Advice

The old dating profile cliche is "I like long walks on the beach..." It's one of those things that everyone tells you that you shouldn't say. But what if you DO like long walks on the beach? How do you say that in your profile without being horribly cliched? And what about all those other cliches? Is there a way to breathe new life into them?

Let's take a look at some old cliches and how to rewrite them to work for your dating profile:

I like long walks on the beach...
"I grew up on Cape Cod, so I've always felt at home with the sand between my toes and water lapping at my feet."
"I'm a city boy, but now that I live so close to the water, I've fallen in love with the sound of the waves."

If you pick up a copy of this month's "Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin" you will find an article by MIT Sloan Assistant Professor Joshua M. Ackerman and Douglas T. Kenrick of Arizona State University, which reviews a series of studies they did about cooperation and romance. What they found is people will be more successful at dating and relationships if they ask for help from friends. This help does vary between the sexes though. For instance, men tended to help each other to gain access to desirable women (think of the term wingmen). On the other hand, women help each other by evaluating potential matches and by creating barriers between undesirable men.

Surprisingly, this type of relationship behaviour in humans is also found in other animals. Male wild turkeys will cooperate with each other to court a female. Higher primates and lions also exhibit similar behavior.

Most people would say women cry more than men, and they would be right. The reason behind this according to Psychologist Associate Professor Joseph Ciarrochi is, women experience more emotions than men. Women tend to also cry in more situations, like from feeling insecure, to peer pressure. 65 percent of the time when a women is weeping, it will turn into full blown sobbing. A full crying session for a women lasts on average 6 minutes, were with men it lasts on average for 2. Women also cry between 30 and 64 times a year. This is much higher than men who shed tears only about 6 times a year. If you separate the sensitive men out, they do cry more often at 17 times a year.

One interesting thing to note about crying between the genders is, before puberty hits each sex cry's about the same number of times a year.

For the full story, visit The Daily Telegraph.

Dating around the holidays adds another layer to your growing relationship. Not only are there multiple families and obligations involved, but you want to spend time with your partner at this special time of the year. Buying gifts, snuggling by the fire – there’s plenty of time for every obligation. You just need to sit down and plan with your partner so that no one feels left out and obligations are out on the table.

Who needs to be where? You both have families and traditional things you do around the holidays. Sit down and talk with your partner about who needs to be where so that you know if you’re going to take the leap and travel together or plan to have your own time and then visit with families separately. If your relationship is newer, maybe you’re not ready to “meet the parents” yet. Save yourself the headache of pushing a premature meeting by being open and honest with your partner about your feelings and expectations. It’s a time to celebrate – not argue!

Whenever I talk to people about what I do for a living, they immediately have one of two reactions. The first type of person thinks that being an online dating profile writer and coach is the Coolest Thing Ever (TM). The second type of person bemoans the downfall of society and says that we'd all be better off if people just met and matched the old fashioned way.

This post is for that second group of people, the ones who think that online dating is for losers who can't meet people in real life. People who think that they'd rather wait 10 years to bump into the perfect guy or gal because that's just "how it's supposed to be done." People who are certain their soulmate is destined to find them, eventually.

Meeting people the old-fashioned way usually happens one of three ways:
* Through family, friends or coworkers
* Matchmaking service
* At church or other social circles

But what happens once you've exhausted those options? Do you turn to new-fashioned things like speed dating, social networking, or (gasp) online dating?

Here's a good checklist to see whether it's time to give up your old fashioned dream and embrace the future:
* Have you already met all the people you can through your family, friends, or coworkers?
* Have you already met (and perhaps dated) the people in your church or other social group?
* Are you frustrated because you just haven't met anyone new lately?
* Is your life pretty much work, home, sleep, work, home, sleep?
* Are you wondering just WHO is out there?

If you've answered "YES!" to even one of these questions, you may want to give online dating a shot. DatingSitesReviews has comprehensive reviews of all the online dating sites just to the left in the blue sidebar. Do some research, choose a site, write your profile, and start meeting people. New people, great people, perhaps even the very one person you've been destined to meet all along.

Many of my readers and clients ask me, "When's the right time to take things from online to offline?"

It can be difficult to gauge exactly when to pop the question about that first date, so let me start on the far end of the spectrum: Don't wait too long.

What's too long? Too long is the point where you're emailing back and forth on a daily basis, chatting via IMs or text messages. When you get to the point where you are a regular part of each other's lives, you've waited too long. You've fallen into what I call "pixel bondage."

Pixel Bondage
It's a real danger. This is the point where people start to assume they're falling in love with someone they only know online. It's not to say that it CAN'T happen; it's just that it usually doesn't.

I've found that the more you start feeling like you're a couple online, the more awkward the first date goes. After all, you start thinking about all the things you shared with each other online and you assume that you are at a certain level of intimacy. But when you meet in person, there's all the physical chemistry - or lack thereof - to deal with.

What happens when a "couple" who were "bonded" online meet in real life and one party ends up not feeling physical chemistry? Do you "break up"? Do you fake it and hope you can feel the chemistry later? If you engaged in dirty talk online, does that extend to your real life interaction?

It's a mess, and one that's easily avoided. Don't extend online interaction more than a couple weeks before meeting in real life. A first date in the real world helps you assess the level of physical chemistry before you get in too deep. Then, if things don't work out, it's a lot easier to call things off without any hard feelings.