Caught My Husband Online Dating

Hi Meredith,

I have been with my husband for 12 years, and married for almost 10. I am 34 and we have two kids. A few months after my second one was born, I happened upon a dating site left open on my husband’s laptop. He had not only created a profile but also corresponded with several women looking to have an intimate fling. It’s a pay for dating kind of site.

We have had several things going on in our life. He is finishing up his studies. We recently relocated to a new state to be closer to my family. We have never had a great sex life because of issues on both sides. It’s something we have both tried to work on, off and on. I feel the issues are more on his side though (physically mostly). It frustrated me terribly in the beginning, but I learned to live with it because I thought everything else was perfect. He was thoughtful, helpful, always remembered anniversaries, and always had something special planned. We are great friends, I admired and respected him, and I trusted him completely.

When I confronted him about the website, I found out that he had been doing it for six months (from the time my second daughter was a month old). He said he never intended for it to go anywhere, though he did meet one of the women once. But I don’t know how much to believe him. When I first found out, I asked him to not touch anything on his profile until I had time to think about it. And when I finally decided a couple of days later that I needed to go through the site and find out the extent of his betrayal, I found that he had changed some things to tone down what he had done. That eroded my trust further because he had promised he wouldn’t change anything on the site. Now I don’t think I can believe anything he says.

I don’t know what to do. He is a good father. He says he will never do it again. But my trust is lost.

I don’t know if I can leave him. I don’t want my kids to grow up in a broken family, and I am certain I don’t want to remarry or have any other men in my life. I have always been against marriage and felt that it was only because my husband was so exceptional that it made sense (my father abandoned us when we were kids). A divorce would also cause a lot of heartache in both our families (we are from a country where this is not common).

Is this a big deal or is it a deal breaker? I don’t really have anyone to talk to. I don’t want to tell my family because I am afraid they will stop respecting him. I have asked him to come clean with his parents because it would make me feel like it’s a sign of being truly repentant. (I am not religious.) It’s been two months since I found out and he hasn’t done it yet. He is seeing a psychiatrist and telling her his life story so that’s more a shoulder to whine and cry on than someone who will hold him accountable for what he did.

Shall we live together and find a way to make this bearable or should I move on? Am I right in insisting that he tell his parents or at least someone who will hold him accountable? He has lost that chance with me since I already found out on my own. What should I do to make this situation livable?

– Looking for Answers, Massachusetts

A: I’m not convinced that things will get any better if he tells his parents, LFA. Sure, you’ll get some temporary pleasure from watching someone else get mad at him, but then what? Don’t assume that he’ll learn a lesson by confessing. Don’t assume that his parents can shame him into being a better guy.

I want you to talk to your inner circle about all of this because you both need support. Forget the redemption and punishment stuff for a bit and focus on getting help from the people who love you.

And please, let’s not assume that the psychiatrist is just sitting around and validating him. That’s not how it’s supposed to go. Tell him that you want to join him at these sessions. And please, see a therapist on your own. Therapy is a good thing.

I wish I could tell you whether to stick it out, but I just don’t know enough about what’s happening in his head. All I can say is that you have to find people to lean on. You moved closer to your family for a reason. This is no time for isolation.

Also know this: Broken families are bad, but so are tense, resentful families who stay together without love and trust. You need to figure out what will make you a happy parent. That’s the most important thing. Find help and start asking questions.

Readers? Thoughts on her telling her community and him telling his parents? What about their sex life? And the online dating? Can a couple move beyond this kind of betrayal? Help.

– Meredith

New Dating Site Matches You Based On Your Klout Score

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Website Focused On How to Attract A Girl

Date Hotter Girls, a leading men’s dating advice company, just announced the launch of a information site dedicated to helping men learn the intricacies of how to attract a girl.

The site, which went live, on March 19, has several free articles and tips that help demystify female attraction. The topic of how to attract a girl gets tens of thousands of search engine queries a month and is one that baffles many single men.

“It’s very counter-intuitive,” explains Rob Judge, founder of Date Hotter Girls. “So many men struggle to decode a woman’s behavior. Men often think too logically about attraction when they should be approaching it emotionally.”

Much of the advice on the site hinges of the theme of “emotional intelligence.” Judge believes that if men can better understand a woman’s emotions, he can learn to elicit those emotions in an attractive way.

“It you look at what interests women,” explains Judge, “So much of it is predicated on the emotions women derive from the things they enjoy—from what they eat to the shows they watch.”

Judge’s unorthodox philosophy has been a hot topic for both men and women. The blogger has been invited to participate in women’s panels on dating, often to give a man’s perspective on the dating game.

“I enjoy getting feedback from women,” explains Judge. “I don’t think any of the advice I give is shameful or weird. Most guys are proud to practice the tips they read on my blog and in my products.”

Though some female bloggers have responded with less than favorable reviews of Judge’s approach on dating. Recently a blogger writing for The Frisky wrote a scathing review of Judge’s “Top 10 Best Texts of All Time” report, claiming Judge was encouraging men to adopt a cookie-cutter approach to dating.

“There will always be critics,” laughs Judge. “I think the fact women bloggers have such a visceral reaction to my material sort of proves its effectiveness. I mean, I am telling guys to get women emotional.”

Rob Judge has spent the past 5 years teaching men to meet and attract women, both through products and live coaching.

Date Hotter Girls has released several books on meeting and attracting women. Magnetic Messaging is the latest release from Judge.

Har Age Matter?

Dating Site for Married Couples

NEW YORK — Can two thirtysomething guys who have never been married rescue the institution of marriage?

Well, this is New York, so they might as well try.

Meet Brian Schechter and Aaron Schildkrout, creators of the online dating site HowAboutWe, which until lately targeted an obvious demographic: singles.

Since 2010, the site has invited them to pitch date ideas online and respond to dates they like. Some recent ideas: riding motorcycles around and watching Star Trek (Texas); eating steak and cuddling in the rain (Akwa Ibom, Nigeria); and showing up blindfolded at a cafe and letting “our voices & fantasies decide about a 2nd date” (Bonn, Germany).

The site has been a success, attracting more than 700,000 date ideas. But its founders quickly discovered the commercial paradox of the dating site: The better you are at finding love for a client, the faster she signs off and ceases to pay you.

