Right now everyone is talking about the big resolutions you're supposed to make for 2015. High on the list this year, as they are every year, are all things related to dating and romance. And that's great – I'm a firm believer in setting goals for yourself – but you can't figure out where you're going if you don't understand where you've been. Before you start making plans for 2015, let's talk about 2014. Specifically, about where you went wrong with your online dating profile in 2014.

First things first: don't think that going wrong is...well...wrong. It's fine. It's part of the process. And don't think that going wrong means there's something wrong with you. There isn't. All it means is that, somewhere along the line, something went a little haywire with your profile and decreased your chances of meeting someone meaningful on the site. And the good news about all that is, it's fixable.

So where exactly did things jump the tracks? Here are 7 reasons your online dating profile didn't work in 2014:

1. You didn't include an image: I get it. It's a privacy thing. But if you want to be successful on a dating site, there's no way around it. A clear picture is a must.
2. You didn't write enough. I know this sounds crazy, but that profile asking you to write about yourself is there so you can actually write about yourself. No-word answers, single-word answers, and in many cases even single-sentence answers, are not acceptable. You would move on if you came across that profile, so don't expect potential dates to do anything different for you.
3. You wrote way too much. It's easy to take that last piece of advice and run away with it. Yes, no one wants to read a weird e.e. cummings poem of a profile, but no one wants to read an epic James Joyce novel either. A wall of text is overwhelming to read and even more overwhelming to digest. Save some getting-to-know-you for the first date, will ya?
4. You focused on the negative. Read your profile out-loud to yourself and be honest. Do you sound hurt, angry, sad, or negative in any other way? Experiencing those emotions is ok – it's part of life – but making your online dating profile about them is not ok. Optimism is attractive. Sounding like you have more baggage than an airport over the holidays is not.
5. Some things are better left unsaid...but you said them anyway. Having strong opinions is a good thing. Being able to express them calmly, clearly, and confidently is also a good thing. Doing that in your profile is...maybe not such a good thing. Unless the issue at hand is 100% a dealbreaker for you, keep the controversial stuff to yourself until a later date.
6. You sound just like everyone else. You like hanging out with friends. People say you're fun and funny. The first thing people notice about you is your eyes. You're into candlelit beaches and long walks to dinner. Yawn. Did you copy/paste your profile? You sound just like everyone else on the Web, and that's no way to score a date. Differentiate yourself.
7. You didn't have one. Wait, you don't even have an online dating profile yet? Well there's your problem. Start there and get back to me in 2016.

Back in May, things were looking good for Zoosk. The company had just filed its S-1 registration statement with the SEC and announced plans to raise $100 million in an initial public offering. The website had reached 26 million members across 80 countries, including 650,000 paying subscribers. Revenue was up 63% from 2012 to 2013, rising from $109.1 million to $178.2 million, and net loss had decreased drastically.

These days, the story is a little different for Zoosk. The company just announced major changes in leadership. CFO Kelly Steckelberg will be taking over as CEO. She is replacing co-founder Shayan Zadeh, who will become a member of the board. Zadeh will be joined on the board by co-founder Alex Mehr, who is currently president.

Along with the leadership shuffle, Zoosk is reconsidering its IPO. “Since the time we filed, the market condition around comparables that would be used to help value our company, like Angie’s List and Care.com, have not performed well,” Steckelberg told TechCrunch. “While the overall market might seem receptive to a public offering, subscription businesses have suffered.”

Zadeh agrees, saying that consumer subscription business are not currently fairing well in the market, forcing Zoosk to table it's plans for an IPO until a later date. He, Mehr and Steckelberg are adamant that the leadership changes have no bearing on Zoosk's decision and are merely coincidental.

Still, however, there is plenty riding on them. TechCrunch notes that Steckelberg is a logical replacement for Zadeh, because “She has experience building internet subscription businesses serving as controller and chief accounting officer at WebEx, joining Cisco as part of an acquisition and later serving as divisional CFO in Cisco’s WebEx consumer segment.” She has also held positions of power with Epiphany and PeopleSoft.

