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It's great being in a new relationship - you spend more and more time with your partner, basking in the heady feelings of love. But along with this newfound happiness, do you tend to pack on a few extra pounds, too?

There is a common notion that when you settle down into a relationship, it's easy to let yourself go. When you're single, you tend to focus on losing weight and having healthier habits in order to attract a partner. But when you're in a relationship, the pressure to keep yourself looking as attractive as possible subsides. As it turns out, there is research supporting this idea.

A recent study from The Ohio State University showed that women are more likely to gain weight when they get married (whereas men are more likely to gain weight when they get divorced). Another study, published in Obesity Research, reported that women have an average weight gain of six to eight pounds over a two-year period after getting married. But it's not just married couples - a 2009 study from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found that after studying 7,000 individuals over a period of a few years, those who were in relationships and moved in with their significant others were twice as likely to be overweight than their single peers.

There are some explanations for this phenomenon. For one, when meals are shared (and this is one of the most common bonding activities a couple does together), you indulge together more often. Maybe you go out for a rich pasta dinner, or you buy the extra large tub of popcorn in the movie theatre, or you get an ice cream when you're spending an afternoon at the park. It's easier to indulge with someone else.

This doesn't mean that relationships equal bigger waistlines. In fact, as long as you're aware of how your eating patterns change when you move from single to coupled, you can do a lot to prevent it.

Talk about it. There's nothing like making a plan - if you feel pressured to eat when you're not hungry, or eat foods that aren't so good for you, then feel free to let your partner know that you want something different.

Eat individually. You don't have to enjoy the same meal (or the same portions) together. If you want to have a salad while he has pizza, then make pizza and salad for dinner and each enjoy your own thing. My husband is vegetarian but I eat meat, so sometimes I make myself fish or chicken while he has a veggie burrito.

Make time for exercise. One of the first casualties in relationships is forgoing exercise. What if instead you both decided to take walks, jog, or go to the gym together? Staying healthy is a good goal for any couple.

You saw his profile, emailed back and forth a bit, and now you’re meeting him for the first time. Unfortunately, you’ve only been together ten minutes and already you can tell things are not going well. Maybe he’s made some inappropriate comments, or he’s not quite what you pictured, but either way – you want to escape.

You contemplate standing up and walking out, but you don’t want to seem rude. Or maybe you should make up an excuse – like you’re feeling sick or you forgot it was your Grandmother’s birthday dinner that night. But that seems too cliché. What is the right thing to do?

Well, if you don’t want to have to text your friend to make up some emergency and call you, there are plenty of apps available to help rescue you from a bad date. eHarmony just developed a free one called appropriately Bad Date Rescue, which was surprising to me considering eHarmony does such a thorough job in matching its members. But dating is tricky – often you can’t predict certain behavior or outcomes.

Bad Date Rescue provides fake emergency calls during your dates if they aren’t going so well. You can even schedule a specific time in advance of when the call will arrive, along with various scenarios of plausible emergencies, like your mom calling to let you know your sister is in labor, or your neighbor informing you that a water pipe in your basement has burst. The app also comes with a fake voice on the other end of the line to make the call look more realistic. It also provides scripts to walk you through what you can tell your date once the call arrives.

While I love dating apps, and this kind of thing can be helpful if you have a hard time saying no to people, it really should be a last resort. Honesty goes a long way, rather than relying on excuses and apps to do the dirty work for you.

Instead of relying on an app, tell your date that you’re just not feeling the connection, thank him for his time, and excuse yourself. At least this kind of honesty will help you avoid those uncomfortable moments in the future when your date texts you saying, “had a great time – can you get together again this weekend?” There are only so many times you can excuse yourself by being busy with work or family.

Or worse, your date will recognize that it’s a fake emergency and then feel even worse than if you’d just told him you weren’t interested.

It’s up to you how you handle things, but eventually you’ll have to come clean and admit that you’re just not that into him.

To find out more about the dating site which released the Bad Date app you can read our eHarmony review.

