How many times have you been on a date where the person you’re meeting seems angry, frustrated, or negative? And how many times have you been on dates where you felt that way yourself?

We all feel negative from time to time, but it definitely affects your love life if you allow those feelings to take hold and shape your attitude towards dating. This month, dating site Match released a study based on a survey it conducted among one thousand of its users to determine how positive and negative thinking affect the dating experience.

Not surprisingly, especially with this election year, nearly 80% of Match members feel the country has become MORE negative over the last 4 years and more than half of Match members have broken up with someone because they were too negative or pessimistic. The majority of Match members agree, the most attractive attribute of positivity is the fact that it signals a good outlook on life (68%).

I am sad to say it looks like Avalanche LCC has gone out of business. Date.com is one of their premier dating services which we last visited on October 6th and was confirmed still up and operating on October 7th, 2016 by the Internet Archive. It seems a week or so later when the dating site was again visited an error was reported indicating the dating service was down. When you visit Date.com now your browser will receive an "Error 522 Connection timed out" from CloudFlare. In fact all of Avalanche's websites including Matchmaker, Amor, and Gay Dating are now unreachable, including Avalanche's own corporate website. I sent a few emails out to see what was going on this week and they bounced back undelivered. With all of this evidence and with over a week of their web sites being down I think it safe to assume that unfortunately Avalanche and the dating services they own have gone out of business.

Avalanche ran over 20 dating services which we had reviews up for 4 of the more popular ones. This includes some of the oldest ones on the internet like Date.com which was started in 1997 and MatchMaker, which could be the oldest computer dating service since it was first started as a bulletin board system in 1986 (and in 1996 became a website). Other dating services we reviewed included Amor and GayDating.com.

In this every changing landscape of online dating, dating apps like Tinder now rule the single's love life. If you don't keep your business current and in the media it is hard to survive for long online. We wish those who worked at Avalanche all the best in their new endeavors.

Dating app Hinge started out with some stiff competition against Tinder. Since its debut in 2012, several other new dating apps have launched and attracted a growing user base as well as media attention, including female-centric dating app Bumble. Meanwhile, after steady growth since its launch, this year Hinge has seen its numbers declining.

Hinge’s marketing and product development have always focused on attracting more serious daters. The app is geared toward young professionals in their late twenties and thirties who are looking for long-term relationships, as opposed to the hook-up reputation that has followed Tinder since its inception. The app is billed as a “grown-up” alternative to the young users of Tinder, which at first seemed to serve the market well.

Love doesn’t come with a textbook. There are no rubrics or cheat sheets. And it definitely doesn’t look like what you see in the movies.

Modern dating is complex and constantly evolving. Relationships are not easy to build and maintain, but they never were. Love comes in many guises - some readily recognizable, some not.

Forget what you know from Twilight. Unrealistic expectations can kill a relationship before it even starts. The reality? It isn’t always pretty, but it’s all we’ve got. These 4 life lessons may not be easy to learn, but they’re essential to lasting love.

Online dating is the classic double-edge sword. On one hand, it opens up your dating pool exponentially. Potential partners could be anywhere in the world, and you can surf those infinite matches from the comfort of your couch (preferably while wearing PJs and tucking into your favorite comfort food).

Then there’s the other hand. The PJs are on. You’re curled up on the couch. A package of Oreos awaits. You grab your phone, start browsing and BOOM, there it is: one of these 4 abysmal profiles. Swipe left as fast as your fingers will allow.

There’s a lot to love about entrepreneurs. They’re creative. They’re passionate. They’re positive. They’re ambitious. They’re often confident and extroverted. Any one could be the next Elon Musk or Richard Branson.

You wouldn’t mind dating someone with a private island, would you?

Thought not. The problem is, entrepreneurs come with a special set of challenges that can make dating hard - even harder than it is for non-entrepreneurs. Starting a business takes an incredible amount of time, energy, and concentration. Entrepreneurs eat, sleep, and breathe their projects - 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

In other words, date an entrepreneur and you’re also dating their business. Even the most dedicated employee will never reach that level of commitment with their work. As a result, dating an entrepreneur can be exciting but frustrating, and being an entrepreneur who’s trying to date can be confusing or discouraging.