Relationships

Online dating is more popular than ever thanks to dating apps like Tinder. Forget those long profiles written on your laptop, scrolling through matches in the privacy of your home. Now, online dating is a social event – you can swipe while you have drinks at the bar with your friend!

Online dating has become the go-to method for most singles looking for love, but that doesn’t mean people are getting the hang of it. In fact, dating apps have inspired more people to try online dating – but they might not be so successful in getting dates.

Here’s where hacks can be helpful in making your whole experience more successful:

Be active. Don’t just swipe once a week, or message only occasionally. In order to get more matches, you have to show that you are involved. Check in at least once a day, and start swiping and messaging. You will notice that your match list increases, too – when you are more active, you are presented with other more active members. The reverse is true for those who aren’t actively swiping.

Be discerning, but not too much. There is a trend among men of swiping right on every profile, because they hope to increase their opportunities. This isn’t so effective, because there are plenty of apps that do the mass swiping for you – which are recognized as bots. When you act like a bot, you get fewer matches. The reverse is true too – if you are too picky and swipe left way more often than right, you lessen your choices. (Remember, other users are swiping left, too.) Keep an open mind, with some boundaries.

Choose photos wisely. Don’t choose a bunch of group photos, or pictures of you in hats or sunglasses. Include some body shots and headshots without props, so your matches know what you look like. Also, think of photos as conversation starters – post a couple of you playing guitar or hiking in the woods so your dates get an idea of what you like without having to read the profile (which they might not even do unless they like the photos). And it’s a good idea to smile.

No endless messaging. Many dating app users make a mistake of messaging back and forth and creating an emotional connection online before meeting in person. What happens if there is no spark when you are sitting across from each other? Instead of investing in the online communication, try to get to the date sooner, so you can see if you click in real life. Remember, the dating app is only a tool to meet people – the rest is up to you.

This Wednesday, June 8th, 2016 at 7pm EST (4pm PST) the dating service OurTime will be hosting a 1 hour live chat session with Dr. Terri Orbuch who is know as "The Love Doctor". She will be answering as many questions she can about relationships and love in the online dating world. If you want to join in on the conversation be sure to ask your question using the hashtag #OurTimeChat on OurTime's Facebook page.

Dr. Terri is a professor at Oakland University, a therapist, and an author of 6 relationship books. She has been featured in many national publications including USA Today, Time magazine, and The Wall Street Journal. She also has appeared on CNN, The Today Show, and many other well known TV shows. She is also currently the relationship expert for the dating site OurTime.

"There are a lot of theories out there about how online dating is bad for us," Michael Rosenfeld, a sociologist at Stanford who has been conducting a long-running study of online dating, told The Washington Post. "And mostly they're pretty unfounded."

From its earliest days, online dating has faced harsh criticism. Some doubted its efficacy. Others accused it of being a last-ditch effort of the desperate. These days we’ve moved on from those denunciations, but online dating is still not without its detractors. In 2016 critics are more likely to say it encourages promiscuity or has contributed to the spread of STDs.

But what if they’ve been wrong all along?

Rosenfeld, who has followed the dating lives of more than 3,000 people during his career, has gleaned many insights about our new, tech-savvy approach to pairing off. Roberto A. Ferdman spoke with Rosenfeld about his research for The Washington Post. Below are a few highlights from the interview:

• On how online dating has changed the way we date: “The rise of phone apps and online dating websites gives people access to more potential partners than they could meet at work or in the neighborhood. It makes it easier for someone who is looking for something very specific in a partner to find what they are looking for.”
• On skepticism: “The worry about online dating comes from theories about how too much choice might be bad for you. The idea is that if you’re faced with too many options you will find it harder to pick one, that too much choice is demotivating.”
• On the skepticism’s validity: “I actually don’t see in my data any negative repercussions for people who meet partners online…. There’s no obvious pattern by which people who meet online are worse off. And, conversely, online dating has real benefits.”
• On marriage: “One of the things I have found out as part of my research is that people who meet online actually progress to marriage faster than people who meet offline…. I think that’s because online you do this big, calculated search for your soul mate, and find someone else who agrees and then transition to marriage much more quickly.”

Not only has Rosenfeld’s research led him to believe that criticisms of online dating are largely unfounded, he also believes that online dating has had beneficial effects.

“The need for love, romance, relationships and sex — these are pretty basic human needs,” he says. “And the ability to match people who would have otherwise not found each other is a powerful outcome of the new technology.” In other words, online dating has opened up new pathways to love and happiness for millions of people around the world - and it's hard to find fault with that.

Read the full interview at The Washington Post.

Many people are hesitant to try online dating, and it’s no surprise. Setting up a profile, messaging, meeting new people, making conversation, and trying to find connection can be a daunting (and time-consuming) process.

Even though meeting people online is extremely popular now with date-friendly apps like Tinder, the process can feel overwhelming or scary for the uninitiated. Or for those who have burned out from online dating, they might not want to go back to it. As a result, many people talk themselves out of online dating altogether – claiming they just aren’t ready to start meeting people. But is there something else going on?

