Advice

We're a few weeks in to 2011, and if you're like most people, that means you've already started forgetting about the resolutions you made at the beginning of the year. I can't help you with your resolution to lose weight, or your resolution to spend less time at work and more time doing things you love, but I can help you keep your resolution to find love in the new year.

If you want to find your match, dating has to become a priority. Good intentions are useless unless you make an effort to realize them. Success - in dating and all other aspects of your life - only comes to those who are willing to work for it. With that in mind, I want you to make a list of 2011 Dating Resolutions (feel free to share yours in the comments!), and I want you to keep them.

Here are a few of my suggestions:

In 2011, I resolve to...

• Change up my routine. If you're always looking for love in the same places...your local bar, the bookstore up the street, your weekly dance class...it's time to switch things up. Check out a new venue or two where you haven't already exhausted the supply of desirable dates.

• Be more open-minded. If you're the kind of person who has a laundry list of traits that a partner must have (non-smoker, loves country music, travels frequently, plays sports), consider expanding your horizons. Love can come from unexpected places, if you're open to finding it, so don't automatically reject someone who doesn't immediately appear to be your "type" on the surface.

• Revisit lost opportunities. Somewhere down the line, your busy schedule might have gotten in the way of your love life. If you lost contact with someone you were exchanging messages with on a dating site, or forgot to return the call of a suitor you met once for a coffee date, try reaching out to them again. Perhaps their 2011 resolution is to find love, too.

• Refresh my online dating profile. Maybe your picture is out of date. Maybe you developed a few new interests and hobbies over the last year. Or maybe you took an amazing vacation in 2010 that you're dying to talk about. Updating your profile will give you a fresh start in the new year, and could make your profile show up higher in a search.

• Stop making excuses. If someone piques your interest, go after them. Don't waste time waiting for them to initiate contact with you, and don't psych yourself out by inventing reasons to justify your inaction.

Making New Year's resolutions - and sticking to them! - about your approach to love and dating is key to finding the relationship you want. What are your resolutions for 2011?

Valentine’s Day is quickly approaching. Since it’s often recommended that we update our online dating profiles seasonally, how should we approach the “holiday of romance”? A witty quip about Cupid? Some reference to wearing red? An excerpt of poetry, perhaps? Or maybe an anti-Valentine’s statement - a dark joke or a reference to the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre?

How about this approach? Stay away altogether. As far away as you can get.

You always run the risk of bringing up negative emotions in someone, somewhere, with anything you bring up in your profile. Even supposedly “safe” areas like national holidays can be tricky - you never know whose dog died on Superbowl Sunday. Typically, you just accept the risk and run with whatever you want anyway. However, when you’re dealing with a holiday celebrating love and romance, on a site full of currently-single people... well, the potential for a miscommunication is substantially higher.

Let’s say you’re a holiday buff and you just can’t ignore a holiday that the grocery stores have been celebrating since Christmas. Let’s consider some of the potential landmines inherent in the typical approaches.

First, the traditional approach: quoting a line from Shakespeare about love, for example. Unless this is entirely within your character - unless you are a highly romantic, over-the-top person every day of the year - it has the potential to come off as cheesy at best, and desperate at worst. It’s even possible your profile won’t be taken seriously because the reader might assume you’re simply trolling for a Valentine’s Day date.

Then there’s the dark approach: the sardonic comment, the anti-romantic joke, maybe something involving Cupid and death. It’s the holiday version of the classic Internet problem: sarcasm. Simply put, what might be hysterical with the right delivery - with your “voice” - is left open to interpretation when this is the reader’s first impression of you. What might have genuinely been meant in good taste and humor suddenly seems angry and bitter. Since there are lots of angry and bitter people around this holiday, it’s not even that much of a stretch.

So, perhaps for just one holiday, it’s best to cast a blind eye. Wax romantic about the coming of spring instead, or a Superbowl Sunday victory (take your chances on the possibility of a dead dog reminder). The reader won’t bring their own Valentine’s prejudices with them as they read your profile. Who knows? By avoiding an opinion about Cupid, you might be giving yourself a shot at love.

In the world of online dating, we form our first impressions based on a profile, a block of text, a three-inch photo. Sometimes, when we subsequently meet someone in person after having read their profile, or blog, we feel as though we know them already - their written words match up perfectly with the person in front of us. And other times... we still respect and enjoy their writing, but in person, the chemistry just isn’t there.

It happens. Occasionally you’ll find someone who looks like the ideal match on paper - similar interests, attractive, funny - and in person there’s just “something” about them that not only isn’t attractive, it might even grate on you! And that’s okay. After all, if all it took was common interests to forge a connection, then every garage band, PTA or sports team would be one big happy family - and we know that’s not often the case.

No one knows exactly what makes a good romantic match, or even a good friendship. And that’s not for lack of trying - scientists theorize constantly about pheromones, even genes. Others tell us that attractiveness is more a state of mind, based on our society or our friends’ opinions, than anything physical. And maybe it’s all of those theories combined, or none of them. The fact is, chemistry is still something nebulous that can’t be predicted or assumed.

So what does this tell us about our dating habits? Well, try not to box yourself in with your expectations. Just as the person who looks perfect on paper can be not-so-perfect in person, so too can someone with differing interests who’s not your “type” actually set off a spark when you meet.

