Advice

The holidays are a time to spend with loved ones, right? But what if you can't? What if your loved one is hundreds, or even thousands, of miles away?

Long distance relationships can be a challenging undertaking at the best of times, but the distance can feel even greater during the holiday season when everyone around you is cozily cuddled on the couch or locking lips beneath the mistletoe. If traveling isn't an option for you or your partner, there are plenty of ways you can keep the spark, and the holiday spirit, alive in spite of the miles between you.

1. Spread the joy of the holiday season with a love note. With modern technology, a love note can take any form you want - an email, a romantic IM, and yes, even snail mail. For the most personal experience, choose unique stationary and send a handwritten declaration of your love.

2. Create a support system. If your significant other can't be in the picture this year, who can you spend time with instead? Use the time to connect with friends and family, and find someone you can rely on for moral support in case the blues get the better of you.

3. Send a special gift. Just because you're not together doesn't mean you can't exchange presents. Choose something special that will remind your partner of you, like the holiday CD you've loved since you were a child, homemade gingerbread cookies, or a piece of clothing with your favorite fragrance on it.

4. Participate in holiday traditions together. Thanks to Skype, you can share your traditions no matter how far apart you may be. Set up the webcam and sing carols, watch a favorite seasonal movie together, or give each other a tour of your home's holiday decorations.

5. Chronicle your holiday adventures. You may not be able to spend the holidays together, but you can still be a major part of each other's lives during the season. Start a blog and chronicle all your December adventures, from ice skating, to cooking a holiday feast, to lighting the menorah or hanging ornaments on the tree. Post stories and pictures to make your partner feel as much a part of your life as possible.

And if all else fails to cheer you up, there's always one more option: purchasing a plane ticket and paying a surprise visit to your SO! That's even better than a visit from Santa Claus...

When you think of the holidays, what do you picture? Exchanging gifts? Cuddling by the fireplace? Kissing under mistletoe, or at midnight on New Year's Eve?

Everywhere you look, the holiday season is full of images of happy couples, and singles are faced with a paradox that's as old as Santa Claus himself: a time that is supposed to be spent with loved ones feels like the loneliest time of the year. Some of us are happy being single - we look forward to seeing our friends and family, and no date means one less present to buy! - but others just can't get into the season's spirit of peace, love, and joy when they don't have a partner to share it with.

If you fall into the latter category, it's time re-imagine the holiday season. It isn't about forgetting that you're single - it's about celebrating the fun and freedoms that go along with being unattached. This year, take a different approach to yuletide singlehood and try this:

1. Spread some holiday cheer. Get into the spirit of the season by volunteering. Donate your time to a good cause, like helping out at a toy drive for underprivileged children or serving up delivious holiday treats at a homeless shelter.

2. Get a head start on your New Year's resolutions. It's never too early to start working on your resolutions for the new year. Hit the gym, clean up your diet, meditate, start learning a language, sign up for a class, develop a new hobby...the sooner you start developing good habits, the better they'll stick in 2012.

3. Make use of the mistletoe. You don't have to be attached to get a little lovin' during the holiday season. Take advantage of the mistletoe and your single status by stealing smooches with sexy strangers (and not-so-strangers) whenever you can.

4. Indulge your guilty pleasures. Do you have a fondness for Christmas tunes sung by Elvis? Do you like to curl up on the coach and watch an endless stream of holiday specials? Do you decorate by stringing lights from every surface of your home and leaving them up until May? Do you eat entire batches of holiday cookies in one sitting? I have good news: you can do whatever you want when you're single without fear of embarrassment or incriminating pictures.

5. Be your own Secret Santa. Ok, so it won't actually be much of a secret, but that doesn't make it any less fun. Picking out the perfect gift for someone else is stressful - picking out the perfect gift for yourself is awesome. You're guaranteed to get exactly what you want this year!

See? Single life isn't so bad after all!

