среда, 25 сентября 2019 г.
понедельник, 23 сентября 2019 г.
Dating Site Reviews – READ THIS FIRST!
In the last 20 years, online dating has grown from a small niche market into big business. Dating sites like eHarmony have grown dramatically in size as more people grow comfortable with internet dating. There are many different types of sites including paid membership sites, free sites, and smaller niche group sites. The type of dating site you may be interested in will definitely depend on your circumstances and the type of experience you are looking for. People looking to find love or marriage, seek to meet other members that are serious about their internet dating experience. These people should avoid “free” sites as the members tend to not be as committed to the process.
Membership Sites – why they offer a better experience for users
There are a few membership sites that seem to dominate in terms of providing a good user experience, having a large userbase, and matchmaking. These sites would include:
1) eHarmony – this site is one of the most well known brands and does quite a bit of television and internet advertising. The site launch in 2000 and has members from countries all over the world. The site was founded by a psychologist and relationship author “Neil Warren”. He used his relationship knowledge to create a system that sought to improve the dating experience with a better matchmaking system.
The site matches members based on a lengthy questionnaire that seeks to discover “core traits” about each individual and match people who are similar in these respects. The company has developed a proprietary algorithm that analyses an individuals questionnaire and their behavior on the site, to create better matches. Studies have shown that members who are match with eHarmony’s system have almost 2 times greater chance to become married than couple match on other systems.
2) Perfect Match – This dating site also has its own matchmaking system which creates connections based on the “Duet Total Compatibility System”. It was developed by a relationship expert and doctor who sought to use a psychological questionnaire to evaluate its members and find other users who had a similar profile.
The matching system works to match people in a way that is different from how eHarmony creates their matches. It evaluates users based on a questionnaire, then uses this information to find members with complementary personality traits (NOT like personality traits).
The site was founded in 2003 and has a very positive rating by its users.
Niche Dating Sites (Religious, Ethnic, Divorced, and Single Parent Focused Sites)
Recently, a new trend in online dating is moving towards smaller “niche” sites focused around a very specific group of people or interest. These sites are centered around topics such as religion, ethnicity, and hobbies.
There are many websites that are centered on a type of religion including Christianity, Buddhism, Islam, and Catholicism. These sites are made up entirely out of members of that particular religion. So, if finding a partner with a similar belief system is important to you, you should consider this. The largest religion based membership sites tend to be christian. These include:
1) Christian Mingle – this site is completely christian-centric and includes advice for christians seeking to date, as well as very large userbase. This site has an A+ Better Business Bureau rating and is part of the Sparks Network. Which is a network of faith based websites. The memberships costs $30 per month.
2) Christian Cafe – this is a cheap and completely christian focused dating sites that was created in 1998. They have a lot of positive user testimonials and also a very reasonable subscription cost at around $8 per month.
Dating sites based around Judaism are also very prominent. The top sites in this category include:
1) Jewcier – this is Jewish centered site that was launched in 2010. It has a large userbase of single jewish people in the U.S., Isreal, and World abroad. The site recieves around 70,000 visitors each month and has a slightly larger female population than male.
2) JDate – Jdate.com is one of the most popular dating sites focused around Judaism. It has a “free” and “subscription” based service. Free users can browse and flirt with other members on the site, but interaction is limited. If a user upgrades their membership, they will have access to additional features including messaging, email, and chat. One interesting feature that Jdate offers is the ability of users to signal that there is a mutual interest. This has helped to increase the level of interaction on the site which can lead to successful dates.
Other types of niche sites are dedicated specifically single parent or people that are newly divorced. Top sites in this niche include:
1) Just Single Parents – this site offers single parents the ability to interact with other single people with children. The site is very user friendly and has compatibility testing, the creating of video profiles, and a short sign up time. Another great feature about this site is that it allows video based chat and texting through the site.
2) Just Divorced Singles – this site is focused specifically on people that are divorced and are looking for people in a similar situation. The site has alot of great features including video chat, video profiles, and instant messaging. The site is subscription based and costs around $30 per month.
