Dating my girlfriend is so much easier than dating single.

Okay, first I want to make a disclaimer that all of you will hate this post, outside of the fact that a lot of you hate my posts anyway, because I’m writing about my girlfriend. However, after being single almost my entire life, outside of a short stint at hookup sleepaway camp and dating a few other horrible people, I no longer care.

Anyway, dating your girlfriend is so much more pleasant and bearable than going out with strangers. I am a 100hookup success story, and though it has often been frustrating, which was mostly the fault of my own personality, I stuck with it for a long time, and all of those people I had previously hated that told me to not give up I hate slightly less now. Roughly five years of rejection, incompatibility, and lethargy did pay off in a big way.

I first signed up for 100hookup roughly five years ago, when, probably like many of you, my mother offered to pay for my account. I was new to online dating and was amazed that I could browse many women in my area, and was equally amazed by how little I knew about dating/the human condition. I was pretty proactive at first, but after years, I slowed down. I got to the point where I would get about one message a month from a woman, and we would go out, and it was usually okay, but would never see each other again.

Now, I’m in a wonderful relationship, and dating somebody consistently is so much better. If you’re out there in the 100hookup world, and are starting to lose hope, the best advice I could offer would be to not give up. I completely understand slowing down. Perhaps maybe you should not browse 100hookup nightly. This could come off as desperate while also increasing desperation within yourself. I’ve said this before, but take a step back. However, stay somewhat active. Browse peoples’ profiles, but do it in a more thorough way. Read their entire profiles this time. Don’t just rush through reading it to feel better about yourself. Don’t just send out mass messages in a one-night frenzy that you know in the bottom of your heart will not result in anything. Look for things that may pique your interest, or at least things that the two of you may have in common. I know this sounds obvious, and this may partly be due to the fact that I’m writing this while sick, but the way you act on 100hookup should reflect the way you act in the real world. You wouldn’t just run up to every women in a bar, one after the other, and scream, ‘Hi! You’re hot!’, and if you would, I really want to meet you.

So you’ve met this girl or guy. You like him or her, but you don’t know if they like you. You know where they work, live, play, and hope for a Hollywoodesque chance meeting at the local coffee shop where you can compare your latte orders and hopefully pick up a number. You want them to like you, but you also don’t want a restraining order against you a month after you meet them.

Given this situation, how do you properly “stalk” someone in a way that enables you to form some kind of relationship?

First, be nice. It’s a simple quality that goes a long way. It’s a “hi, how are you doing?” when you see them again. If you’re a guy, it’s even opening the door to a building if you walk in at the same time. However, being nice just doesn’t include the person you are after, it’s respecting the people around them when in a group setting. Show respect to their friends, and even random strangers who happen to be in the conversation. That way, the next time you run into your crush in a group setting, her friends will remember that initial niceness you showed them, and you’ll rank a little higher in their book.

After the initial niceness, it’s having the ability to make conversation. As outgoing and gregarious as I am, I have a slight tendency to act extraordinarily awkward around girls I like, rendering my conversational skills to zero. Once again a simple ,”Oh, I’m excited for this event “, or “hey, how was work today?” or “I really thought Shaniqua was going to get the rose on the season finale of the Bachelor” conveys a lot without making the person feel uncomfortable.

People go on dates with those they feel comfortable around and find intriguing. Yes, persistence is a nice trait to have, and telling your crush’s friends you like him/her may make them smile for a bit, but actions speak louder than words. I could be the greatest romantic in the world, but if I’m not a nice person, who’s going to actually want to date me, or even better, hope for a chance meeting in the local coffee shop?

I have been fortunate in both Dallas and Austin to be friends with two long-term couples. Both have been together a long time (3+ years) with the Austin couple set to have their first child in March. They are two seemingly low-maintenance couples who find constant joy in being around each other no matter the circumstance. Below is a list of observations that I’ve seen from both couples, things that can be easily translatable to your own love life.

