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It’s that happy time again. Forward thinking to Valentine’s day, Parship.co.uk are letting you use their site for free until Sunday. Hurry up and give it a go if you want to see what it’s all about.
On a site that won’t let you view pictures before you pay, being able to see who you’re talking to for free is a big big plus, I’m sure you’ll agree.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on February 5th, 2010 Add comment
How do fate and luck factor into online dating? What can we do to improve our chances when dating online, to prevent ourselves from falling for the wrong people?
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on February 3rd, 2010 Add comment
Here’s an interesting new site from Match.com . The new site is called MatchAffinity and is based on Match’s personality test. Once you complete the 10 minute test, you can get matches sent to you, as well as look them up yourself.
If you like the way the Match.com site works but want a bit more of a psychological assessment to help you think of people in terms of long term compatibility, then this is a good site to have a look at and see if you like their style.
If you like DatingDirectAffinity, you will find this site extremely familiar…
Posted in: Online Dating News on January 21st, 2010 Add comment
It’s that time of year again when eHarmony.com bring out the coupon codes, saving you up to 20% on subscription prices!
This is for the US and Canada sites only, by the way. If you’re looking for the UK site, try this post to see if there are any new codes out.
If you’ve been feeling the chill, I’m sure that’ll warm up your heart 
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on January 12th, 2010 Add comment
Well, that’s hardly surprising, is it? With the UK braced for even more snow madness, everyone’s apparently been staying at home and hitting the dating sites.
This is a brilliant opportunity to start your new year on the right foot. I know a lot of you will have made a new year’s resolution to find someone, because this is the perfect time to do it. Not only do you have the power of the new year behind you, you also have many thousands of people out there who have made exactly the same resolution. Maybe one of them is your person?
So use this time (when you’re not out making snowmen and stuff) to work on your profile, try out a few dating sites and teach yourself how to work these to get what you want.
Oh yes, and keep warm, it’s cold out there!
Posted in: Online Dating News on January 8th, 2010 Add comment
From the 30th of December - January 3rd, eHarmony (the American one) is having a free communications weekend. The last of this year and first of the next, in fact.
eHarmony UK will have their free communications weekend from the 1st - 4th of January.
So if eHarmony sounds like your kind of site but you’re not quite yet sure, you may want to use this opportunity to try it out.
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on December 28th, 2009 Add comment
Parship.co.uk are having a huge winter “sale” with a 50% discount on their one month subscription. This offer is on from today (the 23rd of December) till the 8th of January. If you want to give Parship
a go, now would be the perfect time to try.
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on December 23rd, 2009 Add comment
Here’s a question that keeps coming up time and time again: even in these days of supposed sexual liberation and gender equality, is it OK for women to hit on men?
Posted in: Relationships and dating on December 21st, 2009 1 comment
Watch this space. I’ll be writing more about it on Wednesday!
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on December 19th, 2009 Add comment
Speed Dater have a big NYE party in London, at the Abbey bar. They are currently offering a 2 for 1 deal on tickets. There will be a lock & key party, optional speed dating sessions and the usual things such as photo wall, food, music and dancing. The party’s open to singles of the 24-40 age range. The dress code is smart casual to smart.
This is a big party for up to 500 singles and the only NYE party SpeedDater are doing, so I expect there will be people there from outside of London too.
Posted in: Relationships and dating on December 11th, 2009 Add comment
Had an email in my mailbox today saying Parship.co.uk are offering 50% off their 3 month subscription in December. I think this special discount offer is for members who have signed up and not yet paid, but it might be worth signing up this month as a free member to see if you get an offer too.
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on December 7th, 2009 Add comment
If you’re looking for a personal recommendation about a personal introductions agency, here’s some good news about a new concept in matchmaking headed by a dear friend and colleague of mine.
Matchmakers and introduction agencies used to be all the rage when it came to getting direct personal assistance with finding love, but the mental image they conjure is not always good - a chain-smoking little old lady parents would hire to get their spinster daughter a husband is the one that first came into my mind!
This image is, however, far from true, as exampified by Coffee and Company, a London based introduction agency for successful professional singles.
Posted in: Relationships and dating on December 5th, 2009 Add comment
There’s a new dating event debuting this Saturday in London promising to be an interesting alternative to your usual speed dating and lock and key party type events.
Offering an alternative dating experience to fun creative people (23-35), Shoot Dating sounds like a cross between a treasure hunt and a photography class, where the goal is to take photos according to clues.
Participants work in teams (a different one for every clue, to introduce you to more singles) and can win cool prizes like cameras. There’s also free entry to a party afterwards at the Bathhouse so you can mingle. The party is a band / rock night, which is in itself somewhat alternative, considering the music played at most standard singles’ events.
