The 15 Minute Dating Blog

by Zane Trae Kearney.

“It’s Okay to Look.” Only in certain contexts and situations could this slogan be construed as a truthful notion in the dating scene. In everyday conversations this phrase gets tossed around by men and women in relationships talking amongst their friends about the “hottie” they saw the other day in the parking lot. “Hey, it’s not cheating. It’s okay to look.”

There’s a fine line, however, between the hottie you saw by happenstance in the parking lot the other day and the hotties you’re looking at on the internet via dating websites. I’ll give you an example and we’ll see if you can distinguish the difference. To embody yourself into a setting, I was in a seemingly steady relationship for a year already. Ostensibly things were heading down the path of taking things to the never-ending “next level” and the sensation that I found “that one” was embedded in my thoughts.

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by Rose Johnson.

Wow! Not only is your online date good looking, suave, well-dressed, but a rock star/investment banker/rocket scientist? Sounds too good to be true — and, chances are — it might not be true at all. From my year or so of online dating, I’ve learned how to sort the good apples from the bad and I’d like to share some of the tricks I’ve picked up to background-checking potential dates.

It’s human nature to inflate our accomplishments, pat ourselves on the back, and brag a little, especially when you’re speaking to an attractive member of the opposite sex. In the context of online dating, it’s even easier to create a false persona, to portray ourselves in just the right light. It’s so easy to change a B.A. in English to a M.A. in Physics with just the switch of a single letter. It’s even easier to add an extra zero added to your yearly income. And when the time comes, it’s still easy to carry out this persona. A rented car to impress a date? Just make sure the Budget sticker is inconspicuous. A borrowed apartment? Not to worry, just insure that your date doesn’t notice the Metamucil in the medicine cabinet or the six bottles of vodka in the recycling – “it’s not mine! I swear!” might not cut it.

White lies are fine, we all want to impress our dates, but I want to give you the advice that I’ve learned for some good back-ground checking to make sure your date is really who they say are. On my first online date, after an hour of good conversation flirtatious eyelash-batting with “David,” the “stable Physics graduate student,” it leaked that he had been a “graduate” of college for ten years without a job, without a relationship, and was currently couch-surfing between friend’s pads. I’m not here to pass judgment on those couch-surfing unemployed guys – for all we know, they could be the one! – but I am here to pass judgment on liars. An unemployed creep with a thing for feet could be disguised as an upright investment banker and I’m here to tell you just how to distinguish the two.

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by Gregory Smith.

As a single person, we all make mistakes out in the dating world. If you are freshly single, you tend to make some fairly stupid mistakes related to etiquette – like assuming too much about a woman or a relationship, or being nervous, or not really knowing what you are doing, etc. For those of us who have been around the block once or twice (ha), being someone’s WORST DATE EVER takes on a whole new meaning. Although it can be quite an accidental art form, in most cases it is just flat out stupid. Part of the majesty of being single is one’s ability to go out and make dumb mistakes … not repeat them … and hopefully laugh about them later. As long as you learn from your mistakes, you’re fine.

I’ve lived with my present girlfriend for several years – and I’d say this relationship (among other things) brings me stability. Prior to her, however, I went through phases where I found myself in various highly entertaining situations … not all of which turned out well. For example, what I’m about to describe is an evening where I’m quite positive I turned out to be THE WORST DATE EVER for the woman I was out with. I, myself, have been out with different women who could compete for being MY worst date … but I thought it would be fun today (New Year’s Day) to write something critical about myself. ;o)

Cindy was a tall good-looking redhead – several inches taller than me, in fact. I had known Cindy for roughly ten years … and for quite some time our relationship consisted of us hooking up maybe once or twice a year for a date which almost always ended up in screaming hot sex. I didn’t see her more than maybe twice a year because she lived in Santa Barbara – which made her “geographically undesirable” in terms of being a regular girlfriend or lover. Neither of us wanted to trade in our respective jobs and move – as we just weren’t that interested in one another. We had sex … great sex … but that was where our mutual interest ended. She was also pretty fun to party with – we’d usually go out to a restaurant or club, and party pretty well before the real entertainment got started at either her place, or at my hotel.