When constructing an online dating profile, everyone wants to be a good writer. The goal is to let your personality shine through, so that the reader feels like they already know you enough to want to know more. Of course, as anyone who’s tried to create a profile knows, it’s impossible to upload your entire brain, or personality, to your profile, so a profile is an introduction at best. It’s easy to see when you’re on that end of the spectrum; when you’re the reader, however, it’s harder to remember. But remember we should.

Falling into the trap of feeling like you “know” someone before you’ve even corresponded can happen to anyone, whether you’re new to the online dating world or a longtime veteran. Here are a few of the ways it happens, and why it’s important to try to avoid it:

For someone who’s a novice in online dating, the ability to “get to know” someone a little without worrying about rejection (yours or theirs) is exciting and new. It’s also fun to realize that you can easily search for common interests. Perhaps you’re suddenly awash in a sea of people who like the same things you do, when before finding even one person with that common interest seemed next to impossible. So what happens? Little “crushes” might be formed before the first email is ever sent.

Unfortunately, even with common interests, there are other factors at play, like the numbers game that comes with dating or simply basic chemistry. Rejection still happens - and when you’ve already formed an attachment, it stings all the more. Over time, it’s emotionally exhausting, and probably a leading source of online dating burnout.

Veterans to the online dating world might not crush at first sight of a profile anymore, but they have their own pitfalls to look for. Call it becoming cynical, or jaded; after you’ve looked through countless profiles it becomes tempting to lump people into “types.” “I’ve dated this sort of person before,” they might think. “They’ll be the sort who likes x and has y as a flaw.”

That might be an effective way to wade through thousands of profiles and narrow it down to a few you’re interested in, but it can be dangerous if this sort of thinking persists all the way to the dating stage. When you think of a person as a “type,” not an individual, you’re not fully engaged in getting to know them. Someone who thinks they already know all the answers might, in turn, appear bored, or smug, or impatient. Not the best footing on which to begin a relationship - or even get a second date.

So no matter how long you’ve been at online dating, be wary of drawing conclusions based on profile alone. After all, a profile is a way of saying hello, forming that first impression - nothing less, but nothing more.

In the days before I owned a digital camera, I was frequently unpleasantly surprised. “That’s what I look like to everyone else?” I would think dismally when I’d finally see a picture of myself. “Why didn’t anyone tell me that haircut was awful? I had no idea that outfit really made me look so bad!” Once I acquired a camera - not even a good one, just something where I could check out the results quickly - a strange thing happened. Rather than have my self-esteem trampled on a more regular basis, the camera became a friend.

It’s something of a joke in movies, but there’s a reason why the fashion industry has long used Polaroids as backup for their eyes - it’s a fast and simple way to get an objective third-person perspective. When you’re viewing an outfit in a mirror, looking down upon yourself, it’s just not the same as someone standing ten feet away from you. Now, digital technology is even better - if you find you’ve made a terrible mistake in dressing, you can quickly change, delete the evidence, and it’s like it never happened.

That doesn’t mean that cameras are infallible; turning a three-dimensional person into a two-dimensional image can have unfortunate side effects. The wrong angle can, indeed, “add ten pounds.” Some days we’re simply less photogenic than others. The beauty of digital technology, however, is that taking many pictures makes it increasingly obvious whether it’s a simple issue of angle or a bad hair day. In the days when we saw only a handful of pictures of ourselves every so often, we might wonder if we looked like that every day. With a digital camera, it’s easier to brush off a bad picture as simply that.

Playing with a digital camera, while uncomfortable at first, can even help raise self-confidence. From the privacy of your own home, you can learn that the look you thought was coy actually gives you two chins, or that there really is a better “side” to you. Then, the next time you’re in a group shot with friends, you can literally put your best face forward - or your best facial expression, anyway.

