Advice

There are a lot of conflicting rules floating around about texting and dating - no wonder people find it so confusing. Do you text right away to show you're interested, or do you wait to show you're not so available? The answer is not always clear, so what should you do?

According to a recent study by Flirt.com, we shouldn't sweat it so much - and we shouldn't stick to the rules! Men and women view texting practices differently. And apparently, the men are much more open to the women they date reaching out to them.

Forty-nine percent of men and 39% of women will text a date the next day to let him/her know they had a nice time. However, 20% of women are still sticking to the old adage of waiting for him to text first (compared to only 5% of the guys).

Even though we don't have to worry about the three-day waiting period to call someone back, the study found it is good to be concerned about how frequently you're texting your date. Texting habits mean different things to each gender. For the women, if a guy sends more than ten texts a day she considers it to be creepy. Men on the other hand are more than happy to have her text - with almost half saying she should text as much as she wants.

Are you worried about looking too available? There's no need, ladies. A whopping 82% of men surveyed said they would be happy if after they suggested a date a woman let him know she was available to go out any night that week. Not so for the ladies. Thirty-eight percent of women said they'd be freaked out if a man made himself too available.

And how do you sign off? Is it too risky to add an "xo" to the end of a text, maybe as a flirtation? According to the study, 48% of men and 41% of women aren't afraid of signing off with a little kiss. But steer clear of being too "cutesy." Almost 25% of men think that smiley faces are childish.

And what about the biggest complication when it comes to texting - whether or not you should break up with someone over text? Apparently women are a little more cold-hearted. Seventeen percent of them would break up with someone over text, compared to just 13% of men.

Flirt.com surveyed over 2,000 of its members for the study.

Looking for new ways to attract men? Well, if you're inked (or thinking about it), a new study finds that men are more than twice as likely to approach a woman with tattoos.

A study from the Université de Bretagne-Sud found that men consider women with tattoos more approachable, but also more promiscuous. They admitted they would be more interested and likely to talk to her if they thought they could have sex with her right away.

For the study, researchers had 31 men identify the 11 "most attractive" participants from a pool of 58 candidates. The chosen participants would then visit area beaches - 10 trips each with a temporary tattoo and 10 without.

The tattoo the women used were the same, based on the typical tattoo of college-aged women: a butterfly on the small of the back.

The women with ink were solicited 23.67 percent of the time, but when the same women didn't have tattoos, that average dropped to 10 percent.

It turns out that how quickly a man approaches a woman was also affected by whether or not she was inked. For women with tattoos, the average time it took for a man to approach was 23 minutes compared to 35 minutes without a tattoo.

As part of the study, a male researcher at the same location would approach young men who were near the female participants in the study. The men were asked to rate the likelihood of the woman agreeing to a first date and having sex on a first date. Researchers agreed the evidence was clear after speaking with them: men see tattooed women as more promiscuous, which was a compelling reason they had to approach.

If you're already inked and aren't interested in hooking up with men, don't fret. While this study might point to potential problems with men hitting on you, you're the one in control here. You put boundaries in place on your dates, not the men you date.

And if you're not sporting any tattoos? Don't get one just so guys will be more willing to approach you.

We all make choices about how to present ourselves when we're dating, so be careful if you might be sending out the wrong message. In the same way tattoos might indicate promiscuity, so can revealing clothing, or being overly flirtatious. You'll have better success in the long run to be true to yourself and your own style, and own it.

If you've been on the Internet in the last week - and seeing as this is 2013, there's no way you haven't - you've probably come across an article proclaiming that online dating has scientifically been proven to be better than traditional dating.

Every feed I follow has been blowing up with the news that 1 in 3 Americans now meet their spouses online, and that a new study has found that marriages born out of online dating are more satisfying and less likely to end in divorce. The study's results were published in a paper called "Marital Satisfaction and Breakups Differ Across Online and Offline Meeting Venues" in the current issue of the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"These data suggest that the Internet may be altering the dynamics and outcomes of marriage itself," said the study's lead author John Cacioppo, the Tiffany and Margaret Blake Distinguished Service Professor in Psychology at the University of Chicago.

