Archive for the ‘Relationships’ Category

Hi Tamar,

I have reached out, via a ‘Flirt’ or email, to a few different men.  They open my Flirt/email, but don’t reply. I would love some tips on initiating a better first message.

-“Flirt”

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Hi Flirt,

There is a method to the messaging madness. For starters, don’t send an uninitiated Flirt or email. What does that mean? It means not to send a message of any kind before you lay the groundwork. Communication should not come out of left field. View the prospect, check back the next day to see if he viewed you in return.

If he logged in, but did not view, then view him again and check again the following day. If again he logged in, but did not view you, then you can generally assume he isn’t interested. Don’t count him out, but don’t put any more energy into him either.

If the guy did view you back, then go ahead and add him to your Favorites. This is how a guy knows you’re into him.

In the meantime, go ahead and check out who has Favorited you and who has viewed you to see if there is anyone of interest that you can view/Favorite in return. This is on par with making and holding eye contact and then smiling from across a room.

Only after you’ve done this back-and-forth should you go ahead and send a Flirt or email. I suggest giving the guy a day or two to do this himself, as it’s his version of making the first move, but it’s not entirely unfavorable for you to click send first.

If you’re going to send a Flirt then make sure the one you choose either goes along with something that can be connected to your profile or his. I prefer skipping right over to an email, but sometimes a Flirt can be cute! The first email should be short and sweet — “Hi my name is Allison. It’s been fun ‘Flirting’ with you! I can’t believe you also like __________, I’ve never met anyone else who likes them/that. How did you first discover them/that? Hope you’re having a great day!” The line in the middle is to show one of your commonalities and to ask a question in order to garner a response.

All that said, if someone does not have a paid 100hookup membership then they cannot check their emails. You will be able to figure it out only after sending the email if you see that they’ve logged in, but not opened the email. Don’t take it personally. Most people do end up paying when their inbox starts to fill up. People just can’t resist!

Follow me on Instagram @HowToWooAJew

Back to that age-old question… why are you still single?

Sometimes it’s helpful to have a sounding board — be it a therapist, a best friend, or a parent — to talk about your past relationships so they can help you see any patterns along the way. As one of my friend’s says “come join me on the other side of the street” so you can look at yourself from another perspective.

Are you attracted to a certain type who is likely not complementary to you… but you don’t know it? Do you sabotage your relationships and you’re not even aware of it? Do you portray yourself as something different than how other people see you?

If you think you may be standing in your own way of finding love (and everyone is to some capacity), then ask for the brutal truth from a trusted source so you can begin evolving.

This is the post from Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook and author of Lean In, from Tuesday, the day she buried her husband, Dave Goldberg, after his sudden passing.

“I want to thank all of our friends and family for the outpouring of love over the past few days. It has been extraordinary – and each story you have shared will help keep Dave alive in our hearts and memories.

I was chatting with an ex-boyfriend recently, just catching up on where life has taken us since we last spoke 10 years ago, when he mentioned that our timing was bad when we had dated way back when. My recollection was way different. He was a total jerk who stomped on my heart. Forgive and forget, sure, but I don’t ever really forget.

Interestingly, I am able to take responsibility for a part of it 10 years later. Why? Because I allowed him — and other boyfriends or guys I dated — to treat me disrespectfully. What does that mean? It means I didn’t put my foot down or even run the other way when I didn’t like how they were treating me — not calling when they said they would, canceling on dates, not being totally forthright, not giving me the commitment I desired, etc., — therefore I allowed it. I can see now that many of the experiences I had could have been prevented had I demanded respect. Sure, I expected respect, but clearly not enough. It must be demanded and in this case, actions (walking away from the situation for good) speak louder than words (saying “you’re being disrespectful,” but not leaving, and therefore allowing it).

Perhaps it was an age thing; I was in my 20s. Or perhaps it’s a gender thing. Or maybe it was the type of guy I was going for and the hope that I could tame a bad boy. Likely it was a combination of all of the above. Many young women are so afraid of being dumped, or being alone, or not having the guy come running after you as you walk out the door, or we place our value in who we are dating, that we don’t say anything. We hope it was a fluke, or a one-off, or that they will grow to respect you more.

