Dating Tips Blog

A freelance writer wrote a column in the Chicago Tribune about the perils of online dating and if you are new to online dating or even if you have a good amount of experience, you may find that reading someone else's perspective is helpful. You know what you are looking for, but you may not be able to imagine how other people view the online dating experience.

If you and your online date click and casual dating grows into a serious relationship, eventually you will be invited home to meet your date’s parents. Knowing that your date’s family is going to be putting you under the microscope is enough to make anyone nervous. But you can pass inspection with flying colors and make a great impression on your date’s parents if you follow a few simple rules:

I’ve targeted this blog for the men out there, because sometimes we need more help.  So, if your online dating relationship is looking good, you may get an invitation to meet your girlfriend’s parents. Meeting the parents is an important step up the relationship ladder, so it’s natural to be a little nervous. Your visit will be the first time your girlfriend’s parents start looking at you as their daughter’s potential mate. That’s as big a step for parents as it is for you and your girlfriend. All of their protective shields will be on Red Alert! No wonder you’re nervous!

It’s the dating question that puts butterflies in your stomach and makes your heart flutter. “Want to come home with me and meet my parents?”

What do you do when you’re job hunting and your resume isn’t attracting the attention you want. You don’t give up; you hire a professional to overhaul your resume and make you look more appealing to employers. An eMakeover applies the same approach to online dating. If you’re not getting the dates you deserve with your current dating profile and headshot, don’t give up. Call in the pros!

You feel a little dejected, but you’re not ready to count yourself down and out yet. Maybe the people you contacted are out of town for the holidays. Maybe they’re already in a relationship and their new status hasn’t been registered on the dating site. Maybe you contacted one of those phantom dates you’ve heard about. You know; fake profiles of hot guys and gals that some dating sites use to up their coolness quotient and attract paying members. There are dozens of reasons you might not have gotten a response to your first round of date requests. You feel a little disappointed but remain optimistic.

While there are a lot of nuances to online dating, the need to be polite in your interactions with other people does not change, no matter what the venue. San Francisco Weekly columnist Anna Pulley replied to a reader who wrote in to ask for advice after she got an unpleasant online message from someone who was upset because she had not replied to a message he wrote earlier. The reader said that she was not interested and she didn't think she needed to reply every time she was not interested in a person after checking out that person’s online dating profile.

JRetroMatch is a Jewish online dating site that seeks to combine modern conveniences with old-fashioned matchmaking and vetting. It employs matchmakers who see dating profiles first. The site offers i "selective reference-checking" so there are humans reviewing your potential dates before you are matched. In a press release, notes that, "Having a matchmaker review the profiles, and making calls to members enables fraudulent profiles to be caught before they are visible to those dating online."

If you’re dating someone you met online, the pressure to find the perfect Holiday gift for the new guy or gal of your dreams is enough to suck the joy right out of the holidays. As soon as you buy a holiday gift for your date, you start questioning your decision. Will they like it? Will they hate it? Did you spend too much? Too little? Will your online date think your gift is too personal? Or, if you decided to play it safe and chose a generic gift, will your date think it’s not personal enough?

You hear stories about guys who break up right before important holidays like Christmas or Valentine’s Day just to avoid the whole gift-giving quagmire. When you meet someone on an online dating site, how you handle the holidays and gift giving depends mostly on where you are in the relationship. If you’ve met recently and your relationship is still developing online, it’s appropriate to limit gift giving to an exchange of online greeting cards. You can find some very clever greeting cards online today or, if you’ve got a creative streak, compose your own. What you don’t want to do is pester your date for an address so you can mail a gift. There is safety in keeping things online until a relationship develops and you are both comfortable moving to the next level (i.e., dating face-to-face). Pushing too fast too soon can scare away a promising online date.