Before you vow never to meet people in person again, it's important to note that the study was funded by eHarmony.com and Cacioppo is paid as a scientific advisor for eHarmony. Of course, everyone involved promises that eHarmony's backing did not affect the outcomes of the study in any way, but...

I know I'm not the only one looking at this new data with a healthy dose of skepticism.

I am, however, not so skeptical about a few of Cacioppo's claims. Online dating clearly has changed the face of relationships forever, and there's no going back. Cacioppo's research found that nearly 8% of marriages initiated offline end in breakups, while couples who meet online report divorce and separation rates of only 6%.

I'll be holding firmly onto my grains of salt until further studies - ones that aren't in any way connected to online dating sites - confirm his data, but I'm willing to admit that Cacioppo may have a point. Online dating may indeed lead to greater marriage satisfaction for a few key reasons:

1. The pool of prospective partners is significantly larger online, increasing the chance that you'll meet someone you're highly compatible with.
2. Singles who take the step of joining an online dating site may be more serious about finding a long-term partner than singles encountered offline.
3. Online daters may be more honest and up-front about who they are and what they're looking for (barring those infamous little white lies told in profiles), meaning that the connections they form are more genuine.

"It is possible that individuals who met their spouse online may be different in personality, motivation to form a long-term marital relationship, or some other factor," Cacioppo said in a press release.

That sounds like the perfect opportunity for another study - one that isn't funded by an online dating giant.

Related Article: The Secret To A Happy Marriage Is…Online Dating?

In general, handling “rejection” in online dating is considerably easier than in person. Most of the time, you’ll get a “thanks but no thanks” from someone you’ve never met in person and hopefully haven’t spent too much time thinking about. Maybe you’ll get no response at all, which can be frustrating, but not particularly painful. No one likes rejection, but as far as stings go, these are fairly minor ones.

But alas, the online dating world is no more perfect than the real one, and there are people who are, well, jerks. Maybe someone is hurt about the state of their own romantic life and is lashing out at others; maybe someone is trying to build their own self-esteem by cutting down others, like a schoolyard bully. Almost everyone has encountered at least one cruel message, whether it was in response to a first-contact email, a “thanks but not thanks” rejection, or a message that popped up out of the blue.

“Wow, you must really think you’re pretty. Trust me, you can’t afford to be this picky,” one reads. Another: “Um, try dating someone your own age.” Whether they’re hurtful comments disguised as “helpful advice” or just random hateful words, those are the sort of messages that do sting. If you receive one of these messages yourself, here are a few things to bear in mind:

First, you are, unfortunately, not the first or only one to receive such a message. Just like any random act of spite, you didn’t do anything to bring this upon you; if someone is looking to lash out they’re not paying attention to who it actually is. If someone is heaping vitriol upon you because you let them down nicely, that’s their problem, not yours. And because it is a mostly random act, there’s likely no truth to the message, either, so try to put the content out of your mind, difficult as it may be.

If the message is extremely inflammatory - using abusive language, hate speech, or making threats - check with your online dating site to see how you can go about reporting it. A snide remark is mostly harmless, but most sites take the safety of their customers seriously, and anything beyond the norm should be brought to the attention of the site.

Whatever you do, don’t respond to the message. It can be tempting, especially if, say, something about your appearance is being targeted and they’re no looker themselves. But your reaction only feeds into the negative attention they’re seeking. Even if you had sent the first-contact email and thus feel like you “started it,” don’t reward the troll with an argument, even if it’s scathing and well-thought.

Remember that, just like in the real world, the attention-seekers are in the minority; they’re relatively few and far between. Don’t let a bad apple or two put you off dating altogether. Navigating a few trolls is but a distraction on your quest to find love.

For many, online dating sites open up a world that was previously far more difficult to access. Consider, for example, the person who works the night shift; they don’t keep conventional hours, and when they make a rare appearance in the middle of the day, they’re bleary-eyed and thinking of sleep more than romance. Or perhaps the person whose co-workers are all married or in their sixties, when they themselves are in their mid-twenties. Online dating provides opportunities to meet people they wouldn’t have otherwise.

