General News

It used to be that your best friend was your favorite wingman. Now, your favorite wingman is your smartphone. It might even be your new best friend.

For years, the online dating industry has been dominated by profile-based dating sites like Match and eHarmony. There's no denying that their success has been monumental, but they are not without flaws: most of your time on a traditional dating site is spent on "administrative" duties, rather than actual dating.

First you spend hours agonizing over your profile. Then you spend countless more hours browsing, reading, and filtering profiles. Then you spend - you guessed it - even more hours crafting and responding to messages, screening strangers over the phone, email, and instant messages, and finally setting up dates with the few who pass your extensive tests.

That's safe, but it isn't exactly fun or spontaneous...and "fun" and "spontaneity" are what we really love about dating, right?

Smartphones are bringing the fun and spontaneity back to dating with location-based mobile dating apps. Grindr, the popular gay-meet-up app, was the first service to take advantage of the constant Internet access and GPS functionality provided by smartphones.

"Grindr solves a very big problem in the lives of gay men," explains Grindr chief executive Joel Simkhai. "How do I find other gay men?" The answer is simple: sign up for the app, then be given access to the location and profiles of all available men within a certain radius.

Grindr was a smashing success in almost every country in the world. 1.1 million members user Grindr daily in 192 countries...which means that only four countries don't have at least one person on Grindr.

Following the explosion of Grindr, the same team released Blendr, a similar (though not quite as successful) app for straight singles. OkCupid also jumped on the location-based bandwagon with an app called OkCupid Local, perfect for its younger, tech savvy users. Older sites like Match and eHarmony have gone mobile, but have yet to embrace location-based dating.

It's not all fun and games and sexy singles for users of these apps - there are safety and privacy concerns, and worries that only people looking for quick hookups will use them - but on the whole they are successful in bringing the spontaneity back to dating.

And don't forget what your smartphone was originally intended for: storing and calling the numbers of potential dates. Scribbling your digits on a booze-soaked cocktail napkin or handing out stuffy business cards were never very smooth moves.

Contrary to popular opinion, chivalry is still important when it comes to dating. At least it is according to a recent survey by Coffee Meets Bagel, an online dating site that uses Facebook as a tool for matching people.

Coffee Meets Bagel surveyed 557 users of the service about their dating habits, and some surprising statistics were shared. There isn't as much equality in the dating scene as we'd like to think, even though it's 2012.

According to the study, 66% of men said that they would pay on the first date, contrary to the popular belief that chivalry is on its way out. In addition, 65% of women said they'd offer to split the bill but secretly hoped he'd pay. How's that for synchronicity?

Some other surprising statistics:

• Spontaneity is in! 84% of men and 57% of women said they'd meet a date on the same day if they didn't have other plans.

• Women don't want to initiate. One in five women said they would never send the first text, and one out of three claimed that they'd never follow up with their guys first after a date, even if it was good. (Ladies, I think it's time to step it up a notch and send a text instead of playing the waiting game.)

• Men are more eager to initiate a meet-up. Fifty-one percent say they'd initiate a meet up after only exchanging a few text messages, whereas only 29% of women would do the same. Twenty-two percent of women said they'd never initiate a meet up first - it's up to the man to start.

• If a date is late, men and women are both equally patient. The vast majority of men and women would wait anywhere from fifteen to thirty minutes. Good news for those of you who are perpetually stuck in traffic.

I think it's great that guys are still willing to step up to the plate on a first date and offer to pay. There's something attractive about a man who takes care of things - women still like to feel pursued (and apparently men still like the chase).

But I do think women could be a little more proactive when it comes to their love lives. We all have mobile phones and it's easy and painless to send a text. So why not take a little more initiative with your dates? If you had a good time, send him a text and ask if he wants to meet again. If you're interested in a man, don't wait for all those back and forth emails and phone calls when you could cut to the chase and ask to meet up.

Happy dating!

From Friday October 19 2012, to Sunday October 21, 2012 members of Chemistry will be able to communicate for free.

Along with communication, this free weekend allows members to create a profile, take the personality test and to receive matches. Once you have decided which matches you wish to contact by viewing their profiles and photos, you can then use Chemistry Starters to initiate communication with that member. Chemistry Starters are fun online activities designed to help you break the ice and get to know your matches better. If you wish to skip the Chemistry Starters, no problem as you can also send emails right away. This 72 hour promotion is completely free and no credit card is required.

It looks like Chemistry had their last free communication weekend in July. To find out more about this dating site which matches members for long-term relationships you can read our Chemistry review.

We have added a new review to the Ethnic dating category for the site LatinAmericanCupid.com.

