Online Dating Guide & Blog

Note: there is also a free weekend at eHarmony this weekend so it’s a good weekend.

Lavalife is having a free communication weekend this coming weekend starting Saturday, September 4th and running until Monday September 6th 2010. This weekend will be 100% free to communicate with all other members on Lavalife. This event appears to offer the entire service for free: contact any of the other singles through email or instant messenger and you can even take advantage of features such as seeing who has viewed you
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Photo by The Welsh Poppy
Writing online dating messages can be frustrating. Spending the time to write the “perfect” email only to receive no response can cause many of us to ask if we’re doing something wrong.

Below are some online dating message tips, most of which I also cover in my online dating guide. Hopefully these will help you with communicating on online dating services and might even help you realize that a problem you think you have isn’t a problem at all:
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Is eHarmony free? This question comes up from time to time and the short answer is: no, eHarmony is not free (see this post for cost information).

Parts of the service are free and there are also free events that the service has from time to time. These two areas can confuse first time users about eHarmony so I’ll explain each of them and what exactly is free about eHarmony.

What Parts of eHarmony Are Free?

eHarmony is an online dating service that is all about matching you with other singles based on your personality. Because of this, the personality test is entirely free to take and your personality results are also free. These results will describe to you what type of person you are in a relationship and help define the type of singles you should be looking to date.

Once you’ve finished with your profile, eHarmony will then search other singles in your area and provide you with the best matches based on your personality. You can view your matches for free as well. However, you will not be able to view the photos in these profiles.
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Note: there is also a free weekend at Lavalife this weekend so it’s a good weekend.

eHarmony is having another free weekend from September 3rd to September 6th, over this coming Labor Day weekend. The event will be available to both U.S. and Canada residents and will begin at 12:01AM on Friday the 3rd and will end at 11:59PM on Monday the 6th. This means the free “weekend” is actually four days long this time.

Last time eHarmony had a free weekend it was 10 days, although in that case the free event didn’t include email communication. It appears that eHarmony has gone back to the “normal” free weekend this time giving a shorter time period but allowing singles to communicate through the entire eHarmony process.

I think this is a good move: while 10 days sounds great, if you can’t take the conversation to the next stage its nearly impossible to actual end up going on a date. While the 4 days will go by quickly, it still gives someone who is committed the opportunity to (hopefully) line up a date or two. We’ll have to wait and see if eHarmony will continue to bounce back and forth between these two “free weekend” models or if they’ll stick with their original now and the 10 day was only an experiment.

Beat the Rush…

As I always say, if you’re reading this early, I recommend signing up prior to the free event as opposed to waiting for Friday to arrive. This is because the sign up process will take you some time and also by signing up early you can start to collect matches now and decide who you want to talk to. Also, if you have a 9 to 5 job, on Friday morning you could quickly send out a few communication requests and get the ball rolling while you’re away at work. Hopefully you’ll even have some communication waiting on you when you get home!

eHarmony.com – Try for Free July 2 – July 5.

I recently read an article AskMen.com that covered five mistakes men make early on that scare women away. I think this article is well worth reading regardless of how you are meeting women. I also wanted to offer my take in this area, but specifically for online dating.

Most of my thoughts revolve around one idea: not coming off as strange or the stalker-type. Appearing strange or appearing like someone who might stalk the woman is a great way to scare women off, particularly when dating online. You may not feel that you’re at risk of appearing to fit into one of these categories, however, on the internet we can send signals without realizing it. Also, there are many men who have likely come before you that have created a situation where the woman is now extra sensitive to certain signs that suggest she may be dealing with someone “crazy”.
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Photo by hans van rijnberk

We all have different voices – some screechy, some mellow; some high, some low. To some extent, our voices play a key part in attracting and being attracted. Seductive, charming, confident voices; Australian accents, Scottish accents, Irish accents – we all have our preferences. Yet little would we suspect that the simple matter of vocal pitch could have an immense influence on our emotions.
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MatchAffinity will be having a free communication weekend this Bank Holiday weekend, Friday the 27th to Sunday the 29th 2010. All members of MatchAffinity (including non-subscribers) can communicate with other singles for free starting at 4PM on Friday and going until 11:59PM on Sunday night.