“If you succeed,” Mr. Schildkrout says, “you lose.”

And so the guys asked themselves: What if a dating site didn’t stop at finding you love? What if it also helped you “date” your life partner, and, through the surprise and renewal of that dating, to stay in love?

Later this year, Mr. Schechter and Mr. Schildkrout will release their answer to these questions: a new dating portal focused on committed couples. It will seek to get them out of their routines, off their feet and on the town for frequent dates.

Even for two unlikely businessmen who began their careers as schoolteachers, the business logic is plain: There is money to be made arranging dates for 50 years instead of the six to 12 months that HowAboutWe’s single clients tend to last.

But the two men, who have been best friends since kindergarten, will tell anyone who listens that their mission is deeper. They believe that dates — surprising, sexy, rejuvenating dates — are what marriage needs to survive in an era when it is becoming a choice more than a necessity for so many.

“We want to build a product that helps people find and then sustain love — and I think that the sustaining love part is harder,” Mr. Schechter said over coffee at the W hotel in Times Square.

A singles site, he said, is straightforward enough. He speaks of his new cause in far loftier terms. The goal is “figuring out how to make it so that the divorce rate goes down and that it becomes the norm for people to feel like their relationship actually satisfies their existential hope.”

Mr. Schechter and Mr. Schildkrout are hardly the first people concerned about the state of marriage and divorce in the Western world. But that concern tends to be voiced more often by religious leaders and archconservatives than by two never-married men who studied meditation in India and have offices among the artists, writers, D.I.Y. types and organic-wine-swilling hipsters of Brooklyn.

Because neither has ever married, Mr. Schechter and Mr. Schildkrout felt they needed to investigate the institution before seeking to reform it. They commissioned a study based on interviews with committed couples about their dating lives.

What they found was that the enthusiasm displayed on their singles site — people boldly proposing taco-hopping dates and prankster dates and blindfolded dates; people grasping constantly for the new — faded swiftly for the committed. Mortgages and children and budgets sapped energy. Couples changed. They began to want what was safe, not fresh.

Some excerpts from their interviews: “Very price conscious and needs to feel like she’s getting a deal.” “Is not a romantic and doesn’t plan much in advance.” “Novelty wears off.” “You’re more used to each other and are trying less.” “The usual issues with babysitters.” One subject’s last memorable date involved “going out to special German restaurant around a specific errand they had planned at Ikea.”

Outside the start-up galaxy, people might hear these interviews and say, “Well, that’s life. People age. Things change.” But if digital people have a defining conceit, it is that humans are plastic, and that there is a hack for just about everything.

Each blockage HowAboutWe found among the committed couples they studied has a corresponding feature on the new site. To overcome the inertia it detected, the site will offer fully packaged date ideas. To address logistical woes, HowAboutWe is working to make the packages available with a single click that will book your taxi, theater tickets and corner table at the Italian trattoria.

For Mr. Schechter and Mr. Schildkrout, each idea leads to another. They could arrange babysitters for couples. They could help slouchy husbands send, with one click, fancy date invitations that suggest a labor of many clicks. They could allow couples to follow the dates of other couples they admire — a digital way to keep up with the Joneses.

It is difficult in speaking to Mr. Schechter and Mr. Schildkrout to avoid the feeling that there is something personal in this quest. They built their singles site back when they were single and seeking dates. They have since each found a steady romantic partnership, and perhaps they want to improve marriage before taking its solemn vows for themselves.

“There is inertia that makes love hard to sustain, just like there is inertia that makes health hard to sustain over time,” Mr. Schildkrout said. “But that doesn’t mean that it isn’t a truly noble goal — and something people want and will pay for — to try to fight that inertia, to create an upward love curve. We want an exponential love curve when we measure love against time.”

Any Website Can Be a Dating Site

(CNN) -- Recently, a reader dropped the following query into our inbox:

“This may be a stupid question, but recently a friend told me he’s heard of people using Facebook as a dating service. My FB friends and I (admittedly middle-aged) can’t figure out how you “meet” people on Facebook. I (and most of my friends) are FB friends with people we actually know. How would one use Facebook as a dating site?”

- Flummoxed by Facebook Flirting

Oh, Flummoxed! There are no stupid questions -- only painfully, painfully stupid people. But I digress.... .

Social media flirting is a phenom that has been around since the message board/chatroom days, when starry-eyed 13-year-olds and rheumy-eyed 61-year-olds traded “A/S/L?"s with optimistic abandon.

A quick survey of my social followers -- on Twitter, Facebook, Google+ and Instagram -- revealed that, among my socially savvy circle of folks, people have dated/married suitors they met on MySpace, Facebook, Tumblr, Foursquare, MyYearBook, Yahoo Messenger and Usenet, to name a few.

In fact, this past week, the story of how one couple met on Words With Friends swept the blogosphere: Megan Lawless and Jasper Jasperse started playing the smartphone-based word game and were pitted against each other randomly. After talking via the game’s “Chat” feature and later communicating on Skype and e-mail, the pair met in person, and, eventually married -- Jasperse moving from his native Netherlands to Chicago to be with his bride.

While all of this may seem weird/creepy/slightly sad to anyone who didn’t grow up a digital native, consider this: Americans now spend about a quarter of their online time using social networks. If you’re giving your monitor the old glassy eyeball instead of tipping back highballs at your local TV-plastered sports bar, that’s likely where you’re going to make connections.

However, the actual process of meeting people via social media is still rather, well, creepy. (Less creepy than back in the days of message boards and AOL chatrooms, but creepy all the same.)

Assuming that you are not, in fact, a weirdo who collects spleens (we give you guys so much leeway on this factor), here are some tips on how to make any social media site a dating site without being a creep.

Don’t:

Compliment incessantly: You know that dude who staggers up to you at the bar, breathes whiskey into your face and murmurs, “Hey lady, you got mad cleavage, yo.” He’s creepy, right? He’s even kind of creepy when he goes a less aggressive route and compliments something benign, like your eyes ("You have lovely orbs... May I have them?”). Why? Because he’s stating his intentions off the bat, and our society -- addled by years and years of romantic comedy-viewage -- prefers a bit of a chase.

