Dating Rules You Should Ditch

From Tesh.com

There are a lot of rules in the dating world, but some rules need to be broken. Here are dating rules you should ditch faster than your last bad date. This comes from Match.com.

* The first rule to break: “Never date a co-worker.” Helaine Olen, author of “OfficeMate,” says Baby Boomers kept office romances secret because they were scared it would kill their career. Since there’s now a 50-50 mix of men and women in the work force – and we’re working 10 hour days – unless your company forbids dating a co-worker, experts say there’s no reason not to. The reality is 20% of couples meet at work, but once you’re officially a couple, tell your boss. It’s better that they find out from you, than through office gossip. Assure the boss your work won’t be affected by the relationship, and that there won’t be any water cooler blow-ups. Have the talk with your partner about how you’ll treat each other with respect at work should things go south.

* Another dating rule to ditch: “Rebound relationships never last.” Dr. Brent Atkinson of the Couples Clinic in Illinois says it’s healthy to mourn the end if a relationship, but that doesn’t mean you should wear black for a year or ignore any potential dating prospects you meet while you recuperate. It’s not the timing of a new relationship that’s the issue. It’s where you are emotionally after a breakup. That’s a better indicator of whether a rebound relationship will work out or not.

* The final dating rule to ditch: “Couples who are in love spend all their free time together.” You don’t want to be known as the Velcro-couple. Experts say spending time apart is the secret of happy couples. It actually brings you closer, because if you take a solo cooking class or take up kick-boxing on your own, you’ll bond even more with your partner by sharing your new experiences. You also won’t be dependant on them as your sole source of entertainment and friendship.

Are “Cougars” a Myth or Reality? from Tesh.com

The cougar trend of older women dating much younger men has exploded. Now there are cougar conventions, cougar musicals, and even a TV show called “Cougar Town.” A new study says despite all the hype, the cougar is a media-invented myth. According to Time magazine, a study was conducted by psychology researcher Michael Dunn at the University of Wales Institute. He examined the age preferences of potential love interests in over 22,000 singles ads on dating websites around the world. The result? There wasn’t a surge of older women hunting for younger men. Instead, almost all of the women said they were looking for men their age or older. Most men on these dating sites were primarily looking for younger women, not older women.

Cougars and their supporters are clawing back. Rich Gosse organizes cougar conventions, and he believes that when women fill out online dating profiles, they might check off that they’re looking for men about their age because they feel socially conditioned to do so. However, when they’re out on the town, they’re much more open to younger men, and in turn, younger men are more open to dating older women. An AARP study found that a third of women over 40 are dating younger men. The stereotype used to be that an older woman had to be loaded with cash for a younger guy to be interested, but experts say that a rising number of women from all income brackets feel more comfortable dating younger men.

So, why do young guys think older women are so appealing? Just ask Alison Brown, who’s proud to be Miss Cougar Canada. She’s a divorced single mom and personal trainer with her own art gallery. She says younger men like dating older women because they’re successful, intelligent and most of all, don’t play “games,” like “I’m not going to call him back until he texts me” like their younger counterparts often do.

Long Island Singles Events

The events can really work.  Ok ladies, I need your help on this one! Last Saturday I had the pleasure of attending Tracy and Tom’s wedding (they met in 2008 at one of our speed dating events in East Meadow).

I brought a female friend (just a friend) as my guest and we had a GREAT time. The food was fantastic, the people were awesome and I felt like a proud pappa at the wedding.

At the end of the night, my female friend took the flower centerpiece from the table home. She said she wanted them so that her cat could eat the flowers. “My cat loves flowers. I know she will throw up, but it is ok.”

At the end of the night, we put the flowers in the back seat and I dropped my friend off. But……..she forgot the flowers in my car.

It was already pretty late and I could not bring the flowers to my apartment since my cats would have a field day. I did not share my friends opinion of feeding flowers to my cats.

I also didn’t want to leave the flowers in my car since I have an allergy issue. So I tossed them.

Sunday night, my friend called me looking for the flowers. When I told her that I tossed them, she got pissed and said “we may be friends, but I am still a woman, and you have a lot to learn.” I have not spoken to her since.

Being a Sagittarius, I am used to doing stupid things and have suffered from “foot in mouth disease” plenty of times. However, I need a little advice on why the above situation would piss off my friend. She wanted to feed the flowers to her cat. It was 2 AM, and I had no place for them. Yes, I could have called my friend and drove back to bring them to her, but I didn’t. In retrospect, my friend obviously wanted the flowers for herself, and disguised it as saying she wanted them for her cat.

I may be smart in a lot of areas, but understanding the code language of women, is not one of my strong points. Don’t give us codes, tell it to us straight.