For those who are unfamiliar, MatchAffinity is a service for singles in the UK. It takes a mixed approach to online dating: where some dating services pick your matches for you and other dating services let browse everyone, MatchAffinity takes a mixed approach by offering some features of both types. For more details see my full review on MatchAffinity.

I feel like a broken record but I’ll say it again: if you are considering trying out MatchAffinity this weekend, sign up straight away. The free event will only last so long and most of us only have so much time we can devote to a date site. By signing up early, you can identify the singles you would like to contact and even prepare what you would like to write them when you communicate. This should help put you in a good position after work on Friday to send off some communication before you begin the other activities of your weekend.

For those who already have a free account at MatchAffinity, there is nothing for you to do: you are already prepared to take advantage of the free weekend with your previously created account. That being said, I think the advice discussed above where you plan who you will contact is still worth following.

Best of luck to all those who look for love this weekend! Also, check out the full list of free events discussed at this site.

Try MatchAffinity Today.

It seems to me that dating commercials in the UK are far superior to those in the US. Here in the States most of our commercials are either couples talking or black-and-white commercials of a single person sitting or laying and occasionally laughing (and I’m not sure what the point is to these commercials, to be honest). I get the feeling I’m not the only one because I am having a hard time even finding the US commercials online! Before today I didn’t even realize what a difference there was between the campaigns.

Anyway, for those in the US like me, here are some UK commercials:
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Chemistry.com is having their next free communication weekend starting Friday, August 20 and running until Sunday, August 22 2010.

When some other services have free events, they limit how you can use their service during the free event. Chemistry.com on the other hand entirely opens up their service: any functionality a paying member can use, you should be able to use also during this free weekend.

If you’re brand-new to online dating or if you are unfamiliar with Chemistry.com, I would recommend you read my review of Chemistry.com. This should help you get started so you spend less time figuring out how to use Chemistry.com and more time communicating with other singles.
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To business professionals, the idea of dating simply feels like it is not an option. The demand of our jobs or personal lives makes the idea of actively seeking a relationship seem impossible. For many, the common thought is that a relationship is something we will pursue when things “slow down”, next month or next year or who knows when.

Given this situation, we find ourselves resorting to finding our relationships in the workplace (as many as 30% of all relationships are started in the work place). This makes sense, considering the amount of time we will spend with our co-workers. Even when our job is extraordinarily demanding, we can easily find ourselves spending time with our co-workers far more than anyone else in our lives. Still, office relationships are often taboo and let’s be honest: you can only pursue so many relationships in your office before you need to move on to other places.

But what about relationships with liked minded singles…from other offices? This makes a lot of sense to me and this is where Lovestruck comes in. Lovestruck effectively networks the city to enable you to see if there are any attractive singles working nearby. Then you arrange to meet for a quick coffee, lunchtime drink or after-work drink. No grueling 3 hour dates. Instead, just enough time to test the chemistry.
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I remember reading about devices in Japan that would alert you when you are near another single person who also had one of these devices. I read about this years and years ago (probably when I first started dating online in 2004) so I can’t remember all the details but I seem to remember that it was a totally separate device, not something that was a part of your cell phone. I also think there was some “hunting for each other” involved as these devices provided little more than alerts.

Then, several summers ago, I got together with a friend who’s stationed in Japan for the U.S. Air Force. He was showing me his cell phone and all the features that it had that those of us here in the U.S. hadn’t even heard of yet. By this point, the proximity-based dating had moved to Japanese cell phones and was becoming commonplace for them.