Online dating can feel scary, especially if you are uncomfortable with dating in general or tend to be introverted or shy. You probably hear advice like “put yourself out there,” or “you have to meet a lot of people before you find the one.”

This is scary advice for someone who isn’t very social, or feels uncomfortable in social situations. It’s easy to advise singles that they need to put more effort into their searches, but what exactly does this look like for someone who hates networking events or bars, or feels uncomfortable making conversation?

Sometimes, we make excuses because we are afraid to face our fears. But let’s be honest – in order to find a great relationship, you have to be somewhat social. You have to talk to new people, or at least try to meet them, which is exhausting or even terrifying for introverts.

The key is taking baby steps, and to ease the pressure on yourself to find someone great. There’s no magic formula (contrary to what some dating experts say), so don’t assume that saying the right things or acting in a way that doesn’t feel authentic to you is the only way you’ll be successful. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Following are three small steps you can take today to ease you into dating with a little more confidence:

Set small social goals. It’s good to practise your social skills, even if you aren’t looking for a date. Attend a networking event that you normally would decline. Make a promise to yourself to talk to at least two people before you leave. When you achieve these small goals, you start to feel more comfortable when you date, especially with the initial small talk.

Enlist a friend’s help. Kind of like joining a running group to motivate you in training for a marathon, online dating with a buddy can help jumpstart your dating life. You can check in with each other to reach out to more people and try to set up a couple of dates a week. If that feels too much to you, then try one date a week. Go at your own pace – this isn’t a race.

Remember, it’s just a conversation. Online dating can feel very “official,” like you are both being judged and interviewed. You both know why you are meeting, so there is a pressure to form a connection. But remove yourself from that mindset for a moment. In order to actually form a connection, you can’t be scrutinizing everything. It’s important to be fully present in the moment. Take the pressure off yourself with the reminder that you are just having a conversation – nothing more or less. And then see where it goes.

Take care of yourself. Online dating can take a lot of energy, so it's especially important for introverts to replenish. Make time to do things you love - sports, painting, horseback riding, etc. Spend some time alone when you need to recharge. Know what works for you so you can feel your best when you're on a date.

Popular news comedy television show The Daily Show covered an interesting topic recently – sexual racism in online dating. In the segment, produced by Jessica Williams (Daily Show correspondent) and Ronny Chieng, the two explore what this term means, and how it affects so many online daters.

There are definitely racial stereotypes when it comes to sex and dating, both overt and subtle. Most of us think of attraction in terms of physical preferences. Many women prefer tall men or strong biceps for instance. Lots of guys prefer thin women, or women with blonde hair. Physical appearances are important in attraction, so it seems to follow that many daters would state their racial preferences on an online dating site, too.

But as the segment pointed out, having race preference in dating is a kind of racial discrimination. While you might prefer tall men or blonde women, chances are you are willing to date those who aren’t, or at least consider dating them. Many daters however refuse to date outside of their own racial preferences, going so far as to state in their online dating profiles that they won’t date people of a certain race.

This is where the term “sexual racism” comes in. Williams and Chieng interviewed Zach Stafford, a writer for The Guardian who noted: “When someone says something like, ‘I don’t date black people,’ talking about all black people, that would be referred to as sexual racism.”

There are some stereotypes that persist in American culture about who is considered “beautiful.” And some races are viewed in a negative way, especially African American women and Asian men.

Williams and Chieng also interviewed OkCupid Founder Christian Rudder, who studied many online dating trends for his book Dataclysm, race preferences included. “There is kind of a systemic racial bias pretty much in every dating site I’ve ever looked at,” Rudder said in his interview. “We found that 82 percent of non-black men have some bias against black women… And Asian men get the fewest messages and the worst ratings of any group of guys.”

For black women, there is the cultural perception among non-black men that they are not as pretty as white women. While this sounds hard to believe, in the segment, some daters admitted to receiving texts and messages saying just that. And for Asian men, the stereotype that many aren’t sexually endowed persists, despite it being a stereotype, making them the least messaged group on any dating app or site.

In fact, Williams posted a profile of Chieng on numerous dating apps to see what happened. She swiped right for every profile he was sent. He received no messages or matches in return, proving Rudder’s assertion correct.

Have you encountered sexual racism in online dating? How have you responded? We’d love to know – please leave a comment or send us an email.

Dream of seducing a supermodel with your charming personality and fantastic sense of humor? You may be out of luck, and online dating is to blame. Recent studies suggest that dating sites and apps make it harder to land someone out of your league.

How often have you heard that “opposites attract?” How unique do you believe your preferences are? Research shows that both ideas are myths - preferences matter very little once people meet face to face, and compatible couples are more likely to be alike than different.

Studies repeatedly support the idea of “assortative mating,” which Priceonomics defines as “the hypothesis that people generally date and marry partners who are like them in terms of social class, educational background, race, personality, and, of course, attractiveness.” In other words, 10s date each other and a 2 doesn’t stand a chance with any of them.