Dear Tamar,

I’m shocked about why people don’t get you back to you when you e-mail them. WHY… don’t they complete their profiles if they are here to be serious? You’re here for a reason, so WHY not reply, be polite or at least fill in your profiles?

Dear Why oh WHY?,

I can sense your frustration in your CAPS LOCK, LOL. I’ll say this — if a person isn’t filling out their profile or replying to your email then its not someone you want to date so they’ve made it easy for you. It does suck and I don’t get it either. You’re right, why are these people on 100hookup if they’re not putting forth the full effort to meet their Beshert? I always recommend that people fill out their profiles fully and at least reply with a polite rejection. Try to keep your sanity by remembering that these people are not your Beshert and move on to the next prospect.

100hookup has unveiled the beta version of the new profile makeover and it’s going to make your time on 100hookup easier than ever! Your excuse that you don’t have time is no longer plausible because 100hookup is doing the dirty work for you! Not only can you see all the photos nice ‘n big without having to go to the next page but 100hookup tells you right away what you have in common and lists what items are most important up front. That means no more searching for height, parental status, smoker or not or job and education — those non-negotiables are front and center so you can see if you’re a match right away.

The added scroll of photos at the t0p means it’s more important than ever to have your main photo be an eye catcher. That means it needs to be a close-up so people can see your face in a tiny thumbnail, it shouldn’t be a profile view or have anyone (or anything) in the pic with you. We want to see your face! No sunglasses, no hats, no dark photos without flash. You need to stand out in a sea of people. You have so many more options to post photos, save the underexposed one with your dog standing by the tall tree for option #4.

Back in the Kibitz Corner, 100hookup wants to know: What’s the craziest thing you’ve ever done on a date? Here are some of our favorite answers!

Climbed out the bathroom window and left.

-MizMore, 42, Single, Woman seeking a Man, Boca Raton, FL

Choked on a sandwich and my date had to do the Heimlich to clear my throat passages. Then the chicken came flying out of my mouth. It wasn’t pretty at first, […]but then everyone in the restaurant applauded my date for saving my life.

-MeryllM1961, 49, Divorced, Woman seeking a Man, E Northport, NY

Sang Turkish patriotic songs in Speedos at the Waldorf Astoria in NYC.

-NotSoReal, 36, Single, Man seeking a Woman, New York, NY

Flew from Philadelphia to NYC for dinner. Drove three hours round trip for The Kitchen Sink (a 20 scoop ice cream sundae.) I was younger then…

-Gladeswhi…, 59, Divorced, Woman seeking a Man, Miami, FL

Sprinted away from my date, while chasing a thief who stole an old lady’s purse at the ice cream store. Thief went to jail, lady got her purse back, the date itself… didn’ […]t go so well.

-BuilderAL, 25, Single, Man seeking a Woman, Naperville, IL

First date, took her to a shooting range. Was totally spontaneous, spur of the moment and we had a blast. She had never even held a gun before and found she was a natural […]marksman…couldn’t get her to leave. Then we went to play laser tag. Crazy, fun evening.

-118987859, 42, Divorced, Man seeking a Woman, Davie, FL

“Hijacked” a front-loader, in the middle of the night, from the marine base in San Diego.

-1debswish, 49, Divorced, Woman seeking a Man, Irvine, CA

Impromptu Cubs game. Lame, I know. I need to do more adventurous stuff on dates. Want to crash a Quinceañera? Get matching facial piercings? Stalk a celeb? Steal a Vespa?

-carmensan…, 35, Single, Woman seeking a Man, Chicago, IL

Bad crazy was a first date with a guy who took me out to an elaborate dinner with his parents–for their anniversary. Huh???

-Galya, 48, Divorced, Woman seeking a Man, Albuquerque, NM

Walked out of the restaurant after she asked me: “I need to know how much money you make so you can give me what I want, and how fast can you get promoted to a position of […]more responsibility and money?”

-hookup ga…, 47, Single, Man seeking a Woman, Mineola, NY

Because of what I do for a living, many of my single friends – both male and female – are constantly asking me for advice. A lot of the time their family and friends have already offered unsolicited advice and now the singleton is more confused than ever. Some of the advice given makes me laugh!

My favorite is when Moms tell their kids to “stop looking and you’ll find someone.” Ummm, no. Actually, not actively looking is detrimental to your dating life. The amount you’re out there looking is directly proportional to how much you date. If you’re not on 100hookup or going to a hookup singles event or accepting blind dates – or all of the above – then you’re not going to meet someone. People only meet on the subway or at the gym in the movies. Sure, it happens in real life every once in a while, but why sit back and wait for love to come to you? Instead, go out there and find it, otherwise you’ll be waiting a looooong time!

