Girl Next Door seeks Yard Worker

by Matt.

I just heard a funny story from a friend of mine that met a girl on a popular dating site. We’ll call it yardmatch.com. You’ll see why. My friend, we’ll call him Gerry, received a response to his ad on yardmatch from Cindy (not her real name). They arrange an early lunch at a romantic, yet casual little restaurant in Boston. Gerry tells me that there wasn’t any uncomfortable silence at lunch, which can sometimes happen on a first date when you find the person’s real life persona differs markedly from their online personal ad. Gerry did note, however, that Cindy kept bringing the conversation back around to yard work.

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Importance of Being Earnest…

by Veronica Bell.

Importance of Being Earnest… or at least the importance of using proper table manners as a way to get the date off to a good solid start.

I happened to be in Chicago this weekend for a writers workshop at Second City. While I was there I wanted to play around downtown. Shopping and running around the beach are not occasions where a play date is absolutely necessary but for dinner, I require company.

Its far too depressing to think I would have to eat alone, ordering room service while I am trying to enjoy a new city.

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It’s Long Over…But He’s Still Around In My Dreams…

by Rori Raye.

I was 12 years older than him, but we didn’t know it. It was a long time ago, and I’ll always think I almost married him - white picket fence and all.

I met him in a computer store, in the early days of computers, when I was an actress writing screenplays, and he made his living pulling the backs off computers and switching the parts around inside before he closed them back up.

On our first date, the chemistry was through the roof, but the conversation was stiff and almost weird, as though we were in two different Universes trying to discover a common language.

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So I Dated a Serial Texter…

by Liza Keyne.

As a 28 year old living in Chicago, I admit that I absolutely use text messaging to communicate with friends, family, and co-workers. For me, texting is great for sending and receiving short messages to and from people I already know. It’s perfect for corresponding with basic questions: where are you, what time are you picking me up, who is this weirdo that is talking to me, how did I get home last night? It’s also ideal for sharing funny moments that aren’t worthy of a full conversation; such as, “You will not believe that hot tranny mess I just saw on Belmont and Halsted.” Believe me; I have been swept up in this texting whirlwind. It wasn’t until recently that I discovered how much texting has slithered its way into the dating world. It seems that out of nowhere, text messaging has somehow become a dating norm. It got me thinking: when did text messaging take over for a good old fashioned relationship?

I recently dated a guy who we’ll call “Mr. Text,” who used text messaging as his primary form of communication. Mr. Text truly lived up to his name: he was aloof, brief, and hard to understand at times.

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The Dealmaker

by Katy Franklin.

In my last article, “The Dealbreaker,” someone posted a comment suggesting my next one be about “DealMAKERS.” I thought that was a great idea. Instead of being so negative, and discussing how guys can turn us off, I wanted to show some ways in which guys can turn us ON. So now, I give you “Dealmakers,” otherwise known as 50 things guys can do to make us smile, make us sit up and pay attention, make us think twice about them, or even make us fall in love with them.

He has great teeth

He opens the car door for you (even if you’d rather get it yourself, you have to admit it’s a sweet, old-fashioned gesture.)

He asks your drink and then gets one for you

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Dating, Online and Otherwise

by Jerry Whiting.

To say that internet dating has changed being single is an understatement. Heck, it’s even changed cheating. One searches the other’s email, text messages, voicemail, IM, MySpace, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr, whatever, and busts them.

Online dating harbors little of the stigma it once did. One is no longer labeled a loser for using the net to hunt/shop/forage. As craigslist has undermined newspaper classifieds and travel sites have dealt a blow to travel agents, online dating sites like match.com, nerve, eHarmony, et al. have unraveled traditional face-to-face dating. Are you ashamed to tell family and friends how you met your latest mate? Speaking of which, how honest are you online when you described yourself? How honest were they?

Ladies, if you’re going to use craigslist to shop for a man (or any other dating site for that matter), please take a moment to read my advice for women and craigslist. Being a free country, you’re free to ignore part or all of what I have to say. Otherwise you may find yourself guilty of these known craigslist sins. You may, just may, find that heeding some of my suggestions will aid in your search for Mr. Right (or Mr. Wrong if that’s your kink. See “samsara”.)

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Does Match.com Promotes Infidelity?

by Zane Trae Kearney.

“It’s Okay to Look.” Only in certain contexts and situations could this slogan be construed as a truthful notion in the dating scene. In everyday conversations this phrase gets tossed around by men and women in relationships talking amongst their friends about the “hottie” they saw the other day in the parking lot. “Hey, it’s not cheating. It’s okay to look.”

There’s a fine line, however, between the hottie you saw by happenstance in the parking lot the other day and the hotties you’re looking at on the internet via dating websites. I’ll give you an example and we’ll see if you can distinguish the difference. To embody yourself into a setting, I was in a seemingly steady relationship for a year already. Ostensibly things were heading down the path of taking things to the never-ending “next level” and the sensation that I found “that one” was embedded in my thoughts.

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Secrets Of The Boys Club: What Guys Really Think The First Time They See You

by Matt Titus.

There is one thing I try to convey to all of the women I work with: most men do not approach a woman because he thinks she is moral, funny or smart. His initial intention is to sleep with her. I know this sounds harsh and it may be shocking, but it’s true. I am a man and it has never been my intention to approach woman to make a new friend. I have enough friends and none of them wear make-up or smell pretty.

I try to teach women how to think like a man while never losing sight of her femininity. In most cases, a man’s actions are (unfortunately) driven by what pleases him visually, acting out of instinct and only thinking in the moment. My basic thesis is that if a woman can be taught to understand a man’s dating behavior, she can easily control, predict and successfully maneuver through all the confusing “MANerisms” during that date. In other words, I teach women how to speak “man.”

So here’s secret #1 of the Boy’s Club: when a man walks down a crowded street he involuntary classifies all women into two categories: “would sleep with” and “wouldn’t sleep with.”

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Speaking the Universal Language of Emotion

by Joshua Thompson.

Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” Our thoughts honestly control what we do. There is plenty of material written on this. So I won’t get into it too much.

We are a product of what we think…but also what we feel. And I think our feelings aren’t focused on enough.

Honestly, we are mostly emotionally beings. We act based on thoughts, we react based on emotions. Our emotions can stimulate us to do things. They can also stimulate us to ignore reason.

This is the idea that women can really mess you up…because you don’t think logically. Your control is overrun by your emotional language.

But how does this apply to your dating?

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The “Dealbreaker”

by Katy Franklin.

Every girl has her own little hang-ups about a guy that drive her crazy. Whether you’re out on a first date with someone, have been dating him casually for quite some time, or have been in a long-term relationship with a man, these little annoyances can become “Dealbreakers” or “DB’s,” as my friends and I so lovingly refer to them. Some are not so bad, while others can be totally devastating to a first date, or a committed relationship. So I thought long and hard and came up with a list of things I would consider “Dealbreakers” for myself. I also polled some girlfriends to get some second opinions and fresh ideas. The following are 50 serious Dealbreakers…guys, you may want to take notes…

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