The truth is that we need to respect ourselves — men and women of all ages — more, and value our worth more, in order to understand why certain behavior is not acceptable and to walk away. Keep walking away until someone comes along who respects you, values you and believes you are worthy.

People are attracted to happy people, so how do you convey happiness? Authentic joy emanates, therefore you must truly be happy to genuinely appear happy to other people.

Many singles feel that their singledom dictates their lack of happiness, but you can’t allow your relationship status to affect your positivity. If everything is going great in your life, aside from dating, and yet you are negative and unhappy, then you need to reassess.

Find joy in doing things you love (hopefully that includes your job since you likely spend 25-30% of your time there) and being around people you love. When you appreciate what you have, then people will want to be around you, including prospective dates.

Bottom Line: don’t let dating get the best of you. Stay positive and attract other positive people.

Does grammar matter in your online dating profile? YES! I don’t know what’s going on lately, but I keep encountering profiles that would make any decent English teacher squirm. Poor grammar, misspellings, and general linguistic mangling are infiltrating both written profiles and verbal speech. I’m somewhat of a grammar nerd, but I know that poorly-written prose is a huge turn-off to more people than just me. In fact, a quick Google search yields dozens of articles on the topic, some of which quantify the decreased rates of response received by poorly-written profiles. And I’m not talking about a misplaced modifier or a preposition at the end of a sentence (although some of us may consider such egregiousness unforgivable)! I’m referring to those profiles that look like they were written by an overzealous 12-year-old girl who is texting her BFF!!! Or even worse, those that somehow managed to evade spell check and all junior high language classes. Is your profile in less-than-pristine condition? Don’t despair. Ask Tamar for content help, and contact me for editorial assistance – I will happily proofread your profile! Here’s a brief primer to remind you of some common grammatical or usage problems.

1. Capitalization

PLEASE DON’T YELL! Typing in all capital letters looks aggressive and angry. Don’t do it unless you’re making some kind of point. Similarly, don’t use all lowercase letters. Remember to capitalize the first letter of new sentences as well as names and places.

2. Sentence Structure

Have you ever come across a profile that says something like, “I like to travel. I like dogs. I also like pizza. I have a big family.” Never mind that this profile is generic – but it would come alive with some varied sentence structures, like “Having grown up with 5 siblings,…” or “New York is my favorite place to visit…” or “Pizza drives my daily ambition to finish work by noon…” etc.

3. Abbrevs

Using abbreviations in place of actual words looks either lazy or like you’re trying to be cool. Or maybe cool’s not the right word here. But neither situation is ideal. No need for AIM speak (hey, wut r u up to? Do u like me?) or your generational equivalent of popular social communication forms (telegram? Snapchat?).  Similarly, don’t assume everyone knows the same acronyms. When it doubt, write it out!

4. Punctuation

This is a big one. If you aren’t sure of a punctuation mark’s correct usage, avoid it. In other words, don’t randomly add semicolons to look smart or throw in quotation marks unnecessarily (My name is “Caryn.”) For some reason, people like quotes, but if used improperly, the text looks suspicious, like, my name might be Caryn.

5. Spelling

Most browsers have a built-in spell check, meaning that typos are clearly denoted by a squiggly red line. So no excuse here. I realize spell check doesn’t always catch errors like your vs. you’re, but human eyes do, so proofread! Or send to me or a friend to review.

Is writing not your strong suit? Or maybe English isn’t your first language? Not to worry – you can still craft an eloquent, enticing, error-free profile. Elicit the help of a friend or even read the text out loud to yourself to check for typos. People online don’t know you, so to the internet world, a sloppy profile = a sloppy person. Luckily, it’s time for spring cleaning, so no more sloppiness!

You may think the question about “Pets” in the Lifestyle section is a throwaway, but — in fact — it’s important. Some people are hardcore pet people, while others are not. And within that category you have people who love or prefer one kind of animal but not another, or are allergic to some but not others.

I’m a dog person, but I don’t like their saliva on me or having their hair all over my clothes. I’m not a cat person, but as long as they leave me alone, we’re cool. That said, dogs love attention and cats love those who ignore them, so I often find myself with an animal by my feet whenever I visit friend’s with pets.

