I recently attended a swanky party in Beverly Hills and met a lovely single woman who said she had to talk to me about her online dating profile. Naturally, I was ready to hear what her secret was.

She boasted about how she had written the most creative and best profile of anyone on Match.com. She went into great details about how she listed everything that was unacceptable in a man and that if he had any of these personality traits, they shouldn’t bother writing to her.

After listening to her enthusiasm about a profile filled with negativity, I asked the million dollar question, “Did you lie about your age?” Her response was an immediate yes. She claimed, as many singles do, that she looked so much younger than her real age and took six years off her age to fit into a search. When I asked her how long she had been looking for love online, she responded that she hadn’t been in a relationship for six years.

Obviously her personal digital marketing plan wasn’t working. She had never been married and was almost 60 years old. She agreed to a critique and was ready for some dating tips.

Sure, she went to one of the top dermatologists in town. Sure, she wore designer labels and dressed to impress the women who would recognize them. At the end of the day, she was inauthentic and still single.

I offered to critique her profile and made some subtle changes. She listed her dream life, one where she wanted a man to financially support her and proudly claimed she was high maintenance. It wasn’t the life she was living yet, and her inbox wasn’t filled with male suitors ready to sign up. She stated in her first sentence that she was great looking. Men are visual. They will decide upon viewing your profile photo if they are attracted to you or not. Stating it in the first sentence appeared conceited to most men who viewed her photo and most of them moved on.

I share these true stories with you because authenticity is sexy. Being authentic translates to being confident and happy. Where you are now is just fine. Keep your dreams, but portray yourself in your profile as approachable, realistic and human. I encourage all of you who feel you need to lie in your profile about your age, weight, or financial status to toss that belief out the digital window. You are just perfect, the way you are. It’s time for some truth-in-advertising and for you to really find love online.

Julie Spira is an online dating expert and author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com. Like her at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert for dating advice and follow her at Twitter.com/JulieSpira

It’s with great enthusiasm to be the featured host of GenConnect’s Live Valentine’s Chat scheduled for Thursday, February 3, 2011 at 3:30pm/ET.

Valentine’s is a very stressful time for both singles who are dateless as well as for couples where the expectations are high. If you’re waiting for him to say, “I love you” or expecting a ring on your finger, you’re putting too much pressure on your relationship.

Join me for a very special pre-Valetine’s live chat with GenConnect. We’ll be discussing both online and offline dating tips and ways to improve your relationship this month. Sign up now to register for this event. One lucky winner will receive a personalized irresistible online dating profile valued at $495. Our hashtag is #gCLove

For details, visit GenConnect.com

In this week’s Where’s Julie column, I’m happy to say that I’m home curled up by the fire busy confirming Valentine’s appearances for the next two weeks. However, in between snowstorms, I had the opportunity to spend a few days in New York City, where I appeared on NBC News to talk about my new book, The Rules of Netiquette: How to Mind Your Manners on the Web. The segment was called Netiquette: Minding Your Virtual Manners. I hope you can take a moment to view the video. Comments are always welcome. Even Pope Benedict embraced netiquette for social networking last week.

The Rules of Netiquette was originally the title of a chapter in my first book, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online, inspired in part when an ex-fiance ended the engagement via email. Yes, that was a netiquette no-no.

Jamie Beckman and Julie Spira

While in New York, I had the chance to sip cappuccino with She Knows columnist and author, Jamie Beckman, whose book is featured this month in the Cyber-Dating Expert Reading Room. I also met with the GenConnect group to go over the final details of my Valentine’s live chat scheduled for February 3, 2011 at 3:30pm/Pacific time. The subject will be “For Lovers and Lovers in Waiting.” I’ll be posting details on how you can participate in the live chat on Monday, so get your relationship questions ready.

On Friday, our friends at eHarmony posted my article 5 Reasons She Won’t Call You Back on their site and sent it out to 5 million people on their eHarmony Advice newsletter. The last I looked, there were 76 comments so feel free to chime in. Needless to say, I’ve been busy working on irresistible profiles throughout the weekend for those looking for love online or at least a date before Valentine’s.

Valentine’s is around the corner, and I’ve gone on record as saying, “Valentine’s to a woman is like the Super Bowl to men.” With that in mind, we’ll be posting several articles to help you leading up to Valentine’s Day, regardless of your love stage. For now, take a look at my recent post, Valentine’s Etiquette: Dos and Don’ts for Your Valentine.

Stay tuned for my Valentine’s special offer for Irresistible Profiles for a limited time on February 1st – 6th.  I’ll also be posting some special free offers from some of the online dating sites next week which are worth signing up for which will appear in the Weekly Flirt.

Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert

Join  Cyber-Dating Expert and bestselling author Julie Spira as she welcomes Beth Greenfield, founder of Liar Liar List to Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show.

If your online dream date ever turned out to be a liar, whether 10 years older, 20 pounds heavier…taller, shorter, greyer, balder  – totally different than they were on their profile, than this show is for you. Liar Liar List is a fun site where you can turn in your dates and share the information.

But it’s not all bad news on their site. You’ll hear about the fun ways that you can meet other singles with similar interests through “Puppy Love” and “Audio Horoscopes.” Don’t worry, you’ll have the opportunity to adjust your profile for more authenticity on their site as well as we provide dating advice to help you shine online.

Listen in at 646-929-0012 on Saturday, October 2, 2010 at 2pm/ET, 12 noon/CT, 11am/PT to learn more about dating, love and romance in a Web 2.0 World.

Listen to internet radio with Cyberdating Expert on Blog Talk Radio

This week’s Cyber Dating tip for successful online dating is quite simply, take your relationship from online to offline as soon as possible.

How soon you may ask? After sending a few emails, it’s best to move the relationship to the telephone. Find out if you have that same offline chemistry and you have online. Too often, I see singles falling in love from behind their computer screens. Sometimes, it’s with someone they believe is single and is available for a relationship, when in fact the complete opposite can be true. If during your phone conversation, you don’t feel comfortable, don’t feel obligated to set up a date on the calendar.

For more cyberdating tips and dating advice, Visit CyberDatingExpert.com

Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert

Listen to Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show, where my guest Tina B. Tessina, known as Dr. Romance and author of The Unofficial Guide to Dating Again, provided her dating advice and relationship tips for those who are newly single.

You’ll hear some of our best tips including:

♥ When and how to introduce your children to your date

♥ How to spot a player and why he’s so tempting

♥ How to find happily ever after, safely on your favorite online site.

We talked about our favorite dating tips to help you find love on the Internet. Listen to the program to learn more about dating, love and romance in a Web 2.0 World.

As part of the first-annual New York Book Week, Julie Spira, bestselling author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online, was selected as the first of ten authors to be featured in the Library’s Meet the Author Series.

Spira talked about why she wrote her book on Tuesday, May 25, 2010 and read excerpts from two chapters. Following her presentation, she answered questions from the audience about the Internet dating industry as well as provided dating advice and tips for singles looking for love online.

“It was an honor to be selected by the New York Public Library at their “Meet the Author Series” during New York Book Week and to engage with the readers,” said Spira.

Spira donated a copy of her book to the New Amsterdam branch. She also signed copies of her book at Book Expo America on May 26, 2010.

New York Book Week was created by Book Expo America (BEA) to coincide with the publishing industry’s largest conference in North America.

New York Book Week included public “main stage” author programs at venues such as Times Talks, the 92nd Street Y, and the main branches of the New York Public Library and Brooklyn Public Library, as well as smaller events at other libraries in the NYPL system and chain and independent bookstores throughout New York City and its boroughs.

New York Book Week embraces all literary and book activity, and expands the awareness of authors, books and publishing.

To purchase a copy of The Perils of Cyber-Dating, click here>>>

For media appearances and interviews, visit CyberDatingExpert.com/contact

What makes a date a bad date?

If you ask my friend and neighbor,  Jennifer Kelton, she’ll point you to her terrific site Bad Online Dates. On her site, you can post those dates you had hoped would go well, that ended in the category of a dating disaster. At Cyber-Dating Expert, we feature the Peril of the Week. This time, I thought I’d add in a personal story of my own, along with some dating advice to prevent you from ending up with a date gone bad.

Forgive my bad manners, but during my last bad online date, I sent a text message to Jen saying, ‘Help! I’m on a bad date, but don’t tell anyone.” I received an immediate supportive response from Jen, which said, “I just laughed so hard out loud right now! Are you ok? Other than the fact that you’re on a “bad date.”  She offered to help me with the “family emergency” call and she let me know that she was there for me.  There’s nothing more powerful than your girlfriend network while you are going on a blind date.

Jen coined the phrase bad dates. She produces and directs Bad Date TV. I have a history of writing about my dates, both the good and the bad.
So what exactly defines a bad date and how do you prevent one from happening?

Let’s look at some ways to prevent yourself from a dating disaster so you don’t end up as the Peril of the Week.

