Online Dating Guide & Blog

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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Earlier this week (July 21st to be exact) marked the last day that any user of Yahoo! Personals could switch to Match.com, the service that will be taking over all the accounts that previously existed within the Yahoo! service.

Yahoo! Personals is the first service I ever paid for when I started dating online. I never had success with this service and as I discuss in my online dating guide, I think it may have had to do with the fact that Yahoo! wasn’t a site about dating. People doing other things would find themselves checking out Yahoo! Personals just because they basically already had an account through their Yahoo! account. It is my theory that this activity inflated the membership numbers for Yahoo! although many of these members were never all that active. On the other hand, if you found yourself with a Match.com account, you ended up with it for a very specific reason: you intentionally signed up for an online dating service.

Yahoo! Personals Ending – A Good Thing?
It is my opinion that the closing of Yahoo! Personals is not a bad thing for those of us dating online. This is because two fairly large separate services have now consolidated into one service. This is great news for users of both services and for any other singles who now sign up Match.com. While features of an online dating service are important, having a large pool of singles to choose from is often just as important.

Why Is My Yahoo! Personals Account Gone?
If you have found yourself reading this article because you stopped using your Yahoo personals account and now find it missing, at this point I think your only option is to create a new account at Match.com. On July 21, 2010, Yahoo removed all accounts that had not already switched to Match.com.

This post is the second half of a two-part interview I had with Chloe Rothwell, the CEO of the new online dating service called HelloJackieJoe. HelloJackieJoe is unique in that it aims to involve your friends into your online dating experience. The first half of my interview with Chloe is available here in the second half is below:
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Recently I had the opportunity to speak to Chloe Rothwell, the CEO of the new online dating service called HelloJackieJoe. This service is unique in that it aims to involve your friends into your online dating experience. The first half of my interview with Chloe is available below:

Describe HelloJackieJoe and how it’s different from other sites that are out there today.

Really what we’re trying to do is create a site where unlike other options where you’re the person who is trying to date and you have to do everything on your own, the premise of this site is your friend gets involved and helps write your profile and look at what profiles are out there and try to help match you with other people on the site.
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This is a guest post by Kate Houston of trysweettalk.com

I had a client whose original profile asserted, I love to cook. As a professional dating profile writer, I can tell you that about 80% of the profiles I read say the very same thing.

Eventually I learned this client not only loved to cook, she loved it so much she collected antique cookbooks. I also learned she was a truly unconventional woman in many respects. So, rather than keep, I love to cook, I began her profile with I have a recipe that says, “catch and pluck 10 chickens”. But, don’t worry, I don’t usually do what I’m told.”
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Chemistry.com is having a free communication weekend starting Friday, July 23 and running until Sunday, July 25, 2010. It is going to be a busy weekend for free events! This is because in addition to this free weekend at chemistry, eHarmony is also having a free communication event starting this Friday (see my previous post for more on this).

While free events are always a good thing, this weekend offers some particular value because of both of these free weekends. A common question is, ”What is the difference between chemistry and eHarmony?” or, “Which of the two services is better?”
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Update 7/25/2010: It appears that this free event only allows you to take the communication so far – see the comments below for more details. It doesn’t appear that the free weekend is all it is cracked up to be, at least for this event. If anyone has more details or experiences with this, please feel free to comment below. Thanks!

This eHarmony free communication weekend is far more than a weekend – it’s a full 10-days of free communication. The Free Communication Weekend begins at 12:01AM on Friday, July 23nd and ends at 11:59PM on Sunday, August 1st. Please note that this free event is only available to the United States (sorry Canada, but you did have your own free 10-day communication “weekend” in the past).

Even though you will have 10 days to use eHarmony for free, I still recommend signing up in advance if you can. Having your profile and matches already available and ready to go when Friday arrives gives you a nice head start. If you are reading this and the event has already started, I still think you should sign up (obviously). But for those who know in advance, I say give yourself every opportunity for success that you can.

If you already have an account with eHarmony, remember to turn on the setting to provide new matches if you have it turned off! This should be done as early as you can.

The normal eHarmony free communication weekends are great but I do feel that having a large amount of success in 3 days is a tall order. Will you find dates on a 3 day free weekend? Sure, but with 10 days you can have time to build more of the conversations which will lead to more first dates. This really is a great opportunity to get a real feel for the service.

