Super Awesome Dating

Do yourself a favor and kill your online dating profile once you commit to someone. Why do you need to have a profile on a dating site if your someones boyfriend or girlfriend? This whole “not single, not looking” business is a bit silly to me and I think I understand the motives behind it, but I still think it is silly. Correct me if you disagree, but I believe the motives are: 1) Keep it as a backup plan just in case things don’t workout and 2) Not being able to make that mental transition from being single, to being in a relationship and 3) Being to lazy to create a new profile if you delete your old one.

Social media is certainly a proverbial monkey wrench in the art of dating, finding love, and being happy. Sites like Facebook with some 300,000,000 million users (no joke, that’s a crazy number isn’t it?) allows us to connect in very new ways, but it also keeps us connected when it might be best to just let go and move on. Our relationships are so intertwined because of social media that it is difficult to cut the cord (think facestalk). This mentality sometimes lends itself in a bad way with online dating. Since online dating sites are a type of social media, but not necessarily a social network. Read More…

Before I struck out on my own and broke free from the tyranny that is regular employment, I like most people was stuck in a cubicle, then stuck in my car, then back to the cubicle, then back to the car. Rinse and repeat. While their is nothing inherently wrong with that, a job really does take away most of your free time from anything else. Including a social life and more importantly your love life. Sure you will make work buddies but is that not a little bit of an inbreed social life. Is it not? Changes in your life happen so slow, but also so fast, it makes for quite the paradox. Your going about your life, taking each day at a time when BAM, your graduating high school then BAM your done with college then BAM your turning 30, then BAM your almost 40. When you look back on it, you say to yourself “man, time fly’s”, but taking it each day at a time it is a bit slow.

Adult hood sneaks up on every young person when they least expect it. When their in college like I was, your at the top of your freedom, far away from the control of your parents with limited responsibilities for yourself, only to end up a college graduate  owned by a new entity, a job, a corporation. Congratulations on graduating Dave, now get in line and make those widgets. This is what happened to me. I graduated and had a good first job out of school, the only thing that prevented it from being great was the work load and the hours required. 60+ a week. Not even exaggerating. Companies I have to hand it to them, their smart in the sense they know young people have more energy than older folks and can put up with a 60 hour work week. Read More…

Automatic re-billing is just what it sounds like. Automatically re-billing your credit card for a service you signed up for, month after month, with you only having to authorize the first charge, and it never ending until you actually tell them to STOP. What kind of online services do this? Membership sites of course. Think Eharmony or Match.com. This re-billing process is part of the terms of service when you sign up, so when you agree to pay Match.com or Eharmony, your agreeing to allow your payment source to be re-billed month after month, or until you take action and cancel the service.

We can all easily guess why companies do this. Sure they say it is for the convenience of the consumer, but who they kidding? It’s for the money. It’s for that person that doesn’t cancel after their one 1$ weekend trial, its for that person that becomes busy with life and work and forgets they signed up for the service, its for that person that is not exactly sure when the billing period begins or ends, and its even for that oblivious person who just assumes that once the month is over, its over and that’s it. Re-billing is a very annoying part of online dating and membership sites in general, though I am not sure what a better solution would be. Thinking about it, their probably is not a better solution per say, but rather perhaps their could be a better practice set in place, a code of conduct if you will. Companies should have set standards on what they can and can not do. Companies running membership sites must disclosed up front to the consumer their billing practice, instead of in the boiler plate legalise. So that consumers can make a conscious decision, and not be tricked or pressured by clever marketing triggers. Many times, this re-billing process is kept in the fine print. Re-billing has become somewhat of a norm though, consumers have grown to expect their card to be re-billed, however, that should not change the the argument that companies to disclose better, their re-billing practices upfront to consumers. Read More…

How do you meet the right guys online? As any girl knows, its no problem meeting men online. Their so aggressive, some girls wonder why wont he leave me alone? The problem is not meeting men, it’s meeting the right men. Not the men who live an Internet fantasy life, but men who are genuine. This is tricky since we all lie to some degree about ourselves online. Even you girls! Just in different ways. Here is the question:

So over the last 3 months I have signed up for two paid dating sites, Eharmony and Match.com.  Since I’m new to online dating, I was really surprised at all the emails I got (I guess this is the norm for girls?). It felt really good to be getting lots of attention from what seemed to be quality gentlemen. So Long story short, I ended up going out with a handful of men and they ended up being NOTHING like they made themselves out to be. Two of the guys were so far removed from what their pics looked like I thought I was on MTV’s punked. Every single date led to my disappointment, and every single date has called me back for a second.

My question, what the hell am I doing wrong? How can I filter out real genuine guys from the ones who live a delousional Internet fantasy life and false advertise themselves? ( Also, I’m one of the few who actually put up actual recent pics of myself it seems). Read More…

Weekend question segment, this one is all about online dating. Guys are a bit aggressive online are they not girls? Anyways, this question comes from a man who is dating online and is exchanging his contact info with girls he meets. First they exchange a few emails, give each other their respective phone numbers, talk and text a bit, then set up a time to meet one another.  He has has a bit of a rough run by being cancelled on 4 times, the last minute before the date. Here is the question:

I have had four, that’s right FOUR last minute cancellations in a row from four different girls. Here is the breakdown:

• The first said her grandfather was sick and went to the hospital.
• The next girl said she was not feeling well.
• The third said she had second thoughts about dating, but wanted to hold onto my number. She texted 3 time to confirm our date the day before she cancelled.
• The last girl cancelled twice on me, the last time I could tell she was lying.

So my question for you. 1) Whats the best way to respond to this? & 2)Whats the best way in general to handle this? Read More…