I often get people asking me about good singles’ events designed particularly for intelligent, creative and funky people and it’s a toughy. This one seems like it fits the bill.
I like the teamwork aspect of it, which is a great way of learning a lot about a person. The concept is interesting and the location is cool, so should make for an interesting day (and night) out.
Posted in: Relationships and dating on December 1st, 2009 Add comment
I just got an email saying Parship.co.uk are offering free full use of the site this weekend, until Sunday.
OK, so they are not calling it a free communications weekend, as that’s what eHarmony call theirs, but it’s basically the same thing. You can even exchange pictures with people for free, which is a novelty on Parship.
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on November 27th, 2009 Add comment
Online dating is all well and good, but limiting your social life to online interaction will do you no favours. For many people, it takes a while before all those profile searches, winks and messages turn into actual dates. So in the meantime you should be looking at additional ways of getting yourself out of the house and into social situations where you will meet new people.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips, Relationships and dating on November 25th, 2009 Add comment
A weekly roundup of some online dating stories and offers from around the Internet and the world, as well as my own commentary, of course. This week - an offer from eHarmony, a new iPhone app and some new online dating research.
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers, Online Dating News, Online Dating Tips on November 20th, 2009 Add comment
A good profile in itself is not enough to make your online dating experience successful. The truth is, with the right advice and support it’s not very difficult at all to come up with a profile that portrays you as someone most men or women would want to date. But if all those things you take out of the profile were originally put there because of your state of mind, baggage, fears or bitterness, then the thin screen provided by the profile won’t be enough to carry you through the whole dating process.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on November 12th, 2009 2 comments
I had an interesting discussion recently with someone who’d tried online dating and was disappointed. She said she’d been taken aback by people’s habit of continuing to search for more matches online even after they’d been on a seemingly good date.
To her, this implied that people did not take online dating seriously enough - as if relationships formed online were more “disposable”.
There’s already been much discussion about how online dating has changed relationships, but my take on it is different than the above. With the main attraction of online dating often being the sheer number of eligible singles you can meet, it’s not hard to understand why people may not want to settle on the first person they meet. Sure, there are players and casual daters who set out to find one person after another, but those searching for a husband or a wife have even more of a vested interest in being choosy.
Personally, I believe that relationships that follow a period of active dating can actually end up being stronger and more meaningful, as there wouldn’t be a question of whether one person settled for the other.
Of course, if someone is successful at dating online, the temptation can always be there to try for someone better, any time something seems to go wrong in the relationship they’re in - actually making relationships “disposable”.
Have you experienced this? If so, please leave a comment.
Posted in: Relationships and dating on November 2nd, 2009 2 comments
You’ve heard about the eHarmony free communications weekends before, but now it seems they have gone one further and turned this into a 5 day event. So now if you sign up for a free account at eHarmony USA you’ll be able to communicate with your matches for free from today (21/10) to the 25th.
UPDATE! eHarmony UK will have a free communications weekend this weekend (23-26 October).
Remember that it can take time for the system to come up with good matches for you, so if you want to give the site a proper go, sign up earier rather than later, or you may not have anyone you want to talk to on time!
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on October 21st, 2009 Add comment
If you want to get anywhere with online dating, there are a few things you will need to get over. Finding love online is a lot easier if you allow yourself to use all the resources at your disposal. Here are 5 common difficulties you will need to overcome in order to get the most out of your dating experience.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on October 19th, 2009 Add comment
When you meet someone online, it’s tempting to try and find out more about them, to see if they are all they’re cracked up to be. But is this the best policy to ensure a happy ending for your love story? A recent article in the Washington post asks whether there can still be a true blind date in the days of the Internet.
Posted in: Relationships and dating on October 13th, 2009 Add comment
I get a lot of people asking me how to spot a scammer online and the truth is, spotting a scammer is at once very difficult and very easy.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on October 7th, 2009 3 comments
The new eHarmony discount promo codes are here giving you up to 20% off their subscription prices. These are both valid till the end of the year.
If you’re looking for eHarmony offers and ways of saving money while still enjoying their unique system, then now’s your chance.
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on October 4th, 2009 Add comment
Online dating sites are certainly the most direct way of meeting other singles online, but as much as online dating professionals hate to admit it, they are not for everyone. If you’ve given online dating a good try and have decided it’s not for you after all, then it’s time for a bit of lateral thinking. You can still use the Net to meet new people, for both friendship and romance. It may not be as direct as going on a dating site, but for many people, that is actually somewhat of an advantage.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on October 2nd, 2009 Add comment
More about the OKcupid survey…
A recent article in the Telegraph reported the results of a statistical survey conducted by free dating site OKCupid. The survey aimed to discover the makings of the perfect first online dating message, on OKcupid at least.