Profiles can be useful in several ways - early identification of red flags, finding the only other Bingo fan in your age bracket, getting that first conversation going - but ultimately, only meeting in person can tell you if you have chemistry together. Why limit the possibilities of finding a great match?

Let me tell you about a guy I know, “Rob.” Rob recently decided to jump into the world of online dating. I helped him edit his profile, and it was pretty good, if I do say so myself. To the best of my knowledge, he seemed to be doing everything “right.” I was confident he’d have no trouble getting responses on the site he chose.

I ran into him a few weeks later, and asked him how it was going. To my surprise, it wasn’t going well at all. He apparently hadn’t received even one response.

“Wow, Rob, I’m sorry to hear that,” I said. “Would you like me to take a look at your first-contact emails, see if anything jumps out at me?”

He wrinkled his brow. “What do you mean? I haven’t even gotten that far,” he said. “No one’s responded to me when I wink at them.”

And there was the problem. Whether it’s a wink, a poke, or whatever your online dating site chooses to call it, the “nudge” is probably the most useless function in online dating. Simply put, to be successful in dating, you have to be assertive at some point - no one else can make you create a profile, or send an email, or arrange a date.

The wink, however, encourages a passive level of behavior. You’re essentially leaving everything up to your potential match. More to the point, while your nudge may lead them to your profile, it doesn’t add anything to the picture of your personality. In contrast, an email might allow for an extra joke, another question to jump start a conversation, and most importantly, additional insight into your personality.

You simply can’t be passive in dating - in order to maximize your chances for success, you need to really jump in with both feet. Thus, when you’re interested in someone, don’t let a wimpy nudge cause you to miss out on something great. The effort will eventually pay off.

Online dating is a rigorous process. You search through profiles, email back and forth answering questions, talk over the phone, and eventually you meet in person. Chances are that along the way, you're going to reject a few candidates before someone interests you.

But what if telling someone you're not interested is a hard thing for you to do? Do you find yourself "disappearing" by not answering emails or texts? Do you let your date's calls go to voicemail?

If you are hoping that your dates get the hint by your lack of attention, this is not a good practice. Most online daters understand that you are communicating with multiple candidates and chemistry is not always there. This doesn't mean that you can do whatever you want and hope they get the message, just because you feel uncomfortable telling them how you feel. Your dates deserve the courtesy of a response.

Let's turn the tables. How many times have you been frustrated by your love interest's sporadic phone calls and hectic schedule? If he's not available, most likely he's not interested. But how many times have you questioned that assumption, remembering how great his smile was or what incredible chemistry you thought you shared? Have you done the same thing to someone else?

If you have a date that you don't care to see again, send a nice but brief email or make a phone call (no texts please!). Let him know you're not interested without being rude. For example:

It was nice meeting you last night and thanks for dinner. Unfortunately, I just didn't feel there was chemistry between us. I wish you the best.

Even if your date feels a little hurt and rejected, it's better that he knows instead of wondering what happened. When people know where they stand, they are able to move on and find the relationship that is right for them.

When we’re about to meet someone new, we do all we can to make sure the first impression we receive is an accurate one. We send emails backs and forth, and scour them for red flags; we try to “listen to our gut,” we try to have a meaningful first conversation without appearing too strange or overzealous ourselves. We want to absorb as much information out of that first meeting as we can.

However, sometimes, despite our best efforts, it’s simply impossible to get the whole picture. Because, simply, a first date is a pretty controlled situation. And by that, I mean both members are in control. If any date is planned down to the last detail, it’s probably that one.

And think about yourself: yourself when you’re in control, and when you’re not - when you’re stressed. Are you exactly the same person?

Some people have different thresholds of stress, and it could days, weeks, or even months until you see that Other Side of your date. Maybe they’re the sort of person who freaks out on the very first date if their food comes out wrong - but maybe they’re not. Maybe they’re calm, and cool as a cucumber, until they’re under life-changing amounts of stress.

It’s not something you can assess on the first date (and you shouldn’t really want to put your date in stressful situations, anyway). Therefore, what can you do about it?

Well, be observant. Everyday situations typically contain a little stress (driving, for example, or the aforementioned wrong food order). How does your date react to small, manageable amounts of stress? How do they treat others when they’re under stress? Getting worked up is not the same as lashing out at others, or becoming just plain mean.

However, remember: you’re not looking for a perfect date, you’re looking for a good match. You’re not looking for flaws; you’re testing the waters to see if you could live with this behavior. For example, I know a couple wherein the husband is the sort of person who Needs a Plan while traveling. He’s, frankly, not the best traveler; he becomes downright grumpy if he gets lost, or something doesn’t go according to plan.

His wife is the exact opposite: she’ll float through an airport at her own pace if she has her way, and delays and cancellations are just a way of life. “Sure,” she confided, “It would be nice if he were more relaxed about travel. But this is about as bad as he ever gets, and we don’t even travel that often. Small price to pay for someone I like the rest of the time.”

Observing how someone reacts in stressful situations is a good indicator of how they’ll be when life inevitably throws its curveballs. But make sure you don’t obsess over seeing them crack. Maybe, instead of being too good to be true, your date is actually just right for you.