Trying to understand the opposite sex when it comes to dating can be frustrating. I don't know how many times I analyzed how someone else felt about me or what they wanted. (A good time? A relationship? A friends with benefits situation?) For example, if a man went out of his way to come see a band with me, or if he was flirting with me all night, telling me how wonderful I was, I thought...he must like me as much as I like him. But then why wasn't he calling me?

I assumed I knew how these men felt based on a few really awesome dates we'd had - I was certain if we connected so much when we were physically around each other, he must be thinking about me when I wasn't there, too.

Was I wrong.

Men are pretty predictable when they are falling for a woman. He might be attracted to you, but that doesn't mean he wants to move forward into relationship territory. It's important to pick up on a few basic cues to see if the feeling is mutual:

He calls you consistently. Wondering why he's suddenly MIA after being all hot and heavy with you on your last date? I've been there - we think of all kinds of excuses as to why he doesn't call. Maybe he's too busy with work or maybe he's just not "a phone person." But we're not doing ourselves any favors by excusing him. The point is, if he really wants to call you, even if he's in a hospital somewhere, he will call.

He's not mysterious. While Hollywood movies like to tell us differently, men who are interested in a long term relationship don't disappear or keep part of their lives hidden. There's nothing sexy about someone who hides. A man who's interested will want you to know where he is. He wants to introduce you to friends and family. He makes plans with you. If he's not being straightforward about how he spends his time, likely you're not the only one in the picture.

He's not consumed by career ambitions. It took me a long time to figure this one out, because I assumed most of the men I dated put their careers first, relationships second. I was used to being called inconsistently or infrequently, chalking it up to "when the timing is right, he'll come around." But this isn't true. No matter where he is in his career, if you're right for each other, he will make time for your relationship.

His eyes are on you. Ever been on a date with a man you're crazy about, and he seems really distracted? If a man is really interested, he makes sure to pay attention to you. He doesn't get distracted by who else is there, including other women.

Dating is an incredibly personal subject. After all, you’re a unique individual, and ultimately you’re the one who chooses to make a commitment with someone. Including someone else in the mix is another, unnecessary set of opinions and preconceptions. Thus, it may surprise you to find that including a trusted friend or family member in the early stages of the online dating process might not be such a bad thing.

A note: the key here is to find someone who is truly trusted, and preferably, someone who only builds you up and doesn’t harm your self-esteem. Writing an online dating profile is a vulnerable process; it’s hard to be honest with yourself if you’re too self-conscious or someone is actively bringing you down. However, if you do have such a trusted friend, they can be a boon to your online profile.

First, they can function as simply a second pair of eyes, a second level of proofreading defense. Just because your spellcheck doesn’t flag a word doesn’t mean you didn’t type the wrong word altogether - but an objective observer might spot such a typo before you do. You can bounce ideas off a friend, and they’ll give you feedback; together, you might figure out a more interesting or creative way to say what you want. In this case, two heads just might be better than one.

Choosing a friend who loves and adores you means they likely see the good in you - possibly positive attributes that you don’t see in yourself. If you’re having trouble seeing the glass as half full, they can be a valuable source of ideas and simple self-esteem boosts. When it comes to choosing a photo, they can help you choose one that really shows the “real you”; when you choose a photo yourself, it can be too easy to get hung up on the fact that your hair isn’t right or your smile is a little goofy.

They might also more easily spot red flags. When we start to think negatively about ourselves, chances are we don’t even notice it; as long as we’re not actively complaining, we think we’re fine. But little turns of phrase can be incredibly revealing to an outsider. A good friend can help you scan for these, and maybe even serve as a sounding board to address these issues.

Finally, a friend who’s clued in on your online dating progress is great to have when you start going on dates. You can give them the information about your first meeting and your potential match, and feel comfortable that they won’t give you a hard time. If you’re particularly nervous about safety issues, you can even have them “lurk” in the same public space where you’re meeting your date.

That doesn’t mean your friend will be a part of any relationship you enter, or even that they’ll have information and opinions about potential matches. Again, once a relationship forms, it’s between you and your partner. But forming an online dating profile can be daunting; if you have a supportive friend, there’s nothing wrong with having a writing buddy.

