Adult Dating Stories, and Advice

I found an article today from yahoo that describes 10 dating mistakes that Evan Katz believes are common for women to make when dating via online dating sites. I do not agree with all his ideas here, but it makes for an interesting read. I wonder if he has considered other ways to look at some of these “mistakes”.  Right off the bat with mistake #10 - I disagree with his viewpoint. Although I do think that it is good to consider that many men out there will still be looking and keeping up with connections after a great date with a good candidate for intimacy, I do not think that every guy in the world is going to write you off after a good date just because he has other options. Perhaps the title of this dating mistake would have made me not disagree so quickly. It’s good advice to consider none the less, and I would like to have seen more detail given to the fact that just because a guy is still talking to other women, he could still be more interested in you than anyone else, so getting past the title and thinking about it more makes more sense to me.

I do agree completely with the next two suggestions. You should pay attention to your intuition and it certainly is not a mistake to write a guy first. I can tell you that it is exciting for a guy to get an email from a girl he has yet written. Heck, we may not even know that you are out here in the dating pool, and have no idea that we may things in common. A quick note in the email box is equivalent to handing a guy something to show that you have no wedding ring on your finger. I think this may be the biggest mistake women make, it’s good to write guys and get some conversation started. Certainly this may be a way to find more quality men as well. The girls who’s email boxes I have seen seem flooded with guys that are not the kind they are really looking for, and spending a lot of time sifting through or waiting for mail from the wrong guy is not a proactive approach to finding the good ones. Even if there are a lot of good fish in the sea it doesn’t mean you can just sit there on the dock and wait for the good ones to jump to you.

Mistake #7: Expecting Him to Tell the Truth in His Profile - I really want to skip over commenting on this, but I need to say that I am honest in my profiles. The stats Evan throws out in this article made me chuckle, then consider how most people really do these things, or things change and are not edited in a timely manner.

Do people really do mistake 6 in this list?

I don’t really agree with the other 5 on this completely either.. but it makes for an interesting read.

Here is another story that makes you want to remind yourself - if it’s too good to be true it probably is. I know that is a tough thing to say about love online, but when there is a $100,000 gold bar dowry at the other end of the online dating opportunity, you gotta think to yourself that there may be more to the ordeal. This guy certainly found that some online dating scams can turn to machete wielding kidnapping problems..

 Kidnapped farmer warns of dangers of online love from yahoo  / Reuters

Mon Aug 13, 1:34 AM ET

CANBERRA (Reuters) - An Australian farmer who was kidnapped and beaten in Mali after walking into an Internet bride scam has pleaded with people to be careful looking for online love.
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South Australian farmer Des Gregor, 56, returned to Australia on Sunday night after being held hostage by machete-armed bandits in Africa for 12 days.

“I was tied, bound by the legs, and that was only probably for a couple of days because they knew that I was going to cooperate. There was always one bloke sleeping at the door, there was no way out,” Gregor told Australian media.

Love-struck Gregor arrived in Mali last month to meet his supposed fiancee, Natacha, whom he had “met” on the Internet, and collect a dowry of gold bars worth $100,000.

Instead, the wheat and sheep farmer was picked up at the airport in a car and driven to a single bedroom apartment in the capital, Bamako, which was full of armed men.

Gregor was told his limbs would be hacked off unless his family in Australia paid a $100,000 ransom.

The scam was only stopped and Gregor freed when Australian and Mali police in turn duped the kidnappers into letting Gregor enter the Canadian embassy in Bamako to collect the ransom.

Mali is one of the world’s poorest countries, with a prolonged drought hitting the mainly farming and fishing-based economy. Most foreign tourists travel to the country to see the World Heritage-listed trading outpost of Timbuktu.

Gregor said he had no inkling before his arrival that he was a victim of a confidence trick and had now learnt his lesson.

“I reckon another couple of days and I wouldn’t have returned,” he said, recounting “a good belting” he received with a machete during his ordeal.

Gregor warned others looking for love over the Internet to be careful.

“Make sure you check everything out 100 percent,” he said.

Brother Phil said Des had been “absolutely blinded” by love and did not see the scam coming.

“You see this in a movie, you read about it in a book. It happens to someone else, not you. But it does,” he said.

“I really hope that the message gets out to people that they look after their family and if anyone talks about Internet relationships, that they can be open and share the mail with them to get an objective opinion.”

Of course online dating scams don’t have to be soo extreme, it is always in opinion a good idea to get a background check on any person you decide to meet int he real world from online situations. I also think it is important to be careful what kind of details are given online.

This news story surprised me.. This is VERY similar to an idea I had some years ago..

 New way for singles to meet — the digital zap from yahoo news

By Dana Ford Fri Aug 3, 3:43 PM ET

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - For people who think they’ve heard every pick-up line in the book, here’s a new one — let’s zap each other.
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The line is not likely to work everywhere but at parties hosted by OneKeyAway, it might, with the Los Angeles-based company hosting singles’ mixers with a technological twist.

Before parties, guests register online and complete questionnaires. The answers are then transferred to digital memory devices — red, plastic squares slightly larger than a matchbox — that the guests wear like necklaces.

During a party, people point their devices at one another to check how compatible they are. The devices flash red, yellow or green, depending on their level of compatibility.

Green means go, and red? Stop.

Edwin Duterte, a banker and founder of OneKeyAway, said he hopes the devices put personality on par with physical attraction.

Duterte said he started OneKeyAway in 2004 because he had trouble meeting women, with his height of 5 feet always proving to be a drawback for him.

“I didn’t have a clue how to meet people,” said Duterte, 37, who moved to Los Angeles 10 years ago. “All the relationships I had took a back seat. When you’re so into work, you lose your skills.”

Aida Diallo, an outgoing 33-year-old from Los Angeles, wouldn’t say she’s lost her people skills — just her time.

“Here’s the thing,” said Diallo, sipping a cocktail and scouting the crowd at an upscale bar in downtown Los Angeles. “I have zero time to meet people but I want to be married at some point. I’m trying to meet someone interesting.”

While online dating seems to have become a preferred method for meeting people in a fast-paced society, Duterte said Web matchmaking has one main drawback — lack of personal contact.

“There’s no interaction anymore,” said Duterte. “We’re adding the human touch to a high-tech industry.”

The parties, usually held once a week, force people into a social situation and the compatibility keys give people a clue as to whether they want to talk to someone or not.

But the compatibility keys are not always the only element that draws people together. Ask party-goer Bernie Rodriguez.

Rodriguez, an ex-military man, arrived early to a OneKeyAway event and sat at the bar and waited. Soon, the automotive instructor was talking with a woman — despite the fact they were not compatible, based on their keys.

“All this is is an icebreaker,” said Rodriguez, looking at the device around his neck. “We were red, but we’re taking a chance on each other.”

I would like to see the variations I had been thinking about combined into this kind of product, I think it would make dating more fun in many ways. Using technology to get more human time is certainly a  profound and needed  thing right now. So much technology is making adult dating easier and faster, but it mostly takes out much of the human element, combining things like this should make for some cool dating parties in the future!