Announcing the Looking for Love Online Contest Winners

It’s been a fun summer at Cyber-Dating Expert Headquarters helping singles with their Irresistible online dating profiles, cheering them on when they happily retire them in favor of finding themselves in a committed relationship, and best of all, reading your online dating stories that you shared on Facebook and at CyberDatingExpert.com.

Now that summer is almost over, it’s time to announce the winners of the Looking for Love Online summer promotion.

In the category of worst date, our winner is Teresa Marroquin from Texas.

Teresa will receive a complimentary Irresistible online dating profile and a 3-month membership to Match.com.  In her submission, Teresa’s online date flew from Philadelphia to visit her for four days in Texas.

Find out why her date turned out to be a “Gorilla Guido,” and wasn’t what she expected.

“A guy came from Philly, PA to meet me & visit me in south Texas for 4 days, just two weeks ago. This guy is a “Gorilla Guido” type guy btw.  We get ready to go to the club, he starts to get ready, just like you see in the show Jersey Shore but 10x worse. We get in the car to leave and he is shirtless. We get in the parking lot and he needs to “pump up” before we can go in, so he starts to do pushups shirtless and says he’d be using his dumbbells too, but didn’t bring them.”

“He didn’t want me talking to anyone, he didn’t want me to say hi to anyone, I was stuck against the wall & wasn’t allowed to talk to anyone. We called it an early night.  Early the next morning he snuck out while I was still asleep. He text messaged me telling me he felt guilty for leaving his son back home. He still calls me his wifey, texts me, and wants me to go up to Philly to visit! I don’t think I’m the only one he saw while he was down here in Texas.”

In the category of funniest date, our winner is Carol McLeod Sanders from Alabama. Carol will receive a complimentary online dating profile critique and an autographed copy of The Perils of Cyber-Dating. Carol’s funniest date was with a man over 60 years older than her.

“My funniest date was with an 84 yr. old man when I was 22. We were walking about a mile back to his home and my car. During the walk from the Parade, he conned me into thinking he couldn’t go to the Homecoming game because he had no ticket or a way to go. I gave him a ticket and told him I would pick him up. When I got to his house, there were five sets of eyes peering thru his curtains! When we got to the game they all mysteriously showed up. I knew then I had been duped! I ended up buying drinks and food for six men instead of one. But we had a ball !! I never saw these men again but they smiled from ear to ear all day!”

All of those who entered the contest will receive a free email online dating profile critique. All of us at Cyber-Dating Expert thank you for participating and sharing your stories.

If you’re truly ready to become irresistible and want to know the secrets to finding love online, let us know. With the change of seasons, many singles are joining online dating sites and are ready to find love.

For more dating advice, follow Julie on Twitter @JulieSpira and at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

Weekly Flirt – Last Day of Looking for Love Online Contest

Click here and let the flirting begin>>>

Do Internet Daters Suffer from Online Dating Fatigue?

Lately, I’ve been questioning whether singles who are members of online dating sites really want to meet someone and create a real relationship that goes from online to offline, or just spend time hanging out in cyberspace.  It appears that many daters are suffering from a relationship syndrome called ODF, the acronym for online dating fatigue. It can also be defined as IDF, Internet dating fatigue.

While I might sound like eHarmony’s founder Neil Clark Warren, who wrote an article on Huffington Post, On Second Thought, Don’t Get Married, where I’m telling online daters that they might need to take a break as well, there’s some truth to ODF.  In Warren’s article,  he questioned whether marriage has become obsolete. The article is still being talked about and was shared by over 4000 people on Facebook and Twitter and “liked” by over 13,000 people. Something to ponder.

As an online dating expert and coach, I’m not suggesting you should abandon online dating completely, but instead consider taking a break and return refreshed, along with a new set of rules and digital tools that might increase your chances of success. Just as athletes get muscle fatigue, daters do get online dating fatigue.

In my coaching practice, I meet singles and divorcee’s who are already fed up with the process.  There are several reasons why I believe they’re suffering from ODF, and am here to provide some suggestions and online dating tips that just might wake you up from the exhausting process.