Just a note to anyone who has not read my online dating guide: some singles think they should only talk to one person at a time with online dating. I believe this is a mistake (you can read why here) but it is even a bigger mistake when you only have a 10 day window. It may seem like a long time but it will fly by before you realize it.

Note: Chemistry.com is also having a free weekend this coming Friday through Sunday. If you ever wanted to compare the two services, now is a perfect time.

eHarmony.com – Try for Free July 23 – August 1.

Picking the right main profile photo is pretty important. Just about every dating site out there has statistics that show that having a photo at all improves you online dating success quite dramatically. This can even be seen without statistics just based on how aggressive dating sites when it comes to getting you to add your photos. They want you to be successful (so that they in turn are successful) and they know that photos are a huge part of your potential success. Still, putting up a profile photo is only a part of the problem. Getting the right main photo in your profile is the real issue.

With that in mind, have I mentioned how much I love OKCupid? This free dating service offers more dating statistics than all the other dating services combined and they recently released a new tool for you to generate your own statistics to help you pick the best photo for your profile: MyBestFace. The service is simple (yet powerful):

1. Upload your photos
2. Help others by rating their photos
3. Get a Full report on your photos based on what others think

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This Wednesday, July 21, 2010, DatingDirect will be offering a free trial to all new subscribers who sign up between 6 PM and midnight (UK residents only). Compared to most free dating events, this is a very small window of time to take advantage of the service.

In addition, it appears that only the users who actually signed up during this six hour period are going to be able to take advantage of the free communication. I see this as a problem because I normally recommend that people sign up ahead of time to figure out the people that they would like to contact. Even a three day free event like MatchAffinity recently had can be over in the blink of an eye, so six hours is barely any time at all really.

Still, free is free. If you are available this Wednesday evening, you might want to check it out. It does seem unfortunate that this promotion would encourage people to create one account to check the service out, and then another account once the free trial period has begun. If it turns out that I’m wrong about the rules of this promotion (and I hope that I am), I will update this post.

Check out DatingDirect now.

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

If you’re dating online then you have a lot of competition. There are millions of people out there and each one is competing for attention. So how do you make sure your soulmate shows up in your inbox? Take tips from people who know how to get noticed – advertisers. Treat your dating profile like an ad and you can stand out from the competition.
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Love, Sex & Deception is a book that provides online dating advice with a unique approach: instead of listing rules and guidelines they offer advice through the telling of others’ online dating stories. A few samples of these stories include the following:

• A story of two friends who find out the same man is sending them the same poetry and decide to have some fun with him but showing up together when next meeting him.
• How a woman ruined a date by blatantly (yet unnecessarily) revealing she was using a push-up bra
• A story that highlights why jumping into marriage can be a very painful prospect
• A man who explained to his date that he was divorced without ever revealing that he was also now remarried

The stories are broken into different categories (chapters) and include things like stories about online dating scams, dates from hell, dates who lie and manners when dating.

Who Would Enjoy This Book?

Overall, I found this book interesting and at points amusing but its non-traditional approach to advice makes it better for some singles than others. I see this book best serving those who are comfortable with dating and who are already finding dates. I recommend this because the book generally follows this format: Read more »

Why has my hosting become so slow? That is the question I found myself asking about my GoDaddy account after a few months of having this website. In this “off topic” article I wanted to discuss my problems for this site when using GoDaddy and why I chose HostGator as my new hosting company. I’ll also discuss how well things have gone since switching.

My Problems with GoDaddy

I can break my issues using GoDaddy into a few different categories but it really came down to one issue: inconsistency. To be more specific, these were the areas where I had issues:

Database Performance
This was the first area where I started noticing problems. I found that static web pages (like HTML pages) always loaded great at GoDaddy. However, as soon as I started using a database (both with Ruby on Rails and later with WordPress) the performance went downhill.

The confusing part about this was that some days my site would load in a few seconds while on others it would take up to 20 seconds to load one page! There were times the pages would never load at all and just timeout which is just unacceptable. With Google recently stating that page speed can affect a site’s search results, it became even more unacceptable.

GoDaddy is by far the biggest hosting provider and the general consensus they really struggle to balance their users across their databases. Things may be going along great for a long time and then a few active users are added to your database server and everything slows down.

Support Issues
Again, the problem for me (aside from having to pay long-distance for the calls) was inconsistency.

