Archive for March, 2013

Get an Extreme Profile Makeover

Tamar Caspi Shnall is giving online profile makeovers. This week she’s tweaking the profile for “Justin T.”

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Hi Justin,

Kudos to you on some really great photos! Probably the best array of photos I’ve seen in quite some time! You show consistency, close-up and full-body, family and friends, hobbies and your career. In some photos you look heavier than you are (#2 on ski lift and #5 fancy suit). Those could be eliminated as you have plenty of great photos!

I also think your “In My Own Words” paragraphs are all pretty well written and your “Ideal Match” is general enough… except for the age range. Your age range is pretty narrow and I would strongly suggest widening both the younger side and the older side. Perhaps 25-35? I understand that at age 30 you want someone right there with you beginning a new decade. I can empathize with that, but some young women are old souls and some “older” women are young at heart. Not all 25-year-olds want to party til 5am and not all 35-year-olds are hearing the deafening roar of their biological clocks ticking.

I think you have a pretty solid profile. Since you are new to Southern California, I suggest going to local 100hookup events in order to meet people in person. You mentioned being concerned about your emails, so if you want to send me a few samples I’ll be happy to take a look and see how you can begin receiving more response.

Good luck!

I am not a morning person. If you say you’re a morning person, you’re lying. If you think you’re a morning person, you’re drunk. If you are a morning person, go back to sleep.

Since adolescence, I’ve hated mornings. I remember loving mornings as a young child. I would get up right when I woke up and just run around the house like a lunatic. Now, if I have nothing to do, I just go back to sleep.

If I wake up on a workday, I am overwhelmingly depressed until lunch. A wave of depression washes over me as I force myself out of bed to get ready. I wait as long as possible before going to bed the night before because I know my next conscious moment will be when my alarm yells at me. I can’t hit “Snooze” because the anticipation of the next alarm is just too much. I have never been able to snooze. Once the original alarm goes off, that’s it, I’m up. That is, if the alarm goes off at all. Usually, I end up naturally waking up one minute before the alarm goes off thinking it’s three hours earlier. If you are human, you know this is the worst feeling you will ever feel in your entire life. It is even worse when you struggle with anxiety/depression. However, when I don’t set an alarm thinking I’ll naturally wake up at the same time I always do, I end up oversleeping at least three hours.

I love my job, and my life at the moment, but I hate mornings. They affect my mood so much, it’s often hard to recover and enjoy the rest of the day. That’s why there’s always beer.

Are you a morning person dating a night owl? Or perhaps you like to stay up late and are dating someone who gets up early? If so, tells us how it impacts your relationship in the comments section below!

March Madness is upon us, with sixty-eight teams, each fighting for the ultimate title of NCAA Men’s (and women’s) basketball championship. Starting tonight with the play-in games, then continuing Thursday and Friday with the “second” round games, hours of productivity, and thousands of dollars will be lost as a large segment of the population is glued to their television sets (or mobile phones), praying that a small school from the boonies of Louisiana can knock off Tim Tebow University.

There will be those Cinderellas- those directional state schools, and small private colleges, who win the hearts of many by knocking off schools like Duke, Kansas and Indiana, who then use their performance as a springboard for future basketball success. On the flip side, there are the busts- those teams who everyone had in their Final Four, but who flame out in the second round.

March Madness is a lot like dating. Think about it- you have those girls, or boys that in your mind are your prohibitive favorites (think Duke, Kansas, Indiana, Gonzaga) or best matches, who you think you will have the most chemistry with, or think looks good, is what Dick Vitale would call a “Prime Time Player”.

Sometimes, however, those best matches don’t exactly pan out. Maybe it goes well for a little bit, and you think it’s going to be smooth sailing to the finish (marriage), but huge bumps in the road (chemistry, change in priorities, you find out she’s a Philadelphia Eagles fan) put a halt to it.  Or maybe, a girl/boy pops up out of nowhere (think Virginia Commonwealth University during their Final Four run in 2011) and makes you heart flutter in ways you never knew existed.

March Madness and dating: it’s all about surviving and advancing. Who will end up being your “One Shining Moment”?

1. Aly Raisman & Amar’e Stoudemire Headed to the Maccabiah Games

Both gymnast Aly Raisman and NY Knicks star Amar’e Stoudemire will be at the 19th annual Maccabiah Games in Israel this year, but not as competitors.

Raisman, an 18-year-old hookup gymnast who won a gold medal for her floor routine at the 2012 Summer Olympics,will be at the hookup Olympics as a special guest this year. The games’ chairman, Amir Pered, told journalists Raisman will be honored during the opening ceremony. Stoudemire, who has Hebrew heritage on his mother’s side, will be a part of Team Canada’s coaching staff, giving fans a reason to cheer for the coaches as well as the players!