When engaging with people via social media, talking about their appearance/demeanor/eyeballs is even more unsettling than at the bar, because you don’t know the person in question and you can’t see their face in the flesh. Instead of going directly for flattery, start up a conversation with the object of your desire, thereby charming them with your wit and whimsy rather than empty poesy (or straight-up sexual harassment).

Come to think of it, that’s probably good advice for comporting yourself at ye olde sports bar as well.

Repeat yourself: If your hoped-for intended doesn’t reply to the first five tweets you send him about your shared love of fossils and tesseracts, cease and desist with your wooing. He doesn’t like you. Here’s a tissue.

Erase your face: No one wants to date a picture of a donut. When choosing your avatar, make sure to show your face, or, at the very least, link to a website featuring a picture of your mug. If you’re sensitive about your big-ass nose or your shiny head, just chill out. Ugly people get married, too -- I see their progeny on the subway daily.

Exhibit your courtship: Some initial public bantering is fine -- via Twitter, Facebook Walls, etc -- but if you carry on your heavy flirting ("OMG! I love the shape of your broken nose! You look like a matador!”) in a public forum, you risk annoying your friends and followers or, worse, embarrassing your potential date -- especially if you ask out said potential date publicly.

Have we learned nothing from that dude who asked that girl to marry him on the JumboTron? Twitter allows you to DM people, Facebook boasts private messages and even Tumblr has an internal messaging service called Fan Mail now -- there’s no excuse for blithely PDA’ing the hell out of your swain.

Play phantom: We’re assuming that you actually want to meet the object of your late-night Google stalking, so when it comes to digital flirting -- bring it offline ASAP. We’re also assuming that said person wants to meet you (we’re trusting you again here, guys -- hopefully you possess the social skills to recognize interest, unlike that aforementioned dude in the sports bar).

So why not ask them to hang in person? Or, better yet, in the presence of tons and tons of friends who can waylay a possible kidnapping/murder scenario.

Man Makes Dating Site… But Only For Himself

By Amy Rolph

Chas McFeely really wants to find a wife.

“For realz,” to use his own words.

The San Francisco-based advertising executive recently launched the site hookchasup.com to, well, hook Chas up. (Dot com.) And here’s the best part: If you set him up with the woman he marries, you get $10,000.

I’m mentally scanning my female friends for candidates now. But enough about how any of them would make great marriage partners. (Are you reading this, Chas? Did you hear me?)

McFeely told mademan.com that he never expected many people to look at the site, but it didn’t really work out that way. Now he spends his evenings sifting through “pick me” emails about more prospective partners than he can process.

“If I can’t find my future wife out of the hundreds of emails I’ve already gotten, I should probably move to Alaska,” he told mademan.com.

If you visit hookchasup.com, you’ll find out he likes reading, the music of Cat Stevens (at least he owns the record), playing Scrabble, and thinks of the glass as “eight tenths full.” And if he captioned those photos himself, he has a pretty good sense of humor.

In his defense, McFeely says he’s tried dating sites and friend setups in the past, but never with much luck. He even considered hiring a high-end matchmaker, but ultimately decided to take the reigns of his own fate. He doesn’t have a “type,” but says he prefers someone with a “creative edge.” (Although he doesn’t rule out falling for a brainy scientist.) While he admits to having been a perfectionist in the past, he says he’s no longer looking for flaws. In other words, he’s loosened up with age.

Personally, I can’t wait for the movie version of “Hook Chas Up.” Casting directors, might I suggest offering Topher Grace the title role?

New Dating Site Lets You Bid on Attractive People

By Chris Gayomali

Have trouble landing a date? If your pockets are deep, a new dating website that allows its members to bid on attractive potential mates might be up your alley.

The new website, coyly titled What’s Your Price, allows “generous” bidders to pony up for dates with “beautiful, gorgeous or sexy people,” though it would appear that someone both beautiful and sexy is out of the question. Or maybe you’re an attractive, sexy single who could use some extra cash! (Of course you are.) The website states, “If you’re beautiful, we are the only dating site that guarantees you will get paid to spend time meeting fun and generous people.” After an initial haggling process, a conversation becomes unlocked between potential suitors, allowing them to arrange a date themselves.

What’s Your Price even has a First Date Etiquette section to ensure that your transact... I mean, er, date, goes down smoothly. (Like “Cash is King” or “Report people who send money using Western Union.”) Classy? You bet.

I know what you’re thinking: “How is this not prostitution?” The site’s founder and CEO, Brandon Wade, asserts on the site’s blog that bidding for a date is more akin to charity than an escort service:

“When capitalism is mixed in with dating, all of a sudden people start concluding “it must be prostitution”. But does paying money for a cup of coffee every morning mean Starbucks is engaging in prostitution? Does paying for gas every time you fill up at the gas station mean that Mobil or BP is pimping? Does donating money to the Church every Sunday morning equate religion to prostitution? Obviously NOT, and obviously buying a First Date isn’t either.”

See that? Being attractive: It’s the gift that keeps on giving.

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Dating Site Lets You Virtually Court Your Fantasy Mate

Remember Cloud Girlfriend, that mysterious startup we covered whose tagline was, “The best way to get a girlfriend is to already have one”? Well, it’s finally launched, and we’ve got invites.

The initial conceit of the site, according to founder David Fuhriman, was that it would employ a legion of women to write on men’s walls as “cloud girlfriends,” demonstrating a dude’s popularity to all of his female friends (who would apparently fly into jealous rages over the digital flirting and pounce #SarcMark).

The current iteration of the site is a bit different — what Fuhriman describes as a mix between Match.com and Second Life. Users log in through Facebook and create a profile using a selection of headshots of attractive people (not their own snaps). They then fill out a rather simplistic profile, which allows one to choose between such options as “Books or Movies” (what if you like both?), “Lady Gaga or Lady Di?” (for women only — and there’s no sexual preference options) and “Sunday Church or Sunday Football” (for dudes — apparently it’s church or sports, no in-between).

After looking through a bunch of photos of fake people and their accompanying profiles, you can choose someone to chat with. “We allow people to define their ideal self, find their perfect girlfriend or boyfriend and connect and interact as if that person existed,” Fuhriman says. “It can help in learning how to manage a real relationship, and they then can take it into the real world.” The site makes money by selling virtual gifts and goods.