Ethnic based sites have grown dramatically in popularity. The largest demographic of this type of sites are made up of members of the African American community. The top sites in this group include:
1) Black Singles – This is a very large community built specifically for African American members. It was created in 2002 and receives close to 900,000 visitors per month. It allows for a free sign up and requires an upgrade in order to use more advanced features like chat and messaging. It has many positive customer testimonials and has a good rating in the BBB.
2) Black People Meet – this is another site created specifically for members of the black community. It is owned by PeopleMedia which owns a network of dating sites that have visitors in excess of 2 million per month.
3) Just Black Singles – this site is focused on the black community and offers features such as video chat and messaging. The site is free to join and has a large growing userbase.
Another popular niche in the dating industry includes physical preferences like BBW dating (big beautiful women) and men looking to date women from Russia or Eastern Europe. The top sites in this category include:
1) BBW Singles – this is a site for plus size users or single people that are looking to date plus size users. It is the first site created specifically for this demographic. It has a very large userbase and has many positive customer reviews. The site allows for a free 24 hour membership so users can decide whether or not it is for them. This temporary membership allows new users to get full access to the site in order to see if it is for them.
2) Anastasia Date – this is a site built specifically for men who would like to meet women in counties like Russia and Eastern Europe. It allows users to contact and make video dates with women they are interested in. it also allows for live chat, will provide a translator, and gives men the ability arrange face to face dates.
среда, 4 сентября 2019 г.
Bachelordom Ends in Olive Oil Tasting Room
There are many ways you know you are in a loving relationship. For instance, you both make it official on Facebook. Or you introduce
your special someone to your parents.
I recently got engaged, but the totality of my commitment to the
relationship did not hit me until about a week later. During a long weekend on
California’s Central Coast, my fiancée Jen asked me if I wanted to go olive oil
tasting. Without hesitating I said yes. Without. Hesitating. During the heart of college bowl season, no less. It was like she had asked me if I wanted to
go to Winnipeg to gamble with Justin Bieber’s money.
“Why,” I’m pretty sure I responded, “are
we not doing this right now?”
In my defense, tasting things is all the rage in California. Everyone
tastes everything. Wine is popular. There are few activities women in California
enjoy more than wine tasting. It combines their love of wine with their love of making men leave the house with their
love of guessing whether or not something smells like boysenberry. Right now in
California you can taste olive oil, tequila, vodka, beer, honey, chocolate, cheese and anything else sold in charming
containers.
Your average wine tasting goes as
follows. The tasting room usually is at a winery called something like Silver
Artisan Horse Vineyard, which has a logo of a silver horse carving a rocking
chair. This hangs above the front gate. You walk up to a standing-only bar, pay
$10, and a sommelier pours a flight of five wines, one at a time. The flight
starts with a sweet wine that tastes like it was specifically engineered
to turn third graders into problem drinkers. The selection grows heartier — or
more “complex” — until you finish with a strong wine that could be used to
strip the paint off an aircraft carrier.
During the tasting the sommelier points
out flavors you can’t actually taste, like boysenberry and oak and Dentyne, but
he does not call them flavors. He calls them hints or notes, because he is
hinting at what the winemaker wants you to taste so that you can note the
flavor and sound sophisticated. It’s all a lie, but you go along with it
because you have not been sober since 11 am.
As the tasting progresses and you become inebriated, the wines taste
more fabulous. While perusing the menu, and checking prices, you make the
decision to order a crate of the Reserve Selection Sauvignon Blanc in order to
save money, because to buy it by the bottle would just be ridiculous. You could
buy one bottle, but the Golden Artisan Horse Member discount (logo: golden
horse building a barn) allows you to save $2 a bottle when you order 70 bottles
or more. That’s a savings of $140, and in these hard economic times you can’t afford
not to save $140 on something as vital as wine.
With your woman nodding in approval, you
hand over your credit card so that the winery can ship you a crate of wine you
will forget you ordered the next day. The whole thing ends with you crawling
around the winery’s gravel parking lot, muttering to yourself about not eating
enough oyster crackers.
Olive oil tasting is similar, except you’re typically less drunk. We
went to Olea Farm in Templeton, Calif., where we enjoyed a free tasting flight.
