Posts filed under 'Relationships and dating'
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.
Continue Reading October 30th, 2007
(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.
Continue Reading September 12th, 2007
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.
Continue Reading August 19th, 2007
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been in and out of London, enjoying the Great British Festival scene. As a result, I’ve had a chance to speak to a lot of new people from all over the country about “the whole online dating thing”.
I had a number of very interesting conversations with people who all raised the same problem they have with online dating. They all felt that dating sites made the whole process of introduction seem too much like a job application, making it unromantic. They all preferred the old method of going out there and running into people by chance, trusting their heart (or “fate”) to make the right decision for them.
I know online dating professionals often like to talk about how superior the online method is to traditional dating exactly because of the fact that it’s focused and involves making decisions with your head first and then the heart, but personally I feel that this is a matter of personal preference. Some people are always going to be ruled by their heads, while some are more intuitive by nature. Throughout the centuries, people have found love using both of these methods, so I don’t care to fault either one.
Continue Reading August 5th, 2007
It’s official, you can die of a broken heart.
The term “love doctor” has just gained an entirely new meaning.
April 21st, 2007
A while ago, the BBC quoted a report stating that many cases of use of date rape drugs like rohypnol in rape cases were unfounded. The report claimed that in most cases the women had simply drunk too much.
Now, apparently, there is another report from the Government’s Advisory Council on the misuse of drugs showing the exact opposite.
Not only are there two commonly used date rape drugs that are entirely legal, apparently all of those substances leave the body quite quickly, so unless the drug test is performed very quickly, there is nothing left to test and the impression is that only alcohol was involved.
The council analysed this research in its own report and found that in some cases there were clear delays between an incident and attempts to detect samples.
And in 41 of the 62 instances where alcohol was detected, one or more controlled drugs were also present.
Obviously, I think it’s pretty fair to assume that the majority of these cases were not a result of online dating, but this is as good a time as any to reiterate how important it is to follow the standard online dating safety rules when meeting people. They are available on every decent dating site, as well as in my book (obviously!) and all over the Internet (such as here )These rules may seem paranoid and over the top but, personally, I’d rather be paranoid than a victim. When pubs and drinking are concerned, you’re better off not letting your guard down. By all means, drink and be merry, but don’t overdo it and don’t ever leave your drink unattended.
April 2nd, 2007
Dr David Voas from The University of Manchester said that zodiac ‘love signs’ have no impact on our chances of marrying - and staying married.
The Senior Research Fellow at the University’s Centre for Census and Survey Research analysed the birthdays of all 20 million husbands and wives in England and Wales.
The investigation - using 2001 census data - failed to reveal any evidence of attraction between star signs.
(Full article here)
The research takes into account the fact that professional astrologers view the complete birth charts, rather than rely solely on sun sign, but assumes that sun signs would account for a level of measurable influence, if it existed.
There is no shortage of dating sites out there that offer astrological matching but somehow I doubt any of them will suffer too greatly from the publication of this report. Astrology is still a highly popular way for people to measure their supposed “compatibility”.
Astrology has different trends in it, much like psychology. Astrological compatibility tests are used to measure particular compatibility factors and ignore others (much like trends in psychology 
).
The important thing people should keep in mind following this survey is not to take astrological compatibility too seriously and, in particular, not to write off any supposedly “incompatible” matches.
Anything that pigeon-holes people based on factors they cannot control is limited at best.
March 27th, 2007
I came across an interesting article today about the way mobile text conversations and online interaction supposedly affect teenagers’ views on relationships. By “interesting” I don’t actually mean intelligent and well thought-out, unfortunately.
Here’s an example:
Professor Doreen Rosenthal said mobiles and the internet had created an accelerating intimacy between adolescents, with many making relationship decisions more swiftly than previous generations. Electronic communication tended to shrink the time span in which friendships developed, leaving teenagers more exposed to risky decision-making.
The article seems to suggest that, as a result, teenagers get a “false sense of intimacy” and tend to sleep with each other faster than they otherwise would:
“For many teenagers, this acceleration of intimacy is occurring without the usual checks and balances of face-to-face contact. It’s a pseudo-intimacy. You don’t create genuine intimacy through these mediums.
Continue Reading March 26th, 2007
Here’s an interesting article about love, marriage and sex.
Quoting Californian Couple’s therapist Marty Klein:
Klein says his boomer generation is the first to marry for love, expect hot sex with the same partner, and live for an extremely long time.
Is this want-it-all concept working for today’s marriages? Not particularly well, according to Klein, citing statistics that suggest about 50 per cent of marriages end in some form of separation, and more than 50 per cent of boomer adults are not monogamous.
What most experts forget to mention when discussing our generation’s high divorce record is that divorce was practically socially unacceptable up until the latter half of the 20th century. People weren’t happier then, they were just less likely to be able to do anything about it, unless one of them died. In a country like America (and, by the way, Israel) where people are socially pushed into marriage and see it as an integral part of any relationship, you’re bound to end up with a higher divorce rate, as people discover they’ve made a mistake (or simply grown apart) and break up. Alternatively, they choose to keep the security of married/attached life, while getting their excitement by having illicit affairs.
Continue Reading March 24th, 2007
The woman in this picture isn’t me. I am not blonde, for one. Also, there is no way I would ever be this calm hanging off a cliff. I chose this image for this post because I want to illustrate something. I will get to that shortly. So welcome to my dating blog. I hope you will find it useful. As you may already know, my name is Shimrit and I work in the online dating industry. I’ve recently written the book you can see on the right hand side. It will be out in the shops in May, which should give you plenty of time to decide whether you like my writing style (it’s available on Amazon for pre order, in case you’re one of those mythical “pay now, buy later” people!)
So this blog is going to be all about online dating and dating in general and my (not so) humble opinion of both.
But before I start talking about dating, I’d like to open this blog by talking a little bit about being single.
Continue Reading February 23rd, 2007