At a time when online dating, especially in the ever-evolving mobile sphere, is hotter than ever, Zoosk's changes stand to have a huge impact. Mehr explains that “Since day one of the company, we’ve been making product decisions over long periods of time. It created more of a top-down approach to design, where people were focused on decisions that Shayan and I were making. Kelly’s approach is more collaborative. She wants to listen to many more voices in the company when it comes to product decisions.”

Can that new collaborative approach keep Zoosk alive – and profitable – in the years to come? Steckelberg is confident. “Zoosk will be in a situation when cash-flow and current cash balance are going to be enough to carry this company forward,” she assures.

Well folks, it's that time again. The holidays are here and they brought with them their annual dose of relationship stress and dating anxiety. Emotions always fly high around this time of year, whether you're single, dating but undefined, in a relationship, or recently broken up.

It's easy to crack under all that pressure. What you need is a holiday dating survival guide, so I've put together a few tips to see you through into 2015.

1. Don't be a social media stalker. I know it's tempting to take a little trip down memory lane, but the last thing you need to do is obsess over the past or new photos of your ex getting frisky under the mistletoe. All it will do is set you back in the healing process. Instead of reliving old memories, focus on making new ones.
2. If self-control isn't your strong point, block your ex’s profile. Remove the temptation if the temptation is too great. It's the easiest way to avoid obsessiveness. This includes online dating profiles as well as social media profiles.
3. Don't rush into a rebound relationship. Dating is healthy. But trying for too much too soon never ends well. If you aren't ready to date yet (and deep down, you know the answer), spend time with friends or family, or get some of the alone time you know you need.
4. If you are in a relationship, discuss gift giving ahead of time. This is easily one of the most nerve-wracking parts of the holidays. How much should you spend? Should you get a gift in the first place? Instead of stressing yourself out with trying to guess the right answer, just ask. Together you can make a plan and set a budget.
5. If you're not in a relationship, don't hesitate to date. Fill your social calendar. Your inbox is bound to be full of invitations during this time of year, both professional and personal. Accept as many as ypu possibly can and go with an open mind. You never know who you might meet.

If you're feeling doubtful about dating during the holidays, I have news for you: it's actually the peak season for online daters. More singles sign up for online dating sites between Thanksgiving and Valentine's Day than any other time of the year. Match.com reports they see a jump of about 25-30% in new member sign-ups between Christmas and V-Day.

So what are you waiting for?

Benjamin Franklin famously said that the only certain things are death and taxes. These days, a third inevitability should be added to the list: breakups.

They're an unfortunate fact of life, even now when we're wrapped up in the joy of the holiday season. Perhaps especially during the holiday season, when the pressure's on and stress is running high. Online dating app Clover decided to find out once and for all if the holidays are prime time for breakups, and their answer is...

Yes.

Sigh.

It's a downer, but it does appear December spells doom for a number of relationships. Clover analyzed data from 150,000 of its users, and found that there’s a whopping 300% leap in Clover sign-ups from people who are already in relationships during the month of December. Of those people, most are women – 33% more than men, to be precise. 6% of women who sign up during the holiday season are already attached, compared to 4.5% of men.

What's even more interesting than the gender gap is the correlation Clover discovered with income. A person is 2.5x more likely to seek a new relationship during the holiday season if he/she earns less than $60,000 per year. Clover offers no potential explanation for the phenomenon, but Bustle suggests that it could be because “most people making under $60,000 tend to be younger than those making over $60,000, which means they’re probably less inclined to 'settle down.'”

If you know a breakup is in your immediate future, you have a major decision to make. To breakup pre-holidays or post-holidays, that is the question. If you wait until after the festivities, you risk feeling like you livied a lie, but avoid the serious potential for awkwardness or loneliness. If you end things before the holidays, you won't have a sweetie to spend them with but you'll have the confidence that comes from knowing you faced the decision head-on.

Either way, remember that singlehood – before the holidays, during the holidays, and at any time after – is hardly a terrible fate. In fact, dating isn't always all it's cracked up to be, as these dating disasters will remind you. A read through a few tales of infidelity, ill-timed Facebook updates, and dual identities should be all the proof you need that spending the holidays single isn't so bad.