At times, I would call in and get bad advice, given with the greatest degree of confidence, only to find out later it was the wrong approach to solving the problem. But then other times I would get super helpful support where I could tell I was dealing with someone who knew the issues well and who was able to help me fix things pretty quickly. Also, GoDaddy was very quick to insist that software issues or setup were not their problem which was very aggravating. The problem with that argument is that it can very subjective and some support people seem very quick to jump to that explanation.
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A reader recently wrote in to ask about dating conversations where the person you are talking with responds but with little or no apparent interest:

If you are conversing with someone via email (regardless of who initiates the conversation) and you respond with a short paragraph and question and they always responds with one or two sentences, does this mean that they are really not interested. If asked a question I answer the question plus give some background and ask another question. A few times I have run across men who answer the question and that’s it. Even if I ask Why questions.

Photo by Eleaf
This is an issue many of us experience when we date online. To be honest, everyone you talk to is going to be different so often it is a guessing game as to if they are interested or not. One thing I will say is that it is pretty common for people on the internet to stop replying altogether if they lose interest. So, if you are communicating with someone and you are still getting replies, I would say that is a good sign. So why would some people respond in a way that doesn’t make their interest clear?

Here are a few ideas:

• They may have bad social skills. Some people enjoy talking about themselves but then forget that it’s polite to create an actual conversation. They might actually think that you two are having a good conversation because they love being asked questions about themselves.

• They may be shy. I’m a shy guy and when I first started dating online I was always worried about the next step I should be taking and in some cases, wouldn’t take any steps at all.
• They might actually be interested. A lot of the dating advice out there for men says that if you are interested in the woman, pretend that you are not interested. I think this advice sucks but apparently most of the other dating advice givers disagree with me.
• They might be interested in you but more interested in someone else they are talking to.
• They might not be interested.

There are other reasons but this list gives you an idea of the different reasons this can happen. In this situation, though, I believe the real question here is:

How do I fix this?

• Pick something they should have an obvious interest in based on their profile and ask something that should take a detailed response. For example, if they listed liking the TV show Lost in their profile you might work something like this into your email: “What do you think the last episode of Lost really meant?”

• This is riskier but you can try disagreeing with something they listed as liking. Something like “I thought Lost was okay the first season but after that it really went downhill”. The goal here is to get them passionate about the conversation and then to change it to topics of more substance later.
• You can ask them out or hint at getting together. You can be vague or direct although I would recommend guys go with being direct. For the ladies, something like “I hear there’s a free concert at such-and-such next weekend” might encourage him to ask you out. Ladies can also be direct and ask him if he would like to meet.
• You can try to move the conversation to instant messenger or the phone. If it were me, I would move it to instant messenger first but that’s just my preference (I’d recommend creating a separate IM account just for your dating if you decide to do this).

Now after a while, I think there comes a point where you will just need to decide to move on if a they are consistently unresponsive. At some point, the one-line responses just are not worth the effort!

eHarmony’s next free weekend is July 2nd until July 5th 2010. If you are new to eHarmony, during the eHarmony Free Communication Weekends you can communicate with all of your matches absolutely FREE. While eHarmony almost always refers to these events as weekends, there are actually 4 days of free communication for you to take advantage of (so it is more of a free long-weekend). Generally the events begin at 12AM of the first date and end at 11:59PM of the last (local time in both cases).

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

As I am quick to repeat during these free weekends, it is best to sign up earlier rather than later. Not just for the obvious reason (because you want to take advantage of the full event) but also because eHarmony provides the matches you can communicate with. The last thing you want is to sign up on Friday only to receive a few matches. I also like the idea of signing up early because you can plan who you want to communicate with while you are waiting for the free weekend to arrive (and trust me, these free events always go by quicker than you want them to.

If you are on the fence about trying eHarmony, now is the best time to find out if it is for you. While four days isn’t the longest amount of time you could hope for, it is long enough that I think you will see the value in the service. And if you don’t find value in the service, at least you won’t have to wonder any longer and can just move on. Personally, I think having an eHarmony account is worth having even if you only use it just for these free weekends. While you would have to be very lucky to find that special someone in 4 days, stranger things have happened. My wife met me using a 3-day free trial so it does happen!