1. Dallas couple: After every time they hung out in the getting-to-know-you stage of their relationship, the male always texted “I had a great time! Can’t wait to see you soon!” It was something simple, yet something that resonated with his girlfriend even to this day. This might give away a dating secret of mine, but its something that I’ve copied to an extent, as it’s a simple, yet far-reaching gesture.
2. Austin couple- I happen to be in a leadership group with them, and what I notice is touch. Not PDA, not ridiculous hand-holding, but a simple touch on the back when getting up, or a tap on the leg when in a conversation. It’s not overt, but a mechanism that still indicates affection without being too teenage-like.
3. Dallas/Austin couple- Both couples are able to tease each other, even in the public sphere. Once again, there’s a huge a difference between making fun of someone maliciously and teasing, but the two couples understand and are ok with their faults enough to make light of them in front of others.
4. Dallas/Austin couple- While both couples absolutely adore each other, they also give each other space. The girl in Dallas is one of my best friends, but there’s just something about the idea of “guy time”, as she encourages her boyfriend to go watch the game with his guy friends, talking about guy things, as she goes shopping and watches reality TV with her friends. Yes, my Dallas buddy incessantly texts her while he is watching the game, but there’s still that idea of “doing your own thing”, allowing both people in the relationship to have some sort of independence.

Follow these simple guidelines and you will probably have the same productive relationship that these two couples have enjoyed.

Like any guy whose mother calls his stomach a garbage dump, I love a good buffet. For one price, whether $10 at Golden Corral, or $40 for the Bellagio dinner buffet in Vegas, I get as much food as I want, and can try all sorts of different combinations.

Now, say I don’t want Golden Corral, and want a more specialized buffet? Well, there’s Pizza Inn, Pancho’s Mexican Buffet and Golden China Buffet. I don’t have the tough choice of deciding between meat, enchiladas, kiwi, and kung pao chicken every time I want to fill up my plate, but I do know at Pizza Inn that I can decide between pepperoni, pineapple, spinach alfredo, and mushroom pizza. It’s a lot of decisions, but I know that at the end I’ll still be eating pizza.

So where does 100hookup fit in all this? 100hookup is a specialized buffet- many people to choose from but the reason you all are on here is to marry a hookup person. For some (women especially), this is an easy concept (New York City, Los Angeles) as the choice of entrees allows for even the girl who still dreams of marrying the hookup Pizza Piper to date multiple alfredos, vegetable surprises, mushrooms, and maybe a pineapple pizza or two. Sure, you may find a couple of meat lovers in there, but that all comes with the process of finding your one true slice, and regardless that person still possesses the one characteristic most important to you (hookup faith).

Wait, what about those in smaller hookup towns? Well, even though there happens to be only 7 pages of people to look at, it’s still a buffet. You are on 100hookup for a reason, so why limit yourself to the 24-27 year olds, even though that 34-year-old might actually be sauce that meshes with your cheese? From my count, 150 people on a search is still a bevy of people to choose from, so no reason to complain about not being a success story, when you go for the same thing over and over.

With a buffet numbering 50,000 strong, why complain about the menu options, when all you’ve had is one small serving?

“Oh, my friends actually maintain my profile.”

I got this response from a girl I was supposedly “messaging” at an event I went to during the High Holidays. She had apparently “Secretly Admired” me and we were talking about our High Holiday services and break-fast plans. She seemed nice, with a witty personality to boot, and was a sports fan, so I was definitely interested and took the initiative to message her first.

Saying, “Hey my name is Adam and we’ve been talking on 100hookup,” probably wasn’t the best opening line, especially in front of mutual friends of ours. Still, what kind of person lets their friends control their dating profile?

Now, understand I don’t include fake Craigslist or OkCupid profiles in this rant, because they are free sites, and it’s much easier to make a profile on a free site than a site like 100hookup where you really need to pay to get a real benefit from the site (which is a good thing). I bring this issue up now because it seems to be a recurring problem. “Oh, my mom signed me up for 100hookup” or “Yeah, my friends do it so they can see who else is on this site” are the usual excuses. You wouldn’t give your friends control of your bank account — so why let them handle your dating life?

I know some of you may read this and say, “I don’t care, my mom/friends can handle it, whatever,” but it boils down to more than that. And “fake it till you make it” is probably not the best way to attract a potential partner. Rather, it opens up more questions about your personal character. Listen, if you don’t want to date, than get off the site. Don’t hurt your online persona, and your dating reputation, by letting other people control your “actions.”

I abide by the principle of “say what you mean, mean what you say.” My friends can look, but not touch my profile. Why? Because they are A) not as creative as me and B) may say something totally opposite of what I want to say. If I message a girl with a dumb question or cheesy pick-up line, I’ll own up to it because I may end up seeing that girl at a later date (especially with how small Austin is).