Besides, then you don't have to share the eggnog.

Tinder who? Dating app Hinge has been on a slow climb uphill, but is gathering a lot of momentum as it goes. The app has broadened its reach beyond the initial major cities, which helped build not only its user base but also its brand as a serious competitor to Tinder.

This month, the app also made Time Magazine’s “Top 10 apps of 2014,” beating out the sensationally popular Kim Kardashian Hollywood despite the fact it made $100 million this year alone. (Tinder did not make the list.) Time took a dig at Tinder, noting: “Hinge sparked a flame in 2014 as it spread to more and more cities around the U.S…[Its] matchmaking connects to your Facebook account to foster friend-of-a-friend connections, a novel concept in a sea of dating apps that prioritize immediate, nearby and mostly anonymous relationships.”

Now Hinge is launching version 3.2, and due to audience demand is starting to change some of its policies, allowing for greater access to matches. Instead of providing potential matches once a day at noon, you can now view them at your convenience throughout the day. (I’m guessing this is to get people to log in more than once a day as opposed to creating a daily traffic jam.)

Hinge is also offering more matches per day. Unlike Tinder which provides an endless array of matches whenever you log in, Hinge is more particular, mostly because it has a more limited network to pull from – namely, your Facebook social circles. In order for Hinge to match you, you have to have a Facebook friend in common. (This probably encourages users to add more Facebook friends to their network, too.)

The app began in Washington D.C. and made its way to major cities including New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles. Hinge has further expanded its territories in recent months – adding St. Paul and Minneapolis, Omaha, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Miami, Tampa, Orlando, Denver, Seattle, Houston and Austin.

According to a recent article in Wired, the company has experienced 500% growth since January. While it isn’t doing Tinder’s numbers in terms of downloads and number of matches per day, the company feels its more measured growth is a better indication of its potential for long-term success.

What is in store for Hinge in 2015? On December 11th, the company announced that it raised an additional $12 million, which will help its expansion into even more cities, including its first launch into international territory in February, when it debuts in London.

Hinge is definitely a dating app to follow. For more details on this dating app you can read our Hinge review.

The holidays can bring added stress to your dating life. If you’re single, you might wonder if it’s a good idea to invite one of your dates out to a colleague’s party, or maybe you're be anxious about spending the holidays with prying family members.

If you've just started dating someone, you could be wondering if you should buy a gift or invite him to your office holiday party. While there are no cut and dry answers, there are a few tips that could help you enjoy the holiday instead of stressing about it:

Don’t invite a new date to important parties. These include your office holiday party and your family dinners. There’s no reason to subject a budding romance to scrutiny before you really know each other. The rest of the year, you probably take things more slowly, so keep that in mind and go at your own pace instead of feeling pressured to show up with a date.

Go easy on the gift. You don’t have to prove how much you like your date by the extravagance of your present. Instead, go for thoughtful or experiential – like buying tickets to an event you can attend together or passes to ice skate at the local outdoor rink. If you feel uncomfortable exchanging gifts, let your date know and sit this one out. There’s no harm in waiting.

Curb your alcohol intake. I know the holidays are a good time to enjoy eggnog and other festive cocktails, but know your tolerance before you start. This time of year we tend to indulge – in candy, food, and especially alcohol – and you don’t want to pass out on your date or otherwise do something embarrassing. Save your holiday indulgences for when you get together with friends.

Go solo! I know it seems intimidating to show up by yourself at a party, but as a friend of mine once told me, “there’s nothing sexier to a guy than showing up solo and having a good time.” And it’s true – going alone will help you break out of your shell. You will introduce yourself to new people, strike up conversations, and likely do a little more flirting than you would if you came with a friend.

Keep a good attitude. Your dates don’t want to hear about your ex, or your last terrible online date, or the reasons why you’re single for the holidays. Try to focus on the positive around you, and make an effort to have a good time. It will not only help your date to connect with you, it will help you have more fun, even if he or she isn’t “The One.”