While we admire Fuhriman’s intentions — he hopes that the site will build confidence and increase sharing and communication (he’s also co-founder of volunteer site 5000Hands) — the whole thing seems a little counterintuitive to us.

By choosing photos that are not, in fact you, the idea could be perceived to be that looks don’t matter. But if that is, in fact, the case, why choose a photo of someone much more attractive than you are in reality when looking to score a date?

The words “ideal” and “perfect” are inherently dangerous when applied to dating and relationships (as rarely anyone is either) — in fact, a recent study by dating site OKCupid shows that women who are more divisive (a.k.a. men find them either ugly or hot) get more attention. Why? Because they let their personality — along with what could be perceived as flaws — shine through.

Why build all your hopes on fantasy when you could get to know a more interesting — albeit flawed — reality?

Still, I guess we can’t really knock it wholly till we try it. Cloud Girlfriend has provided us with 500 invite codes (use the code “mashable”) for men looking to join the site. Apparently, women can join sans code, since the site was initially marketed toward men.

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Social Gaming Meets Dating

The dating game has gotten more social with sites such as Zoosk incorporating Facebook-like features. But why not tap into one of the most popular aspects of Facebook — social games — to make dating more fun? That’s the idea of CupidsPlay, a new startup based in Bellevue, Wash. looking to leverage the power of games to bring potential matches together.

The site, which is officially launching Wednesday, is designed to use social games as a bridge to help singles break the ice. It’s an idea that’s still largely untapped, but it makes sense. Social games have a lot of engagement, are very viral and boast a good balance of genders, which is necessary for any dating site.

“If you look at the demographics of social games, it’s 54 percent female, 56 percent single and 74 percent said they’ve met new people in games,” said Founder and CEO Philip Yuen. “It’s really perfect for meeting new people.”

CupidsPlay is launching with about a dozen casual titles, including familiar genres like farming and restaurant-themed games. Users create profiles and identify the kind of people they’re looking for. As they play games, they publish their progress and requests for help, which other potential matches can see. A player can then choose to engage another person or help him or her out by buying them a virtual good.

Yuen said the goal is to enlist social and Flash game makers to build their games atop CupidsPlay, so CupidsPlay is making it easy for Facebook developers to port their games to the site. Developers can also run cross-platform titles on both Facebook and CupidsPlay. The attraction for developers is added distribution and the potential of making more money via sales of virtual goods. Yuen said the site will be free, but users will be able to buy virtual goods to help them progress in games or share as gifts for others. He expects members will not be shy about buying goods to help potential matches level up. CupidsPlay is not taking a cut of the virtual good sales yet though that could change in the future.

Yuen created CupidsPlay last year following three years at Amazon ( s amzn), which bought his mobile payment start-up TextPayMe. CupidsPlay closed half a million in seed funding two weeks ago from Clearstone Venture Partners and Yuen’s old boss, Amazon VP of Product Michael George. Yuen said the company will look to add more games, including more synchronous real-time titles instead of single-player social games as well as a video chat service. He said CupidsPlay will also eventually expand to mobile platforms as well.

The dating world is crowded with a lot of established players getting competition from more social and mobile-minded upstarts. We’re seeing more companies look at group-dating ideas to help bring people together. But with social gaming already a huge hit, it’s not a bad idea to integrate dating into the mix. Yuen said people still struggle to strike up conversations with other singles based on their dating profiles. Building conversations around games can be more fun and casual for gamers.

“When I look at profile and look at eye color and age and then have to think of something witty to say, it’s not very natural or effective,” said Yuen. “But when you want to talk to this girl or guy and they need help in leveling up, you can use that as a catalyst to start conversations.”

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Online Dating for Nerds

By Sarah Jacobsson Purewal and Alex Wawro, PCWorld

Valentine’s Day is just around the corner—and if you’re without a special someone, online dating might sound like a viable option.

Armed with nothing but our shining personalities and sexy photos, the PCWorld team took a look at some of the Web’s best (and geekiest) dating Websites. In order to test them, we created a female profile (Sarah) and a male one (Alex), and sent out some messages to see what would come back to us. Here’s what we found.

Geek2Geek

Who you can expect to find: Geeks galore!

How much it’ll cost you: The site has three tiers of membership, ranging from free to $31/month.

Geek 2 Geek calls itself “the best place on the net to meet geeks.” It boasts over 200,000 members, growing by about 6000 members each month. Its three levels of membership—free, “silver,” and “gold”—allows different levels of communication. While a free membership lets you browse unlimited profiles and receive unlimited messages, you can’t send any out (except to paid gold members) until you upgrade to a silver account.

Geek 2 Geek does have a matchmaking service. Signing up is quick and easy, and you don’t have to answer all of the questions right away (though you certainly can). A picture is also not a profile requirement. Matchmaking questions include everything from “type of sense of humor” to “areas of interest,” and similar geeks are delivered to your “My Matches” inbox.

As for whether you’ll actually find geeks on this site, well, a quick look-through says yes. It helps, of course, that the “areas of interest” are all geek-oriented, and include options like “online gaming,” “Star Trek,” “Tolkien,” and “Monty Python.” The site itself is decently easy to navigate, though it’s rather busy-looking (it looks a lot like a Web hosting site that’s trying to sell you something) and not as conducive to browsing as some of the other sites we reviewed.

Sarah’s take: This site isn’t really limited to geeks—it looks like just about everyone is on here. That makes me think a lot of the profiles are probably outdated and/or not being used. Plus, it takes way too much information to complete your profile.

Alex’s take: Yeah, “geek” in this case seems synonymous with “anyone who owns a computer.” That’s not necessarily a bad thing, and neither is the surplus of seduction toys like video, quizzes, and live chat; just know that Geek 2 Geek is a full-on social network, not just a dating service.

OtakuBooty

Who you can expect to find: Fans of anime, manga, gaming, and cosplay.

How much it’ll cost you: Sign-up and browsing are free, but full features (including messaging options) start at $4/year.

OtakuBooty is part online dating and part social networking. The name comes from a Japanese slang term for “nerd” (okay, it’s more of a derogatory term), and focuses on a less traditional type of geek—the anime/manga/Japan-fan type.

Signing up is free, and you can receive unlimited free messages—you just can’t see who sent them until you sign up for a paid membership. Luckily, paid membership is only $4 per month or $15 per year, and allows you full access to the site.