Well, as is the case with most mobile technologies, the U.S. is finally catching up with Japan as our next generation of mobile devices mature. In the last few months, I’ve heard of an array of different services that are now offering dating options for when you’re out-and-about. I’ll be talking about one of those services, MeetMoi. I’m discussing this particular service because they contacted me and asked me to (and to be clear and FTC friendly, no money is changing hands here: these really are just my opinions).
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This is a guest post by Lior

Isn’t this an age-old question? Irrespective of whether you are face-to-face, on the phone or on a dating site, saying the right thing to a woman you think you might like is always tricky.

It all comes down to forgetting the nerves and being yourself. Some guys can do this easily. They happily churn out happy one-liners and crafty jokes while the ladies lap it up, laugh and beg for more. Though these guys may look super cool to other guys, don’t expect a woman to see it the same way.
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What is the difference between eHarmony and Chemistry.com? Is eHarmony better than Chemistry.com?

While the two services appear very similar, I will discuss what I consider the biggest difference between them. Then I’ll discuss some additional feature differences and why in some cases one of the two services may serve you better than the other.

Before I start, if you are brand-new to online dating or are not familiar with either of these services at all, I would recommend you read these two articles where I discuss each service in detail:

How Does eHarmony Work?
Chemistry.com Review

Finally, these are just my opinions. I imagine both of these services might disagree with some of the points I make here but this is how I see things.
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This is a guest post by Kate Houston of trysweettalk.com

Millions of singles are dating online. There are so many people to choose from that no one can rely on looks alone. So how do you get attention and keep it? Easy – apply the same rules to your profile that successful brands apply to their ads. As an ad writer with over 20 years experience, I guarantee that good ads get noticed and get replies. The same can be true for your profile.

What’s the offer?
Good ads are clear about what they have to offer. You need to be too. Promote your best traits and make it clear just how much better someone’s life will be with you in it.

Enhance your message.
Ads often use visual cues to attract their ideal buyer. You can do this too. If you love animals, post a photo of you with your pet. Or, if you love cycling, post a photo of you on your bike.

Packaging matters.
Don’t take a picture of yourself with a cell phone. It doesn’t project quality. Also, don’t post a photo of yourself next to someone (presumably an ex) whose body has been torn off.

Does your profile need fine print?
Write an honest profile. Don’t fudge your age, weight, height or any aspect of your personality even a little. Avoid being a disappointment to someone else and, ultimately, to yourself.

Don’t hard sell.
Ever see ads that drive a point so aggressively, they turn you off? Avoid this mistake on your profile by keeping it just long enough to catch attention but short enough to keep it.

Where’s the beef?
Be sure your profile has substance. Don’t waste space with empty cleverness or, worse, with: want to know, ask. Instead say something and give people reason to contact you.

Stay fresh.
Sometimes it takes awhile to find the one. In that case, update your photos and profile every few months so that you don’t look too familiar and get overlooked.

Kate Houston is President and Founder of trysweettalk.com, one of the only online dating profile writing services to leverage subtle, but highly effective, ad techniques so that dating profiles stand out and compete among the millions out there.

Chemistry.com is the other popular matchmaking-based service in the US (with the most popular being eHarmony). The point of Chemistry.com it is to provide you matches based on personality as opposed to having you browse to through hundreds of profiles and randomly picking the people you feel you will get along best with.

I’m going to break this review down into a few sections: first I will talk about signing up and using the service itself, especially the guided communication. Then I’ll discuss some of the issues users have had and one big benefit unique to the service.

Review Contents:
How Does Chemistry.com Guided Communication Work?
  Signing Up
  Your Personality Results
  Matches on Chemistry.com
Communicating with Your Matches
  Showing Interest
  Chemistry Starters
  Chemistry Email
  Chemistry First-Meeting
Complaints or Shortcomings of Chemistry.com
  People’s Complaints About Chemistry
  Taking Advantage of the Tools Provided
Why These Complaints May Not Matter
Chemistry.com Review: Final Thoughts

How Does Chemistry.com Guided Communication Work?

