Mind Your Words

Looking for love online and thought you could get away with spelling errors? Then you’d better mind your writing style. A research done by the Queensland University of Technology, Australia, says that spelling errors, wrong grammar and use of too many exclamation marks can be a major put off for some.

If your writing style is not impressive enough, you face the threat of easily being dismissed by those looking for a potential partner.

Ask 20-year-old design student Samaira Singhal, who says she judges the date-worthiness of a guy while chatting within the first few minutes. “If he goes on messing up his grammar, or uses wrong spellings, I know he is not dating material. Typos are pardonable to some extent but not messing up your language.” Stylist Dolly Gupta too hates conversing online with someone who has a pathetic writing style.

“That’s the very first parameter of judging a person. It’s not as if you have to display your brilliance, but some basic etiquette is a must. If a guy can’t spell words rightly, or goes on typing in capital letters, I know he will bore me after a while.” People are also judged on the online names they use. Names like ‘rock star’, ‘dashing guy’ and ‘loner dude’ can be disappointing too. “I would rather go for a ‘Vikram Ahuja’ than chat with a ‘hot hunk’. I can’t take such people seriously,” says Guha. Psychiatrist Samir Parikh has a different take on the topic, though. “It’s unfair to judge someone on the basis on his language skills. Communication goes beyond grammar. People are giving too much importance to their online life and expect the same from others.”

Hone Your Net-etiquette

1. Choose your words carefully. Avoid using phrases, such as, ‘hi baby’, ‘hey sweetie’ or ‘hello sweetheart’ unless you want the girl to block you forever.

2. Slangs are a strict no-no while dating online, unless of course you want to be tagged as a rude, ill-mannered person.

3. Try to be precise and steer clear from repeating words. Repetitions bore the person.

4. While chatting with someone for the first time, do not ask too many personal questions.

5. Don’t keep sending fun mails or social messages to someone you are dating. It may be great for you, but not for everyone.

6. Using capital letters is like screaming in someone’s ear. Avoid it.

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 Inspired by Women Launches in Australia

Women go “man shopping” and men vie for their attention on MrRight.com.au, the first Australian dating site where women date on their terms. On MrRight.com.au, women add the men they like to their shopping cart to open a communication channel – it’s the only way that men can get in touch. Then, they can send one another messages for as long as they like. If the conversation doesn’t go their way, women can remove men from their cart just as easily to close the channel.

The concept behind MrRight.com.au also works well for men. It allows them to take a step back and let women choose them. Guys no longer need to spend hours browsing through thousands of profiles for the perfect match. They also save time and money sending messages that may never be read. All they need to do is create a profile and keep it online for as long as they’re available and looking.

MrRight.com.au was inspired by women and the stories of their sometimes unpleasant online dating experiences. On traditional dating sites, it only takes a few men behaving badly to spoil everyone’s fun. Internet forums are rife with stories of women receiving aggressive or sexually charged messages from contacts on online dating sites. Likewise, they can also be put off when their inbox is filled with “Pokes”, “Likes” or other short messages.

Matt Right, founder of MrRight.com.au comments: “MrRight.com.au changes online dating as we’ve known since the early 90s. For the first time, women date online on their terms and men compete for their attention. The response we’ve seen from men and women of all ages has been overwhelming”.

Secret Online Dating Tips Revealed

Want to know the secret of successful online dating? Try these tips by Harvard math majors.

OkTrends (blog.okcupid.com) is a blog written by the founders of OkCupid (www.okcupid.com), a free, online dating site that counts 7 million visitors each month.

Every six weeks or so, the bloggers - all former math majors from Harvard - examine the gold mine of dating data collected from their members’ online interactions. They sort and sift, crunch and correlate, catching whatever nuggets of mating wisdom fall out.

Then they post a report of their findings - and the resultant dating tips - often with pop culture references, statistical graphs and pictures of half-naked young men and women.

“It’s our version of an advice column,” Los Angeles Times quoted Sam Yagan, OkCupid’s chief executive.

“We love the fact that our own data tell us what works on a date,” Yagan added.

Even scientists analyse the tips and the results are divided.

“I’m a big fan,” Northwestern University social psychology professor Eli Finkel told Los Angeles Times, adding that the posts are ’generally insightful’.

Viren Swami, co-author of The Psychology of Physical Attraction, was less enthusiastic, saying: ’They could also potentially be very misleading and, at worst, quite far from the truth’.

According to the scientists, women were told to flirt with the camera for their profile photo. If they made what OkCupid called ’flirty-face’, they received on average 1.5 additional messages per month.

That’s because a woman’s smile is well-documented as a signal of sexual interest.

’Flirty smiles trigger what we call men’s sexual over-perception bias,’ said David M. Buss, psychology professor at the University of Texas at Austin and author of ’The Evolution of Desire: Strategies of Human Mating’.