Posted in: Industry stuff, Misc, Online Dating News on September 25th, 2009 2 comments
If you hate being single during the holidays and are looking for romance, rather than just a casual fling, now’s the time to start thinking about preparing your lovelife for winter.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on September 22nd, 2009 Add comment
Online dating for soldiers has become increasingly popular in recent years, as it’s a convenient way for those in the armed forces to meet people while stationed away from home. Any dating site is fit for this purpose, of course, though a quick search reveals many sites dedicated to soldiers and those looking to date them.
Posted in: Online dating for... on September 18th, 2009 1 comment
New figures released by dating site OKCupid reveal some interesting things about online dating response rates and important information about sending your first message to someone online.
Posted in: Industry stuff, Online Dating News, Online Dating Tips on September 12th, 2009 1 comment
eHarmony UK are having another one of their popular free comms weekends this coming weekend. Register before/during to make use of the site’s features for free for a whole weekend and see what it’s all about.
Because of the slow and cautious nature of the site, I suggest you register before the weekend, to give the site a chance to match you up with people you might actually want to talk to using the free features!
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on August 25th, 2009 Add comment
If you are struggling to write your dating profile, here are five tips that will help get you started. Take your time, and remember everything is a work in progress.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on August 20th, 2009 1 comment
Writing an online dating profile is not easy. Maybe that’s why many people end up relying on cliches in theirs. As an online dating consultant, I’ve seen my share of profiles (thousands) and there are definite trends when it comes to writing them. In fact, the majority of profiles I come across read more or less the same. When I provide dating profile writing services I try to get people out of the trap of stating the obvious in their profile, but if you’re looking for dating profile examples to help you write yours, here are five dating profile cliches you’ll want to avoid.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on August 11th, 2009 1 comment
This ZombieHarmony dating site linkbait made me laugh rather a lot. I’m sure it’s gotten its fair share of links from bloggers all over the place.
Great idea, well made and bound to interest the type of people likely to have a blog and a nice social media presence.
It’s difficult to get a dating site to stand out nowadays but some sites do well at getting viral content to do the job for them. OKcupid did it well with their thousands of quizzes and mingle2 are obviously doing something right too. Anyone seen any other good ones lately?
Posted in: Marketing Dating Sites, Weird Dating Sites on August 4th, 2009 1 comment
If you’re looking for online dating content for your site, I am currently available for writing services.
I offer 100% original, quality content that’s guaranteed not to have been published elsewhere.
As you may know, unique content is king on the Internet, especially for competitive industries such as online dating. Quality content will help your site stand out so it can be noticed by the search engines and therefore seen by more people.
I can provide dating tips and advice, agony aunt services for your users, dating articles, etc. all written by me according to your specific requirements.
For more information and rates, please contact me via the contact form.
Posted in: Industry stuff, Marketing Dating Sites on July 28th, 2009 Add comment
I recently read one of those annoying articles about online dating and what a great disappointment it is.
I often wonder what people expect from online dating to be so unpleasantly surprised by the reality of it.
In my experience, such disappointment is often a product of unreasonable expectations. Yes, some sites are better than others and some people are more easily suited to online dating than others, but ultimately, if you expect online dating to solve all your problems, you will most likely be disappointed.
Here are some things you shouldn’t expect online dating to do for you:
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on July 23rd, 2009 3 comments
Match.com and DatingDirect.com
are probably the biggest dating sites in the UK and definitely the most famous. Here is a quick run down of how the two dating sites compare.
Posted in: Online dating for... on July 14th, 2009 Add comment
Here are some dating sites that either cater specifically for or are friendly towards older daters.
Mature online dating (dating for the over 50s, pensioners or “silver surfers”) has become more popular in recent years, as people nowadays are living longer and refusing to give up on finding love, be it for the first or second time around.
Posted in: Online dating for... on July 9th, 2009 Add comment
New eHarmony coupons are here! If you are looking for a discount voucher code for the eHarmony USA or CA site, look no further as I have just been emailed them! eHarmony UK is also offering discounts - up to 40%!
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on July 1st, 2009 Add comment
For most people, the online dating profile is a work in progress. It changes as they use the site(s) they’re on and it adapts as they get responses and learn more about the type of people who contact them.
Sometimes this is a good thing, but all too often I see people, obviously fed up of getting the wrong type of responses (or being in the wrong type of relationships), who decide to address the issue in their profile… with terrible consequences.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on June 22nd, 2009 Add comment
Has anyone else been seeing the Match.com adverts everywhere recently, or is it just me? they are certainly doing a big advertising push right now.