Signing Up
A big selling point of Chemistry.com is found in the matching process. The fact that they match you based on your personality requires a very extensive sign the process. Depending on how detailed you are, you could find yourself spending between 30 minutes and an hour creating your profile.
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According to Match.com, 1 in 5 relationships are now starting online. Other dating statistics reveal how much acceptance online dating has gained in a short ten-year period. That said, many people still hesitate to use online dating, often only because of what they perceive to be the social judgment attached to it.

Instead of making arguments to address the question of “Should I try online dating?”, I’ll instead ask you a few questions to help you decide if it is worth trying.

Photo by f.stroganov
How Are You Currently Finding Dates?
What methods do you use today to find dates? How well do those methods currently work? Are you meeting the kind of people you are most interested in or is it just random strangers?

If you have trouble answering these questions then in your mind think of the last five dates you went on. If you are finding dates with relative ease then it would seem online dating isn’t something you need. However, if you struggle to find dates or if you can’t even remember how long it’s been since you’ve been on five dates online dating is a great option. Actually, even if you are finding dates with relative ease online dating can help you find more dates so it is still a great way to go.

How Much Do You Have in Common on These First Dates?
While online dating can lead to some crazy first dates, it also brings people together who have similar beliefs and interests. Are your first dates with people you get along with well or is it just random people who you may or may not have shared interests with? While random dating can lead to success, online dating offers you more control over the types of people you are meeting.

Are You More Concerned with Who You Meet or How You Meet Them?
You should be concerned with who you are meeting but for many people the how because far more important. This is sad because you could be missing out on a great relationship just because some other person might think it strange that you met on the internet. Would you trade a great relationship just to avoid have someone thing something about you?

Take 10 Days to Really Decide

Earlier this year I wrote my 10-Day Online Dating Challenge. In those 10 days, I walk you through steps you can take to discover if online dating is right for you…and the great thing is it doesn’t cost a thing to find out. The first three days are spent using a free service and the last seven are spent using the free service and a 7-day free trial at Match.com. If you don’t like the answers you’ve been giving to the questions above, you owe it to yourself to find out if online dating is for you. Don’t just guess or assume you couldn’t use it. Something as simple as a week-and-a-half of your time could change your life forever.

This is a guest post by Kate Houston of trysweettalk.com

10. Bald spot camouflage.
If you’re going bald don’t hide the fact under a cap. It’s not a character flaw and there’s no reason to be embarrassed by it. Besides, bald is the new sexy. So show skin with pride.

9. Saying you’re young at heart.
Generally only people over 40 years old say this and often it’s to compensate for being older. Age is not a defect. Just pick someone you can be comfortable growing old with, no matter what your age difference.
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Match.com offers a free 7-day trial to new members and is one of the few services of its type that does so. By “type” I am referring to the fact that Match.com allows you to contact any member that you want. Free trials and events are more common with the matchmaker type of service, such as eHarmony or Chemistry, where the members that you can contact are limited by the service itself. The fact that a service like Match.com offers a free seven day trial means that they are giving you an opportunity to truly get a feel for their service, which is pretty nice.

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Lavalife will be providing free use of their instant messenger service to all memeber this Wednesday, July 28 2010.

The email alert I received from them suggested that I:

Log in now and start hot-listing your favorites, then come back first thing Wednesday and start communicating with 1000s of local singles on IM for FREE!

This seems like pretty good advice to me (and I’m actually surprised to see the service offering such clear instructions on how to best take advantage of the free time!)

This Lavalife free event begins at 12:01am local time Wednesday, July 28, 2010 and ends 11:59 pm local time Wednesday, July 28, 2010.

Recently I posted my two part interview with Chloe, the CEO of the new online dating service HelloJackieJoe. You can find this interview in the following posts:

Interview Part 1
Interview Part 2

I wanted to take an opportunity to talk a little bit more about this service. The first thing that I’ll say is that in talking with Chloe, I was given the very strong impression that she really does care about providing a great service to singles.
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