We used toothpicks to dip small bread chunks in tiny cups of olive oil. This
was very exciting for my fiancée, because, in general, most women cannot resist a tiny variety of anything. This explains the
popularity of thimbles, dollhouses, drink umbrellas and babies.
I learned on our trip that the olive oil
people have concocted no shortage of uses for their product. Our host was very
nice and pointed out these uses. You can use olive oil to bake, fry, sauté,
grill, make salad dressing, put on sandwiches, pour on baked potatoes and
drizzle on desserts, among other things. Olea even sells an olive oil body
wash, which is perfect if your main hygienic concern is that you do not smell
enough like pasta salad.
Jen purchased a lemon blush olive oil. I am excited to try it this
Saturday, which actually is shaping up as a pretty nice little Saturday. We’re going to go to Home Depot. Yeah,
buy some wallpaper, maybe get some flooring, stuff like that. Maybe Bed, Bath,
and Beyond, I don’t know.
I don’t know if we’ll have enough time.
вторник, 3 сентября 2019 г.
Going on a Date With a Guy In a Polyamorous Relationship
Last week, I went to my first-ever play
party, or orgy, and thenwrote about it here in exhaustive
detail. One big omission I made, however, was my interaction with a guy
we’ll call James. James was at the party with his longtime female
partner, as well as said partner’s boyfriend.
I didn’t write about James then because I wasn’t yet sure how he fit
into things. During the party, James and I hit off. I was attracted
to him. He was funny, and smart and a good conversationalist.
“Can I take you out sometime?” he finally asked. “I’d love to get
to know you better.”
“With your partner?” I asked. I identify as straight. I
think the female body is beautiful, but it’s not an object of sexual desire for
me. Life is long, and were I to become attracted to a woman, I would be
completely open to exploring that – but it hasn’t happened yet.
“Just us,” he replied. “I’d like to take you on a date, if you’re
interested.”
I’m not drawn to that many men. I wish I had a broader palate, but
I don’t believe in forcing that sort of thing. So it’s rare for me to
meet someone I feel a spark with, not to mention someone who I feel I could
potentially trust to respect my health, my safety, and my boundaries.
James, it seemed, could potentially check all those boxes. There
was only one caveat, as far as I was concerned: I never imagined myself as
someone who would be interested in polyamorous dating or relationships. I
had nothing against people who were – if you find something that makes you
happy and fulfilled and can do it without causing anyone else distress, my God,
go for it. It just never sounded personally appealing for me.
Moreover, I really wanted a long-term
monogamous partner and had been dating
my face offtrying to find one. But when I met
James two weeks ago, no one potentially interesting had yet surfaced.
Which left me with an interesting conundrum.
“I’ve never dated someone in a long-term partnership before,” I
said. “To be honest, I’m not sure how I feel about it for myself.
That said, I’ve really enjoyed spending time with you.”
He said he understood.
I thought about it for another
moment. Dating,at least in my experience, can be grim.
I missed companionship, and I missed sex. Didn’t I owe to myself to do
something enjoyable for once? I never thought I’d enjoy an orgy either,
and here I was, having a terrific time. Maybe I would surprise myself in
this venue as well.
I gave him my number.
James and I texted back and forth for a few days afterwards. He
was witty and charming. He expressed interest in the boring minutia of my
life that only people who really like you have patience for. We
discovered we had a lot in common, including a borderline obsessive love of
college football – but that we rooted for rival teams, which added an extra
charge to our flirtations.
I found myself going about my workday with one eye on my cell phone,
waiting for his next message. I smiled thinking about him.
And then, the morning before we were supposed to have dinner, the
strangest thing happened.
I had a panic attack.
As I’vewritten here previously, I have an
anxiety disorder which, thanks to great therapists and effective medication,
I’ve had under control for years now. (I can’t even remember the last
time I had a panic attack before this last one.) So when I felt the old,
scary symptoms – sweating, heart palpitations, a tightening across my chest – I
knew my body was reacting to more than just a physiological imbalance.
I called a friend.
“I know it has to be the date,” I explained to her. “I’m really,
really nervous about it. And I wish I weren’t, because he seems like a
great guy.”
