If the state of dating in America in 2014 was summed up in one word, it would be "open-minded."

ChristianMingle.com and JDate.com have teamed up for the second year in a row to bring you inside information on what it means to be single and dating in the United States in the 21st century. The second annual State Of Dating In America report explores the ever-evolving public opinion on sex, infidelity, gender roles and other controversial issues. It also delves into the ways mobile technology is affecting and changing societal norms of courtship and relationships.

"In today's modern world there are so many factors contributing to blurred lines and mixed messages when it comes to dating and relationships," says Rachel Sussman, a Marriage and Family Therapist and Licensed Clinical Social Worker who partnered with ChristianMingle and JDate to analyze the findings of their study. "I see clients every day who are struggling with how to navigate muddled waters in a new or long-term relationship, and this study by ChristianMingle and JDate confirms these issues exist across the country."

The big news coming out of those muddled waters this year is that singles are becoming more and more open-minded when it comes to gender roles, dating expectations and infidelity. Singles have accepted that infidelity isn't always a black and white issue. Shades of gray are an inevitable part of being in a relationship:

• 86% of men and 92% of women consider having sex repeatedly with another person to be cheating.
• 82% of women and 56% of men believed sexting or online flirting is infidelity back in 2013. But this year the number of women who believe that flirtatious messages count as stepping out dropped significantly to 86%, while the number for men dropped slightly to 51%.
• In 2014, 90% of women agree that passionately kissing someone else is cheating. In 2013, that number was 100%. Men's opinions reflected women's shifting views: 86% considered passionate kissing cheating in 2013, compared to 75% in 2014.
• Cheating isn't always a dealbreaker. Nearly a quarter of singles say they would consider marrying someone who is unfaithful to them while dating.

Attitudes toward gender roles are also evolving in major ways. Fewer men believe that they should be the primary breadwinner in a relationship, and fewer men believe it's their duty to pick up the tab on a date. We are, apparently, increasingly confused about whether or not we're actually on a date or just hanging out with someone casually, but we're also increasingly open to the idea of dating online.

94% of respondents say online dating expands their dating pool. Two out of three singles know people who've met through online dating. And 85% of singles say they believe online dating is completely socially acceptable.

For more information on the dating sites which conducted the survey you can read our Christian Mingle review and our JDate review.

If you've been single, chances are you've also had a few bad dates. Unfortunately, sometimes a bad experience is enough to turn someone completely off of dating. I've heard many women complain, "I just can't meet any good men in this city, so why should I bother?" I live in L.A., and while dating can be a strange thing to navigate here, there are certainly many people looking for love just like you.

So what do you do to bounce back when dating can feel like a waste of time? Bad dates happen. But this doesn't mean that all dates are bad. Think of it this way - some people you hit it off with and share instant chemistry. With others, you might feel a spark of interest or curiosity, and still others there's not much making you swoon. In other words, there are lots of gray areas. Not everyone is going to be amazing, but then - not everyone is going to be horrible, either. Some may pique your interest when you're not expecting it.

You might feel otherwise if you haven't met anyone special, or if you've just experienced a string of bad dates. But this is the best time to kind of recharge and adjust your perspective on dating. Following are some tips to help:

Join a dating site with a friend. Have you ever asked a friend to take an exercise class with you to help inspire you to actually go? It works well with dating, too. If you're over online dating, it's a lot more fun to join a new site with a friend. You can check in with each other to see how often you're logging in and who you're meeting. You can edit each other's profiles. When you're in it together, you don't feel so overwhelmed or alone.

Go someplace new. Instead of meeting for coffee or drinks at the places you know as a first date option, try something new. I like to recommend active dates, like jogging or wandering around a gallery or walking your dogs together. Check your local online listings for what's happening, and explore together.

Agree to a second date with someone you weren't so sure about. Maybe one of your past dates wasn't so bad - he just didn't exactly rock your world, either. He's worth a second chance. Most of us enter relationships based entirely on chemistry, but this can be misleading. How many relationships started this way but fizzled out quickly? People are more complex and rich than we could ever know in one meeting. Take more time and get to know them. You never know what could happen.

What if you could meet, woo, and win your fiancé in just 90 days?

