Online Dating

You’ve got something that those young whippersnappers don’t: a lifetime of experience and common sense. But how can you play this to your advantage when it comes to getting back into the dating scene?

Dating has changed since we first ventured out there. While the ideas of courtship aren’t completely dead, the lines of propriety have been blurred. You should never have to worry about your personal safety when it comes to dating, however. By using that lifetime of common sense you’ve accumulated along with a few tips, you’ll be in the mix of things and enjoying the process of getting to know new people. Now, that’s better than worrying, isn’t it? Here’s a list to get you started with safe dating (and while these tips aren’t just for seniors, we won’t tell anyone!) :

To begin, I'd like to say that I've been on both sides of the weight spectrum. I've been thin and athletic and I've been (according to BMI) obese. Was it easier to get dates when I was thin? Sure!! Does quantity mean quality? Heck no. When I was thin, I found I got more emails from men who wanted to comment on how "hot" I was without actually giving any consideration to whether they matched the kind of man I wanted to date. And often, when I did choose to date one that seemed compatible, it quickly went down the road of him trying to get me in bed.

As a curvy girl, I found that the men who emailed me (and emailed me BACK - I always took initiative for my own dating success) were much more compatible. Were there fewer of them? A bit. But the quality was much higher. The matches were much closer. I got fewer of the drive-by "U R Hot" emails, so I could use that time to talk to men who had taken the time to read my profile. When I went on dates, they were genuinely nice guys. Many of them are still friends of mine, some I dated casually, and I had a couple long-term relationships.

eHarmony in the United Kingdom launched in July 2008. It is just over a year later and they now have 400,000 members. For the first couple of months eHarmony was giving out free 90 day subscriptions to all new members (see Story), but beyond that they did not do a lot of marketing. According to Greg Waldorf, eHarmony's chief executive,

... last year's launch was deliberately "soft" so the company was not left in the awkward position of having lots of members of one sex signed-up without a sufficient number of the opposite sex to provide enough suitable matches.

For comparison, a competitor of eHarmony's in the United Kingdom, Match.com, has had 6.5 million singles signup as members since launch (a number of years ago).

Touch and date - that's the way with the iPhone! Online dating has made the process of getting out and meeting new people easier than ever before. But dare we say the iPhone has made dating even easier? There are enough iPhone dating apps to fill a bucket and have it runneth over, but to help you save time, we've gone through the best of the best and made this short list for you to review. Some of the apps are free, some are affiliated with major online dating sites. Whatever your preference, use the following list to your advantage. Spend less time searching and more time meeting!

Match.com iPhone App
Designed to work hand-in-hand with your Match.com online dating account, this app is not only FREE, but it's very intuitive to use. While you cannot view all of the information you would generally view if you logged in on your computer, you can see pictures, read profiles, wink, save favorites and send messages. The interface is well-designed and they've recently added a new feature where you can search for other members of Match.com who are nearby and send them a message! Other cool features are the ability to take photos with your iPhone and instantly upload them to your Match.com profile and edit your profile information on the fly.

It looks like eHarmony has topped the 30 million member mark (unofficially). According to the Unofficial eHarmony Blog and their super sneaky technique of finding the total membership count, this milestone happened on September 10, 2009. To find out for yourself where eHarmony is at, you just have to check the JavaScript source code of the membership page.

To find out more about this dating service, check out our eHarmony reviews.

It's Just Lunch partnered with American Way In Flight Magazine to poll airline passengers about dating. One of the first question they asked passengers is, how long does it take them to decide on the first date whether they will go on a second date with the person?

• 13 percent would give their date longer than 1 hour.
• 22 percent usually gives a date 1 hour.
• 66 percent of respondents said in the first half hour of meeting a person is when they decide if they will ever go out with the person again.
• 16 percent said they decide in 5 minutes.
• A further 5 percent know right away.