Don’t be Donald Rumsfeld. Your dating profile should always be a known known. It might be an unknown known how people respond to you, but you should never be unknown as to what is known about the interactions that go on within it.

Do you.

Have any of you ever read those “Best Places to Find Love” lists? If you’re like me, and you constantly peruse Yahoo!, Google, and BET.com for those lists, you’ll find many of the same places listed: Yoga class, some random cooking expo at Whole Foods, a dog park, a hookup singles event after 5-6 drinks, and during the Yizkor service at Yom Kippur.

However, these lists pale in comparison to the one place/holiday where everyone is out: Black Friday.

Think about it: Everyone starts shopping (provided their football team isn’t playing) from midnight on Thanksgiving to 11 pm the next day. You can find fiscally responsible men and women, shopping for the best “deals,” or those who just want the exhilaration of competing with 500 other people jammed into Macy’s, JCPenny, Bloomingdales (for my East Coast readers) or Hollister (for my wannabe West Coast readers) for the least expensive pair of socks they can finagle.

Isn’t money one of the biggest issues in a relationship? Doesn’t, “Hey baby, I don’t want to buy that vacuum now, I want to wait till Black Friday when it happens to be 45% off with the purchase of a large sofa” solve that problem?

The conversation starter is easy: “Hey, so what sales are you going to today?” Nothing creepy, just an easy question that can turn in to, “Hey, I’m shopping for superhero graphic tees too, want to come to Wal-Mart with me and grab a cup of coffee?” You can even start off with, “Oh, Good Burger is $3.99? I used to watch Kenan and Kei in my younger days.”

Not sure of the type of man/woman you are looking for on Black Friday? Go to a big box retail store and look in the electronics or general clothing section. Looking for a nice, city-dwelling yogi of a woman? Go to Lululemon. Want to find a man who has great finger dexterity and a competitive nature when it comes to shooting zombies? Go to Game Stop.

If face-to-face conversation scares you when finding love, don’t worry, there’s always Cyber Monday.

Why Dating is a lot like being a fan of the Dallas Cowboys:

Before every NFL season, Cowboys fans (and Jerry Jones) set unreasonably high barometers for success.

Before every first date, most people set unreasonably high expectations as to how the date is supposed go and next steps.

Usually during the mid-point of the season, Cowboys fans realize that a 4-4 record might not be championship-worthy and immediately start clamoring for the head coach to be axed, without realizing how mediocre the team actually is.

Usually during the early weeks of dating, someone ultimately gets bored, or thinks a ring should be on their finger, and goes back to aggressively searching on 100hookup.

Come December, Cowboys fans start taking bets about how badly the team is going to choke, citing the past 20 years for reference.

Come December, those people dating each other start questioning how badly they are going to screw up the relationship due to the holiday pressure, citing their past 5 failed relationships.

After yet another season of failed expectations (aka no Super Bowl), Cowboys fans take to message boards and start burning effigies of Tony Romo and Jerry Jones’s face en masse, while holding vigils commemorating the anniversary of the last time the Cowboys appeared in an NFC Championship game (that would be going on 18 years).

After yet another failed 6 month relationship, people take to message boards and start using the other person’s name anonymously for dating blogs for their own personal amusement, bemoaning the fact that they’ve gone through 12 guys/girls in the past 2 years and not one has lasted as long (relationship-wise) since Johnny Football, the 4 year high school boyfriend.

Come the following April, Cowboys fans complain about every draft pick, pitting unproven rookies in an unfair comparison against past Cowboy Hall of Famers.

Come the following April, people are scanning 100hookup, finding reason to complain about every match, making unfair comparisons to their sister’s husband who they love dearly.

Dating and Dallas Cowboys fandom, it’s a vicious cycle.

I have one friend who refuses to acknowledge that we met on 100hookup. We’ve known each other for almost four years now, but a while back he made the executive decision to rewrite the history of how we met. So all of his friends have the new truth, while all of my friends have the original story from our first 100hookup. I even had a nickname for him based on his “About Me” section that I still refer to him as to my friends. I have total respect for his privacy on the subject, because I realize that for most people (myself excluded), online dating is a personal choice. However, I do believe that you can’t decide how you meet the love of your life. That’s going to happen when and where it’s going to happen. Unlike most things in my life, that’s one thing I can’t schedule.