This advice is only, however, for women. Men were ordered to be aloof on camera. When they did so, they had a roughly 90 per cent success rate with their emails than otherwise.

“There is good evidence that men high in status smile less and that smiling is sometimes interpreted as a sign of submissiveness. Also, some male smiles can look like leers, so it’s good to avoid those,” Buss told the LATimes.

The data also showed that women who took their ’flirty-face’ to the next level by showing a bit of cleavage had better results - vastly better results as they got older.

According to OkCupid, an 18-year-old woman with a cleavage shot in her profile gets 24 percent more contacts per month on average than more demure 18-year-olds.

If she does it at age 32, that jumps to 79 percent more than her buttoned up peers.

“Women’s mate value declines with age,” said Satoshi Kanazawa, evolutionary psychologist at the London School of Economics, co-author of “Why Beautiful People Have More Daughters’.

But they can compensate for their decline in mate value by showing their cleavage.’

’It’s bait,’ Dr Peter Jonason of the University of South Alabama said.

For men, the inverse is true. Male online daters should show off their six packs in their profile pictures, but only if they are young.

That’s because women in their 30s are less interested in the man’s body than whether or not he will be a good provider, clinical psychologist Marianne Brandon said.

Another tip was both to subtract two inches from the height your potential date claims to be - and 20 per cent from their salary.

For men, the experts said, this makes sense. Height suggests good health and genes; while wealth, obviously, suggests resources. ’Men deceive about their status and income in order to make themselves seem more desirable to women,’ said Dr Buss.

Women, however, may not be lying, Kanazawa argued.

If a woman is trying to get dates online, he argued, she must be having difficulty in real life. That could be because she is Amazonian - both men and women prefer that the man is taller.

They also may have a bigger paycheque than the average man - and the very average man prefers, by and large, to be the one who brings home the bacon, he said.

¿Es usted un camarero que data?

Give the Barman a Shot!

I recently went out on a couple of dates with a bartender. My friends are horrified and think I’m setting myself up for immediate disappointment. My only argument against them comes in the form of Miranda and Steve from “Sex and the City,” which I admit is a flimsy reference. Is there life with a guy whose work starts way late and revolves around slinging drinks to cute girls?

— Sarah H., Brooklyn

No one should judge your choice of men. Period. First of all, what person hasn’t started off bartending or working in a restaurant? I know I have. If you really like him, see where it goes. You won’t know until you give it a try. The only downside are the late nights, but if you think you can handle it, then go for it! You guys just started dating, so you don’t know where he’s at or what he aspires to be professionally. Plus, if it doesn’t bother you, then who cares?

I know you want to believe that your friends have your best interests at heart. But sometimes, advice from friends — who may be in very different places than you and may have very different standards than you — can do more harm than good.

Follow your heart and just go with what feels right to you. If you don’t mind the late nights and you trust his actions with all the “cute girls,” then don’t let his current job stop you from seeing where this could go. After all, while “SATC” was a TV show, the episodes always featured very real experiences, so maybe your situation could turn out to be like Miranda and Steve’s!

I was in lesbian relationships for more than a decade before marrying my husband. Now, I love and only want to be with him. We have two beautiful children, and I’m very happy, but he has zero tolerance for my being friends with any of my exes. In the gay community, though, this is totally normal. I don’t want to just drop them as friends especially since I wouldn’t ask him to do the same. How can I keep my gal pals and assure him that my lesbian days are over?

— Lily S., Westchester

Well, first things first: There is a big difference between “gal pals” and ex-lovers. And as I’ve said time and time again, it’s not appropriate to hang out with people you were previously involved with sexually — no matter their sexual orientation.

I might have to side with your husband on this one. I especially feel for him because you were in relationships with women for 10 years, which is a long time. I’m sure he can’t help but wonder when you’re hanging out with your “gal pals” whether you still feel something for them. I know you said that you’re happily married and only want him, but unless you’re showing and proving that to him on a regular basis — and his hesitancy makes me think you may not be — than he’s got good reason to be skeptical.

There are a few things to take into consideration: First, did he always know about your past relationships and experiences? Second, were you always clear about not wanting to completely cut yourself out of that life? And finally, if so, was he OK with that? If the answer is yes, then he should acknowledge and respect what he signed up for. If the answer is no, then you should understand where he’s coming from. After all, what’s your motivation here? Is it really that important for you to remain friends with your ex-lovers? At a certain point in life, you have to make choices about what’s most important to you. If you’re a committed heterosexual, than I’d like to think it’s most important to please and respect your partner rather than be so concerned with what’s accepted in the “gay community,” which, truth be told, you’re no longer a part of.

Oletko riippuvaisiksi Internet Dating Game?

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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