1. You’re tired of logging on and coming up empty handed.

You go to the gym three times a week, meet your friends for drinks twice a week, and spend an hour a day logging on to your online dating account to view photos of eligible singles. You hand pick 10 men or women to write to and take the time to personalize the subject line.  The result is, no one ever writes back.  You don’t know why they weren’t interested, wondered if they had an inactive profile where they couldn’t read your email, or were testing the waters with a few others and would consider you for the future. You diligently send emails more often-than-not, and still wake up to an empty inbox. It’s discouraging, I know. You feel like it’s a chore.

 2. You’re tired of trying to create interesting introduction emails.

You know you’re smart, witty, and have that great sense of humor everyone advertises that they’re looking for.  Yet, you find it hard to write an introduction email that will be catchy and stand out. You didn’t grow up wanting to be a copywriter, so your personality doesn’t shine. As a result, you spend less time logging on.  Finding a date or a mate goes down a notch or two on the totem pole. You’ve worked hard all day at work. You really don’t want to work that hard when you get home. The end result is, you lose interest. You’re suffering from ODF.

Take for example *Mike (name changed), who has been sending the same 770 word count email about himself for four years to women promising a lifetime of happiness. He wrote a novel with over 50 sentences to introduce himself.

Chances are Mike never reads the profiles of the pretty faces he views. He diligently copies the same email daily and sends it cold to women with a shotgun approach. His subject line is empty and says, (none). Sure online dating is a numbers game, but if you aren’t an educated player, your email may end up deleted by the third sentence. I finally had to tell him, “Copy + paste = erase” and suggested that he leave the novel at home. He didn’t appreciate my constructive criticism and is still single to this day.

3. You’re too picky.

If anyone has ever suggested that you might be too picky, chances are, they’re right. Your list may be so long on your profile, that it discourages would-be suitors to find someone more easy-going. If your search parameters are too narrow, it’s rare that you’ll find a compatible partner, online or offline.

Take *Janie for example. She’s a vivacious woman with a lot to offer a man. She has a successful career, beautiful home, loves to cook, and really wanted to fall in love. She came to me as a last resort, having been single for a decade. I looked at her profile and her search requirements were so limiting. She only wanted to meet a man who lived within a five-mile radius of where she resided. Her age parameters only spanned five years. It was an impossible task with unrealistic expectations. She didn’t realize it, but she was too picky. We broadened her search to 40 miles and expanded her age range to 12-years, 6 older and 6 younger than herself. She’s now dating someone age-appropriate who lives a town away. Are you too picky?  If so, it’s time to cast a wider net.

4. You’re unavailable.

You wouldn’t send a resume looking for your dream job without an email and phone contact for the recruiter to call you for the job interview, so you shouldn’t be so difficult to reach to set up a date.

Take *Bill, a handsome and successful man as an example. He always makes a good first impression in his introductory emails. He sends the women his phone number along with a message telling them that he’s only available to speak at 12pm and 9pm.  Most people have busy lives, both personally and professionally.  So if a woman called Bill outside of those two limited time slots, they’d not only get his voicemail, but he also had “call intercept” on his line requesting that you announce yourself before he’d pick up the call. Pre-screening your date’s inbound phone call is a netiquette no-no. Of course most of the women hung up. Bill’s still single. A little more flexibility and removing call intercept on his phone to make time for love might help with his search. If you want to get on his or her date card, you need to move the process along from the initial email and find the time to put a real date on the calendar.

5. You’ve gone on too many first dates.

You’ve managed to pass the dating filters, sent a few emails and text messages back-and-forth, and the first phone call went well. You dined at a restaurant that you hoped might impress him or her. The process took about two weeks, but it seems you never graduate to a second date. While the reasons may vary, most include:

• He or she didn’t look like their photo
• There was no chemistry
• He or she never called again
• He or she didn’t respond to your text or email message

You thought the first date went well. They laughed at your jokes and said they’d like to see you again.  You spent precious resources of time and money on the dating process with no return on your investment.

Yes, dating can be expensive, but you don’t need to dine at the Four Seasons to impress someone. These days, it’s not unhip to use a deal-of-the-day coupon or Groupon for a dating idea, providing you’re not only asking for two-for-one yogurt at $4.99. The result is, you’re wallet is now thin and you still find yourself alone on date night. You get frustrated with the process and end up with ODF.