Posted in: Industry stuff on June 16th, 2009 2 comments
If you’re here then you probably already know that uploading a picture to your online dating profile is a must. Most people won’t even bother looking at your profile without one and many will make snap judgements about you based on the photo you upload.
Unless you’re comfortable and natural in front of a camera and already know your best side, this will have undoubtedly caused you some concern by now. In general, women tend to overdo it, whereas men are notoriously bad at picking unflattering photos. There are, of course exceptions…
Here are some tips for helping you choose the right photo:
Posted in: Book stuff, Online Dating Tips on June 11th, 2009 1 comment
Parship.co.uk have a range of discounts available until the end of the month (June).
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on June 4th, 2009 Add comment
video chat (also known as live chat, webcam chat or camera chat) is one of the most popular features available on dating sites. Its obvious popularity among the more casual daters has given it a bit of a bad reputation, but many big name dating sites catering for serious relationships offer it to their customers.
Here is a list of dating sites that specialise in offering quality video chat services.
Posted in: Online dating for... on June 3rd, 2009 Add comment
Much has been written about how to handle rejection. Being rejected on the Internet can be just as painful as being rejected in real life. Remember this, because this post is actually not about handling rejection, but about doing the rejecting.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on May 21st, 2009 Add comment
Are you looking for a Parship free trial? There is a free communications weekend on now - Friday 19th of June until Monday! All you need to do is sign up and take the test.
Click here to sign up to Parship now.
Parship is a dating site dedicated to people looking for serious relationships and marriage. They have a serious sign up process with an in depth personality test (quite psychological) and a dating concept that’s based on getting to know people’s personality rather than merely looks. They are currently offering a free communications weekend (until end of Sunday the 17th), where you can sign up and try all the features of the site for free.
Click here to try Parship for free
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on May 15th, 2009 1 comment
GirlsDateForFree is a UK dating site where (as the name suggests) women don’t pay. This has made it extremely popular, as well as somewhat known for being a bit of a party site great for casual dating (though not exclusively for that).
For a while now they’ve been advertising their compatibility quiz on their site, so I wanted to check it out. Alas, it seems to be down and has been for months. I even went as far as sending them a message telling them about it, but nothing has changed. I’ve been giggling about it for a while, but it’s a shame, cause the rest of the features on the site are actually quite decent, including pretty good mobile phone integration. Seems a shame to have a big broken link in the middle of it all.
Meanwhile, their homepage has somewhat of a massive makeover and looks very different, though the rest of the site has not changed. I wonder if they are working on changing the rest of it as well? It’s quite dated, although that has never stopped anyone from using it (and in fact, many people prefer the simplicity of it and the fact that it’s unpretentious). Have you seen the new page? I’m curious as to people’s opinions, so please leave yours below.
Posted in: Industry stuff on May 9th, 2009 2 comments
Need help choosing the best dating site for you? Here are some tips and a handy quiz to match you with the perfect dating site!
Posted in: Online dating for... on May 3rd, 2009 1 comment
Q: I’ve been dating online for about a month or so on a couple of different dating sites. When I search, I keep seeing profiles that are obviously fake. Are these put there by the websites to try and get people to join? Does this mean I should find better dating sites that are more honest?
Posted in: Questions and answers on April 30th, 2009 Add comment
Get 30%-40% off eHarmony UK subscriptions when you register and subscribe via this link
Posted in: Dating site coupons and offers on April 23rd, 2009 Add comment
On the 22nd of April, the Long Acre Bar in central London will host Ree-cycle, a singles’ event with a few great twists. The first twist is the concept: a very Sex and the City-like concept of “recycling” your love life. Each guest is to bring someone in their life they think is a great catch but is somehow still single. Everyone can then look around and hopefully find the perfect match among someone else’s rejects. It sounds like fun but the second twist makes it even better - the proceeds go to Phab Kids, which is a disabled children’s charity.
So go on, dust off that ex you’ve been keeping tucked away in your wardrobe and take him or her out for a spin. Who knows what fab finds you might uncover!
More information is on their site: Ree-cycle
Posted in: Online Dating News on April 18th, 2009 Add comment
It’s no secret that many people are put off by online dating because they think so many people on there lie about stuff like marriage/relationship status. While Internet dating players are not any more or less common than their offline counterparts (and then to appear more often than not in the lives of those online daters who turn to attract bad apples wherever they go), it’s true that it lends itself to milder cases of people bending the truth.
Posted in: Online Dating Tips on April 18th, 2009 Add comment
