General News

Online dating has been a thing for a long time now, so I guess it's about time someone invented online group dating. After all, the double (or more!) date is a well-respected dating institution, and it deserves a virtual version just as much as one-on-one dating does.

Grouper brings together matchmaking, blind dating, and networking for a unique new experience that pairs two friend groups based on their Facebook profiles and their answers to a short survey. That all sounds pretty standard, but here's where it gets a little different: Grouper users never exchange emails or chat using an instant messenger. In fact, they don't interact virtually at all.

Here's how it works: 3 friends pay the $20-per-person registry fee, answer all required questions and emails, then meet at the assigned date, time, and bar. The meet and greet then occurs over a round of complimentary beverages (but drinkers take note: the "complimentary" thing only applies to well drinks and beers).

Michael Waxman, CEO and Founder of Grouper, came up with the idea for the "social experiment" and coded the website on a whim. A week later he launched his new venture from NYC, convinced that group dating "would be way better than a dating site."

But there were still plenty of questions for Waxman and the rest of the Grouper crew. Would people actually be willing to meet in person without ever contacting each other? No emails, phone calls, Skype calls, texts, chats, tweets, Facebook messages, carrier pigeons, or other communication of any kind...would any singles actually be brave enough to give it a shot?

The answer, it turns out, is yes. The site sparked interest right away, and thousands of Grouper meet-ups have been conducted since the first, in which Waxman set up two friends on a blind date. One couple, who met during the sixth Grouper, are still dating. Grouper even sent them a gift for their one-year anniversary.

Waxman believes the success of the Grouper model lies in its low-key atmosphere. “We’re not fond of labels, and we think that a lot of people nowadays want to meet more casually, more organically,” he says. “We find that by not throwing it in a bucket of ‘this is networking,’ ‘this is dating,’ ‘this is whatever,’ people just show up more open-minded and have a better time.”

China is the new frontier for online dating. It is the fastest growing market place with millions of new singles joining dating services every month. In under 2 years (by 2014) it is expected that China’s online dating market will double its 2011 value to 2.02 billion Yuan. This works out to more than $317 million US dollars.

In 2010 a survey by China’s government found that of China’s 1.3 billion citizens, about 14 percent of them, or 180 million are single. For comparison in 2008 it was reported that the USA with its 300 million plus population had 93 million single people. Percentage wise this works out to about 30 percent which is twice the amount of singles as reported in China. With the China survey no break down by gender was mentioned but educated and self-sufficient single women are on the rise. A new phrase has been coined which appears in the China’s official dictionary. The phrase is Sheng Nu which means Unwanted Girls in English and is defined as all single woman over the age of 27.

The current top 3 dating sites in China are (based on their membership claims):

• Zhenai.com – 63 million users
• Baihe.com – 40 million users
• Jiayuan.com – 39 million users

For a list of dating sites that cater to Asian singles in North America and Europe you can check out our Ethnic dating category.

Did you know there's an International Kissing Day on July 6th (or World Kiss Day)? Me neither, but it sounds like a holiday I'd be happy to celebrate every year.

Zoosk.com celebrated this year's International Kissing Day with a survey and an infographic, after collecting votes from thousands of couples and singles in 9 countries. Here's what they had to say:

• French kisses are more popular in the United States than they are in France! 46% of Americans called the French kiss their favorite way to smooch, but only 21% of French snoggers said the same thing.
• The least favorite kiss in America was the air kiss, which received only 1% of the vote. The most popular way to lock lips in France, with 55% voting in favor, was a "single sensual lip kiss."
• Americans and Italians have very liberal views when it comes to public displays of affection. 95% of Americans and 90% of Italians said they're totally fine with PDA.
• Americans are also the most likely to kiss on the first date. 52% were up for a first-date smooch, while less than half of respondents in European countries said the same thing. Next came Sweden with 47%, followed by Italy (42%), Denmark (37% ), France (32%), and Germany (b%).
• Most people, wherever they reside, think bad breath is a major turn-off. Other big kissing no-no's were wet kisses, using too much tongue, a kisses that are too short.
• There's another kind of "French kissing" that's gaining popularity. And no, this kind doesn't involve tongue. Using a kiss as a greeting is now becoming a common practice outside of France. 55% of Americans say they've adopted the French tradition that 95% of French respondents say they use!
• You say goodbye, and I say hello. Which kiss is more important - the kiss "hello" or the kiss "goodbye?" According to Zoosk's survey, it depends on where you live. 64% of Americans favored the goodbye kiss, while 84% of French lovers gave precedence to the kiss "hello."
• And here's something I bet you've always wondered: What is the most romantic Hollywood screen kiss? The award went to Rachel McAdams and Ryan Gosling for The Notebook, a kiss they repeated at the MTV Movie Awards after winning the coveted Best Kiss honor.

Can't wait for International Kissing Day 2013!

For an up-close-and-personal look at the Zoosk infographic, click here. For more about the dating site which provided the graphic you can read our review of Zoosk.com

Now there's a headline I never thought I'd write...

Nobody likes dirty laundry. We all wish our mothers would still do our laundry for us. In fact, some of our mothers may actually still be doing laundry for us.