That's exactly what Chris McKinlay, a Boston mathematician, did in June 2012. McKinlay was good at math, but not so good where his love life was concerned. So he did what any enterprising mathematician would do: developed complex algorithms and used robot profiles to systematically sift through thousands of profiles on OkCupid to find his perfect match.

McKinlay was working on his PhD at UCLA in June 2012 when he first joined OkCupid. After answering 350 questions from the thousands available on the site, he discovered that he only had a compatibility rating of over 90% with fewer than 100 women. Six disappointing dates later, and McKinlay realized that something needed to change. He decided to apply his data skills to his dating life.

He began by creating 12 robot profiles that answered all of the questions randomly and used them to mine the survey answers of all women on the site. Then, armed with 6 million answers from 20,000 prospective mates, he used an algorithm to analyze the women he would like to meet. He limited his search to LA or San Francisco based partners who had logged on within the last month and clustered their personalities into two types that appealed to him most: "indie" women in their mid-20s and slightly older creative-types. After creating two different profiles for himself designed to target each cluster, he then answered the top 500 survey questions for each group.

The hack worked. McKinlay suddenly found himself with a 90%-plus compatibility rating with more than 10,000 women. Because OkCupid notifies users when someone looks at their profile, McKinlay designed software that would automatically view as many profiles as possible, prompting curious matches to initiate conversation with him. He received about 20 messages per day and went on 87 dates, but just one - the 88th - was special.

28-year-old Christine Tien Wang, an artist pursuing a master's in fine arts at UCLA, caught his attention and the two hit it off. They've been together ever since, surviving through Wang's one-year art fellowship in Qatar and McKinlay's admission that he'd used rather unconventional means to meet the woman of his dreams. "I thought it was dark and cynical," Wang told Wired. "I liked it."

McKinlay maintains that he was just doing "a large-scale and machine-learning version of what everyone does on the site," and unusual though his approach may sound, it's hard to argue with success. McKinlay and Wang are now engaged, and he has written a book to help others find spouses through online dating...it doesn't get much more successful than that.

Online dating, mobile dating, matchmakers, speed dating, personal ads, social networks, meeting through friends and family, and that most traditional way of meeting your match: drunk in a bar. There are so many options available to singles dating in the digital age that it's getting hard to choose. And somehow, even with all those opportunities in front of us, so many people still have trouble connecting.

What gives? Is one method better than another? Is dating online better than dating offline? Is it the other way around? Experts can't seem to agree on the subject, and the reason is surprisingly simple: there is no one-size-fits-all formula. All of our personalities are different, and all of our relationship goals are different, which means there's no one right way for everyone. Every method has its merits and its faults - it's all about finding what works for you.

Here are some of the pros and cons in the Online Dating vs. Offline Dating battle:

Online Dating:

• Pro: Millions and millions of singles have given it a try, meaning your chances of being introduced to someone you click with are astronomically higher. You can meet people outside of your geographic area and social circle that you would likely never meet otherwise.
• Con: With all those people, it can be an exhausting experience. Many singles have felt drained by online dating.
• Pro: One out of five relationships now start online. With so many success stories, something is clearly working.
• Con: Yes, people lie about things like age, weight, height, income, and marital status. It can get frustrating after a few bad dates.
• Pro: It's available 24 hours a day, from the comfort of your home. And it's efficient - many sites will even help you find compatible matches using scientifically advanced algorithms.
• Con: It's easy to accidentally target your search criteria too much. If you're too specific about what you're looking for, you might miss an opportunity to meet a compatible match.

Offline Dating:

• Pro: You probably have a social network in common, which makes you feel more comfortable. It's encouraging to know your date has already been vetted by family or friends.
• Con: But by being limited to your social circles and regular activities, you will meet fewer people.
• Pro: You can determine if there's real chemistry much faster if you're meeting in person. It's harder to fake a spark when you're not behind a screen.
• Con: You might be too shy to go for it in the first place. Rejection seems a lot more real when you're face-to-face.
• Pro: You can decrease the pressure by dating in groups or going out on casual outings with friends. Less official = less scary.
• Con: It's harder to tell if someone is into you romantically - or into the idea of a relationship at all - if it's not clear that you're on a date in the first place.

Your best bet? Try a combination of both. At the end of the digital day, that special someone could be anywhere.