OtakuBooty keeps the nerd factor alive throughout the site: On the initial sign-up page, required fields are marked with an invincibility star; on the payment page there’s a bogus “send ham” option for a “recurring ham subscription.”

Unfortunately, this epic nerdiness carries over to the site’s layout. OtakuBooty is sort of like the Android OS—a little too rough around the edges. The good news is that this will probably scare off the ungeeky types who are unwilling to deal with anything less than a perfect user interface. The bad news is that there are just so many tabs. The site looks a lot like a bad wiki—and hey, there’s even a site wiki.

As for the types of users you’ll find, well, they’re definitely nerds. And they’re all a little weird. Case in point: Last time we checked, a “featured member” on the front page had three moustaches descending down his face (just sit there for a moment and imagine that).

Sarah’s take: OtakuBooty’s user interface is awful. It really is. It might deter the nongeeks from signing up, but it’ll also deter the geeks. It’s impossible to navigate the site—I couldn’t even contact OtakuBooty, because I couldn’t find their contact page.

Alex’s take: I’m not into otaku culture, but I really wanted to like OtakuBooty. Sure the wiki-like layout is ugly, but I found its quirky style endearing, and the news, deals, and quasi-legal torrent sections are handy if you’re passionate about anime. If you’re not, you should probably join me in giving this site a pass.

Cupidtino

Who you can expect to find: Around 30,000 Apple fans.

How much it’ll cost you: Free to browse profiles and send messages; $4.79/month to read messages sent to you.

Cupidtino describes itself as the first (and only) “Mac-inspired” dating site. That’s right—if you love Apple products and the people who love Apple products, this site is for you. (The name is a play on “Cupertino,” where Apple has its headquarters.) The philosophy behind this dating site is that people who like Apple products often have a lot in common—they tend to be creative types, such as designers, musicians, and writers, and more likely to be compatible with other creative types.

Cupidtino is quick and easy to get started with, providing you have a Mac or an iOS-capable device (yes, the site is designed for Apple fans, and is best accessed from Apple devices). Basic profile information (such as your birthday) is required, but a picture isn’t necessary to start browsing Apple fans right away. You can browse profiles and send messages for free, but in order to read messages sent to you, you’ll need to pay a minor subscription fee of $4.79 per month—the same price as a Venti Mocha Lite in the Cupertino Starbucks.

The Cupidtino Website is simple and features lots of white space and clean lines (similar to Apple products). This makes it generally easy to navigate, though the site does lack the ability to narrow searches by zip codes or cities. One thing to note is that the people—both men and women—on Cupidtino tend to be a little more skilled with their Mac’s photobooth. The profile pictures on this site are clear, crisp, and artistically rendered, making everyone look more attractive in a hipstery, artistic sort of way.

Sarah’s take: Is it just me, or do people’s photos look fantastic on this site? It’s either all the white space or the fact that Apple fans really are more creative types, but dang. Unfortunately, it’s not terribly active. I got only a couple of messages in the week or so I was around.

Alex’s take: This place is great! It’s so clean and simple, with all these cute little icons and big beautiful pictures. There aren’t any bells and whistles beyond a basic profile search, but that’s really all you need. Well, that and an Apple device. I didn’t get many messages during the week, either—perhaps I betrayed my PC proclivities.

Sweet on Geeks

Who you can expect to find: Geeks, especially girl geeks.

How much it’ll cost you: You can see people’s profiles for free, but if you want to send a message, it’ll cost you $5/month for a full membership.

Sweet on Geeks’ tagline is “a space where gray matters.” The site’s owner, Joyce Dales, created the geek-specific dating site in 2007—she was inspired to do so by her own story, in which she met a geek online and noted that it was hard to find geeks on the Internet (of all places!). The 27,000-member site is particularly balanced in the male-to-female ratio, unlike a lot of places on the Internet, and Dales makes sure she actively markets the site to women.

Sweet on Geeks features a simple, basic layout that’s reminiscent of an early (circa 2000) HTML page. Although signing up is free, you’ll need a full membership to take advantage of the site’s messaging features, and fairly quick, even though a picture (or an avatar of some sort) is required. The initial sign-up sheet puts it all out there, and allows you to enter as much or as little the profile information as you like.

There are no toggles for some of the basics (such as whether you’re a drinker/smoker or not), just text boxes for you to describe how you feel about the issues. In other words, Sweet on Geek is less of a matchmaking site—it doesn’t give you compatibility scores—and more of a social networking site. Accordingly, profiles can be customized with status updates, blog posts, and friend feeds.

Searching for geeks is basic, and you are able to search within X miles of a zip code. You can also search for geeks by keywords. As for the people you’ll find here—the good news is that most of them fill out their profiles, so you’ll know a lot about their personalities (or lack thereof). The bad news is that a lot of them also use avatars as their pictures, so if you’re shallow...well, perhaps you shouldn’t be on a geeky dating site in the first place.

Sarah’s take: It’s much more about social networking than matchmaking or dating. I think it’s weird that you can’t filter out searches by, say, nonsmokers.

Alex’s take: There’s something very charming about Sweet on Geeks; it’s a small social network in which the founder still actively participates, and the absence of checklists in favor of text fields seems like an earnest attempt to encourage meaningful discussion. If you’re looking to dip your toe in the online dating pool but feel intimidated by the size of a free site like OKCupid (see below), Sweet on Geeks might be the perfect fit.

OKCupid

Who you can expect to find: Just about everyone, and then some.

How much it’ll cost you: Free.

Although it’s a completely free dating site, OKCupid is full of young singles—about 70 percent of its users are between the ages of 18 and 35. Sure, this is at least partly because of the site’s features other than online dating—tests, quizzes, and match-up questions that are created by both the staff and the users.

OKCupid has more steps than Cupidtino, yet it’s still relatively easy to create a profile and start browsing matches. OKCupid won’t start proactively sending you matches until you upload a photo and answer at least 25 personality questions, but you’ll still be able to contact and chat with people.

The site is easy to navigate, and there are multiple ways to find matches. You can do a detailed search, or you can do a “Quick Match.” Quick Match is sort of like Hot or Not—you rate users based on their photos and profile, and they’re eventually sent an e-mail with a grid of user photos. If they rate you highly (and you rated them highly in the first place), OKCupid connects the two of you.