First impressions count, especially in online dating. There are so many people registered on online dating sites that it's more important now than ever to stand out from the crowd. And the most effective way to do that is to optimize the first point of contact for any potential date - your photos.

I'm always surprised to see people posting grainy photos, or shots with so much glare you can't make out the person's face, or pictures taken while staring at a reflection in the bathroom mirror. These are all online profile don'ts, because it doesn't give potential dates a snapshot of the real you.

How many times have you met someone for the first time and were disappointed because she didn't look like her pictures? Well, don't make the same mistake yourself. Posting great pictures isn't just about looking your best, it's about giving people a glimpse of who you are.

Following are some ways to choose the best online dating photos:

Stay current. While you might think you look the same as you did on that trip to Vegas five years ago, you don't. It's important to show who you are now, even if you have a few more wrinkles or an extra ten pounds. Honesty goes a long way in online dating.

Pick one headshot and one body shot. Potential dates want to see who you are. Don't be sly and post grainy, blurry, or otherwise poor quality photos. Choose one nice headshot and another that is full-length. If you only post photos from the neck up they will assume you have something to hide. So show off!

Pick at least one "active" picture. This is really important. You want to tell a story with pictures, because many people flip through photos first before they even start to read the profile. If you tell them your interests in photos - whether it's a shot of you hiking, sailing, horseback riding, or playing the guitar, they have a conversation starter.

Don't hide your face. Stay away from photos with hats and sunglasses as they hide your features. People like to see your eyes, your hair, and your whole face - not what you're wearing.

Don't stand beside your toys, friends or exes. Many guys like to take pictures next to their expensive cars, houses, or boats. This is not attractive to women. It makes you look like you have something to prove. Instead, choose pictures of you - just you. And ladies - don't include a group shot with friends, otherwise he might never figure out which one is you. (And do you really want to know he thought he was emailing your friend?) And for both sexes - choosing pictures with exes is a big no-no. We can tell even if you Photoshop them out. Leave them out of the mix.

Women are crazy, right? We fall head over heels in love with men the minute we meet them, and we're obsessed and clingy forever afterwards.

At least, that's the narrative that's commonly told.

In reality, science says it's men who fall in love faster than women. One survey found that a man hardly needs to have spoken to a woman before he decides that she's the one for him. Women, on the other hand, require more time before they're willing to give their hearts away.

The survey was commissioned for the launch of Elizabeth Noble's new novel, The Way We Were, the story of childhood sweethearts who reappear in each other's lives years later. 1,500 men and 1,500 women aged 16 to 86 were polled about their love lives

One in five men surveyed claimed to have experienced love at first sight. Just over half reported being smitten with a woman after just one meeting, and nearly three-quarters admitted they'd lost their hearts within three dates.

In contrast, only one in ten women said they had experienced the fabled rush of love at first sight. Most said they waited until at least the sixth date before determining whether or not they'd found the real thing. The study also found that:

• The average British man falls in love just over three times in his life, while the average woman falls in love only once.
• More men than women claim to have loved someone who did not love them back.
• Men are also more likely to say 'I love you' first.
• Both sexes agree that their first love was the most difficult to get over. One in four said they felt they would never fully recover from the heartbreak.

Another study from the University of Texas found that it takes men 20 minutes or less to decide whether or not they want a second date with women. And the study found this interesting difference between the sexes: the more attractive a woman is, the more a man thinks she's interested in him. Women, on the other hand, tend to underestimate men's attraction to them.

Professor Alexander Gordon, a psychologist and member of the British Psychological Society, has analyzed the differences between men's and women's views of falling in love and choosing partners. He believes that men tend to turn to superficial factors, like a woman's looks, to determine whether or not they are in love, but the process of falling in love is much more complex for women.

Women are more likely to weigh all the pros and cons of a potential partner before making their choice. "Women are better at reading social situations," Gordon says, "and are more likely to ask more questions of themselves after meeting someone, like is he going to make me feel secure and will he be a good father to my children?"