The other popular piece of advice people get that I can’t stand is to be a “challenge.”  If you play hard to get than how will you be gotten? I’m not saying to lay it all out on the line, but anytime you’re trying to not try too hard, you’re going to fail. When you pretend not to be into someone, your date is going to think just that – that you’re not into him or her. Pretending like you’re always busy will make the other person think you don’t have time and are not willing to make time for them.

If you’re offered advice without having asked for it or if you ask for advice but totally disagree with the answer, don’t get into it with the other person. It’s not worth it. Merely thank them for the advice and say that you’ll take it into consideration. Married people think that because they’re no longer single that they know it all (except for me of course!). But just because a technique worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else. Even dating experts such as myself get it wrong sometimes. You need to follow your instincts above everything else. All the dating advice in the world won’t matter when you meet the right person at the right time and just go with the flow and live in the moment.

Recently I’ve spoken with several women whose profiles identified them as being in Chicago when in actuality they were really moving to Chicago soon and had joined 100hookup in order to help ease the transition. My initial reaction was that I felt slightly misled, especially by the woman who told me she wasn’t moving to Chicago for another month. However, after getting the chance to think about it, I’ve come to realize that this really is a great strategy.

Even though I’ve always view 100hookup through a narrow lens, where I only saw it as being a “dating” site, when I really think about it thiswebsite is much more than that. The site is a way for people to connect, meet people they wouldn’t normally meet and provides another way for people to form meaningful relationships. The most important aspect of the site is not that it matches people up who will eventually fall in love and get married, but rather that it lets you use the site in whatever way best suits you and what you are looking for.

That’s why the idea of joining 100hookup before moving to new city is such a great idea because while some people on the site are looking for love, others are simply looking to meet people and connect, even if it’s just as friends. Perhaps I wasn’t interested in being an activity partner or friend to someone who had just moved to Chicago, but I’m sure there’s someone else on the site who is, and that’s the beauty of 100hookup and the community it fosters.

Being in a healthy relationship makes everything in life not only easier, but also better. Last May I began a relationship with a woman that I met on 100hookup, and during most of the time we were together I felt imperious and on top of the world. If I had a problem we talked about it. After a long day we went out and my stresses melted away. I always had someone to go out with on the weekends, and man did we have fun together! She just had a way of bringing out the more social, fun side of my personality that often needs to be coaxed out of hibernation.

Unfortunately, after about three months of intense dating, an insurmountable issue came between us, and we decided the best thing to do was break up before things got more serious. After our split I knew that it was important that I take a little time before getting back onto the dating scene, and decided to wait until I was completely ready to put myself back out there before dating again. However, since that time, even though I have been consistently dating, I’ve gone out on over a dozen first dates with only one yielding a second.

After most of the dates I wasn’t interested in going out again, but there have been a few when I’ve asked for a second date only to be gently turned down. While I can’t say that this reject felt very good it wasn’t anything that was going to deter me from going out and trying to meet women. Although recently I went out on a first date with a woman I met on 100hookup and, in spite of our having a good time, she turned down my request for a second date. Her response was that she had a great time but that she “just didn’t quite feel it,” and therefore didn’t want to go out again.

Through no fault of hers I was honestly very frustrated when she didn’t want to go out again because I felt really good about her and how our first date went. After her rejection, for the first time since last August, I strongly considered taking a break from, not only online dating, but also trying to meet women in general. Ultimately, after talking with a good friend of mine, I decided to give it a little more time, but deep down I know that I really need something positive on the dating front to happen soon or else I’m gong to need to take some time off.

I do not know how many people read this blog.  When I started writing here, I was told that I would get thousands of readers.  Again, I don’t know how many people read this, but if it’s thousands, then I am not a good writer.  You would think that if thousands of people read this, then the last comment that this blog got wouldn’t have been years ago to a post someone wrote about Jennifer Aniston being hookup (which she is not).

If you read this blog, and you are not the parents of any of the bloggers, please let us know, because we are losing faith that anything we write is being read.  It’s almost as if I am writing to myself.  My mom said I should change my blogging picture, but I am pretty sure that I look similar in any picture of myself.  In fact, any picture taken of me over the past seven years looks strikingly similarly like myself.

If you are reading this, please go to my 100hookup profile and let me know.  You don’t even have to be a girl.  If I receive an anonymous flirt that is obviously from someone that doesn’t have a subscription and says something like “How is it that you haven’t been snatched up yet?” I will be perfectly happy.  I will let the other 100hookup Bloggers know of any encounters that I make with the rest of the world.

All of the bloggers on here are extremely talented and passionate about what they say.  From the dating experts, who actually do get readers, to the simple 100hookuprs® that are fortunate enough to write on this site, we are all just looking for some kind of contact.  We often spill our souls to strangers in the vain hope that somebody has had a shared or similar experience.  If I knew that one person read what I wrote, and it made them laugh or cry, or even feel angry, vengeful, or cynical, I would be extremely happy.  Shower in the sequence of sorrows that is my life.