As for what you’ll find on OKCupid, 55 percent of the users are men. Also, users seem to run the gamut and are much freer with instant messaging and e-mailing (probably because it’s free). In her few days as a member, Sarah received messages from guys who wanted to talk, pay her bills, and, of course, meet up. The good news is that most of the OKCupid users seemed to be there for the dating aspect—not just the quizzes and fun articles, such as the recent “Best Questions to Ask for a First Date.”

Sarah’s take: This place is surprisingly hoppin’ for an online dating site—there are lots of guys (and cute ones, at that) sending messages and making the first move. Also, I love the quizzes—those keep me around for a long time.

Alex’s take: I couldn’t care less about the quizzes or the cute guys, but OKCupid still seduced me with an intuitive interface and quick personality tests that get straight to the point. If you have a thick skin, I encourage you to submit a photo to OKCupid’s experimental MyBestFace engine and crowdsource the eternal question, “Am I hot or not?”

Match.com

Who you can expect to find: Serious online daters.

How much it’ll cost you: Free to look around, full benefits start at $18/month.

When people think of online dating, they often think of Match.com. (If you’ve been on Match.com for a while, you might also think “lawsuit.”) Match.com is a popular site for the more serious online dater. The majority of Match.com’s users are between the ages of 30 and 49 (51 percent), though the 50-plus demographic (20 percent) is the fastest-growing.

It’s free to sign up for Match.com, search for matches, and browse other people’s profiles, but any message exchanges require a paid membership. Paid memberships start at $18 per month (for a six-month minimum) and go up to $35 per month (one month minimum). You don’t need to complete your profile right away, but you won’t show up in Match.com search results until you’ve finished it (complete with photo).

Match.com has a very comprehensive search engine—you can narrow down your results by faith, languages, pets, salary range, amount of exercise, and interests, among other things. In case you’re having a hard time sorting through all of the prospects (even after you narrow it down), Match.com also offers up potential matches in the form of a “Daily 5.” Match.com submits five potential matches to you and asks you to say whether or not you’re interested—the site then modifies its matches based on your answers.

Sarah’s take: I hate to say it, but all of the matches that Match.com sent me as potentials were just so ugly.

Alex’s take: Either I registered too late or I’m just not that compatible, because Match.com didn’t send me any matches at all. I guess that’s a blessing in disguise? Either way, OKCupid pretty much blows Match.com out of the water in every meaningful way.

eHarmony

Who you can expect to find: People who are looking for a serious relationship. Seriously.

How much it’ll cost you: Varies, but a popular subscription is $30/month for six months.

eHarmony is not a dating Website—rather, it’s an online matchmaking service. Unlike other sites, which allow users to browse and search for potential matches, eHarmony does all of the legwork for you. That’s right—there’s no way for you to browse the database of 33 million users, because (let’s be serious), if you knew what you wanted, you wouldn’t be on eHarmony in the first place.

eHarmony is also a little more complicated to sign up for than other dating sites: Instead of answering a few questions and being paired up with potential matches, each user must fill out a comprehensive relationship questionnaire. The questionnaire helps in the matchmaking process and also indicates that a user is serious about finding a serious relationship (in other words, the questionnaire is in-depth enough that you’re not going to just fill it out for fun). And yes, the matchmaking that eHarmony does is based on scientific research of what makes a long-term relationship last.

According to a 2008 study conducted by Harris Interactive, an average of 542 people marry every day in the United States as a result of eHarmony’s matchmaking skills. eHarmony doesn’t just sit around and wait for its users to meet up, either—they also offer various matchmaking-related services, such as profile advisement (professional writers who will help your profile shine) and secure calling services so users can safely get in touch with each other.

If you’re looking for a very serious long-term relationship, eHarmony is the place to be...but if you’re looking for anything less, perhaps OKCupid is more your style.

Sarah’s take: Well, eHarmony isn’t a dating Website—it’s a matchmaking Website. This isn’t the place to go if you’re playing around. Seriously, their questionniare is really long and not for the faint of heart.

Alex’s take: So many questions! Online matchmaking is a booming business, and nobody is better at transmuting you into a statistic than the algorithmic alchemists at eHarmony.

So there you have it: no matter what you’re looking for, whether it’s a serious relationship, a Mac-lovin’ honey, or some “OtakuBooty,” there’s a dating Website out there just for you. That means you have no excuses when February 14 rolls around.

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Online Dating Enjoying a Boom Among Boomers

“Fifteen years ago if you went on an online dating site, you would be thought to have three heads,” says anthropologist Helen Fisher, author of Why Him? Why Her? and Why We Love. Make that four heads if you were middle-aged.

Yet today, it is Baby Boomers who are making the biggest splash in the online dating pool. At Match.com, the 50-to-65 age group is the online dating site’s fastest-growing demographic, up 89% in the last five years. And on JDate.com, the website for Jewish singles, members in the 50-plus age group jumped 40% in just one year, from 2008 to 2009. JDate’s parent company even has a site dedicated to the Boomer market, SingleSeniorsMeet.com, which is its fastest growing property.

Just as Baby Boomers have lagged behind younger people in embracing the new technology, so have they been slower to dip their toe into the cyberspace dating waters. But now they are overcoming their fears. “’Isn’t it dangerous going online?’ I hear this from the older set who aren’t quite as used to having their lives online as the younger generation is,” says Gian Gonzaga, senior director of research at eHarmony.com, which has also experienced a boost in interest from the 50-plus crowd. “Once you shove them out there, they adapt quickly. They remember what it’s like to have fun.”

The surge in popularity among middle-aged singles should come as no surprise. “I’ve always felt that online dating would be most popular among people who are 50 to 65,” says Fisher, a consultant to Match and its offshoot, Chemistry.com, “They know everyone in their family and social circles. Where are they going to meet people? They don’t have time to adopt new hobbies that are likely to introduce them to potential partners. And they are long past going to bars. In the old days we had different mechanisms, but those are gone.”

The new mechanisms are actually ideal for Boomers. “Many Boomer daters sign up for online dating post-divorce or after a long dating hiatus,” says JDate spokesperson Arielle Schechtman. “They are busy professionals, so being able to learn about potential dates online, on their own time schedules, makes online dating more valuable to them than to other age groups.”