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Have you ever been in a date that you know is headed in a train wreck but you don’t exactly know how to escape? This video offered some tips on how you can get out from a bad date without making too much of a fuss. My personal favorite? The fake allergies!

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by Samantha Jacobs.

He was a few clowns short of a circus, and had a mop of curls on his head that could easily be mistaken for a miniature poodle. Nonetheless, I was attracted; apparently, so was he.

We started dating in my sophomore year of high school. We were hooked up through a particularly heinous form of online dating: the “Instant Message Blind Date.” Here’s how it works: a (hopefully) well-intentioned mutual friend sells you on each other and exchanges your screen names. Voila, dinner and a movie via AOL.

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by Heather.

One night in July, I was up late on the computer, and recieved an instant message from some guy. It stated, “Hey, remember me?” I didn’t know who it was so I asked him a few questions to see if I could remember. Well, he told me that I met him at some party, which wasn’t true, b/c I hadn’t been to any parties in years. Turns out, I really didn’t know him, just some random instant message. He was the funniest person I had ever encountered on the net, so I just kept talking to him.

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by Matt Titus.

There is one thing I try to convey to all of the women I work with: most men do not approach a woman because he thinks she is moral, funny or smart. His initial intention is to sleep with her. I know this sounds harsh and it may be shocking, but it’s true. I am a man and it has never been my intention to approach woman to make a new friend. I have enough friends and none of them wear make-up or smell pretty.

I try to teach women how to think like a man while never losing sight of her femininity. In most cases, a man’s actions are (unfortunately) driven by what pleases him visually, acting out of instinct and only thinking in the moment. My basic thesis is that if a woman can be taught to understand a man’s dating behavior, she can easily control, predict and successfully maneuver through all the confusing “MANerisms” during that date. In other words, I teach women how to speak “man.”

So here’s secret #1 of the Boy’s Club: when a man walks down a crowded street he involuntary classifies all women into two categories: “would sleep with” and “wouldn’t sleep with.”

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by Joshua Thompson.

Buddha said, “We are what we think. All that we are arises with our thoughts. With our thoughts, we make the world.” Our thoughts honestly control what we do. There is plenty of material written on this. So I won’t get into it too much.

We are a product of what we think…but also what we feel. And I think our feelings aren’t focused on enough.

Honestly, we are mostly emotionally beings. We act based on thoughts, we react based on emotions. Our emotions can stimulate us to do things. They can also stimulate us to ignore reason.

This is the idea that women can really mess you up…because you don’t think logically. Your control is overrun by your emotional language.

But how does this apply to your dating?

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by Katy Franklin.

Every girl has her own little hang-ups about a guy that drive her crazy. Whether you’re out on a first date with someone, have been dating him casually for quite some time, or have been in a long-term relationship with a man, these little annoyances can become “Dealbreakers” or “DB’s,” as my friends and I so lovingly refer to them. Some are not so bad, while others can be totally devastating to a first date, or a committed relationship. So I thought long and hard and came up with a list of things I would consider “Dealbreakers” for myself. I also polled some girlfriends to get some second opinions and fresh ideas. The following are 50 serious Dealbreakers…guys, you may want to take notes…

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by Andy Cowan.

As with the early days of live TV, the early days of “live women” are starting to seem like a quaint remnant from yesteryear, yet another golden age we didn’t know was golden until it faded away with our memories. I admit that most of the ladies who’ve been “communicating” with me lately have been prerecorded – as when I recently answered the phone and heard, “Hi, this is Wendy! Great news!” It would be greater news if the Wendy in my life wasn’t an automaton.

My most serious relationship with a virtual woman – My voicemail secretary. Unfortunately, I know she’s been two, three and four-timing me with other guys, and women, after I reach their voicemail and hear her busily answering their phones while busy not answering mine. But at least she sounds as detached with them as she does with me. (I was starting to take it personally.)

