Welcome to my blog!
My name is Shimrit Elisar and I am the author of Everyone's Guide to Online Dating ,
the UK's first online dating book. This is where I write about the online dating industry, rant about relationships and also offer tips and advice to the general Internet dating population.
If you're new to online dating, feel free to check out my introductory online dating advice.

Please help my friend

A very close friend of mine has been wrongfully arrested and detained in Dubai since the 26th of January. So far, without being officially charged.

31-year-old Cat Le-Huy, Head of Technology at Endemol UK, was detained and arrested during a tourist visit to Dubai for carrying melatonin, an over-the-counter jet lag aid. Though once in custody Le-Huy tested negative for drugs and his melatonin was cleared by officials, he is still in Dubai jail with no charges and no release date.

Full story can be found on the Free Diz page where you can also donate to his mounting legal defense fund. Talk about Dubai being a tourist trap…

All of his family and friends (myself included) are shocked and worried.

Please pass this on to friends and family. Also, please spread the word around that Dubai is NOT a safe place for Western tourists, regardless of what their advertising campaigns say.

More information about this and other similarly horrible cases can be found on the BBC news site.

Posted in: Latest news, Misc on February 10th, 2008 Add comment

Who should pay for the first date?

This morning I had the dubious pleasure of having to wake up much earlier than normal to be interviewed on the radio. The matter at hand was the age old question: who should pay for the meal when dating?

I followed a bitter-sounding man who said women should pay for their half because “men end up paying for everything once they are married”. The presenter asked me whether I thought the matter of who pays for the meal at the beginning can be an indication of how things will pan out during the rest of the relationship. I said yes and that if a man is problematic about paying for a date with a woman at the beginning of the relationship, it does not bode well, although many women prefer to split the bill to avoid feeling indebted to a man they have only started seeing.

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Posted in: Relationships and dating on October 30th, 2007 1 comment

The best online dating site

One question I keep getting asked is “what is the best dating site?” The short answer is, of course: there is no such thing.

Where is the best place to meet the love of your life? Ask any person who’s happily married and they’ll tell you the place where they met their husband/wife. This could be a particular club, the supermarket, the chess club, a resort in Ibiza, or practically anywhere else in the world. If you went to the same place as person X, would you meet the love of your life too? Who knows? There is absolutely no guarantee.

All we have going for us are statistics: increasing our chances of success. Sure, you may well meet the love of your life on the bus or on the beach, but you are far more likely to meet him/her somewhere a bit less random. While miracles obviously do happen, you can’t live your whole life sitting at home, passively waiting for one to happen for you.

So the first step is to put yourself out there, go out, date online, etc. Doing this increases your chances already, so how do you increase them further?

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Posted in: Online Dating Tips on October 17th, 2007 1 comment

Your dating profile: don’t assume prior knowledge

This may seem obvious, I know from my own experience how hard it is sometimes to forget that you are writing to an audience that may not know anything about the subject you are writing about.

I’ve seen quite a lot of profiles where people seem to almost write in code. They seem to almost be writing for themselves without clatrifying potentially ambiguous points.

When you are writing about yourself, then you are writing about a subjet you know a lot about, so it’s easy to forget to fill in the details you think are pretty obvious.

While sometimes it’s OK to not over-elaborate (If you’re into house music, for example, there’s no need to spend lines upon lines explaining what type of music that is) some things may require a bit more detail to be properly understood.

Saying you are into “travel” or “dancing”, for example, would not make you stand out from the crowd and will definitely not tell your readers that much about you. Most people would say they enjoy travel but one person’s idea of the perfect holiday could be another person’s total nightmare.

Remember that what is obvious to you (’travel” meaning adventure travel to exotic places or “dancing” meaning ballroom dancing for example) may be completely misunderstood by others unless you elaborate.

Think about all the things you would like to know about your potential mate and come up with a list of questions (you can even write them down if that helps). Then answer all those questions in your own writing about yourself.

Posted in: Online Dating Tips on October 16th, 2007 1 comment

Just realised I haven’t written anything in a while

You know you’re working too hard when you have to take a break from your own blog.

Normal service will resume shortly.

