Holidays

The new polar vortex has made winter come earlier than planned. Before we can enjoy the turn of summer into fall, it seems that many cities across North America have been hit with snow, sleet and rain.

Just because the weather isn’t cooperating doesn’t mean you have to depend on bars and movie theatres as your places to go. Winter dating, especially around the holidays, is anything but boring! Don’t despair because you can’t take a nice bike ride together or have a picnic by the beach. Instead, embrace the cold with these fun date ideas:

Go wine tasting. Winter is the perfect time to find a nice local spot offering flights of the latest fall wines. If you live near wineries, you’re in luck! For most of us that don’t, local wine shops and bars often offer “tasting” nights and events for those who want to improve their palettes.

Take a cooking class. Can’t get warm? Take your date to a cooking class where you take fresh, local ingredients and learn to make something new and delicious. The best part? It warms you up and you get to share a hard-earned gourmet meal together as a reward.

Visit a tree farm. No matter your religious preferences, there’s something magical about visiting tree farms. The smell of pine can be soothing, and offer you a chance to enjoy the outdoors – followed by a warm cocktail or hot chocolate.

Go ice skating. Outdoor ice rinks are all the rage when winter hits. You can even find makeshift ice rinks in parking lots across Los Angeles, where temperatures rarely dip below 50 degrees. Check your local listings, and feel free to have fun and be a kid again. Isn’t this the stuff romance is made of?

Volunteer together. Good works can bring you and your date closer, and make your evening together more meaningful. Check local food banks, non-profits and religious organizations in your city to find out what you can do this holiday season.

Be a tourist. Visit a new art exhibit or the local history museum you never get around to checking out, just because it’s never on your to-do list. Explore the place you live – there is probably something you didn’t expect.  

Indoor rock climbing. Who said you can’t try outdoor activities when it’s snowing outside? Indoor rock climbing is a great way to get that adrenaline rush, and to enjoy a bit of a workout on your date.

Making s’mores. You don’t have to be around a campfire to enjoy this old favorite. Pull up a cushion by your fireplace (or stove) and roast a couple of marshmallows and some chocolate, a delicious way to spend the evening.

I've written before about how much I love Halloween, especially the horror movies that inevitably fill my Netflix queue each fall.

I've heard a fair deal of horror film criticism over the years, from “It just gives crazy people ideas” to “There must be something wrong with anyone who actually likes watching this stuff.” I always take it in stride, but this year, finally, I have a rebuttal: horror films are dating advice in disguise.

Really? Yes, really.

Confession: Despite being the ripe, not-that-old age of 26, I'm still a sucker for Halloween. There's something I just can't help loving about a holiday that encourages dressing up and eating candy. And then there's my very favorite part of the Halloween season: the scares.

From the horror movies to the haunted houses, something in me demands to be scared and loves every second of it. But there are a few times terror is not on my to-do list, and online dating is definitely one of them. Fright on a first date? No thanks.

It seems obvious, but humanity is a strange and wonderful thing and...well...it turns out not everyone feels the same way I do. There are those who want their romance to come with a side of scares, and there are dating sites that cater to their special need for fear.

Normally the type of scares we talk about come October are the ones that involve zombies and werewolves and candy-craving kids hopped up on too much sugar, but around here we're more concerned with a different kind of fright.

Over the last 8 years, I've spent a lot of time reading, writing, and occasionally even following online dating advice. And whew...there is some scary, scary stuff out there. Plenty of people get it right, but let's be honest – plenty more get it wrong, so wrong it's almost scary how bad it is.

I spend most of my time on the good advice, but Halloween puts me in the mood for being horrified so today we're taking a detour to Terrortown. All of the advice you're about to read? Don't follow it, unless you want to be an urban legend singles tell to scare each other off online dating.

Confession: I’m one of those irritating people who, every February, talks about how Valentine’s Day is a crock of you-know-what because it shouldn’t take a special, sickeningly sweet, Hallmark-y holiday to remind you to love your partner. Every year it gets hipper to hate on Valentine’s Day, to the point that the scales almost seem poised to tip back in the other direction. In 2015, will the cooler-than-thou kids have to start celebrating V-Day instead of condemning it? What a strange world that would be…

Though the anti-Valentine’s Day forces are loud, it seems that most of us are secretly celebrating anyway. eHarmony asked 3000 people if they had plans for Valentine's Day 2014 and about 64% of them said that they would be spending the holiday with someone special. Here’s what they had planned (or not):

• 17% of people said they had not planned anything at the time of the survey (which was done only three days before Valentine's Day!).
• 6% said they had put a lot of planning into the event.
• Most people, unsurprisingly, fell somewhere in the middle – they’d put at least a little bit of thought into the holiday, but weren’t going all-out.
• Men were the romantics of the bunch. While women were more likely to say they had done very little to no planning at all, men were more likely to say they had done a fair amount of planning or a lot of planning for their valentine.

Good news for married folks: marriage may get a bad rap for dulling the spark, but the damage – at least where Valentine’s Day is concerned – is seriously overstated. Couples who were dating exclusively were most likely to have plans, at 89%, but at 82% married couples weren't far behind. Couples who were engaged were the least likely to have made any plans, perhaps because they’re too busy planning their weddings.

When the big day finally arrives, here’s what we’re up to:

• 37% of people head to dinner with their honeys.
• 26% prefer a romantic dinner in.
• 18% skip the dinner half entirely and go straight to a movie date.
• 71% of people plan to give their valentine a gift (79% of men, 65% of women).
• Women ranked their gift preferences like this: flowers (17%), jewelry (16%), intimacy (17%), a card (12%), and a spa day (11%).
• Men voted strongly in favor of intimacy as the ideal Valentine's Day gift (40%), but next in line was a card (11%).

And for all the naysayers, eHarmony also found that the biggest reasons people say they celebrate Valentine's Day are romance, connection, and genuine enjoyment of the holiday.

The horror-filled days of Halloween may only come once a year, but that doesn't mean fright fanatics can't get their creep on all year round. There are some seriously scary online dating sites (and I'm not just talking about Craigslist ax murderers). Check out these ridiculously specific niche online dating sites designed for your inner horror movie enthusiast: