great and know pretty much everything about her, which ultimately caused me to read through her profile with rose colored glasses on.

However just because I wasn’t able to give a particularly helpful assessment of my friend’s profile doesn’t mean that having someone with a different perspective read over your profile isn’t a good idea. I honestly believe, whether it is a person of the opposite sex or not, that having someone who doesn’t know you, or at least doesn’t know you that well, look over your profile is a good idea because then they can make objective suggestions for how to improve it. In the end what you choose to include in your profile is 100% up to you, and no matter what anyone else suggests it is important you only include things in your profile that you are comfortable sharing and represent you in the best possible light.

Dear Tamar,

I live about a half hour outside of NYC.  It seems that every man on 100hookup lives in the city! Since I don’t drive in the city, it would cost me about $20 every time I want to go in for a date, and I find that most New Yorkers aren’t willing to come to New Jersey.  Is it worth the money to keep spending on traveling to first dates? Should I expect the man to make the trip to see me?  I’m a pure Jersey girl, and I think this is hurting me in finding a relationship.  How can I fight this distance barrier? Please help!

Dear Jersey Girl,

How much is the chance of meeting your Beshert worth? $20 each time can add up quickly, sure, especially when the first dates are duds. But eventually that $20 is going to lead to a serious relationship at which point the man will start driving out to Jersey on a regular basis. Is there somewhere you can suggest to meet in between or at least somewhere near where your train lets off so you don’t have to commute plus deal with NYC traffic? I know Jersey gets a bad rap (thank you Jersey Shore), but as a true Jersey girl try to reshape people’s views by being a class act about the commute.

What are you looking for when you’re perusing 100hookup? Looks? Age? Education?  Success? And how strict are you about those ideals? I’ll tell you that the more flexible you are about what’s important to you the faster and easier you’ll be impressed.

My friend Julie cares about where a guy went to college and how many years he graduated in and what he majored in. If I were a guy I wouldn’t meet Julie’s standards because it took me five years to graduate from UCLA and I majored in Women’s Studies. She admitted that she wouldn’t even have dated Steven Spielberg because he never did graduate from Long Beach State (okay, okay, he eventually received an honorary degree). At a certain point all these silly ideals need to disappear. I guess Julie isn’t desperate enough to meet someone yet because when you are truly ready to meet your Beshert you’ll put your superficial wants aside and focus on the truly important stuff. Intelligence is important, but level of education maybe shouldn’t be.

Am I attracted to my husband and do I think he’s dashingly handsome? Sure. But that alone wasn’t going to get us this far. He had to have other, more important traits to get us to where we are today. He respects me, loves his parents, is nice to strangers on the street, is smart, is hysterically funny and we have a lot in common. In addition, we have a lot that we don’t have in common which makes life a lot more interesting. We enjoy watching American Idol together but I’ve had to learn to love the Dallas Mavericks. And to top it all off we have great conversations. Looks fade but you’re going to have to talk to your spouse for the rest of your life!

So make your list – goodness knows I had mine! – but be able to adjust and appreciate what’s right in front of you.

I’ve gone out on a bunch of dates with a woman over the course of the last month, and during that time we have gotten along great and had a lot of fun together. This has led me to contemplate if we havereached the point where I should introduce her to my friends. Obviously I am well aware of how inexact the science of dating is; but I do think that there is always the potential for disaster (in the form of scaring someone off) if you introduce them to your friends too early. Sure, you could have an adult conversation about your relationship where you both get on the same page as to exactly how each of you feels about the relationship and where it is heading, but for most people, me included, that is once again a dicey area because you don’t want to have that conversation too soon either.

Since I’ve been thinking about whether it is the right (or even a good) time to introduce the woman I’ve been seeing to some of my friends , and have teetered back and forth, this has eventually indicated to me that I should probably not try to force it by specifically setting something up, and rather should just let an opportunity naturally present itself. Fortunately for me I didn’t have to wait very long since a few days after I reached the prior sentence’s conclusion a good friend of mine informed me that his birthday party was going to be the upcoming weekend. Immediately I figured that this was the right opportunity to introduce her to some of my friends since the setting would be very casual, and there wouldn’t be much pressure since there would be a large group of people – many of which I won’t even know. Last night I invited her to the party via text since she is out of town for work and that is the primary way that we have been communicating, although her response of “sure” was less than enthusiast; but I have tried not to read too much into it since, after all, it was in a text message.

Ultimately we’ll have to see how things end up going this weekend, and whether or not she was actually ready, and wanting, to be introduced to some of my friends. Since asking her I have tried to put myself in her shoes and think about how I would feel is she had invited me to a birthday party this weekend for one of her friends, and I can honestly say that I would be more than happy, although a little nervous, to go. When it comes right down to it during relationships you have to take leaps. Over the course of time many of these leaps will inevitably seem scary, difficult or not quite right at the time; but in spite of those (and other) apprehensions we might feel we still need to take them because those leaps are what fuel a relationship and bring two people closer together.

Profile pictures, I think, are virtually useless. Photos often provide security from the inherent anonymity that online conversations often entail. It is typically, for me, more comfortable to chat with somebody if I have an idea of what they look like. I don’t want to sound vain, but I have to because I am so very vain. I don’t like the insecurity of knowing that the person I’m talking to is hideous.

Despite the security that photos often provide, it is often a false sense of security. I have yet to go out on a date with somebody that looks at all like their profile photos. To remedy this, I believe that everybody on this site should submit their most unflattering photo of themselves for their profile picture. That way, there will never be disappointment. Your date will stun you every time with his/her beauty.

For example, if you are skinny, start eating foods that are terrible for you for about a month. Next, have someone take a photo of you. Post that photo as your profile picture. Then, begin a strict routine of diet and exercise for the next month. Finally, go out on a date. You have no idea how well it will go.

I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that the words “Vain” and “Naïve” share the same letters when both words are attached to dating. Case in point: I was chatting with a girlfriend’s younger, single sister and was taken aback by how vain she was and therefore how naïve that made her. Stella is a nice looking girl, tall, mid-twenties and educated. She is a successful website developer, is close with her family and is really funny. Stella’s had terrible luck dating, even worse luck with hookup guys and has been on and off of 100hookup with no success.

I love a challenge so, of course, I asked her what she is looking for as I perused my mental rolodex thinking of tall, hookup guys. The first – and admittedly most important – trait that she’s looking for is looks. As in really good looking. As in gorgeous Calvin Klein model. As I said, Stella is nice looking, not even near ugly, but she’s no Natalie Portman. And chances are that a Calvin Klein model isn’t hookup. Is it possible that there’s a hookup Adonis out there who wants to marry a hookup princess? Sure. But it’s not realistic for anyone, Stella included. Needless to say, I don’t have any male models in my social rolodex so I guess I won’t be setting up Stella with anyone anytime soon… unless she changes her priorities.

It’s also naïve of Stella to think she can meet a hookup guy when she’s not currently active on 100hookup or going to hookup events. She even said that she’s not attracted to hookup men… but wants to marry one. Ummm? How is that going to work?

Maybe it’s her age making her think that looks are what’s most important and I should give her a break. I, too, had backwards priorities when I was in my mid-twenties. Once she gets a few years of dating under her belt I bet she’ll shift her thinking naturally, but if I can give her a little nudge now…