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by Chania

Well, dating is never easy when you’re 16 and desperately want a boyfriend, but it can get much more difficult if you’re very naive and with your head in the clouds.

I had my first boyfriend at 15 (it only lasted a month and a half), and I can’t possible imagine what I saw in him then. But at that moment I was so eager to have a boyfriend that I was literally “blind”. One afternoon, after waiting 3 or 4 days for him to call, I simply got out of the house, in spite of my father’s warnings that it is embarrassing for a girl to look for a boy and to contact him, and that she should wait (“That’s what I have been doing for 3 days, dad! I want to see him!” Man, how desperate it sounds now…) and I went to his block of flats. I knew that at that hour (around 6.30 pm) he should be outside with the boys, playing football. But nobody was there, probably because it was dark and cold.

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by Karen Rodriguez

I was 24 years old and divorced living in a house with six other flight attendants, with only a laptop and a suitcase as my real processions. However, that wasn’t the worst part. I was now at the airport being picked up by my first date via Myspace, which is a current site being used by people who were too broke to pay any fees at a real dating site. Surely, this was a recipe for disaster, but having found love and marriage so quickly at a young age once makes me an eternal romantic.

His name was Peter. He was 26 years old, divorced, with a 5 year old daughter, and working at a hardware store. Amazing the potential suitors you can find by just typing in your zip code while including a twenty mile radius. Even if we did not have movies, passions, and interests in common, we had divorce, starting over and heartache to dwell on. Soon after, what followed were the awkward first phone calls. After the second week of phone conversations he let me know he told his daughter that he had a new girlfriend. This should have set off an alarm in my head. Instead I was flattered. A flight attendant’s life could at times be very lonely, and a friendly voice during a layover in Alaska or Kuwait was better than watching an episode of the Golden Girls.

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by Ed Attanasio

Because I am a writer, many of my friends ask me all the time to write their online profiles to post on dating web sites. I always feel like it’s a big commitment — kind of like writing someone’s resume or biography. There’s a lot at stake and the pressure to write something really good about someone can be very exhausting, because many of my friends are highly dysfunctional. How do you effectively describe the essence of a human being in just a few paragraphs? Without lying or opening yourself up to a civil suit?

I must admit, I have gotten pretty adept at it over the years. The secret to writing a great profile is to emphasize the good things about people while minimizing their shortcomings. Stretching the truth slightly is no crime and many people do it.

No matter how bad or messed up some people are, you can usually find something positive to write about them. They say that Attila the Hun was really nice to his elephants (“loves animals”). Hitler was a vegetarian (“healthy and fit”). And legend has it that Genghis Khan took really good care of his fu manchu (“well-groomed”).

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by Carly Zinderman.

You know that Drew Barrymore movie, Never Been Kissed? I totally relate to it, except for being a completely pathetic loser. Yet, in high school, no boy ever showed me the slightest bit of interest. I wasn’t worried about it though, my friends were never asked out either, despite the attempts my closest friend occasionally made on random guys that happened to catch her interest. Other than her over-aggressive pursuit of the male sex, my friends and I had next to no contact with boys during our four years of high school and for most of us, the male-free barrier continued on into our college years as well. But the dearth of dating didn’t bug me as much as you’d think. You don’t miss what you’ve never had and never having had a guy; I didn’t miss not having one. Besides, my friends and I had each other, and that was enough. We would sometimes joke about how we would be old cat ladies, which did bother me, because I’m a really a dog person.

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Are you watching old Seinfeld reruns for dates because you’re broke? Do you need help with saving money without being a cheap date? If you answered “yes” to either or both of these questions, consider this dating advice: Spice things up a bit with these 7 money-saving and fun dating ideas.

Here’s the link to the full article.

7 Dating Tips - Ideas for How to Save Money

Some of these ideas have potentials of being Romantic (e.g. Central Park), while others may be disasterous if you want a second date. It’s definitely worth a look though.

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by Brenda.

