Relationships

Online dating has been around for a while. And plenty of couples met over a dating website years ago, got married, and now have children. So it makes sense that one of the most established of these - Match.com - might want to prep the new generation when they start online dating. Why not use Mom and Dad as an example for what really works when it comes to love?

It’s not surprising the company is marketing to a new generation of online daters, considering the growth of the online dating industry. Last year, a report came out from a Harris poll that stated more than one in three American couples that got married between 2005 and 2012 met online.

Match.com was quick to jump on that study, touting its matching services for their own successful couples.

Match.com is one dating site that has stood the test of time, and managed to grow its user base over the years despite the onslaught of competition. This month the online dating giant announced its “MatchMade” Scholarship Contest, a $50,000 program open to kids of parents who met on Match. Launched over 19 years ago, Match claims it has led to more dates, more relationships, and more marriages than any other site. The company also says that over one million babies were “made” because of Match, so the company will continue to positively impact the lives of its members by offering a scholarship to the children of its success couples.

Match’s contest revolves around creative story-telling and social media sharing. The campaign kicked off with a video of young kids sharing their thoughts on everything from marriage to careers and college – but mostly about love and babies. The MatchMade scholarship contest is open to students between the ages of 13-20 nationwide, so it’s targeting an older demographic that will be ready for the dating pool soon.

To enter, students must submit a short video retelling their parents’ Match love story in a creative way - from their first messages exchanged on Match to the moment they knew they were meant for each other. Match will accept submissions through June 30, 2014, after which the company will select a group of finalists. In August, the public will choose the winner by sharing their favorite videos via Facebook and Twitter, and the winner will be awarded a $50,000 scholarship. The parents of the winner are part of the competition, too - they will be given $5,000 to put toward a getaway.

“Success on Match takes many forms, but of course there’s a special place in our hearts for the children involved in our members’ lives,” said Sam Yagan, CEO of Match. “By bringing their parents together, we’ve played a small role in the lives of more than one million MatchMade babies, and now with the MatchMade Scholarship Contest, we’re excited to extend that special relationship to helping those children pay for college.”

Most of us know about dating apps like Tinder that can help you meet people. But what if you need help picking out a good restaurant to meet a date, or what line should you use to approach a woman at a bar? Don’t worry, there are apps for those things, too.

Apps can give you a wealth of creative ideas for everything from where to go on a first date to how to pick out a good wine. An app can be a lifesaver if you get lost on your way to someplace new, or if you need last-minute tickets to a concert. It can also be a good source for discounts, since dating can get expensive.

Following are some apps you must download today to help your dating life – just be sure to put your phone away once you’re on the date:

Do you consider yourself an open-minded dater? If you live in L.A. or New York your potential dates are not as open-minded as you might assume. In fact, Las Vegas is the number one city for daters who are more receptive to others who don't share the same beliefs - not the coastal cities.

Dating website Zoosk looked at a sample of about a million of its members to see what regions in the U.S. had the most open-minded daters. The site looked at members’ willingness to date someone with different viewpoints on important topics such as children, religion, previous marriages, and education – and unveiled that coastal and generally forward-thinking cities aren’t as open-minded when it comes to who they will date.

Cities in the heartland - Las Vegas Nevada, Detroit Michigan and Columbus Ohio - made the top three on the list of cities with the most open-minded daters. Rounding out the bottom, where you’ll find the least open-minded daters, was Raleigh North Carolina, San Jose California, and Birmingham Alabama.

In addition to overall open-mindedness, the study looked at the breakdown of different topics that are important subjects for daters, such as religion. They found that singles in San Jose, California are the most open-minded about dating someone outside of their religion, while singles in Birmingham, Alabama are the least open-minded.

Educational disparity can be a deal-breaker for some daters. Salt Lake City, Utah has the highest concentration of singles willing to date someone with a different level of education, while singles in San Jose, California predominantly look for a partner with the same level of education.

And what about those who have been married before? Would you be willing to date someone who’s divorced? As it turns out, singles in Salt Lake City, Utah are most open to dating someone who was previously married, while singles in Hartford, Connecticut are least likely to consider the option.

Body type can be a concern for daters, too. San Antonio, Texas has the highest concentration of singles willing to date someone with a different body type than their own, while singles in Louisville, Kentucky largely look for a partner with a similar physique.

And what about smoking and drinking habits? Singles who reside in Nashville, Tennessee are most open to dating someone who has different smoking habits, while singles in Miami, Florida are least likely to do so. Providence, Rhode Island singles are most open to dating someone whose drinking habits differ from their own, unlike singles in San Jose, California who are not.

Dating is full of clichés, and online dating is even worse. If I see one more person who describes themselves as “fun” or says they like “hanging out with friends” (or, God forbid, that they like “candlelit dinners and long walks on the beach”) I am going to throw my laptop out the window in a fit of rage. Could you possibly be any more boring?

Most online clichés should be ignored, but there’s one overused online dating phrase that’s worth paying attention to: “no drama.”

Yes, it sounds incredibly annoying and to be honest I would probably never date someone who used it. That being said, I do think it has value. We all like to complain about the drama others bring into our lives, but when was the last time you stopped to ask yourself if you’re the reason there's drama in your relationships? If you find yourself in bad relationship after bad relationship, it's time to face the music: the common denominator is you.