If you are looking for some great Long Island Singles Events, check this site out

From Healthday-By Randy Dotinga

Infidelity Rises When She Makes More Than He Does
In such couples, ‘gender identity threat’ may make men less faithful, study suggests

(HealthDay News) — A new study finds that men are more likely to cheat if their income is much lower than what their wife or female partner makes, while women are more likely to fool around if they make more than their husband or male partner.

The findings suggest that disparities in moneymaking play a significant role in infidelity, at least among the young couples they studied.

“With women, they were less likely to engage in infidelity the less money they make relative to their husband,” said study author Christin Munsch. “But for men, the less money you make relative to your spouse, the more likely you are to engage in infidelity.”

Munsch, a graduate student at Cornell University, said she came up with the idea of studying the effects of income on infidelity after hearing from a friend who has cheated on his partner. He told Munsch that “she made all the money, she had all the friends, and he’d moved up there to be with her. He felt completely powerless.”

While there’s been previous research into infidelity, it didn’t look into differences in income among couples, Munsch said.

So she examined the results of a national survey that tracked 9,000 people beginning in 1997 when they were children. She focused on the results of the survey from 2001-2007, when the participants were between 17 and 27 years old.

The findings are scheduled to be released Monday at the American Sociological Association annual meeting in Atlanta.

Munsch found that almost 7 percent of the men reported having sex outside their relationships between 2002 and 2007, while about 3 percent of women did. Black and Hispanic men were more likely than white men to have fooled around.

Two lifestyle factors, higher education and regular religious observance, seem to help keep infidelity at bay for both men and women, the study found.

But factors having to do with money — such as the man making more or less than his wife or female partner — did increase the risk of infidelity, Munsch said. But she cautioned that “we’re talking about very small numbers.”

If you’re a woman and “you make more money than your partner, your partner isn’t 100 percent likely to cheat,” she stressed.

Still, money appeared to be a significant factor.

Men who make less than their wives may lean toward infidelity because they feel a “gender identity threat,” Munsch speculated.

“The range of acceptable behaviors for men is a lot narrower” when it comes to dynamics in a relationship, such as those involving finances, she said. “It’s harder to hit that mark because it’s a smaller mark. If you’re not hitting the mark, you might feel threatened.”

On the other end of the spectrum, infidelity seemed to rise when one partner made a lot more money than the other. And that held true whether the man or the woman was the big wage earner.

“If you work long hours and have more disposable income, it’s easier to hide infidelity,” Munsch reasoned. For example, unusual expenses charged to credit cards might go unnoticed. Also, she said, people who make more money may also travel frequently and meet lots of people of the opposite sex.

Helen Fisher, an anthropologist and research professor at Rutgers University, said it makes sense that men with more money would be more likely to fool around.

“He probably travels a lot and drives nicer cars, and he’s probably in finer restaurants. He’s advertising the kind of resources that women are looking for from an evolutionary perspective,” she said. “Around the world, women go for men who are on the top of the pile.”

But there’s less reason, from an evolutionary perspective, for a man to stray if he makes less money than his female partner, she said. “You’d think a man would want to stick around those resources himself. That may have more of a purely psychological explanation.”

As for women, she said, wealth brings them a greater power to do what they want, whether it’s leave a bad relationship or have an affair.

Beware of Romance Scams

The latest online scam is targeting lonely people looking for love. International online con-artists, pretending to be looking for love, have stolen tens of millions from unsuspecting admirers. According to MSNBC, this scam takes time and commitment from the bad guys. First they randomly instant-message people in chat-rooms. If someone answers back, they draw them in and tell them what they want to hear. Their goal is to isolate the person from their family and friends by getting them to spend all their time online. They’ll have four or five people working as a team, pretending to be the new love interest, so they can keep the person chatting around the clock. Once they’re hooked, the requests for money start rolling in.

Jim Arlt is an FBI agent who specializes in scams. He says the con-artist forces the person to spend so much time interacting with them that it’s actually a form of mind control. They’re essentially brainwashed and the bond that’s created is almost impossible to break. One woman let her house go into foreclosure and destroyed her relationship with her family because she insisted in sending over ten-thousand dollars to a scammer in Nigeria. Another victim cashed out his retirement fund and sent over a million dollars to an online con-artist who had spent a year seducing him, and a woman was so engrossed in chatting with a scammer that she ignored cries for help from her mother who was having a heart attack. When she finally got off the computer she found her mother dead.

So how can you help if you know someone who’s being targeted? The experts say a head-on confrontation usually doesn’t work. The con-artist has convinced the victim that their family and friends are out to destroy their happiness, so anything you say will be ignored. Instead find the scammer on a victim’s support site like RomanceScams.org. You can find pictures that scammers have sent and stories from other victims. If a story matches up with their experience, they may snap out of it. If the situation gets completely out of hand, go talk to a lawyer. If the person is totally under the scammers control you may have to get a power of attorney to stop them from sending any more money. If you know someone who’s being conned, that website is RomanceScams.org.