A few months ago I left a comment here on a post entitled “Are You Permanently Celibate” and have been asked to expand on my thoughts.

Basically the post was about a women who had her name on a dating site and in her profile stated that she was permanently celibate. The post itself didn’t compel me to leave a comment, it was everyone’s comments that got me a little hot and bothered. Most of them were about how this woman was a tease, had problems, didn’t like men, was lying to herself, etc. I disagreed completely. She seemed to understand herself well and was very upfront about what she wanted, which struck me as being very honest. Chances are she only got responses from men who felt much the same way she did about dating…more power to her I say.

Unlike this woman I haven’t made some declaration to be permanently celibate, but I do consider myself to be happily single. As I said in my comments to the original post, “There’s a myth out there that women or men who are happily single are not open enough, hate the opposite sex, need therapy or are just lying.” The reality is, being in a relationship or being married does not automatically mean that you’ll be happy. It also doesn’t mean you won’t be lonely. I was married for 10 years and have been single for 14, and during both times experienced feelings of loneliness, along with many other feelings, both positive and negative.

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by Paul G Akins Jr.

Dating can be summed up in one word, annoying. The whole process and all of the games involved irritate the hell out of me. Which is why when my friends suggested that I give online dating a try I politely said hell no.

But after about a month of harassment and ridicule I signed up to a few sites to test my luck. I was surprised by the shear number of sites and how many lonely and horny women there are out there. All just waiting for Mr. Right, but for right now they’ll settle for Mr. Big Johnson and Sir Quick Tongue.

I met a few women online but one stands out. Her names was, well you don’t really need to know her name—besides it was bootyluscious or lickous or something. Her real name wasn’t important, however her butt was. From the pictures she had on her site this girl had a nice big, juicy, yet firm butt.

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by Sara Hodon.

Online dating is not for the faint of heart. It’s good if you post a profile but don’t have the highest expectations in the world, because more often than not, you’ll be disappointed. But if you’re considering trying it—congratulations! You’re far braver than about 80% of the single population out there.

I’m not ashamed to admit that I’m no stranger to the world of online dating. Though I haven’t met a bona fide, “Okay-I-must-be-leaving-now-because-you’re-too-weird-for-words” wacko, I’ve definitely had my share of bad experiences. The hard part is just getting through the date itself. This can be tricky, particularly if you seemed to hit it off so well when you first started talking. Sadly, my friends, a person can post as many pictures as they want, but until you experience the real thing, you can truly only take a picture at face value.

So the real question remains—how do you make it past those awkward moments on a first date?

Unfortunately, I really don’t recommend jumping out of the bathroom window—that is, unless you absolutely have no other choice. As a wise man once said, sometimes you just have to suck it up. It is possible to meet The One online (I know plenty of people who have), but it’s a lot like shopping for bargains—the trick is to sort through the rejects until you get to the one worth keeping.

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by Vicky Zhou.

Creating an online dating profile can be challenging, particularly if you’ve never done it before. There are some definitely things you do and do not want to do when you create your profile in order to have the best success with your endeavour.

Here are the things you should definitely leave out.

1. Past Relationship Experiences

While it’s okay to mention what you’ve learned from past relationships, don’t ever go on and on about the way your ex treated you or anything of that resemblance. The more positive you are in your profile, the more positive people will think you are in real life - and everyone wants to date someone positive, right?

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by Wais Hassan.

There have been numerous articles written recently about online dating and courtship but I have not seen many from the Muslim perspective. Actually, there are a number of Muslim dating sites that have popped up during the past few years and some of them are pretty well designed and have thousands of registered users. I, an Afghan American 1st generation graduate student, have joined a couple of these sites during the past few years.

It is so difficult to meet and become friends with Muslim women in my everyday life because there are so many expectations the culture places on both men and women. Women do not want to be perceived as being loose or immoral and many who date will never admit to actually be dating anyone. All Muslim parents I know frown on casual dating and most of my relatives agreed to arranged marriages when they decided they were ready to settle down.

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