Relationships

Are you creeped out by the idea of posting a dating profile for all to see and then going on dates with total strangers? Is the whole idea just a little too.... technological for you? You're not alone! But on the other hand, maybe you're new to town and don't know anyone. You're not religious, so meeting people through a church or temple is out. You don't dip your pen in company ink, so that cutie in Accounting is off limits. Where are you going to meet other singles if you don't do online dating?

Consider Meetup.com. Their tagline is: Do something • Learn something • Share something • Change something. No matter what type of activities you enjoy, you can bet there's a meetup group somewhere in your area devoted to it.

Do something
Why not join a meetup group of fellow runners and train for a local marathon together? Or maybe a meetup group of Civil War enthusiasts who put on reenactments? What about a meetup of hiking enthusiasts who take on a different mountain every weekend?

Learn something
Always wanted to learn how to knit? Join a knitting circle! (And remember ladies, even if the group lacks single men, it has ladies who KNOW single men!) Want to learn French cooking? Brush up on your German you've neglected since high school?

Share something
Join a local book club to share your experiences reading great literature. Find others who enjoy going to new restaurants and share in some great cuisine together. Join a playgroup for owners of Labrador Retrievers and give your dog a workout while you meet new friends.

Change something
Volunteer to help build or renovate a playground (also check kaboom.org for groups in your area helping local kids play!). Go door to door to encourage voters to support your favorite candidate. Join a group of environmentally-minded singles and adopt a section of highway to clean.

Meetup is a great way to meet new friends with similar interests. Don't by shy about signing up! Most meetups take place in public places, so you can meet your German language meetup at the local coffeeshop and your Labrador Retriever group at the dog park and feel perfectly safe while meeting new friends.

While Meetup does have singles groups, you will find a more relaxed atmosphere, without the pressure of "OMG-THIS-IS-A-DATE!" that we often feel on one-on-one dates. If the group of people mesh with you, you can come to the next meetup, or make plans to see people at other times. If they don't, you don't have to go back. No pressure, no problems.

I found Meetup to be very useful when I moved to take a job in a new city where I knew hardly anyone. I looked up some of my interests, dropped in on a couple meetups, and developed a circle of friends faster than I ever thought was possible. I really recommend meetup.com as an alternative to online dating and a great way to make new friends.

If you would like to meet some new friends, check out our full review of Meetup.com now.

It's amazing how much a little red plastic cup can say about you, without you even realizing it.

A good deal of my regular clientele are folks in their 20s and 30s. They fall into two groups (with a little overlap): The Settled Down (focused on career or already with kids) and the Livin' It Up (single/never married, working for the weekend, still partying a bit). If we're going to get really stereotypical, members of the two groups prefer to date their own kind. The Settlers prefer to date other Settlers and the Livins prefer to date other Livins.

Problem is, there's a large group of Livins who are dying to become Settlers. They party, but they look forward to the day when they can just chill out on a Friday night and watch a movie with their One and Only Love. And the only way to achieve that dream is to either a) Date a Settler or b) Date another Livin' that's dying to become a Settler.

Jude Law, David Letterman, New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer and the list goes on and on. What do these people have in common? They have had sexual relations with someone when they were already currently suppose to be in a monogamous relationship with someone else. CNN asked an evolutionary biologist and psychiatrist if it still reasonable to expect people to partner and stay monogamous? According to them, yes, but it is not easy. A more realistic model that was suggest may be serial monogamy. This is when someone stays committed to one person for a certain stage of their life. Once that stage is over, both people move on and find another long-term relationship. Since the 70's, others have tried a similar idea, an open marriage (think swingers). You stay married to your partner but you both can still date other people.

The practice of polyamory is also on the rise. Polyamory refers to having multiple romantic relationships with several people, with all involved having full knowledge and approval. Newsweek estimates that there are about 500 thousand polyamorous families in the USA.

All of these types of relationships take hard work to ensure the happiness of all involved but being in a monogamous relationship probably has the biggest payoffs. You don't have the emotional chaos that WILL happen when dealing with multiple people and raising children becomes easier.

For more on the story, read CNN.

I'm blessed with a wide variety of friends. Straight friends, gay friends, bi friends, transgendered friends, transsexual friends. Not only are they great people, but they give me a glimpse into their worlds, especially when it comes to online dating. In this article, I want to specifically address the concerns of bisexual men in the online dating world.

Some people will argue that there's "no such thing" as bisexual men - that as soon as a man is with another man, he becomes gay and that is that. (Funny how women can be bi and that's perfectly acceptable, if not lauded!) It's a pretty narrow-minded view, but if it's yours, go ahead and click through to another article. There's nothing to see here for you.

As a bisexual man, you're dealing with narrow-minded people, both male and female. There are women who are just as weirded out by the idea of a bisexual man as men are. In fact, I have a friend who hides his bisexuality from his wife. He doesn't act on it, but he dated men before they met and continues to fantasize about men to this day. But he loves his wife and is very much attracted to her too. He keeps his bi tendencies under wraps because he'd rather not risk losing her.

One of the biggest complaints I hear from bisexual men who list their sexuality honestly on their dating profile is that they get plenty of attention from men (both gay and bi) but hardly any emails from women. This may not be a huge problem if you don't mind dating men, but if you're feeling the pull toward the fairer sex, the pickings are slim.

Oftentimes, what works to overcome this issue is posting two dating profiles - one as a gay man and one as a straight man. This works very well on free sites, but obviously will cost you double if you are on a paid site. (I've never tried it before, but I'm thinking you may even need a different credit card to register two paid profiles.)

Since gay men aren't going to be searching for straight men (usually!), your alter ego won't show up in their searches. Since straight women aren't going to be searching for gay men, they won't find your gay side. You're still bisexual, but a little more separated than usual. Is it deceptive? A little. But you are straight AND gay, so it's not entirely a lie.

Any bisexual men have additional tips on how they manage their online dating presence?

It's the gift that keeps on giving. Worse than an unwanted present from grandma, chances are that if you have an STD it's not going anywhere anytime soon. Is your romantic life over? Only if you choose to let it be over.

Join a site for other singles with STDs

There are plenty of dating sites out there that cater to singles with STDs. Everyone is positive for something, and usually they list what it is on their profile. Why not look for someone who understands what it's like to walk in your shoes? There's transparency from the start, so you don't have to have that awkward talk before things get serious. Everything's on the table.

The Times Online UK took a look at what they called Quickie Dating Websites recently. When I think of a quickie I assumed they were referring to an adult dating site where people go looking for casual sex. I was only partly right. They were talking about Affair / Infidelity dating sites for married people. On this side of the Atlantic, the most popular dating site for people looking to have an affair is Ashley Madison, where it is even guaranteed. In the Times article they took a look at Forget Dinner (ForgetDinner.co.uk) which is very popular in London. It is not advertised really as an affair dating site but most people on the service seem to be married. Profiles tend to be straight to the point and a lot of the photos contain nudity. There appears to be about 10 men for every 1 woman on the dating site.

Here are some infidelity related figures for the UK. In 2008, there was 115,200 divorces granted and 29 percent of these divorces were the result of adulterous behavior. According to a Grant Thornton UK Survey (2009), 9 percent of women would cheat on their partner as long as there was no way to be found out. In comparison, 24 percent of men said they would cheat. In the same survey 20 percent of men admitted to having an actual affair where only 10 percent of women did.

In the United Kingdom every month 7 million people visit online dating sites. This is a 27 percent increase over last year, whereas the percentage of the UK population that used the internet only grew by 4 percent.

For more on this story, and to get a couple of men's and one woman's experience on Forget Dinner read Times Online.