For the first time ever, Parship.co.uk is offering a voucher for 50% off of their 3-month subscriptions. To qualify for this promotion you will need to:

1. Visit this sign-up pagewhich includes an area to enter the voucher.
2. In the voucher box enter 33A45
3. Do this on or before July 31st

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Photo by °Florian
In my article on writing first emails using online dating, I discuss what should and should not be in your emails. I wanted to expand on that topic to include a pattern I’ve seen recently: apologizing or making excuses when contacting other singles.

Apologizing in First Emails

For whatever reason, some people see apologizing as the preferred way to start an email. It will often begin something like “Sorry to bother you…” or “I’m sure you get lots of emails so sorry if…”. It isn’t always as direct as this and sometimes it is more about the attitude shown in the email than the words. For example, including a comment on understanding if they don’t have time to get back to you sends the same message.

If you need reasons why this is a bad idea…

• Your first email should be short. Most people agree with this, although different people have different theories on why short works best. Regardless, if you agree with the idea that first contact should be short, why waste valuable space with apologies?

• Apologies are unattractive. It is no secret that, generally speaking, women prefer their men to be assertive. While I don’t buy into the idea guys can only be successful if they have massive amounts of confidence, I do believe that including insecurity in your first contact is a great way to get no response. Ladies aren’t immune from the habit of apologizing either and it is just as destructive: guys don’t want someone who is going to cling to them or fall apart if the first date doesn’t work out.
• There is no need to apologize! I was once on a first date where she apologized over just about everything: if she set her glass down too quickly, if we started talking at the same time, if she coughed…it got really bad near the end. I excused myself to use the restroom and somehow she ended up apologizing for it. I cannot think of one thing she apologized for that deserved an apology. At any rate, the thing I remember most about that date is all the apologizing. You do not want this to be you, whether you are on a first date or sending your first email.

Making Excuses in First Emails

Similar to apologizing in first emails, another habit that some people have is where they feel like they need to explain exactly why they decided to contact someone. As an example, someone might start an email like the following: “Since we both like such-and-such I thought I would drop you a line”. While this isn’t as bad as apologizing it simply isn’t necessary! Additionally, all of the reasons why apologizing is a bad idea can be applied to making excuses as well.

Listen: you are using an online dating site. Communication is something you should be doing. You don’t need to provide an excuse or reason why you are contacting them. If you have a lot in common, they are going to see that when they read your profile.

Now to be clear, it is fine to comment on a shared interest or a similarity in your first email. It is totally acceptable to mention that you too love a particular show or book or hobby. Things go wrong when you use that shared interest as an explanation for why you are contacting them. In other words:

This is fine: “I love the outdoors too! Have you ever visited Yellowstone?”
This is not: “I saw your profile and thought since you like the outdoors I should probably contact you”

Watch Your First Emails

You may be thinking that you would never apologize or make an excuse in a first email but still, be careful! Some services (like eHarmony, Chemistry, etc) will protect you from making this mistake because the communication is more controlled but most other services do provide you the opportunity to make this mistake, unconsciously or otherwise. You want to make a good first impression and apologizing or excuses only harm your first impression. I can’t imagine anyone has ended up on a first date because of their excellent ability to apologize when no apology was required.

When I first started providing dating advice, I had assumed that I would have more visitors to my site on the weekends. My thinking was that people would be reminded of being single the most on the weekends and therefore would be looking to solve that problem then. Well, that theory turned out to be incorrect – at least as far as my site statistics are concerned. For as long as I’ve been tracking the traffic to my site I have actually seen consistent spikes in traffic on Sundays and Mondays. Below is a graph that shows 6 weeks of traffic for my site with Sundays being represented by the red line:

Sundays are on the red lines and as you can see, when Sundays aren’t the busiest day of the week, Mondays are.

But What Does This Mean for Singles?

It turns out that people are looking for dating advice the most after the weekend has ended (well, at least the people coming to my site). Sundays and Mondays are easily my most visited days. But what does all this mean for singles that are online dating?

The truth is it may not mean much, however, these numbers would suggest that many people are the most frustrated with their single life early in the week. If that’s true, it might be most beneficial to send extra emails or other communication during Sundays and Mondays. The thought here is that on these days people are most motivated to solve their dating life “problem” and thus may be more open and interested in communicating.

Now my web site traffic only makes up a small portion of the total online dating advice searching occurring each week but after months of watching this pattern happen over and over again, I have to believe that other internet dating sites see a similar pattern. This would actually probably be best answered by OKCupid since they are the primary source for online dating statistics but I wouldn’t be surprised if they saw the same results as I am.