Fisher also points out two important trends that are boosting the popularity of online dating among the older crowd. “Women are powering into the job market; they have more disposable income so they can walk out of bad marriages,” she says. “Also, with an aging population, we’ve got Viagra, and estrogen replacement. The expectation now is that older people are going to date, and remarry.” Indeed, according to one estimate, one in four second marriages for Boomers began online.

Online dating is a natural for aging Baby Boomers precisely because they’ve been around the block a few times. (At Match, among the 50 to 65 demographic 71% are divorced and 11% are widowed.) “With age comes experience, so middle-aged daters can be a lot more savvy than younger daters in knowing what they want in a mate,” says Schechtman. Adds eHarmony’s Gonzaga, “Older singles also have a better perspective on their personal values and priorities in life. Experience from past relationships is a huge advantage for older singles who are looking to get into another long-term relationship.”

Boomers, moreover, often have a more open-minded view of potential partners, which is well suited to the online search process. “Older people are looking for a companion, a lifelong partner,” says Fisher. “They are not looking for a reproductive partner, so they can look at a broader range of individuals and are more likely to pick somebody from different social economic or religious backgrounds. They don’t have to bring this person home to mother anymore and explain why he’s Greek instead of Jewish.”

And with age comes a wider circle of connections. There are countless stories about Boomers bumping into someone online whom they knew in their early years. Jerry Brown, 60, a widower from Lake Forest, Calif., was pushed to start dating again by his daughters, who took his photo and wrote his online profile; soon he was perusing potential mates under the screen name Voltageman5050.

“After 20 minutes I came across a picture of someone eating a snow cone that looked very familiar,” he says. It turned out to be Patti Johns, or NursePatti659, Brown’s unrequited high school crush. “I sent her an e-mail with my phone number and said to hurry,” says Brown. But Johns, who was divorced and had been on Match for three years, took her time. “I knew the e-mail was from that guy who had a big crush on me 40 years ago,” she says. “So this is who the universe is giving me? I had blinders on when it came to Jerry.”

Those blinders melted away when Johns finally agreed to a date, and they stayed up talking until 2 a.m. Voltageman5050 and Nursepatti659 plan to marry this spring.

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How Facebook Changed Dating As We Know It

Since its arrival years ago – at a time when most of the Carroll student body was in high school – Facebook has managed to ingrain itself into our daily existence, and change the ways we look at both our friendships and romantic relationships. It’s hard to imagine a time where we didn’t hear the words “poke”, “creep”, or “Facebook official” in everyday conversation. And like it or not, the popular social network site is here to stay.

Mashable.com, one of the internet’s leading news sources for all things social media, examined the ways Facebook has changed dating and came up with some key points that college students can likely agree on. The first, it gives the user a chance to obsess – more than usual – about their significant other (or potential significant other). Did they write on my wall? Will he or she poke me back? They didn’t put me in their profile picture, what gives? These anxieties can lead to Facebook stalking (better known as “creeping”), and a blow to the confidence level of the user.

Another downside Facebook has made to the dating world is the ability to constantly see what your ex-partner is up to – whether you like it or not. It’s hard enough to get back on your feet after a breakup, but having to look at posts in your NewsFeed seeing that he or she is so happy to be single again, or with their latest main squeeze, can be rough. The easiest way to bypass this is simply to defriend your ex, but if you can’t bring yourself to do that, another option is blocking their posts from showing up in your NewsFeed.

Keep in mind that when something is “Facebook official”, everyone can see that. And that includes when you break up. Breaking up on the social networking site is awkward and uncomfortable – having all your friends and classmates see that you are suddenly single – and running the risk of someone “liking” your newly-single ex’s changed relationship status – can be slightly overwhelming. The best thing to do in this situation is to stay classy – avoid any depressing statuses or digs at your ex. Keep the drama to a minimum and you can keep the peanut gallery from chiming in.

Finally – remember to utilize those privacy settings and use common sense while on the site. Just because Facebook has become such a commonplace thing in our lives shouldn’t mean you let your guard down. Practice safe behavior on Facebook – and all social network sites – so you won’t have anything to haunt you later.

New Dating Site Offers $60K for Groupon Babies

Deal-hunting baby-makers, listen up! The wacky and incrementally expanding discount site Groupon has just launched a new dating service called Grouspawn, with an insane marketing ploy. If you can prove that you used a Groupon coupon on your first date, and that said date eventually resulted in a child, you could get a $60,000 grant for the little one’s college tuition.

Groupon CEO Andrew Mason announced the site and the grant opportunity at TechCrunch Disrupt yesterday. Grouspawn is intended to help singles (or, we guess, philanderers) find mates with whom to use their Groupon deals. Couples will be required to prove that they used a Groupon deal on their first date with evidence including “a photo taken with a newspaper with a date on it, testimonials, credit-card statements, blogs, etc.,” according to the site.

But what if people try to pass off an old baby as a Grouspawn? “Our crack team of nosy researchers will investigate if you have, in fact, gestated a true Grouspawn. This may include talking to friends and family, delving into your personal life, and taking samples of fluids you didn’t even know you had. By the time your spawn turns 18, college will cost a million dollars a second and will be located inside the moon, so it’s worth it.” We totally agree with that last part.

Grouspawn acknowledges that some sleazoids might try to have a child just for the cash, noting on the site that the money “is for your baby, and even though we probably won’t be able to tell if you use it for something else, it would be wrong” to bang for bucks. Still, under one current Grouspawn member’s profile (who may be 100-percent fake), a “perfect match” would include “somebody who will have a pretend baby with me so we can split the 60k prize.”

The Ritual of the First Date

THERE are nearly four million single people in New York City. A number of them are not as original as they think.

New data from a Web site suggests that not only do many people plan similar dates, but like lemmings, they also collectively migrate from one theme to the next.

In March, scores of New Yorkers opted to have their first dates over tacos: fish tacos, dried cricket tacos, taco tours of Brooklyn, even post-surfing tacos at Rockaway Beach in Queens.

But by month’s end, tacos went out of vogue, and fondue became the fare of choice for first dates. In mid-April, singles relinquished their cheese forks and embraced bring-your-own-beer dates instead. A few weeks later, outings for lobster rolls were all the rage. By mid-May daters cooled on lobster rolls and were eating oysters.

