Cyber Love Story of the Week – Lisa and Kevin

Lisa joined the online dating site OkCupid while she was still in college in southern California. She was busy working on her thesis on online dating for her major in Sociology so she thought she’d give the free site a try. She participated in their “quick match” game where each participant receives a picture and some information. She saw Kevin’s picture and clicked on “yes.”

Kevin was working as a computer programmer in northern California when he received an email from Lisa who lived hundreds of miles away. Fortunately fate brought them together when he also clicked “yes” when he saw Lisa’s photo. It was the epitome of a digital cupid!

As a student and waitress, Lisa couldn’t financially justify a flight up to San Francisco just to meet this guy she’d been talking to over the internet, so she painstakingly called in every favor of everyone she knew in order to get a job interview in San Francisco.  It took her 6 months to secure the interview and another month to pick her outfit (not for the job, but for their first date.) Oddly enough, she ended up getting the job, and was able to move up to the same city where Kevin resided.

Because they were so far away, and didn’t meet for so long,  they had the opportunity to do something that many people don’t get. They were able to get to know one another as friends. They hadn’t met in person, and didn’t want things to get romantic until they had done so. But they had such an incredible passion for one another, that they stayed up late every night talking on the phone for months, learning every detail about one another before their first date. Lisa and Kevin liked talking so much, that it was a short leap to full-fledged relationship. The first time he kissed her, she had this incredible jolt and  got the strongest feeling that this was the person she was going to kiss for the rest of her life.

The relationship grew quite quickly and she moved in with Kevin. They have now been together for 19 months and she couldn’t be happier with him than she already is.

Congratulations to Lisa and Kevin where a simple class experiment turned into a beautiful relationship of love.

For consideration in the Cyber Love Story of the Week, send us your stories!

Click here to read more Cyber Love Stories

Woman’s Day Guide to Online Dating

Woman’s Day just published their guide to online dating. Both eHarmony’s Gian Gonzaga and myself were featured in their guide.

They listed 12 important dating and relationship tips to be successful while looking for love online. Just how many people should you date at once? What are the keys to a successful Internet dating profile? Which are the most popular sites to try?

Read the article for the answers to these questions and to improve your odds to make your online dating experience more enjoyable.

Click here to read article>>>

Julie Spira on The Mark and Brian Show

Listen to the Mark and Brian Radio Show on 955 KLOS where hosts Mark and Brian asked Cyberdating Expert Julie Spira about the Top 10 Rules of Netiquette for online daters.

Find out which of the Top 10 Rules from the book, The Perils of Cyber-Dating were their favorites as well as tips for your Internet dating profile on The Mark and Brian Radio Program.

Dating Advice – Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert

Dear Julie,

I’m a 42-year old male and have never been married. I’m Jewish and would like to meet a Jewish woman and have children. I’ve tried JDate and have met some nice women, but no one worth marrying.  I’d like a woman who is honest, kind, pretty, who must be politically and sexually compatible with myself. Do you think I’m too picky?

~Single Guy in LA

Dear Single Guy,

There are more women than you can imagine who are looking for a marriage-minded man. Especially one who is interested in having children. Focus in on the profiles of women that specifically say they are looking for children. Join more than one dating site to widen your search. Be open to the possibilities of meeting someone who is divorced and may want to have another child.

As far as politically compatible, join the political groups and attend fundraisers where you will meet women you know you can easily have a conversation with. Unless you are hopping into bed right away, you won’t know if you are sexually compatible. Chances are if the first kiss is good, it’s a sign of good things to come. Hang in there and go on at least 3 dates with a woman who matches your requirements in 3 out of the 5 categories. No one gets it all, all the time.

Good luck with your search.

Julie Spira

Julie Spira is known worldwide as the Cyber-Dating Expert. She creates irresistible online dating profiles for singles. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com

Weekly Flirt

Click here and let the flirting begin!>>>

Peril of the Week – Hero in the Dog House

A man enjoys being the hero in his woman’s life. When he lends a hand to help her and she shows her appreciation he feels good.

And so the story goes about a woman who was dating a man she met online.  Every day he did something to impress her. When she was a damsel in distress, he was at her side offering his expert advice. In time, he became her hero and he was a happy man. He proudly nicknamed himself, HRH – Her Royal Hero.

Both appeared to be happy until that pivotal point in the relationship. The date when they finally wound up in the bedroom for the first time. All of their pent up tension that led to their first night of passion. He said it was good for him. She thought it was good for her. One would think flowers would arrive the next morning or at least a phone call. However, the morning after that momentous evening, he was no where to be found. No email, no voice mail, no sweet nothings. He simply disappeared.