If you've ever had a boyfriend or girlfriend make you a playlist, you know that music can affect your level of attraction. If you loved it, maybe you wanted to jump across the table and declare your undying passion for your boyfriend. And if you hated his musical taste? Well, it was enough to make you rethink the relationship.

At least that's what popular music streaming service Spotify is betting on. Because of the link between music and love, they have developed two new dating apps, Fellody and Tastebuds, to help merge the two. Rather than traditional dating apps that match based on algorithms, profiles, or location using a GPS, these apps let you cut straight to the artistic chase, matching people based on similar musical tastes. So if you're a fan of Taylor Swift you won't be paired with someone who hates her music (in case that kind of thing is a deal-breaker for you).

Tastebuds matches users with a potential partner based on how much they listen to particular artists on Spotify. The potential drawback is that it scans your entire music library, so you can't hide the fact that you listen to One Direction every morning before you get ready for work. But then again, neither can your match.

Fellody is a little more customized, letting users drag and drop their playlists before searching for matches. This way, you can report only the bands you enjoy that you want to report - so you can carve out your own musical identity to potential love interests. Fellody also provides more detail, showing the percentage of overlaps in each match's music interests. Members can see all the artists they have in common, and can find out what other kinds of music a match is listening to. So even if you don't find a love match you might find a new band you like.

"Spotify and Tastebuds both believe that music is the most effective way of connecting people," Alex Parish, co-founder of Tastebuds, said in a statement. "In fact, we've found that you're far more likely to get a response to a message you send on Tastebuds than any other dating site -- 43% of first messages get a reply."

While I'm not sold on the fact that music brings people together for the long-term, I do think it provides an interesting starting point to strike up a conversation. Sometimes it's difficult to ask the same old questions for each new date, and can make you feel like you're in a rut. When you can discuss a common interest like music, you're already in a better place when you meet for the first time. I'm hopeful that Spotify's apps will bring weary online daters a new way of meeting potential love interests - and success in starting a new relationship.

ChistianCafe.com is a popular dating site for Christian singles and has been for over 10 years now. Earlier this year they helped host a singles event called "Bash for the Unattached" with the C3 Newmarket Church located in Ontario, Canada. The event was designed for Christian singles to meet together in a fun and friendly environment. Hundreds of singles showed up for the bash and the speed dating event. Here is a video which highlights the event:

Note: Unfortunately the source to the video and/or image which once was displayed here has since been removed by the authors for an unknown reason.

For more on this dating site you can also read our Christiancafe.com review.

It looks like the dating site Plenty of Fish is currently down. It appears to have gone offline sometime late July 6th PST. No official information is available at the moment for the dating site outage. When you try to access POF.com or Plentyoffish.com visitors will receive some sort of “Service is unavailable” message (depends on your browser).

A few people have also reported to us that they have received a database error message. These messages seem to indicate a server problem and not a DNS issue. These problems could range from a hardware or software failure to some sort of denial of service or hacker attack (seems unlikely at this point).

If you have any new information on why Plenty of fish is down, please post a comment. This article will be updated when we receive any more news on why Plenty of fish is down and when it goes back online.

Starting Independence Day, eHarmony is having a free communication event for 4 days. It will run from Wednesday July 4th, 2012 until Sunday July 8th, 2012 (US website only).

To participate in a free communication event (FCW) all you need to do is sign up as a member on eHarmony.com and create a free profile. Filling out the profile will take you about 30 minutes. Your answers to the profile questions eHarmony asks you are then used by eHarmony's matchmaking system to give you a number of matches right away. With these matches (and all matches you receive during the promotion) you can then communicate with for free. Features not included during free communication events are photos and Secure Call. No credit card is required for this promotion.

eHarmony's last FCW happened in May (see Story). By our count this promotion will be eHarmony's 40th free communication event for the US site.

To find out more about this dating site and what it can offer people looking for a long-term relationship, you can check out our review of eHarmony.com.