If any of these five scenarios sound familiar, you’re not alone. Online dating fatigue is very real. Sometimes you need to take a break, other times you need to fine tune your profile or change your parameters and habits. At the end of the digital day, there are over 120 million singles in the world looking for love online. Not everyone suffers from online dating fatigue.

Julie Spira is an online dating expert, social media strategist and bestselling author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Connect with Julie on Twitter @JulieSpira and at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

Cyber Love Song of the Week – Good Vibrations

Happy Music Monday. We couldn’t let the summer end without posting an upbeat fun and love-filled song from The Beach Boys as our Cyber Love Song of the Week.  Enjoy this special rendition of Good Vibrations as well as our 1000th blog post, with a special appearance of Sir Paul McCartney.

Online Dating Minute – Social Dating and All That Jazzed

The secret to a successful online dating site is a combination of social dating, mobile dating, matching, and a critical mass of members. Jazzed, created by eHarmony appears to be successful at combining all four.

The social dating site announced their official launch today with over 500,000 members and more than 250,000 mobile downloads of their iOS and Android apps.

In an exclusive video interview for the Online Dating Minute, I spoke with Grant Hosford, Senior Director at Jazzed, who shared a behind the scenes look at the dating site, including what inspired eHarmony to create a social dating site, as well as describing some of their features.

In addition, you can connect with Jazzed_Kate, their official Twitter account with over 16,000 followers who provides dating advice and customer service.

Are you ready to start adding your social networking sites such as Facebook, Twitter, and Netflix on your profiles? Are you interested in joining a site to expand your social network and meet more friends?  Your comments and thoughts are welcome.

Julie Spira is known worldwide as the leading online dating expert. She provides dating and relationship advice on CyberDatingExpert.com, where singles and couples share their online dating stories. Connect with Julie on Twitter @JulieSpira and at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

Should You Become Facebook Friends With Someone You Just Started Dating?

To friend, or not to friend? This question comes up all too often from singles I’m coaching when they first start dating someone new.

My advice is always a firm no. Not just yet.

Although you may be enthusiastic about your phone conversations, have sent a few text messages back-and-forth, and enjoy spending 1-3 hours every day on Facebook,  it might seem like the next logical step to add your new date as a friend on Facebook. I call this trend “premature friending” and it might lead to a startling ending of a relationship that never had the full chance to move forward on a normal digital course.

Setting romantic boundaries on Facebook and other social networks can be quite tricky. However, it really doesn’t have to be so complicated after all.

So without further digital adieu, here are some of the most popular questions I’m asked, with answers to help your love life, both online and in real life.

Should you ignore a Facebook friend request before meeting your date?

If you regularly ignore other requests from strangers or friends-of-friends, then do the same with the man or woman you have not yet met. Think about it. Your new date might be secretly cyber stalking you to check on your where-abouts to see if it adds up to the way you described yourself. Sound creepy? Well, it is. So yes, ignore it. They aren’t a friend yet, nor are they your boyfriend or girlfriend.

You had a great first date. Is it safe to send a friend request?

No, not just yet. Unless you discussed a business deal or partnership and want to ease your way in with a Linkedin request, he or she is quite likely still on the market. They won’t want you gazing at their online activity, nor should you be staring at theirs. Avoid posting comments about your date or post the cute photo that you snapped on your iPhone after your first martini. It’s too soon to go spreading the news on the public Internet.

You had sex. Are you ready to be Facebook friends?

Just because you spent time together between the sheets, doesn’t mean it’s time to change your status to “In a Relationship.” Make sure you have the talk first about your relationship. If you’re both on the same digital page, then go ahead and change the relationship status together. If you aren’t in a committed relationship, you’re likely to have your feelings hurt when you see his arm around another girl or her in an uncompromising photo with another guy. If either one of you is sitting on the digital fence, then stay friends offline before becoming friends online.

The relationship never took off. Can we just be friends?

If you know for certainty that there was no chemistry or a chance for romance, and no one feels jilted, go ahead and become friends if you truly like each other and know it will be platonic. If you find yourself staring at his or her wall wondering what they’re up to, then you’re not being honest with yourself. Politely unfriend them until you know you’re over it.