But not everyone lives cut off from available single peers; other people turn to online dating because they’re dissatisfied with the local dating scene, or they have niche interests. Maybe they just like the aspect of being able to express themselves through writing, or ensure that they’re making a good first impression. For these people, online dating sites are a tool to add to their arsenal, but they’re not necessarily their primary option.

However, it can be easy to forget that other options exist besides online dating - and then you run the risk of limiting yourself even more. That’s what happened to “Carrie,” a friend. “I was going out on dates, and things were going well, so I stopped thinking about ‘finding a date’ as much,” she told me. “Then I started developing bad habits without even realizing it.”

“I was compartmentalizing ‘dating’ me and ‘don’t need to worry about dating’ me. I had my pre-established time that I would sit down and write emails and make plans, and the rest of the time I just didn’t think about it. There were some upsides; I was less stressed about that stuff. But if I wasn’t headed out on a date, I didn’t think about how I looked at all. I went to the grocery store in my pajamas more than I want to admit.

“On the one hand, it might’ve been this sort of ‘don’t care’ confidence that actually made me more attractive; there’s a co-worker - I thought he was cute when he first started here but he was seeing someone, and then I got into online dating. Anyway, I didn’t notice when his relationship ended. I didn’t notice when he became interested in me. I didn’t even notice he was flirting with me! Someone had to point it out, like high school! So we’ve been dating for a little while now, and he said I had just seemed so uninterested, he was actually about to give up. I wasn’t uninterested at all - I just wasn’t thinking about dating!”

Carrie’s tale might be a little extreme - how many people can literally turn their romance radar off? - but it makes a good point: while online dating provides a fantastic way to meet new people, that doesn’t mean we stop meeting new people in our everyday lives. For some, it might be healthier to view online dating as just another opportunity out of many; after all, who knows how your story will unfold?

Admittedly, many women have spent way too much time with the wrong man at least once in our lives. If we really want a relationship to work, we will make all kinds of justifications and excuses for a man's behavior - just because we don't want to leave. Unfortunately, this prolongs our unhappiness and delays us in meeting the right man.

Have you ever waited for a man to change? Did you invest in the relationship even when you saw it wasn't working? What was it that made you stay? These might not seem like simple questions to answer, but chances are there's a reason you didn't want to leave.

Following are some reasons you might be staying too long with the wrong man:

You don't want to be alone. Being single is a scary thought, especially if you're used to being in a relationship. If you worry about being alone, then it's important to spend time doing exactly that. One thing you might remind yourself of: it's more lonely to feel alone in a relationship than it is to be single.

He seems like such a great guy. Maybe he checks off a lot of boxes on your "must-have" list. Maybe he's incredibly gorgeous, or charismatic, or a million other attractive things. But if he's not willing to commit after years of dating, or he doesn't treat you with respect, or he avoids having a serious conversation about where the two of you are headed (or about anything else for that matter), he's likely not going to change.

You have incredible chemistry. When you are together, it's like time stops. The chemistry is almost palpable there's so much heat, and you really enjoy each other's company. But then he'll go weeks without calling or seeing you. No matter how awesome he is, or how much he makes you laugh, if he's not there when it counts or is not invested in the relationship, then it's only going to hurt you to keep things going. And he might have someone else on the side.

You keep thinking he'll change. Maybe you've broken up with him a few times, but he keeps coming back, saying he's changed. So you give him another chance, only to be disappointed. It's time to stop taking his word for it and take care of yourself for a change. If a man hasn't shown you that he's really changed, then he probably hasn't.

You are avoiding real intimacy. This might be difficult to hear, but some women stay in a relationship that isn't working because they can avoid true intimacy. It's scary to show who you really are to someone else - it takes complete trust with no guarantees. If you're with someone because he doesn't ask a lot of you, or you don't have to reveal yourself too deeply, then you're missing out. Great relationships are built on this kind of trust in the vulnerability of our partners.