So what do you think about this idea? Please comment below!

From Tesh.com

You Can Find Your Next Love Match With The Help of Dating Cards

What’s the latest trend in online dating? “Dating cards.” Basically calling cards you can hand to a perfect stranger who catches your eye, with printed sayings like: “Looking forward to our first date.” Or “I’ve said ‘what if’ too many times.” The cards also say “Find me,” and provide a code and the address of a Website for singles – like Cheek’d or Flip Me, where the card’s recipient can leave a message, if they’d like.

According to The New York Times, it’s the latest attempt to bridge the gap between real world romance and online romance. On traditional dating sites, members spend hours on the computer writing autobiographies, and scrutinizing profiles. Here, members pay a small subscription fee of, say, $25 a month, and get a packet of 40 cards they can give to anyone they encounter in their everyday lives, whether it’s on the subway, or at their favorite coffee shop. The person who gets the card can communicate with them for free, and it offers safety by letting users keep their names and personal information private.

Members point out that instead of being limited to the people who sign up for a specific dating service, the world is their dating pool. They also say the cards make them bold enough to approach someone who might otherwise have been a missed connection. They enjoy the social aspect, because instead of staying home with their computer to find a date, they’re going out for drinks and coffee. They also like the idea of seeing a potential date in person first, then sending an electronic message, because they already know what they’re getting. They don’t have to wonder if the person’s profile picture is 10 years old – or 50 pounds ago. It also spares them the embarrassment of face-to-face rejection if the person they approach isn’t interested.

Dear Jay,On Saturday, December 5th 2009, Tommy proposed at the Rockefeller Center Christmas Tree. It was the happiest night of my life. And Jay, Tommy and I would never have met if it wasn’t for your speed dating event on June 20, 2008 at Callahan’s in East Meadow. Due to the relaxed and fun atmosphere you create at your events, we were able to get to know each other without the awkwardness and anxiety usually associated with singles events. Jay, Tommy has made all of my dreams come true. He is the best thing to ever happen to me. He is my knight in shining armor, the hero in the story of my life, the answer to all of my prayers. I don’t think I even knew happiness like this was even possible. I know you are a businessman, but I like to think of you as a modern day Cupid. Thank you for providing the means for our incredible future. See you at the wedding 🙂

Well I have to start off and say…If it wasn’t for Weekendating.com and Jay in helping us find each other with all his fun filled activities… well we would be still looking. Tom and I met on July 8, 2009 at the Poison,Cheap Trick & Def Leppard concert at Jones Beach.

We have been having the time of our lives. Meeting each others families at parties and birthdays, spending time communicating on a daily basis and learning about each others likes and dislikes. But it’s all been great. Every day is always with smiles and laughter. Well who knows what the future will be for us but….I do have to say that it’s been full speed ahead.

Tom and Caryn

Watch Tom and Caryn at our couples reunion.  They come on about half way through this video.

From Tesh.com

First dates should be a happy mix of chemistry and conversation. Let’s be honest, good chemistry can be ruined by bad conversation. So, here are some first date topics to avoid, courtesy of the romance experts at eHarmony.

• Tales of your old glory days. As a general rule, first dates shouldn’t delve into your personal history too much. The person sitting across from you is much more interested in what you’re up to now. It gets annoying if the conversation goes back to the good ol’ days when your band was packing them into the local nightclubs or you were the head of your sorority or when you had that great job that sent you to London once a month. Spending too much time on any of these past glories makes your current life seem less interesting, no matter how many times you say, “I’m so glad to be done with that period of my life.”

 

• Another bad date topic: Health issues. You should keep first date conversation light, and telling your date that you’re having a tumor removed next week is not light. Talking about your chronic ear infection is not light. In fact, almost any medical condition is off limits on a first date. Like it or not, biologically we’re drawn to people who are healthy and vibrant – not someone who’s sick or a potential hypochondriac. Subconsciously we’re looking for someone who could potentially be the parent of our offspring – and that necessitates a healthy mate. Of course, beyond a first date, medical conditions will need to be addressed at some point. However, see if you even like each other before you start sharing your medical problems.

 

• Don’t talk about all the other people you’re dating – or have dated. We can assume that single people are hanging out with other single people, but the last thing anyone wants to hear on a date is details about your other dates. For example, saying, “I’ve been on 135 dates in the last two years!” will have your date wondering why 135 people have failed to connect with you. Saying “I’ve been online dating for two years and you’re my first real date” is pretty scary, too.
•  Bottom line: The less said, the better.

Long Island Singles