For some reason this dating site has flown under our radar for a few years. This site by far is the largest niche dating service for singles looking for Latino partners. It is at least 3 times larger than its nearest competitor (according to Alexa) in the Latin niche market. Our review team found the site easy to use and not too expensive. LatinAmericanCupid.com offers all of the features needed to make online dating an enjoyable and rewarding experience. The one recommendation we would make to improve the service is to include message boards. This would encourage community interaction between members. If you disagree with our review, you are more than welcome to include your own comment and/or review. This functionality is available on all of our review pages.

To find out more about this popular Latin singles dating site you can read our new LatinAmericanCupid.com review now.

It's a question we've all asked at one point or another: "Why has no one 'liked' my Facebook pic?!"

Sure, none of us want to admit it, but it's a universal truth...we're all just a touch vain, and we all want to know that the profile photo we spent hours choosing is catching a few eyes and setting a few hearts a-flutter. It's just human nature.

A new report in the journal Cyberpsychology, Behavior, and Social Networking offers insight into how to do exactly that. The report examined "the role of visual cues and comment congruence in perceptions of social attractiveness from Facebook profiles" and found - in less confusing English - that people with profile photos that include social cues are perceived as more physically and socially attractive than people with simple headshot-style profile pictures.

So what's a social cue?

A social cue is provides extra information about who you are and what you like to do. If you're an artist, a picture with a social cue would be a shot of you in front of your favorite piece at your first gallery show. If you're an athlete, a picture with a social cue would be a shot of you scoring the winning point from last week's game. If you're a poet or a musician, a picture with a social cue would show you performing at an open mic night.

Get it?

"These findings show how important it is to present yourself strategically on Facebook," says study co-author Seoyeon Hong. "If you want to be perceived positively by people who view your profile page, including friends and potential employers, it is important to include profile pictures with positive social cues.

That picture of you passed out in the bathtub after a night of binge drinking? Yeah, you might want to delete that.

But that shot of you accepting an award for your work with your favorite charity? Make it a profile picture, because it says something positive and meaningful about you.

The study also found that the comments left on profile pictures affect a person's perceived attractiveness. "People tend to rely more on other-generated information than self-generated information when forming impressions," explains Hong. When someone views your profile on Facebook, they are more likely to form an opinion of you based on what other say about you than on the way you present yourself.

If the goal is to produce a desired impression, it's not only important to choose your photos wisely, it's also important to monitor your friends' comments. Positive comments are helpful, and negative comments - even sarcastic ones - can be damaging.

To maximize the effects of positive self-presentation on Facebook, Hong recommends "using profile pictures with extensive social cues to show who and what you are in a positive way while also keeping track of what others say about you."

To find out more on how to use this social network to meet singles, please read our Facebook review.

When there's something we don't understand, we turn to science for an explanation...and there are few things we find more confusing than sex, love, and relationships. Science hasn't cracked all their secrets yet but it's certainly making headway, most recently in a study published in the Journal of Sex Research.

The study, "Sexual Transformations and Intimate Behaviors in Romantic Relationships," sought to examine the connections between sexual transformations (changes in sexual behavior for a partner), intimate behaviors, and relationship quality among couples in romantic relationships.

The findings indicate that relationship satisfaction is positively associated with three things:

• Your partner's frequent sexual transformations
• Your positive feelings about your own sexual transformations
• Intimate behavior between partners

The study also found that, in less intimate relationships, relationship satisfaction is greater when partners undergo more sexual transformations.

Let's break it down.

Dan Savage says that the ideal partner is GGG - Good (in bed), Giving (of equal time and pleasure), and Game (for anything - within reason). Although the sexual transformations study wasn't specifically testing Savage's claim, it seems to have proved that being "game for anything - within reason" is an important way to contribute to intimacy and satisfaction in a relationship.

To study sexual transformations, researchers asked 96 heterosexual couples about changes they had made for their partners regarding often they have sex, the kinds of sexual activities they engage in, and how they communicate about sex and intimacy. Participants also shared their feelings about these changes and discussed the frequency with which they engaged in affectionate behaviors, like cuddling and kissing, with their partners.

The highest levels of satisfaction weren't linked to an individual's sexual transformations, but rather with the sexual transformations of an individual's partner. In other words, it's not your sexual transformations that make you happy - it's your partner's.

When you think about it, it makes perfect sense. When you observe your partner making adjustments in order to adapt to your needs - like switching up the frequency of sexual activity - you feel heard, respected, and rewarded in your relationship. What's not to love about that?

The study also found that participants who felt most positive about the changes they made reported higher levels of relationship satisfaction. Again, it all makes perfect sense - when we see that the changes we've made have made our partner happy, we become happier in return. It's a beautiful thing!

The bottom line is that we should all approach relationships and sexuality with an open mind and an open heart. Communicate your interests, explore your partner's needs, and be willing to be a little game.