Remember back in college when you were taking a bunch of classes for your major, and during the course of the semester all of the information would begin to mesh together and overwhelm your fragile college brain? Sure we all had friends or acquaintances who were conscientious students and constantly reviewed all of the material for their classes so they could keep it all neatly compartmentalized in their heads, but for many people that is the college ideal not the reality. So what did the rest of us less diligent students do to combat our apathy and earn respectable or, at the very least, passing grades: We crammed. The night before a big exam we stayed up all night trying to jam as much information on a particular subject into our brains as was humanly possible in an attempt to overcome the fact that we had neglected to truly learn the material.

The other night, while I was driving to grab drinks with a woman I had met on 100hookup, I realized that I was drawing a blank of much of the information she had told me about herself during the course of our previous email correspondence. Part of the problem was that information from my other conversations with women on 100hookup had blended together in my head with this one and unfortunately, as I drove to meet her, I could no longer properly discern which facts, characteristics and stories were uniquely hers. Since I have been active on 100hookup for a while now I have gone out on enough first dates to not panic in the face of such self-inflicted adversity, and realized that I would be fine if I just went with the natural flow of conversation, and didn’t ask too many questions I should probably already know the answer to.

The date ended up going well, and thankfully I was able to avoid repeating any questions or telling any stories that had already come up in our emailing. On my way home after dropping her off I was honestly a little bothered by the fact that I couldn’t remember many facts from our previous email conversation, and that I was confusing it with others I was currently having with other women on 100hookup. Even though I don’t believe that this situation means I’m a bad person I have been trying to think of a way to avoid this type of situation from reoccurring in the future, and after pondering that question for the rest of the night I ended up thinking of only one viable solution, which did take me back to my college days, that I should skim through recent emails (or cram) before I go out on dates in the future.

Recently I’ve noticed that as the weather has steadily improved in Chicago, more people are logging onto 100hookup. Maybe it’s just a coincidence but personally I think that when people look out their windows and see snow and ice covering the streets they are much less likely to have the desire to leave their homes in order to go out on a date. Braving the elements to go out on a first date with someone you’ve never met can be a bit of a stretch at times; however, as the seasons change, I believe so do the mindsets of many people.

Even if you are unsure about going out with someone, agreeing to go for coffee or on a walk through a neighborhood is something you might do anyway if the weather was nice, and therefore are more likely to give the date a chance. Also, in my opinion, the spring is an ideal time to try to meet someone since then you’ll have a special person to do all of those fun summer activities with. Right now, as we start to see more of the sun and the days get longer, it’s the perfect time to break free from your winter dating slumber and get back out there. The built in excuse of it being too cold and gross outside is gone, and outdoor activities are back in play when planning dates. So go out and have fun because spring has sprung and so to can your social life!

Because of what I do for a living, many of my single friends – both male and female – are constantly asking me for advice. A lot of the time family and friends have also been asked, or have offered, advice (being typical Jews, it’s usually the latter). And when my friends relay to me the advice they receive, and sometimes even followed, I am flabbergasted! From advising singles to admit how they feel too soon to telling them to lay all baggage on the table, our loved ones (especially those that have been married more than ten years) have no clue about dating in today’s world. Ask enough people for their dating advice and eventually you’ll hear contradicting statements.

My favorite is when Moms tell their kids to “stop looking and you’ll find someone.” Ummm, no. Actually, not actively looking is detrimental to your dating life. The amount you’re out there looking is directly proportional to how much you date. If you’re not on 100hookup or going to hookup singles events or accepting blind dates – or all of the above – then you’re not going to meet someone. People only meet on the subway or at the gym in the movies. Sure, it happens in real life every once in a while, but why sit back and wait for love to come to you? Instead, go out there and find it, otherwise you’ll be waiting a looooong time!

The other popular piece of advice people get that I can’t stand is to be a “challenge.”  If you play hard to get than how will you be gotten? I’m not saying to lay it all out on the line, but anytime you’re trying to not try too hard, you’re going to fail. When you pretend not to be into someone, your date is going to think just that – that you’re not into him or her. Pretending like you’re always busy will make the other person think you don’t have time and are not willing to make time for them.

If you’re offered advice without having asked for it or if you ask for advice but totally disagree with the answer, don’t get into it with the other person. It’s not worth it. Merely thank them for the advice and say that you’ll take it into consideration. Married people think that because they’re no longer single that they know all. But just because a technique worked for them doesn’t mean it will work for everyone else. Even dating experts such as myself get it wrong sometimes. You need to follow your instincts above everything else. All the dating advice in the world won’t matter when you meet the right person at the right time and just go with the flow and live in the moment.