Jennifer Lopez recently admitted to online magazine YourTango that she doesn't like being alone, and she's owning that about herself. She was unapologetic in her declaration. Many people feel the same way, even though we may not want to admit it.

Being alone is a scary prospect. Maybe you are independent in some ways, like in terms of your career or financial status (as is Jennifer!), but when it comes to relationships you can't picture yourself single for any significant period of time. In fact, the thought of not having someone to turn to in the middle of the night - lacking a partner's support - might make you panic.

Do you jump from relationship to relationship? Do you avoid breaking up with someone who isn't right for you in order to avoid being alone? Do you demand too much, too soon from new relationships because you miss that feeling of intimacy?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, the thought of being alone probably frightens you. Are you willing to let these thoughts go, to change your attachment to relationships? Maybe jumping from one relationship to the next isn't serving you, and is leaving you feeling more desperate and alone after each break-up. But it doesn't have to. You are in more control than you think. You have the power to choose to love someone because you want to love him, not because you need to have love in your life.

It's time to turn those feelings around, so instead of acting out of fear, you'll be standing on firmer, healthier ground. When you are in a better place you will have an easier time finding the right person. More importantly, you can feel safer that you will find the right person instead of another Mr. Right Now. You can feel more secure.

First, I ask you to do these exercises. When you're head and heart are in a more supportive space, you can make better decisions about who to love:

Practice gratitude. Daily reflections on what you have in your life right now can shift your thinking. Often, we're so focused on what we want that we neglect to acknowledge all we have. But it's just as important. List five things every day that you are grateful for.

Understand you are whole. You don't need someone else to be "complete." You are a perfectly whole, capable, loving human being. Instead of assuming that you have a "better half," concentrate on all that you are right now.

Rely on your support network. Friends and family are invaluable, so don't forget about them when you're thinking about a new love. They provide support when we're low and between break-ups, and they are there to celebrate with us, too when good things happen. Cherish them.

Pursue what you love. Instead of focusing on a new relationship, think about other areas of your life where you can experience something new. Is there a hobby you've always wanted to try? Do you want to start painting again? Nourish activities you love, which can be fulfilling, too.

You know how speed dating works. An equal number of men and women attend an event. Each person spends a set period of time chatting to a prospective date, before half the guests rotate and everyone is introduced to a new potential partner. At the end of the night, each person indicates who they are interested in seeing again, and if there's a match, the organizers arrange an exchange of details.

But there's plenty you probably don't know about speed dating. Like the story of its origin: did you know that speed dating was invented by a Rabbi? Rabbi Yaacov Deyo, a Los Angeles resident and director Aish HaTorah (a Jewish Orthodox organization with a network of branches around the world), originally founded speed dating as a way to help Jewish singles meet and marry. In fact, SpeedDating, written as a single word, is a registered trademark of Aish HaTorah.

The first speed dating event took place at Peet's Café in Beverly Hills in late 1998, but it didn't take long for the idea to spread beyond Southern California. Within a year or so, the speed dating idea had gone viral and imitations had popped up around the country. It was a revolutionary way for busy singles to meet each other without the stigma associated with other kinds of dating agencies.

Although online dating is on the forefront of everyone's minds these days, it doesn't mean speed dating isn't worth a try. Science has a few interesting facts to keep in mind if you're looking to take the leap into speed dating:

1. First impressions really do count, and they happen fast. More than one study has concluded that most people make their choices within the first 30 seconds of meeting someone new.
2. Deeper issues, like religion, previous marriages, and smoking habits, were found to play a much smaller role than expected.
3. If you're looking to woo someone quickly, talk about your adventures abroad. Studies have found that dialogue concerning travel results in more matches than dialogue about films.
4. Don' judge a book by its cover, if you can help it. As is the case with online dating, what people say they want in an ideal mate when asked about it frequently does not match up with their subconscious preferences in practice.
5. Meeting in person has one serious leg-up on meeting online: your sense of smell. Scientific research has found that olfaction plays a major role in attraction, and that people wearing pheromones receive more matches. Try getting that through a computer screen.
6. Studies of speed dating events have generally shown more selectivity among women than among men, but more recent studies suggest that selectivity is based on which gender is seated and which is rotating. It may be that whoever is seated is more selective, regardless of sex.