She secretly wondered, did she rush in to it? Was he really a typical guy who vanishes after he scores? She got mad. While he still had a smile on his face from the evening before, she had no idea. He broke a cardinal rule and didn’t call her the next day.

Rather than crying over spilled milk, she renamed her guy from HRH to HDH–Hero in the Dog House. Did she hear from her guy? Eventually, yes, but only after she let him have it. Apparently, he was just busy and forgot to call.  The moral of the story, if it’s more than a booty call and you really are interested in having a relationship with a woman you have slept with,  make sure you contact them the next day with some sweet nothings. An email or text won’t suffice. It’s dating advice – 101. You’ve become intimate. Make sure she hears the sound of your voice, even if it’s only a voicemail.

For consideration in the Peril of the Week, submit your stories to CyberDatingExpert.com

Click Here for More Peril of the Week Stories

Love Hurts, or Does It? A Night of Dating Advice

There’s no shortage of dating advice these days. This week Angelenos were treated to a night to laughter, dating advice, and charity as 826LA, a non-profit writing and tutoring center for children ages 6-12 presented, “Love Hurts: Ask the Experts.”

The event was moderated by Time magazine’s funny man Joel Stein. Featured authors included Greg Behrendt, from He’s Just Not That Into You fame along with Lori Gottlieb, author of the bestseller, Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough and Sascha Rothchild, whose book, How to Get Divorced by 30: My Misguided Attempt at a Starter Marriage
was released earlier this year.

It was interesting to note that both of the men on stage were married and both women were not.

Gottlieb’s book has received a lot of attention and criticism from feminists as well as those who never actually read the book who jumped to conclusion that “settling” was a bad decision before picking up their copy.

Views on Marriage

When the group was asked about their views of marriage, Rothchild said she would like to get married again, but won’t get divorced if she can help it. She added that many get married to wear a beautiful dress and get wedding gifts.

Behrendt told the group that he is not a relationship expert. He wrote two books about how to get out of relationships so he thought he wouldn’t be the one to know how to get in them. He suggested that singles go to Las Vegas to make their relationship legal and have a party in front of your friends. When asked why he got married, he replied with, “I got married because my wife wanted to get married. I didn’t want to lose her.” He says that marriage works for him.

Gottlieb said she went directly to experts to find out what really matters for love, long term happiness and got some answers. . She said she felt like a dating guinea pig and tried out their advice to try to get to the altar. Her findings are written in her well-researched book.

“Settling for Mr. Good Enough does not mean that you are settling with someone who you are not attracted to,” said Gottlieb. She added,  ”We rule out too many people. Good enough is everybody’s Mr./Ms. Good enough.”  The bestselling author says that bow-ties are hot. So are men named Sheldon. She admits that she didn’t use to feel that way.

Rothchild says if you are going into a marriage thinking it will make you happy, you will be disappointed. She hates the line, “You will complete me.” She added, “If two half-people meet up they will be miserable. You can’t expect someone to make you happy.”

Views on Online Dating

According to Rothchild,  online dating works for some people. She likes to get a sense of someone in person and isn’t a huge fan of the system. “You get an immediate vibe about a person when you meet him,” said Rothchild. She added, “You can feel if he is he crazy or not. With online dating,  you don’t get that.” Rothchild said she likes to meet people out playing poker. She met her current boyfriend at a poker game.  Her dating advice to singles, “If you like surfing, go surf. Meet other people who like what you like. Go up to a guy and say hi! If he’s available he’ll say hi back, its that easy.”

Gottlieb says he has to do online dating as she never leaves the house.  She learned that women often rule people out real quickly. She made the analogy of shopping online at Banana Republic where after you buy a blouse online, you are sent to a page to show you other blouses you can purchase.  She referred to the online dating site Match.com in her comparison. On Match, you write an email to someone you carefully select and suddenly you receive a thank you with five other men you should consider after selecting your favorite guy.

What the group all agreed on is dating has changed. According to Behrendt, “As a society, we don’t date as a ritual anymore. There’s hook-ups and casual dates. Years ago we went on dates because we didn’t [have sex] so we ate, danced, and had big band music.”

After the panel, I had the opportunity to personally interview Lori Gottlieb about why she felt so misunderstood by some of her critics of her book.  You can read the article: Marry Him: A Conversation With Lori Gottlieb on Huffington Post.

Julie Spira is known worldwide as The Cyber-Dating Expert. She is the author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com.

Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show Featuring SKOUT

Join Cyber-Dating Expert, Julie Spira as she welcomes Christian Wiklund, CEO of SKOUT to Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show.

SKOUT is a social dating service which allows you to browse singles, flirt, chat, and meet in real life. Their location based service is growing in popularity as mobile and GPS based services are expanding worldwide.