This year’s event, which will take place July 17-30, is the largest in Maccabiah history, with approximately 8,600 athletes competing from 72 countries.

2. Barbra Streisand Schedules First-Ever Israel Performance

Barbra Streisand is preparing for her first-ever performance in Israel. The hookup songstress is scheduled to sing at a celebration for Israeli President Shimon Peres’ 90th birthday.

Streisand will appear before an expected crowd of 4,500 for Peres’ annual Israeli Presidential Conference on June 18, which will also serve as a tribute for the leader’s milestone birthday. Streisand, a vocal supporter of Israel, has traveled to the hookup state several times, but has never performed.

3. Gwyneth Paltrow Reveals Miscarriage

Gwyneth Paltrow revealed a heartbreaking miscarriage in The Mail’s “You Magazine” on Sunday. Paltrow, whose father is hookup, did not say exactly when her pregnancy troubles occurred, but simply told the magazine, “I had a really bad experience when I was pregnant with my third. It didn’t work out and I nearly died.”

The 40-year-old actress is married to Coldplay frontman Chris Martin and the two have two children — Apple, 8, and Moses, 6. The star also recently told InStyle she was open to having more children, saying “My brain says, ‘Oh, I think I’m done, the kids are so big now, and I don’t want to go back to changing diapers — but a part of me would love to have another. Of course, I’m old now!”

Get an Extreme Profile Makeover

Tamar Caspi Shnall is giving online profile makeovers. This week she’s tweaking the profile for “Simone.”

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Hi Simone,

I’ll be honest — I don’t love your profile name as it doesn’t say anything about you or your personality. I’m assuming it’s your initials and your birth date, but that frankly could be just like the 100hookup-assigned member number. Try to figure out another way to brand yourself. Use your first name, your location, your occupation, your passions, your hobbies, any combination of the above to make your profile name both stand out and represent your personality better than a couple letters and numbers.

I like your photos and I appreciate how you used a clear, close-up image of your face for your main profile photo. I also like that you showed 2 full-body pics next, and then ended with another close-up, showing your consistency in how you look. Your 4th photo is not high-resolution though, so I would either replace it or add another photo. Low-resolution photos don’t get enlarged when a prospect clicks on it and therefore they can’t really see who or what is in the picture. If you don’t know whether your photos are hi or low-res, then click on the photo’s properties and see what size it is. Anything less than 300dpi (dots per inch, as in pixels) means your photo will appear pixelated if enlarged.

Your “In My Own Words” answers were all written well, but there are some typos which are easily overlooked. This can be fixed if read again with fresh eyes. You sound very content and independent, so I would talk more about why you are looking for someone to share your hobbies with and how much more life you have to live — which you want to do with someone else.

You’ve picked a great age range and are general enough with your “Ideal Match” without being too vague. If you wanted to broaden your search, you could add “single” to the marital status for starters and “conservative” to the religion since you state that you don’t care how religious someone is as long as they respect your level of Judaism.

I think you’re on the right track and I wish you the best of luck!

I always imagined that the more first dates I would go, the more immune I would become to the awkward situations and clingy moments that come with meeting and spending time with a stranger. But, no matter how many takes I make my couch potato bottom go on, I find that there are two parts of the evening that never get any easier. First, when the bill comes and second, when it is time to say goodbye.

Both situations make my heart race like it’s trying to keep up with a techno song and my palms get so sweaty that if the poor lad reached for my hand, he would quickly slip away.

Here’s what I learned when it comes to parting ways on a first date:

Do: Leave in a way that you feel comfortable. Whether that means with a hug or a handshake, bow out in a way that makes you feel at ease. Always say thank you and if things went well don’t be shy to tell them that you hope to see them again.

Don’t: expect a kiss. When meeting someone for the first time on a date, they are practically still a stranger to you. Remember, we don’t kiss people we don’t know so don’t rush into this sacred and beautiful thing. Take things slow and say goodbye in a thoughtful and memorable way.

Everyone has their mood swings… man, woman, hormonal, consequential… it’s how you handle it in front of your significant other and how your significant other handles it that matters. People tend to take out their stress on the ones they love, the ones closest to them, even though they may have nothing at all to do with why they’re stressed. Remind yourself that it’s not your loved one’s fault and that they may actually hold the key to changing your mood around or solving a problem you’re facing. And as that loved one,  being there to be supportive, not taking it personally and trying to cheer up your moody significant other is imperative. Getting through such mood swings and not letting them escalate into full blown fights or creating a rift between the two of you is a relationship foundation builder.