At the end of the digital day, don’t let your feelings be hurt if the other party ignores your friend request. Everyone has their own prerequisites for friending and unfriending each other on the world’s largest social network.

Julie Spira is a leading online dating and netiquette expert.  She’s the author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com for dating advice. Connect with Julie on Twitter @JulieSpira, Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert and Facebook.com/RulesofNetiquette

Peril of the Week – Tacos for Two

Dating in your 30s and 40s often means dating men with kids and vice versa. The exact time to introduce your children to your new boyfriend or girlfriend is still up for debate. What’s absolutely not appropriate is bringing your child along when meeting a potential suitor for the first time.

In this Peril of the Week story, a woman agreed to go on a dinner date with a man she met online. When she arrived, the woman was shocked that her date had brought his six-year-old daughter, whom he had never mentioned nor made any indication of having a child on his profile, with him on their first date. Apparently, it was his weekend to have her. Why he didn’t reschedule, or, better yet, hire a babysitter, she never found out. But the girl proved to be a royal pain in the behind.

While deciding what to order, his daughter wanted to get a burrito, but her dad reminded her that she didn’t like the burrito last time and suggested she get the fish tacos instead. Well that didn’t go over smoothly. The little girl threw a whiny fit until she got what she wanted and ordered the burrito. Of course, when the burrito came it wasn’t what she wanted. Instead, she wanted her father’s date’s tacos. Wanting to eat the tacos instead of the burrito, she assumes she must have given her date some sort of look because the man yelled, “Just give her the damn tacos!”

At a complete loss of what to do, the woman felt like she had to give his daughter her tacos. Since she was really looking forward to the fish tacos, she placed a second order and sat there watching her date and his daughter chow down without her (which is just so rude in it of itself). By the time her tacos arrived, they were both done eating and the daughter was ready to go.

Finally, when the check came, her date asked for the second order of tacos to be on a separate bill, paid his portion and left her sitting there to finish her meal alone along with the check. Thankfully, the waiter seemed to understand her predicament and told her that her tacos were on the house.

Do you have a dating disaster story to share? The Peril of the Week was contributed by Big Red Flags.

Julie Spira is a leading online dating expert and the author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit CyberDatingExpert.com for dating advice and to share your online dating stories. Follow Julie on twitter @JulieSpira and like her at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

OkCupid Locals – Say Goodbye to Being Dateless in Your City

Dating on the fly just got a bit easier.

Our friends at OkCupid have announced OkCupid Locals, a mobile dating app on iOS and Android to help you meet compatible singles more quickly than ever.

With OkCupid locals, you’ll find a blend of a Twitter-like broadcast feature, FourSquare location based feature, and data from the online dating site’s 8-million members.

From connecting at a sports bar to meeting up at a happy hour, simply broadcast your dating intentions and the digital genie will grant your wish with a list of compatible matches closeby.

A service like this will help avoid the weeks and weeks of emailing back-and-forth that many online dating site members feel frustrated with.

There’s no reason to stay dateless in your city anymore.

Are using mobile dating applications or location-based services to meet other singles?  Comments and thoughts are always welcome and if you get a moment, follow me @JulieSpira on Twitter and like us at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

Julie Spira is an online dating expert and bestselling author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com for dating advice and to learn how to create an irresistible online dating profile.

I’m Taking Over the Your Tango Facebook Page

I do hope you’ll join me on Thursday, August 4, 2011 as I take over YourTango’s Facebook page. I’ll be answering your questions about dating, love and romance in a Web 2.0 World as well as talking about my most recent article, Is Flirting on Twitter and Facebook Considered Cheating?

You can RSVP here to the invitation on Facebook. The online chat will be taking place from 2pm – 3pm Eastern Time.

Send us your questions in advance and get ready for an hour of FREE dating and relationship advice, as well as learning the dos and don’ts for online dating success. Now’s the time to ask the cyber dating expert anything! See you there!

Cyber Love Song of the Week – Save Room, John Legend

Our Cyber Love Song this Music Monday  features the classic smooth vocals of John Legend, reminding us that you need to save room for love.