So about that whole "lying in your online dating profile" thing...

You shouldn't do it. I know it. You know it. I know you know it. You know I know it. And yet you're going to do it anyway. Or, at least, you'll be tempted.

I get it...you want to put your best foot forward, and sometimes it feels like the only way to do that is to invent a totally new foot.

Here's the truth: you don't need that new foot, and it's more likely to hurt you than to help you. Here's why you shouldn't lie in your online dating profile:

Reason #1 - It's not fair to you.

• You're selling yourself short if you aren't honest in your online dating profile. You'll never find someone you're really compatible with if you lie about who you really are. Instead you'll wind up with someone who's perfect for the person you were pretending to be, which won't make either of you happy. Do yourself a favor and be honest so you can meet a match who is actually right for you.

Reason #2 - It's not fair to them, either.

• Imagine if the shoe was on the other foot (sorry for all the feet metaphors today). Would you be happy if you fell for someone, only to find out later that they were nothing like the person they pretended to be? You'd feel cheated, angry, resentful, maybe even humiliated. That kind of dishonesty will end the relationship the moment it is revealed.

Reason #3 - It's a lot of work.

• Seriously - inventing and maintaining a good lie takes a lot of effort. Unless you're some kind of sociopathic supergenius, you're probably not going to be able to pull it off. At some point your story will slip, and then you'll be in serious trouble. It's better to tell the truth from the beginning than to have to constantly cover your tracks.

Reason #4 - It's not a quality people look for in a relationship.

• Have you ever seen a dating profile that mentioned "dishonesty" in the list of desirable traits in a partner? No, you haven't. You'll never find it nestled between "Intelligence," "Humor," and "Confidence." No one is looking for a partner who thinks it's better to lie than to be themself. Long-term relationships are built on truth and trust; founding one on a lie is bound to end in disaster.

Reason #5 - It's a waste of time.

• It wastes your time. It wastes your date's time. It probably even wastes the time of someone I haven't thought of yet. Why devote so much effort to creating a profile full of lies when you could be putting that same amount of time into crafting a wonderful and honest profile? The truthful profile will make you a happier match than the dishonest one ever could.

When it comes to dating with an age difference, there's usually only one story told: men love younger women, and women love older men.

Yeah, it's true - some men do want to date younger women and some women do only go for older men - but it's not the full story, and it's time we recognized that there's more to May-December dating than one unscientific-but-still-predominant view.

AYI.com (Are You Interested?), a dating service that uses Facebook to pair people based on interests, has pulled data from its 68 million downloads and 20 million Facebook profiles to analyze what it takes to make a successful match. Their experiment focused in on the 1 million recommended pairings in a specific population of 35,942 users ages 30 to 49.

AYI's most surprising finding was this: their female subscribers were five times more likely to show interest in men who were five years their junior than men who were five years older. The old narrative is outdated and inaccurate.

Well, sort of. Men do still like dating younger women, as the AYI study proved. Among the 26,434 men between the ages of 30 and 49 who were studied, 42% said they wouldn't even consider dating a woman if she was older than them. If, however, an older woman contacted them first, they admitted they wouldn't necessarily turn her down. AYI's data shows that a man is only 22% less likely to respond to an older woman than to a younger woman if she is the one who initiates contact.

What gives, guys? If you think older women are an easy target with no other options - and it doesn't require any preliminary effort on your part - you'll go for it, but otherwise you won't go anywhere near them? That doesn't sound like the progressive society I like to think I live in.

There are a few theories that explain why AYI's study turned up its findings. Once upon a time, AYI analysts think, young women marrying older men had an appeal based on wealth. While there are still plenty of women who like the idea of marrying for money, younger women are now inundated with requests from older men on dating sites and the myth of the Sugar Daddy is never as glamourous as it seems.

A 2008 study published in the journal Psychology of Women Quarterly found that women who are 10 or more years older than their partner are more satisfied and more committed to their relationships than women who are the same age or younger than their partners. So guys...don't limit yourself to younger women, and girls...don't be afraid of dating younger men.