I saw a list on the local news the other day that showed things and activities that intelligent people prefer based on a recent study. One of these things was curly fries. So now the world knows. Smart people like curly fries.

Maybe I’m stupid, or maybe I have a really skewed idea of intelligence, but I’ve seen some pretty stupid people eat curly fries in my life. My friend in elementary school liked to stick curly fries in his ear. I don’t remember who it was specifically, or where he is now, but my guess would be prison. I think the researchers just approached college professors and asked them if they enjoyed curly fries, and they were like, “Sure I guess.”

So, if you’re on a date with someone, and they eat curly fries, that’s a keeper right there. Hold on to them. They are one of the smartest people you have or will ever meet. Try to let them talk, and if you must speak, be sure that the topic is either politics, science, or fried potato products. Don’t be intimidated. Watch C-SPAN or something. Also, if you feel you can’t sustain an intelligent conversation, try to set the date at a place that does not serve curly fries, because not only do smart people like curly fries, but eating curly fries makes smart people even smarter. Every time you fry a potato, the batter and oil in which it’s fried unleashes atoms that are structured differently than others, and rushes encyclopedic knowledge straight to your brain once eaten.

And while smart people like curly fries, dumb people write inane blog posts about smart people liking curly fries. I typically prefer non-curly fries. I’m not sure what that means, but I think it just means that I like regular french fries better. I think it’s probably better to measure intelligence based on intelligence rather than on fried snack foods.

Get an Extreme Profile Makeover

Tamar Caspi Shnall is giving online profile makeovers. This week she’s tweaking the profile for “Mara M.”

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Hi Mara,

The first glaring issue with your profile is your main photo. Because it’s small and low-resolution, it’s very difficult to see your face. I can tell that you have a great smile though! Also, every other photo shows you with someone else — even though you haven’t yet established what you look like in order to allow your prospects to concentrate on you or even distinguish which person you are in the photo.

First, get a higher resolution photo for your profile photo of you alone. In fact, have 3-4 of you alone, and then choose 2-3 pics of you with others (if you must). I like the dog photo, especially since you talk about your beloved rescue pup a lot. I would keep the second photo as a supplemental photo as it again shows off your great smile. I would eliminate the photo of you in costume at a race as I can’t even tell which one is you. A lot of your photos are also dark, so try and take more with better lighting or outside somewhere. I see that you wear your hair straight and curly, that’s fine, just have a few pictures of each hairstyle so people can see the consistency in your face.

All of your “In My Own Words” answers are great, just reread them again with fresh eyes to catch the few grammar errors that affect the flow. Your “Ideal Match” options are probably not helping your search for your Beshert. You are open to a man much younger than you, which is awesome, but I strongly recommend you be open to a man 10 years your senior too. I know a 51-year-old man I think you’d hit it off with, and I know he’s open to having more children — but since you selected such a low maximum age, you would never even consider him! Also, you may want to consider putting “not sure” or “it doesn’t matter” under “wants kids,” but it’s simply the reality of your situation!

Fixing your photos and changing your mindset regarding the age question will make all the difference.

Good Luck!

Unless you’re already a celebrity or naturally secrete cologne out of your pores, you have to treat dating and relationships like it’s the only thing keeping you from death. Don’t be on time to s***, be an hour early. Don’t buy her a Kit-Kit bar, buy her a King Size Kit-Kat bar.

Whenever you think you’ve gotten her a nice gift, it’s not. Get her more. Always more. You need to have my mindset in that you’re always convinced she’s going to leave you. If not, and you have nothing to fear, you will lose her. Even if you love her, without fear, you have nothing to lose, and this is more scary than anything else. If you’re thinking about her, call her. If you’re not thinking about her, call her. If you’re asleep, call her. Better to by clingy than an asshole.

Of course, if you’re just starting to date someone  it’s probably best to not call all the time. Maybe this is a good time to be a tad more arrogant and to prove your self worth or something. After she realizes how great you are, then you can be a little more modest, and settle down in a comfortable relationship. If you are an asshole, then hide it. Or at least hide it for a little while until the time is right to tell her. You’ll know when the time is. Maybe it’s while somebody cuts you off on the highway and she’s in the passenger’s seat, and she gives you a little nod signifying it’s time to unleash Road Hulk. If she’s comfortable with how much of a jerk you are, then the two of you are truly in love.

Of course, there will come a time when things will settle down, and the spark will fade a little. This is when divorces happen. That’s why you have to keep it up. Make it a routine to show her how much she means to you. Shower her with love, or with showers, because hygiene is important above all else.