Find out more about real-time mobile dating on Saturday, February 20, 2010. Call in at 646–929-0012 to find out more about dating, love & romance in a Web 2.0 World.

Listen to Cyber-dating Expert on Blog Talk Radio

LA Times – Finding the Right Online Dating Service

Online dating has become a very HOT topic.

The Los Angeles Times featured a story on how to find the right online dating service which appeared in the IMAGE section.

In the article, Mark Brooks from Online Personals Watch called the Internet the world’s largest bar. I have to agree here.

Read my expert dating advice in the cover story of the Valentine’s edition of  Los Angeles Times.

“EHarmony has [about 250] questions in their questionnaire,” says Julie Spira of CyberDatingExpert.com and author of “The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online.” “Anyone who signs up with eHarmony is truly serious about having a relationship with someone.”

Industry experts Brooks and Spira also praise GPS-based mobile applications like Skout and Foursquare that let users find out what people are doing and where they are so they can join the party at the bar or restaurant and meet new people.

For those who want to approximate a real in-person date before spending time and money on what might very well be an awkward first date, CyberDatingExpert.com’s Spira says to look to webcams.

“People are so conditioned on the first date to be disappointed that you don’t look like your photo,” she explains. She lists Speeddate.com or WooMe.com, both meet-via-webcam sites with younger clienteles, as success stories because their users tend to be less inhibited and quick learners of the software platform. “With video, what you see is what you get. But the older people in their 40s and 50s aren’t taking the time to do videos. You’re just getting them to join online dating for the first time so it’s like baby steps.”

Virtual sites, such as Second Life, OmniDate.com and Weopia.com, or even gaming sites, such as World of Warcraft (where romances have sometimes sparked between members of the gamers’ playing guilds), are perfect for those who are “gadget oriented” but also add another layer of anonymity, Spira says — something that can be a pro or a con. She says that virtual daters should get real pictures of their suitors before getting too serious.

Spira says it’s also common for online daters to be on several dating sites at once, at least one of which is free. But there might be a lot of abandoned profiles on free sites because “if you are paying $50 a month for an online dating site, you’re going to pay more attention to those e-mails. It’s economics.”

Click here to read full article on the Los Angeles Times

The Life of The Cyber Dating Expert

Having a career as a writer and dating advice columnist allows me to meet interesting people.  I hear about their quests to find love online. I share their success stories in the Cyber Love Story of the Week. I write about their dating disasters in the Peril of the Week. I interview interesting people in the world of online dating. I love my life.

Often, I am asked about my personal life. Many wonder who am I currently dating. They ask me if I have met someone online. I have met hundreds.  They want to know what online dating sites I recommend. I answer with, “There’s something for everyone.” I hear, “What was your best date?” and “What was your worst date?” Sharing personal information with the popularity of Facebook and other social networking sites has not only become the norm, but it has become expected. Years ago it would have been considered exploitation. Now it is fondly known as status updates and tweets, filled with friends, connections, and followers.

As I sit here on the one-year anniversary of my first published book, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online, I reflect on why I felt the need to share my personal stories and why I became so passionate about helping others find love on the web.

It was 16 years ago when I posted my first online dating profile. I was a charter member of Love@AOL. It was before the days of Match.com and high-speed Internet. I learned then, as I know now, the vast opportunities that can be found on the Internet. I was a former radio broadcaster, turned Internet executive. Along the way, I became a super-successful cyberdater.

I reinvented my former radio career and every Saturday enjoy interviewing online dating CEOs and bestselling relationship authors on Ask the Cyber-Dating Expert Radio Show where I educate singles on all the options on finding love online.

Although I made the conscious decision to reveal very personal stories– some which were extremely painful, others hilarious, and some heartfelt, I have also made the decision to keep my present personal life private, for a while at least.

For now, I will continue writing about dating, love and romance in a Web 2.0 World. I am appreciative for the many online dating sites that feature my articles. I have a whole new group of friends who are authors and dating experts. I enjoy educating and entertaining my audience. I am often told that I have made a difference in the lives of singles who can relate to my stories. I help people fall in love online. My personal experience and advice has touched many. This brings me joy.

On this very important one-year anniversary of my book release and radio show launch, I am very grateful. As I read  the two Los Angeles Times articles today written by Whitney Friedlander called, Make it personal, keep it real and Finding the Right Online Dating Service, where I provided dating advice on Valentine’s Day, I know that I made the right decision in publishing my tell-all memoir. In the manner that I normally end my radio show, I will end this article as well with, “I look forward to seeing you in cyberspace.”

Julie Spira is known worldwide as The Cyber-Dating Expert. She is the author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com

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