“He probably is,” she replied. “But you’ve told me before that
you’re not interested in being polyamorous.”
The point she made was a fairly obvious
one: the idea of dating a guy in a long-term relationship with someone else
made me uncomfortable, so I shouldn’t do it. I knew she was right – after
all, I made such a big deal in my essay last week about honoring your
boundaries. But to my great surprise, I had difficulty
taking my own advice. I was
disappointed in myself: There was this great thing in front of me, and I was
getting in my own way and not letting myself have it. What was wrong with
me? Was I insecure? Possessive? Brainwashed by oppressive
cultural norms?
“Nothing’s wrong with you,” my friend said. “You’re
just not into it.”
My friend and I talked further. Ultimately, I still wanted a
monogamous relationship. That meant that even if James and developed a
relationship of our own, I was treating him as a glorified distraction, someone
to keep me company until I found the man I was really looking
for – at which point, I’d dump him. And that wasn’t fair to either of us.
Fortified by my new clarity, I took a deep breath and texted him: Hey
James, as I’ve done some thinking, I realize that it won’t work for me to date
someone in a committed relationship (despite your partner’s support).
I’ve loved getting to know you, but I don’t want to waste your time doing
something that will not ultimately be an authentic choice for me. I hope
you have a great day, and I wish you all the best.
He replied that he understood, and wished me all the best too.
I felt better immediately.
I don’t regret anything that happened. I’m deeply grateful to my
friend for helping me through my momentary freakout and allowing me to learn
from it – and to James, for being unfailingly respectful. I’m glad to
know now, for sure, that I couldn’t happily be in a polyamorous
relationship. I would feel jealous and insecure and
unfulfilled, and there’s nothing wrong with that, just as there’s nothing wrong
with someone else understanding that monogamy isn’t right for her.
If anything distresses me, it’s that despite all my posturing at consciousness-raising, I
apparently still struggle to honor my own authentic sexuality. Though I’m
trying to cut myself some slack – part of the growth process, I think, is
sometimes being uncomfortable and sitting with that. At the end of the
day, it’s all about gaining self-knowledge and acting on that.
And, to be fair, I really, really hate James’s football team.
R.E.S.P.E.C.T.
What is respect? It’s pretty easy to just throw the word out there as in, I want some of that. But what exactly is it?
In my humble opinion…
- Respect is… acknowledgement and intrinsic understanding of worth (both yourself and the other person)
- Respect is… knowing that your relationship is a safe place to express and listen without getting cut down or belittled
- Respect is… honoring a given boundary
- Respect is… talking about someone just like you would talk to them
- Respect is… building each other up instead of tearing each other down
- Respect is… honoring the other person’s opinion as much as your own
- Respect is… being able to admit when you are wrong
- Respect is… sacrificing something you WANT for what the other person NEEDS
- Respect is… treating the other person’s friends and family with consideration
- Respect is… giving each other the space and support to follow dreams
- Respect is… hearing one another out without interrupting
- Respect is… taking someone’s feelings into consideration
- Respect is… agreeing to disagree
- Respect is… not raising your voice or being nasty during a disagreement
- Respect is… keeping an open mind
- Respect is… loving yourself
- Respect is… direct, open and honest communication
- Respect is… not pressuring the other person
- Respect is… friendship
- Respect is… trusting the other person’s decision making ability
Additions to the R.E.S.P.E.C.T. train?
понедельник, 2 сентября 2019 г.
Commitment vs. Choice
Recently, a friend and I embarked on our annual discussion of how difficult committed dating and marriage is in today’s culture and how glad she was not to be “out there in that insanity.” Agreeing with the insanity we came to the why of it all. After circling around and around for a bit (I’m sure some of you can relate to the circular nature of certain conversations), I had a moment of clarity. We weren’t talking about the same thing. I was talking about choice and she was talking about commitment.
Now, I am all for commitment. But not just for the sake of being committed. Judging by my friend’s response, perhaps that concept is unique to our generation. (You see, my friend is in her 60′s and her generation came from the age of goodnight pecks at the front door and dance halls.) She kept bringing up staying in a marriage because you were committed. Period. And I kept going back to its not just the commitment but the desire to make that CHOICE to honor the commitment.