The thing that I find so funny about is that I know of so many couples who met online. It’s like everywhere I look I see online dating success stories standing as tangible proof that it works. And yet when they are asked, “How’d you meet?” They lower their voices and say, “100hookup” or say it so quickly that we don’t fixate on that part of the story.  I just don’t get the stigma about it. I’d much rather claim 100hookup, as opposed to telling my kids the story of how I met their father at a frat boy filled dive bar. “Well, hunny. One night I was out with some friends at Brother Jimmy’s. Daddy saw me standing at the bar when I was going to buy a drink, we started talking and before I know it we were flirting and he bought me my next vodka soda. At the end of the night he asked me for my phone number. We texted for a couple of weeks and then he asked me out! Isn’t that, like, so romantic?!” (Disclaimer: I do not go to Brother Jimmy’s).

Don’t get me wrong, I’d really like to meet the great love of my life in person, and have a great story to go along with it. My parents had the kind of story that just makes you smile and laugh and you can even feel your heart just warm. I can’t help but want the same. But like I said, you can’t schedule the where and when. That’s why we so often turn to online sites – it can make it happen, even if it’s not spontaneous. I just know that if I ever meet a guy at Brother Jimmy’s, Central Bar, Bar None, or any bar like that, and things get serious between us, please sit me down and have an intervention about which bars I frequent and my recent life choices. And then please help me figure out how to rewrite the How We Met story. Because that’s a story that just won’t be pretty.

Not everyone likes to go out. And a lot of people are sick and tired of the singles events, pick-up bars and club scene. And yet others don’t have the time or energy to go out due to work, kids, projects, etc. So what do you do if you’re a couch potato or burnt out or just plain busy? That’s why 100hookup is so useful. You can check out singles from your laptop at home with your feet up on the couch or at work from your desktop. You can check out singles once a day or once a week. You can check out singles for 10 minutes or for an hour.  The point is, there are no excuses to not be putting yourself out there.

He poked me on Facebook. Twice. Was one poke just not enough? We had only gone on one date, and it was just a cup of coffee in Gramercy on a Saturday afternoon. And immediately after he texted me that he had a good time. That’s it. And then a week later, when I had not texted back, he thinks about all the ways he could get in touch with me – phone, email, text, singing telegram, fax – and decides after much consideration I imagine, nope let’s go with a poke. That’ll get her heart. So when I didn’t answer him back, hoping he’d get the point, this guy throws the Hail Mary of Facebook communication and pokes me again.

Now that we were two pokes in, I knew I had to officially let him down. This might come as a surprise, but up until this moment I’ve only had the experience of telling guys I’m not interested after very ordinary interactions. None of my mother’s lessons in etiquette even remotely prepared me for post-100hookup Facebook poking. I never even dreamed Facebook poking would be something I’d have to deal with. So I was completely on my own when I sat down to write him back and convey that I wasn’t interested and while I know he meant well, Facebook poking after a date is just wrong. So, so wrong.

Hi D—,

I really was hoping I didn’t have to write this message. I think you’re a great guy, however, I don’t think we clicked when we met for coffee. I don’t know how to say what I am about to tell you without sounding harsh. I’ve thought of a ZILLION ways to say this nicely, and this is the best I can come up with: Poking someone on Facebook, especially after an interaction like ours, doesn’t come off charming. It was really awkward – both times – and I didn’t know how to react. I’m only saying this because I think other girls might have the same reaction as I did. A message is much nicer and more upfront than a poke (I’m sorry if that sounded as mean as I think it does. I just really wanted to let you know for the future).

Take care,
Kelly

I thought about this recently when I told a guy I wasn’t interested in him after 3 dates. I was shocked when he asked me where he went wrong. He said I could think of it as a favor, as he wanted to learn from this experience. I gave him a little feedback, and I think he genuinely appreciated my honesty. You know, maybe it wasn’t my place to tell the Facebook poker that poking is creepy, but part of me wanted to save him. What if no girl ever had the chutzpah to break it to him that poking is socially unacceptable? Would he still be Facebook poking girls innocently thinking that he was flirting? I really believe that all of the guys I’ve gone out with – well, at least for the most of them – deserve a fair shot. And besides, if you can’t learn from your dating mistakes after a 100hookup, when can you?