I was really turned off by a date’s three cats and the litter box in his bedroom, but I appreciated that he cared for them and took care of them. I found another boyfriend’s relationship with his playful dog to be a redeeming quality, until that boyfriend allowed the dog to sleep in the bed with us.

It’s important to know before getting into a relationship with someone if you have an aversion or allergy to an animal, but it’s not worthy of addressing in your profile or worrying about it until you’re on a date and he or she mentions it. The Lifestyle question doesn’t ask if you own those pets or simply like those pets, or possibly had one as a child or hope to have one later in life.

Don’t make assumptions. If someone is obsessed with their pet then it will be apparent either in their profile or on the first date and you will be able to politely discuss it then. Keyword is “politely” — don’t disrespect their chihuahua that they carry around in their purse (as obnoxious as that sounds) or insult their cat whose vet bills are higher than your own medical bills (as obnoxious as that sounds).

What is love? Well, it’s not an easy thing to define, that’s for sure! Feelings never are. Perhaps it’s easier to describe what it’s not. Love is not attraction, and it’s not sex. Love is not wanting what you can’t have or missing someone when they’re away. All those things belong in the camp of lust. Are attraction, sex and missing each other important? Yes. But, it’s not what love is.

Every relationship is different, but each has to have some basic fundamentals. Love comes from building a foundation of trust, friendship, compassion, and being partners in (and sometimes against) life. Without these key elements you may like someone, and you may love being with them or love certain things about them, but you don’t have enough to survive.

It takes time to build this foundation but it is integral to the process. This doesn’t mean to run away from what I described as lust; it just means not to confuse the two, and to give love time to develop. It can take time to solidify, so try to be patient as some people need more time to be certain those elements are deeply rooted. Falling in love feels so good, it gives us a euphoric high, but that feeling can also confuse us from seeing signs that the building blocks are missing or crumbling before our very eyes.

Finding love isn’t easy, but it’s why you are on 100hookup – to look for it – so don’t give up! It may be frustrating, but it’s better to stay single than to enter a loveless relationship just for the sake of being in one.

You gotta know how to treat me like a lady
Even when I’m acting crazy
Tell me everything’s alright
-from Meghan Trainor’s new single “Dear Future Husband”

Women (in general, it’s women) are often called the “c” word… get your mind out of the gutter, I’m talking about the word “crazy.” It gets thrown around pretty flippantly and it’s incredibly disrespectful. And, ironically enough, it is usually the action of the man (in general, it’s the man) that causes the woman to lose her cool and then to be called crazy by said man (again, this is a generalization). It’s enough to make your head spin.

Everyone acts crazy every once in a while. There’s a reason why so many love songs have the word “crazy” in them (Google it!). Love makes you do crazy things, feel crazy ways, and act crazy in love. Let’s remove using the word “crazy” as an insult from our vocabulary while dating… and continue the ban once you’re in a relationship. It’s not going to go anywhere good if you sling that word around!

Frankly, ‘crazy’ is also too broad of a description when you are describing a person’s reaction or an event. Let’s find other words in the dictionary to use, shall we? I don’t care if you have to pause and consult a thesaurus mid-argument, find other words that will likely better describe the situation. And then, when things really do get crazy — like the girl who got dumped and cracked open her ex-boyfriend’s patio door, slid the garden hose in, turned on the water, and left… or the guy who was cheated on and then poured milk under his ex-girlfriend’s driver seat (she didn’t even know what happened until weeks later, ewwwww!) — you can use the word “crazy” and not only will you actually mean it, but people will take you seriously.

And by the way, when we women use the word crazy to describe ourselves, we would appreciate you telling us that we are justified in our behavior! You will earn major points for that!

When you are newly dating someone it is NOT the time to discuss the drama in your life, nor is it the time to whine and complain about things in your life. I’m not saying to make everything sound wonderful and perfect, but don’t turn a date negative with your stories about how your friends are fighting, or your siblings aren’t speaking to each other, or your job sucks, or… or… or…

There’s the normal vent about your computer crashing before you had a chance to back it up one last time, but spend about a minute on things like that and move on. That type of vent is something everyone can relate to and empathize with — and may even have advice to help you. If the dating turns into a serious relationship then you will have plenty of time to be the sounding board for drama!