Dating

We have found a few articles lately which looked at what most people like to call Sugar Daddy dating sites. These sites for the most part offer a place for wealthy men to find attractive woman who are looking for the finer things in life (to put it politely). Similar sites also use the terms Wealthy, Millionaire, Sugar Baby and Gold Diggers. An article from ABC news recently asked the question if these type of sites promote a form of prostitution (see Story). This time, the New York Times is taking a look at the topic.

In an article called Keeping Up With Being Kept, the New York Times calls Sugar Daddy dating sites a down-and-dirty marketplace. The article is seven pages and goes into detail on several peoples experiences at the website called SeekingArrangement.com. Founder Brandon Wade says the site creates relationships that are mutually beneficial. With more than 300,000 registered members, nearly half the sugar daddies on Seeking Arrangement are married.

An article at the Globe & Mail looks at the increased popularity of online dating since the downturn in the economy which started in the fall. They include a couple of reasons for this. The main point mentioned is, people rather use online dating first to filter out the duds (their word) before spending good money on an expensive dinner.

It's a pretty good deal at $25 a month to go out and meet people online, versus going out and spending 50 to 100 bucks per night and possibly not meeting anyone.

The other reason they suggest is bad times makes people re-prioritize what is important in life. I agree with both of these points, plus I think online dating is also a good distraction from bad times. Nothing legal gives you a better high than when you find someone that gives you that butterfly feeling in your stomach.

The article also gave us a few more statistics of some of our reviewed dating sites. Lavalife member registrations are up 11 percent from November with Toronto leading the charge with a 20 percent increase (Lavalife is based in Toronto). Messaging among members on Lavalife is also at a 6 month high. At the same time Plenty of Fish has had a banner year with a 77 percent increase from December 2007 until December 2008. Apparently about 900,000 people log in every day. A poll at Date.com also discovered that almost 50 percent of members are now spending more time on their dating site making sure they have found Mr or Miss Right before they go out on a date.

I checked out the virtual world, Second Life, a year or two ago and liked what I saw but, I have such a busy life in the real world I didn't do much more than try it out a few times. Much like MMO's (massively multiplayer online game) if you let it, these programs can take up all of your time.

I first heard about a Second Life wedding on our local radio station and after a bit of research I found an online article about it too at the Telegraph. The story is about Kira and Rik, or should I say Kristen and Steve (their real names). It talks about how these two met online in Second Life and the eventually virtual wedding.

The bizarre event was the culmination of five months of cyber-dating, during which time Kirsten and Steve’s avatars met in Second Life, struck up a virtual rapport, had virtual sex and moved in together, virtually.

It's a pretty unreal story, especially because they both had spouses in the real world.

After more research I was able to find a dating service in Second Life (see AvaDate). In 2007 they had 75 members looking for love. Not a huge selection for a virtual world with 15 million accounts and 38,000 residents logged in at any one time (according to Wikipedia). There are some online dating services trying to create a virtual dating world within their website (the most popular one being OmniDate.com). It is an interesting idea but I am not sure how well it is being received. Personally, I would be more inclined to use web cameras and see the real person instead.

I get several emails a day from dating related website owners asking me to take a look at their service. I do for the most part take a quick peek and I find most of them don't stand out.

MeetWays is different. It is a free service that offers a useful dating tool. You enter two addresses (or zip/postal codes) and it will find the halfway point between them. It will then list restaurants, coffee shops or whatever you specify on a graphical map. This tool is integrated in a large part with Google Maps so it works for more than 25 different countries. On the map you get your 2 red points which represent the addresses you entered, the middle red address point and then a number of yellow points which are the businesses in the area that are offering the service you specified.

Meetways doesn't display many of the smaller related businesses in the area and only shows businesses which are buying ad space from Google. This is not necessary a bad thing since a large number of businesses are represented. This tool does work well and can be used more than just for dating, client or business lunch meetings come to mind. Think of this tool as an interactive yellow pages.

Visit MeetWays to try out the tool for yourself.

The word cougar in the dating world describes a female who usually in her forties or fifties (sometimes older) who is looking for someone who is 10, 20, even 30 years younger than them. While still used as a putdown more times than not, these type of relationships are becoming more main stream. Everyone knows of the famous couple Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher who got married over 3 years ago. A lot of media pegged her as a cougar when she was seen dating Ashton who is 15 years younger. A more recent case is Hulk Hogan's wife, Linda. She has been seen around LA this summer with Charlie Hill, who is 19 years old. Linda is reported to be 49, that is thirty year difference. Of course, the media hasn't been kind to these two.

It is far more accepted for woman to date men 5 to 10 years younger than them now days than it was 10 or 20 years ago. Once you get past the 10 year mark the word cougar starts to get thrown around. Of course men who date woman much younger than them are seen as sugar daddies or men who are suffering a midlife crisis. Still, men have it easier perception wise but, as more celebrity woman date much younger men the perception of the cougar will change for the better as the general public gets use to the idea.

An independent film called Single: a documentary film was released recently which looks at the lives at some of the 100 million Americans who are single. While I haven't seen the movie, there is a trailer available. The trailer runs over 4 minutes and it does give a good impression of what the film is about.

The website Tin Ape, did a review of this film in which they summarized:

Single delves into a plethora of issues about being single in America, from the role of the burgeoning independence of women to the social stigma of men, all backed up by the candid testimonies of single 30 somethings and knowledgeable sociologists.

Tin Ape also mentions:

The film also does not attempt to solve the “problem” of being single.

This is a different spin from most of the other media available on singles found on the internet. Most similar type of videos or articles tend to try and help the "single" become a "couple" which inadvertently casts a negative light on being single. The movie is available for purchase on their website for $14.95 US.

See the full film review at Tin Ape and the website for the actual movie can be found here.