“It was with taco dates that we first started noting that certain types of dates came in waves,” said Brian Schechter, a founder of HowAboutWe.com, a nascent dating Web site that began fostering love connections in the spring. Mr. Schechter created the site with his best friend since kindergarten, Aaron Schildkrout.

The entrepreneurs, both 31, are former charter-school teachers who practiced meditation in India and taught at meditation retreats in the United States. They did not set out to track the dating habits of New Yorkers, let alone suggest that there could be a collective dating unconscious. They simply wanted to create a new kind of dating site where members could demonstrate who they are, not with personal essays and awkward messages, but by proposing dates that begin with the words: “How about we. ...”

Yet since HowAboutWe logs thousands of dates from some 7,000 young New Yorkers — the average age on the site is 29 — it has opened a window onto dating in the city and turned Mr. Schildkrout and Mr. Schechter into accidental anthropologists.

At a reporter’s request, they sifted through thousands of dates to identify where singles rendezvous. It was hardly scientific, though their 10,000-date sample size was larger than the ones used in many sociological studies.

Tucked into a sunny booth in V Bar in the West Village, Mr. Schechter pushed aside a panini and flipped open a laptop, revealing a spreadsheet of dates proposed and accepted by the site’s members: “How about we attend a swing class and wine tasting?,” “How about we grab a beer and play a game of ping-pong at SPiN?,” “How about we check out Ninja New York, a Japanese restaurant with ninjas for waiters in the meatpacking district?”

“You can tell so much about somebody based on the date they propose,” Mr. Schildkrout said.

Both he and Mr. Schechter have profiles on HowAboutWe. Mr. Schechter’s page says he possesses obscure knowledge about chakras. His latest date proposal? “How about we learn how to read tarot cards (after buying a set somewhere in Manhattan) and practice at the 169 Bar?”

Scanning the site’s database, he observed, “There are trends and hot spots.”

Indeed, Coye Cheshire, an assistant professor at the School of Information at the University of California, Berkeley, said strangers have been shown to gravitate to the same things at the same time as preferences are diffused among groups through word of mouth or social networks. “It’s not surprising to see these trends ebbing and flowing,” he said.

Samuel D. Gosling, a psychologist at the University of Texas at Austin, said that the cuisine trends could occur because members of the Web site value doing the latest thing — until it becomes widespread. (After all, they were early adopters of the site itself.)

“It might be that you only want to do it if 1 percent of other people are doing it,” he said. “You don’t want to miss the trend, but you don’t want to be behind the edge. That sort of decision strategy would result in that pattern.”

That New Yorkers on a dating site would be drawn to similar activities can be explained in part by a sociological principle known as homophily. “It’s the idea that similar people tend to value the same things as other people like them,” Professor Cheshire said.

He and colleagues at Berkeley have studied countless online dating profiles and observed that while people think their tastes are distinct, most everyone’s profile says they like fine dining, movies and long walks on the beach.

“What’s interesting about it is the way that we try to show that we’re special and unique is that we like to do things just like everybody else,” Professor Cheshire said with a chuckle.

Proposing a date can also be a form of social signaling. “You’re trying to signal that you’re somebody who’s at the cutting edge,” said Eli J. Finkel, an associate professor of psychology at Northwestern University.

Catherine Bartolomeo, 22, a member of HowAboutWe who has suggested hunting for the best cup of coffee or going to Film Forum, likened date proposals to advertising.

“You try to portray your personality in a few short words,” she said. “ ‘Let’s go for drinks!’— that’s boring. You don’t want to be on a date with a brick.”

Mike Chang, 31, a technology consultant who has proposed “bar Olympics” dates in which Skee-Ball is a sport, said humor is crucial.

“If someone says something like ‘Let’s go walk the High Line and look for people with mullets,’ you think, ‘I’ll have a better chance of having fun with this person doing this activity than the person who just says ‘Let’s go walk the High Line.’ ”

Often, there are more men than women on dating sites. HowAboutWe has a 60-40 female-male split, and Mr. Schildkrout said he thought “the girls’ dates are a little more specific and creative.”

Alyssa Frazier, 26, who works in marketing and is a member of the site, agreed. “One guy wants to recreate ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off,’ ” she said, “but I definitely think girls come up with the more creative things to do.” She proposes dates for things she would rather not do alone, like attending food and wine pairing classes and standing in line at Shake Shack.

After analyzing thousands of dates, Mr. Schildkrout and Mr. Schechter identified the most popular categories, including foodie, dance, games, make-believe and prankster dates.

“Make believe” dates include things like “How about we pretend to be a couple and take a tour of the French Culinary Institute as ‘prospective students?’ ” The “prankster” category includes gems like “How about we go to a free marriage counseling session with a priest knowing nothing other than each others names?” and “How about we go to a library or bookstore and leave notes inside books?”

Such proposals, Mr. Schechter said, serve as a mating call for quirky singles. “These are, ‘I’m a weird person and if you’re weird too, we could get along.’ ” (Site members said they happily attempt the unconventional dates. The most bizarre ideas, however, are understood as displays of drollness.)

There is the “artistic” date: attending a pottery class or collaborating on a sidewalk chalk drawing. And there is the “cool hunting” date, where the structure of the outing is “let’s go find the best margarita.”

Obviously dating trends also undulate around the seasons as well as major New York happenings, like concerts.

HowAboutWe members fill out profiles consisting of photographs and factoids under headings like “One thing my mother would want you to know about me,” but they primarily interact around the dates they propose.

The site is free, though to send unlimited messages to potential paramours there is a fee (the best deal is $48 for six months). Upon joining, you are asked to rate a series of date ideas, which helps the site’s algorithm determine your matches. Next, you are shown a list of members and their date suggestions. You can then send a member a message or conduct a search. For instance, you can search for women 25 to 35 who want to attend the Hester Street Fair. (There are three.)

And if glazing pottery or ascending the Empire State Building sounds as if you would spend an inordinate amount of time with someone you might never care to see again — it may be.

“I’ve had some disaster dates,” Ms. Bartolomeo confessed.

But she is undeterred. “You’re still doing something you want to do,” she said. “Even if it’s not someone you want to do it with.”

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