1. Trust Your Intuition. Don’t accept a date when the phone conversation doesn’t feel right. If you don’t have any phone chemistry at all or find yourself in an argument with your date before you even meet them, don’t schedule a date. You don’t need a free meal. If you put a date on the calendar, don’t feel badly about canceling. Why waste each other’s time?

My first conversation with my date was awful. We had two weeks of fantastic instant messaging chemistry.  On the phone, he kept interrupting me, arguing with me, and kept telling me how to run my business life, disagreeing with everything I was doing. He was right. I was wrong about everything, so it appeared. I couldn’t get off the phone fast enough. I should have canceled our upcoming date, but felt I was a woman of my word and should follow through. I needed to give him the benefit of the doubt. A woman’s intuition is very powerful. You should trust it. I ended up going for sushi with a man who attacked every statement I made. From arguing with me because I didn’t like to eat eel, to ridiculing me because I ordered hot sake. He insisted that cold sake was better. When I said I liked living near the beach, he complained about the fog layer. It went downhill fast. I wondered, “ Why did I subject myself to this?”

2. Take your date from online to offline as soon as possible. In my case, I had great “instant message” chemistry with the date in question.  Since I had communicated with him mostly online,  I broke several of my own rules of netiquette for online daters. I had a good excuse. I had laryngitis.

My date made several attempts to call and get together. I was unable to, but as he was supportive of my voiceless condition, including suggesting a Dr. who could help me, I began to feel more comfortable with this man whom I never met.

If you spend too much time online sending instant messages,  text messages, and emails to someone, you can end up with a false illusion that you are in a relationship. You start to get attached. You are not in a relationship. You are talking to a computer with a photo, that’s all.

3. Never ever text message others while on a date (unless you want your date to end.) I always say, keep the BlackBerry and iPhone off the table. It’s not an accessory. It’s rude and sends a message that you are more interested in someone else other than your date. In this case, I didn’t care that I sent Jen a text. She needed to know. I knew I’d get sympathy from a friend who understood. I believe you should always check in with a friend when you are meeting a date for the first time. I call it the buddy system. If I was really that into him, I wouldn’t notice my cell phone, even if it rang.

4. Always meet your date in a public place and don’t drive together. When my date suggested picking me up at my home and driving for 45 minutes together on what he called a “real date,” I knew enough to say no. I sent him a text that said I always meet someone on a first date and take my own car. If I had been stuck in a car with a controlling argumentative guy, it could have been a problem. I might have ended up on a street corner alone, looking for a cab back home. Better safe, than sorry.

5. Do your homework and study for the quiz. Online dating is a numbers game. However, the more organized you are, the more successful your date will be. In this case, my date thought I had never been married, forgot that I was from the east coast, didn’t remember what I did for a living, and didn’t really seem to care.  If you are on a date, make it personal and keep it light. Take the time to remember something your date wrote in their profile. Think of it like preparing for a job interview for your dream job. Would know the name of the parent company you are interviewing with? Would you know the name of the CEO or city of their headquarters? Did you find out how man years they were in business? Recognize their logo?

Add it all up, and it was a recipe for disaster, before I even arrived at the sushi bar to meet a 50-year old man who was wearing a dangling earring.  It was destined to be a bad date.

So before you go on your next date, make sure you are looking forward to it, be on good behavior, do your homework, ask questions about the other person, take time to listen, and perhaps you’ll make a new friend, even if you don’t end up meeting “the one.”

Julie Spira is a dating advice columnist and online dating expert. She is the author of the bestseller, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com

Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert

Listen to Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show where Dr. Diana Kirschner, author of Love in 90 Days talked about some Valentine’s dating tips as well as her expert dating advice from the new chapter in her book, Dating Games Men Play.

Dr. Diana provided suggestions for your maximizing your online dating profile, including refreshing your profile page daily and staying logged on all day.

Listen to the show where Dr. Diana listed the some of the DUD’s (Definitely Unworkable Dudes) and some of the STUD’s (Seriously, Terrific, Utterly Devoted Dudes).

Find out how you can improve your love life by listening to the Valentine’s edition of Ask the Cyber Dating Expert Radio Show.

Join Cyber-Dating Expert Julie Spira on Thursday night, December 17, 2009 as she is the featured guest on “Late Night Conversations” with author, futurist, and radio personality Allan Holender on BlogTalkRadio.

The conversation will be filled with online dating tips and relationship advice to help singles during the holidays. We’ll be featuring Julie’s bestselling online dating book, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online.

Call in at 8:10pm/PST, 10:10pm/CST, 11:10pm/EST at 1-646-716-4604 or listen in on the web.

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