Posted in: Misc on October 8th, 2007 Add comment

Why the story of The Little Mermaid should be taught to every single child

(No. Not the horrible Disney version. The original version: Andersen’s at a push, but he probably ripped it off from a cautionary tale mothers used to tell their daughters before bedtime. Andersen’s version is on Wikipedia, complete with a fairly Christian spin.)

In my recent column for Gorgeous Dating I wrote about the Seinfeld Dating Syndrome and how people often subconsciously turn insignificant faults into deal-breakers and ruin their own chances of happiness.

To compare and contrast, I briefly touched upon the subject of how we are often willing to sacrifice our own happiness for the illusion that a bad relationship with an inconsiderate person could turn around and be a “happily ever after” affair after all.

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Posted in: Relationships and dating on September 12th, 2007 Add comment

Dating site age verification gone wrong

Here’s a seemingly rather shocking case: an American man dating on a sex site met up and slept with a girl whose profile said she was 18, only to discover later (when police surrounded his house) that he’d slept with a 14 year old girl.

Said guy sued said site for damages and lost, which I’m sure will warm the heart of every site owner out there.

I know from experience how hard (read: impossible) it is to prevent people from lying about their age on sites. The girl would have had to borrow her parents’ credit card to sign up to the site, as well as lie about her age. If someone is willing to lie and steal to place a profile on your site, there is very little you can do, unless you start doing serious background checks (and those have already been proven to be somewhat pointless). It’s usually much easier to tell in person whether someone is 14 or 18.

While I feel sorry for the guy and don’t think he should have necessarily received such a heavy penalty, I’m happy to see the law recognising the fact that the site itself is not responsible. The only thing I would say is that maybe the bit in the T&C about not being able to 100% guarantee the information provided by members is accurate should be made a bit clearer, rather than (probably) being hidden somewhere half way down the list. Really, though, a bit of personal responsibility should be factored into any dating experience.

Opinions?

Posted in: Industry stuff on August 30th, 2007 Add comment

What we can learn from dancing

Last week, I went to a tango class for the first time in a while. It was a new class with an entirely new crowd of people I’d never danced with before. having danced with about 10 different guys throughout the class, I was suddenly struck by how much can be learnt about people from this type of physical, non-sexual interaction. Couples’ dances are a form of conversation. There is a leader and a follower, it requires clarity and attentiveness on both parts to create a flow of movement and create something beautiful together.

I can’t think of a better metaphor for relationships. In fact, I am pretty certain you can learn a lot about the way people are in their relationships by observing the way they interact with each other while dancing.

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Posted in: Relationships and dating on August 19th, 2007 Add comment

Online dating sites - they’re not all the same

I run into a lot of people who tell me they tried online dating and it didn’t work for them. When I ask for more details and get the full story, it usually turns out they’d tried one dating site and when it didn’t meet their expectations assumed all dating sites are the same and quit trying altogether.

In my opinion, you’ve not really given online dating a proper chance until you’ve looked at 5-10 sites and properly tried (as in, signed up for the free account, ran a detailed search and maybe even joined the free trial) at least 2-3. There are literally thousands of sites out there and while there are things that are bound to be similar, there’s also plenty of differences in everything from features to audience. a Ford Fiesta and an Audi TT are both cars: they both have wheels and seats, etc. but driving one would not necessarily tell you all there is to know about driving the other. If it’s driving itself you don’t enjoy, the differences may pass you by, but until you’ve tried a few different cars, you may not be able to pinpoint exactly what it is you dislike.

If you’re on a dating site that isn’t delivering you the results you want, try a different one and try to make it as different as possible - bigger, smaller, more niche, more generic - whatever can give you a broader taste of the industry.

You may discover that what you dislike is common to all dating sites, or you may well discover there is more to online dating than you thought.

Posted in: Online Dating Tips on August 19th, 2007 2 comments

Shimrit on BBC world news

Super-short notice but I will be on BBC World News’ “The world today” at about 7pm UK time, which is in about half an hour or so.

I will be commenting on this news story: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6943616.stm

Posted in: Latest news on August 13th, 2007 Add comment

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Everyone's Guide to Online Dating is the only Internet dating guide ever to be published in the UK. Learn from the experts and find out everything you need to know about dating online.
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