It may seem like a hair splitter, but to me its two very different concepts. My friend is all about honoring her commitment and I am all about making the daily choice to honor that (for me — admittedly hypothetical) commitment.
Frankly, what do I know? She’s talking from the experience of a life-long marriage and I am coming from the hypothetical. Not to mention that I think my road proves to be the more difficult of the two because it precludes the default mode that can come in oh so handy on the days when you wake up next to someone for whom you are decidedly NOT feeling the “I love you’s.” Those are the hard days when making that choice is vital.
When you look at the current divorce rate as well as the amount of people in their second half of life splitting from long marriages…I wonder if the commitment default mode is enough to keep a marriage together. I wonder if we don’t need to embrace the awareness that love is a choice. Commitment is a choice. Your actions are your choice.
Perhaps the only thing that will keep commitment alive is marrying it to the choice to stay. Every day waking up and making that beautiful choice to love the other person despite and perhaps because of our mutual humanity.
Are We Glorifying A Culture Of Mean?
A recent informal TV content poll (taken by yours truly) leads me to believe that… we seem to be celebrating a culture of mean.
A while ago, my poor little bod spent more time on the couch and therefore in front of the TV than usual and flipping thru the channels brought little of the distraction that I sought (I read thru all my books and couldn’t find any new ones). I kept flipping and flipping hoping to chance upon a show that would make me laugh sans the heavy cynical commentary on our world.
I found lots of info on the History Channel…unfortunately, I knew most of it and was entirely bored by the end of “Hitler Week” (I mean really…not geared for lighthearted laughter…but plenty of “real” mean)…and then Discovery showed me all kinds of shows projecting the end of the world (I believe the date is set somewhere 4 years hence…I’d better get to living!) or the volcanic destruction of New Zealand (better visit now while its still there!) or the end of the West Coast as we know it. Interesting but not designed for even the slightest of giggles. Unless you are hoping that “new coastal property” you bought in Arizona is going to eventually pay off.
So, my surfing continued…I found some giggles in the sarcasm of the Simpsons, a few laughs from the sitcoms but what really arrested my attention were the reality TV shows…this is where I come to the pointed edge of my blog pencil… when did we become so fascinated with mean?
I see real lifers screwing each other figuratively and not so figuratively and saying that if the other person has a problem with it too bad. Batchelorettes sparring over some guy who kisses every pair of lips he sees as each girl tries to out do the other and stab that mean knife in every chance they get. I see Trump sternly informing people that they are “FIRED” for a mistake or even just a simple…people seem to dislike you so you must be difficult…you’re fired! Simon being booed and celebrated in the same breath for just being plain ole nasty. Tyra informing wanna be models that there are no excuses…even with a fever and nasty illnesses the girls must still “bring it” and look perfect b/c there are no excuses for being human in the fashion world. To get over it when someone picks on you and get used to the backstabbing b/c that’s how the “real world” works.
Really?
Why are we so OK with that being the way the “real world works?” Its only the way the world works if you are making the decision to add to that working. Yes, there are people out there who are just plain ole mean, unfair and unethical…but does that mean we have to celebrate them and their endeavors on TV? Does that mean we have to be like them in order to succeed in life, work and relationships?
I used to work in the entertainment industry, I do know TRULY mean people…But I also witnessed the shining stars. I’ve had the boss who knew how to calmly handle disaster without throwing heavy objects or swearing at the top of his lungs or lambasting his unfortunately involved co-worker, the friend who supported me when I needed help, the colleague who referred an amazing job opportunity, the celebrity who didn’t take himself oh so seriously and seemed to naturally want to serve the people around him.
Why aren’t we celebrating the shining stars? Is “drama,” disaster and backstabbing really all that wonderful to mentally and visually feast on? What happens to the little shows that try to swim upstream? What would happen if our culture started to celebrate the Golden Rule…or at least didn’t equate success and “reality” with backstabbing, nasty words and general MEANness?
Perhaps its just my impression that our culture is starting to celebrate the mean along with TV…is art imitating reality or reality imitating art? What do you think?
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