Successful Online Dating

I  found an absolutely huge list of red flags for both men and women - would you believe 156 of them! You can read them all at Heartless Bitches International.

Some of them are kind of funny (and sad if you don't see them as red flags). Others I haven't thought of or encountered. Almost every one of them is an article in itself. Interesting ones include:

• You have to keep proving yourself worthy of his attention or love. You get attention withdrawn if you ask for responsible behavior or in any way indicate that you were not happy with something he did.

So, for fun, I decided to go through some profiles and see what common problems or weird things I could find. Now, I had intended to go through 100 guys dating site profiles, but I only made it to 50 and my list was getting long.

First, the search: I used my personal account and my actual search criteria (single, straight men in my geographic area, between the ages of 28-36), and I went directly through the results, skipping no one, and reading every profile. See how much I love you, our readers…

I needed to focus on work and family for a while, and just did not have the energy to actively seek out new relationships; after this self imposed dating hiatus, I am ready to get back out there.

You would think that a gal who writes for a blog called Successful Online Dating would be a whiz at getting a profile up, and that the emails and contacts would be flooding in.

Writing a Profile is Hard

However, while I am updating and reevaluating, I am finding that it’s very hard to objectively look at my own profile. While I know what I should and shouldn’t be doing…I can’t always tell if I’ve done it.

I joined Chemistry.com through their buy one get three offer:

Three months for the price of one on Chemistry.com! You save more than 50%!

Here's how it's going so far…

An Evenly Sliced Personality

What really sucks about my personality test on Chemistry.com is that there are 4 quadrants, and I am very close to 25% on each of them. Which means they can match me up with absolutely anybody and it's supposed to be a "great match."

I am really disgusted with true.com.

All their affiliate ads are sexually provocative and aimed toward men, and now this comes along…sponsored by true.com.

My personal feeling is this group is such a sell-out. They claim they check for married people and criminals, but ads like this make me think they're out for the lowest common denominator.

My suggestion is to avoid true.com and their sister sites like the plague!

Cosmo has a great online article with 17 essential dating tips…they are great! Here's a sample:

1. First dating rule: Chemistry trumps all. Even if he talked too much about his hybrid car or had T-bone steak in his teeth the whole time, if his kiss made you melt, he gets a second date.
2. On the flip side, we don't care if he's the hottest, richest, funniest, Orlando Bloomiest man ever. If smooching him gives you the creeps, cut your losses.