But now you may want to give Mom a break, because a new event is in town that promises to use your dirty laundry to find the love of your life. The Pheromone Party is a gathering of adventurous singles who spend an evening sniffing t-shirts and letting their noses lead them to the perfect mate. Sure, it sounds a little crazy, but so did online dating when it first came out.

Judith Prays created The Pheromone Party to capitalize on nature's most basic instincts. Why put the emphasis on attractive features, dancing skills, and witty conversation when you could date based on primal attraction switches? Cut out the middle man!

To score an invite to the get-together, interested singles must apply by sending a picture...of their armpit. Then participants wear a t-shirt to bed for three days in a row, without using deodorant or perfume. On the evening of the party, each shirt is placed in a Ziploc bag, assigned a number, and color-coded by gender.

Most parties involve drinks, dancing, and dj-ing, but at a Pheromone Party guests spend the evening sniffing each other's 3-day-old shirts and mulling over the scents like sommeliers tasting a new vintage. Instead of "oakey," "crisp," and "tannic," however, Pheromone Party attendees use descriptions like "hint of onion" and "strange scent of Play-Doh."

When a particular scent tickles their fancy, a photographer snaps the sniffer holding up the shirt in question and the photo is projected on a wall. If you spot your shirt on the wall, it's a clear invitation to introduce yourself to the lucky lad or lass who found your odor so appealing.

Yeah, it all sounds a little insane, but there might be some actual science to back it up. Genetic researchers have found that humans use scent to weed out genetic combinations that could result in weaker offspring, so it stands to reason that scent could also be used to pick out partners who are ideal genetic matches.

So far the parties are only held in New York and Los Angeles, but if success is anything to go by, they may be expanding soon. Judith Prays says that 12 of the 40 people invited to the first party hooked up, and that half of those hook ups turned into long-term relationships

Forget about following your heart. Now it's time to follow your nose.

Remember that lesson you learned about not judging a book by its cover? Throw it out the window. The latest dating site to join the fray is all about appearances.

The site in question is FindYourFaceMate.com, a new dating service that's set to launch on July 10. Researchers studying attraction have found that facial features play an integral role in mate selection. When someone has features similar to your own, you are naturally inclined to trust them. And we all know trust is the foundation of any good relationship, right?

The idea of “facially compatible” partners isn’t a new one, though this may be the first time it’s been used so consciously. Think of all the times you’ve seen a cute couple and thought “Wow, they look so alike!” That’s the science of attraction at work.

Kerri Johnson, an assistant psychology professor at UCLA, explains that "There is evidence that general liking improves when people look like you." In romantic relationships, compatible partners tend to be of a similar level of attractiveness.

"Across dimensions, people who are similar tend to be attracted to each other," Johnson says. "'Birds of a feather flock together' characterizes most aspects of interpersonal attraction," and “There's a long-standing pattern where a person's own level of attractiveness is matched in their partner.”

Face.com is the service behind the magic of Find Your FaceMate. The Israeli company has provided Face.com technology to Facebook for nearly two years, in the form of the tag suggestion tool which helps users identify their friends in photographs, and was recently acquired by Facebook.

The same technology will be used by Find Your FaceMate. The service examines 63 points of interest on the human face to determine whether the same person is featured in multiple photos. The software examines each of the facial features and compares them with other faces in an attempt to make a positive identification. On Facebook, it’s used to recognize the same person. On Find Your FaceMate, it will be used to find singles with similar features who could be potential dates.

But the face isn’t everything, so I guess what your parents taught you about judging books is true after all. “In the beginning, it’s the face,” says Christina Bloom, founder of Find Your FaceMate. “But there are other things at play. Do you have the same values? It doesn’t mean it’s going to be a successful relationship.”

It seems like a no-brainer: the more you say "thank you" to your partner the more likely you are to stay together. But when you're in the middle of a fight or you've been together a while, it's easy to just expect things from your partner, rather than appreciating what you do for each other on a regular basis.

A new study was released from University of California, Berkley, that found couples who did appreciate each other were more likely to increase commitment to their relationships, and those who didn't were more likely to split. Researchers examined 50 couples who had been in relationships for about fifteen months, asking them to complete questionnaires nightly for about a week, documenting how appreciated they felt and how appreciative they were towards their partners.

On days where participants felt appreciated by their partners, they were more likely to express and return feelings of appreciation the following day. Also, they were less likely to have broken up nine months later, and were more committed to the relationship.

Researchers also brought participants into the lab so they could study how the couples interacted: how often they touched each other, how they spoke to each other, how engaged each was in the conversation and how often they made eye contact. They discovered that, the more understanding, validating, and caring participants were towards their partners, the more appreciated the partner felt and the happier both were in the relationship. The physical gestures - making eye contact and touching your partner - were seen as ways partners show gratitude.

"When you are appreciative and you notice the value in your partner," said researcher Amie Gordon in an interview with LiveScience, "it helps you realize what you have and makes you want to hold on to it. You have something good and you think, 'I want to keep it.'

It makes sense; when we take our significant others for granted it leads to feelings of insecurity, doubt and frustration. This can also be the cause of miscommunication, especially when couples are together for a long time. Instead of really listening to what each other says, it's sometimes easier to make assumptions which aren't correct. This is why it's so important to communicate well in any relationship, no matter how long you've been together or how well you think you know the other person.

Couples in the study ranged in age from 18 to 60, and about half of them lived together at the time of the study.