Next time you see an online dating profile that says drama queens need not apply, ask yourself a few questions:

• Are you ready to have fun? If a new relationship is coming directly on the heels of the previous one, you may not have given your self sufficient time to heal. On the other hand, if it's been forever since you last dipped your toes in the dating pool, you might be feeling totally lost. Getting back into the swing of things means being comfortable with being uncomfortable. Sometimes you’ll be rejected. Sometimes someone you're interested in will simply disappear. Sometimes a date will go totally haywire. If you're not ready to face every eventuality – and have fun while doing it - there's a good chance drama will follow.
• How confident are you? Dating isn't always easy. In fact, it can be downright brutal. Things will happen that will make you forget how totally awesome you are. The minute your confidence takes a hit, you start behaving in ways that sink it even further. Low self-esteem leads to neediness, to dependency, and to attention-seeking behavior. When you don't feel good about yourself internally, you'll find yourself desperately seeking external validation. None of this is healthy. None of this is attractive. And all of it = drama.
• Have you fully moved on from your last relationship? Hello, drama central! One of the easiest ways to doom a relationship is to enter it before you're ready. It’s never smart to start dating right away after the end of a relationship. It might feel like a fix, but that fix is only temporary. You’ll end up dragging the baggage from the previous relationship over to the new one, dooming things with your new date from the very beginning. When a relationship ends, stay single until you're ready to date again with confidence, happiness, an open heart, and absolutely zero ex drama.

Dating and communication between two potential romantic partners has reached a whole new level thanks to the growing popularity of apps. If you’re nervous or shy, you can approach a woman or man through an app and never experience firsthand rejection. You can swipe left or right, without having that uncomfortable conversation if one of you isn’t interested.

Tinder is an app where users interact with each other through profiles and information pulled from Facebook. You can see, at least through photos, who is messaging you. But other apps are surfacing to channel all of that flirting through a new, underground form of communication.

Truth is the latest in a series of anonymous messaging apps that sends private flirtations or missives to people on your contacts list. It's undercover one-on-one messaging between friends.

So, if you like a guy but aren’t sure if he likes you, you can hide behind an avatar and anonymous username with Truth to message him and see if he might be interested. If he doesn’t have Truth on his phone, he can download it to read your message, making him another user. This is a cool and exciting feature for shy types.

On the other hand, if you want to slam your friend without her knowing who did it, you can do that, too.

Truth is different from popular apps like Secret and Whisper because it utilizes your own contacts list instead of broadcasting through a feed like Twitter. So, the focus of communication is between friends. But all of these apps share one thing in common – they allow you to be anonymous. Which means in the online world – you can say or do whatever you want with no accountability.

One of the objectives for the app is to allow people who are uncomfortable flirting or asking someone out face-to-face a means to do it without having to feel the sting of rejection. On the other hand, it’s a perfect platform for bullying.

Truth’s co-founder Ali Saheli tells website Mashable that, “We try to keep it light and playful,” but acknowledges that from day one they have seen the potential for abuse. He estimates content reported as abusive represents less than 5% of all messages. "The most common usage is flirting with classmates. And obviously we've seen a range of uses, like people giving feedback in workplaces.”

The app has taken off among the most vulnerable age groups – specifically high school and college-aged people. But is it making dating any easier or a better experience? As one young woman told Mashable, “You're just playing a game to figure things out."

If you would like to try the Truth app you can visit their site called Use Truth.

Online dating has become a typical way to meet people outside of your own social networks. In fact, the majority of people have tried it at least once.

But what about the opportunity to connect via social media? Most people have a Facebook or Twitter account, and they contain a wealth of information about what we like, who we are, who are friends are, and what we do. The natural progression of social media is to harness this information and look to who might benefit from it – including online daters.

In fact, eHarmony released a study recently which found 7% of people who married after meeting online had met for the first time on social networking sites like Facebook, MySpace and ClassMates – not through matchmaking chat rooms, online dating sites or other romance-based online connections.

In an article in Time Magazine, Jeffrey Hall, associate professor of Communication Studies at University of Kansas, decided to investigate this connection. He wanted to learn more about who was meeting their significant others through social media, and how well these marriages fared.

He surveyed over 19,000 people who had been married between 2005 and 2012, and asked them how they’d met. Those who met on social networking sites were more likely to be younger and married more recently compared to those who met online in other ways. He was surprised to find that those who met via social networking sites were just as happy as those who met online, and those who met online in general were happier than those couples who met in more traditional ways, such as through friends.

Social networking sites have potential advantages over online dating sites, Hall noted. For one, you can meet people through networks of friends, which means there is some connection first. This puts many people – especially women – more at ease. Also, people are more likely to represent themselves in an honest light over Facebook, because their friends are reading their posts and making comments. You get a more complete view of the person you’re meeting – where she likes to eat, what TV shows she watches, what she does for a living. A Facebook page is a little more personal than an online dating profile.

Another interesting finding in the study was that most of the marriages resulting from social media connections were among African Americans. Hall attributes this to the fact that African Americans and Latinos were over-represented on social networking sites between 2005 and 2012, and use social networks to engage with their already close network of friends.

Social media is an important part of making romantic connections, and is growing in popularity every day. Maybe it’s time to check Facebook if you want to meet someone new.