Finally, being familiar with a digital camera can give you a range of choices when it comes time to choose a default picture for an online dating profile. Why limit yourself to a choice between one picture that’s four years old and another when you’re in mid-sneeze? The less afraid you are of the camera, the more natural you’ll become in front of it, and you’ll advance to a level where you’re finding a picture that best captures your personality, instead of simply one where you look okay.

For some, the camera is their worst enemy - but with digital cameras available cheaply, even found on our phones, there’s no reason not to see the camera for what it is: a tool. When properly mastered, it can even become a friend.

Dating can be stressful and can make us question our confidence. And when you're searching through online profiles or checking your inbox for matches, you can go crazy wondering why someone didn't write you back or why suddenly you've stopped getting messages.

Some of my friends used to adopt "dating personas" to deal with the emotional roller coaster of dating. Instead of letting themselves get hurt, they preferred to date and dump quickly, assuming an "I don't care" position. They never let someone get close enough to see who they really were. After all, they were independent, many successful at their careers. They assumed that their love lives would follow suit if they approached things with the same efficiency they'd use in sales meetings.

As a friend, I knew them well enough to see through their acts. They weren't letting anyone in. Instead, they were trying to be who they assumed others would find attractive - someone confident who didn't need a relationship. So who did they end up attracting? Unavailable men or women; ones who weren't interested in a relationship either. Maybe they were both fooling themselves.

If you find yourself acting differently on dates than you would in your "real life" with co-workers or friends, take a step back. Ask yourself what you really want, and if you're willing to let yourself be vulnerable. Ask yourself if you're afraid to let your personality show through to your dates. Are you a little goofy, or insecure, or nerdy? Do you think a date wouldn't understand your love of video games, or that you make a living as a gardener instead of a flashy career like investment banking? Do you think these traits make you seem less attractive than other people?

On the contrary, your uniqueness is what attracts people to you. There are plenty of people who fit generic descriptions of an "ideal partner" in terms of career, looks, and even personality traits. But that doesn't mean when two people meet they will click. That all depends on how willing you are to put yourself out there. How willing you are to be yourself, perceived shortcomings and all. This is the only way for two people to really connect.

Not everyone is going to be right for you and you might get your heart broken again, but continuing with a dating persona guarantees that you won't meet someone who loves you for the person you are. And isn't that the relationship we all want - someone who accepts us as we are, faults and all?

Do you search through online dating profiles, filtering out your options based on a list of ideal traits you want in a partner? Do you fill out the questionnaires according to your desired traits, and weed through profiles that don't match these ideals?

As it turns out, this could prevent you from meeting The One.

According to new research from Northwestern University and Texas A&M University, people tend to be more picky when online dating than when meeting someone in person. People liked potential partners that matched their ideals when reading their profiles, but those same ideals didn't matter once they met in person.

"People have ideas about the abstract qualities they're looking for in a romantic partner," said Eastwick, assistant professor of psychology at Texas A&M University and lead author of the study. "But once you actually meet somebody face to face, those ideal preferences for traits tend to be quite flexible."

The researchers concluded that attraction between two people is more three-dimensional than just matching a list of qualities each prefers.

"People are not simply the average of their traits," he said. "Knowing that somebody is persistent, ambitious and sexy does not tell you what that person is actually like. It doesn't make sense for us to search for partners that way."

Because online dating offers so many options (and new faces every day), we like to think that all this choice is helpful in finding the right person. In actuality, you could be dismissing someone on paper (or online rather) based on one or two traits you don't like, but if you were to meet in person, you could be attracted to the person as a whole despite not having some of the traits you find generally attractive. Again, romance and chemistry are unique to each couple, and often you don't know where you'll find it.

My advice based on this helpful bit of research is: be very open in your online dating filters. Instead of ruling out men or women of a certain age, income, height, weight, personality type, etc., have an open mind. Make a short list (three things) that are "must-haves" and the rest make negotiable. This way, you're opening up your options and may discover you connect with someone you otherwise would never have dated.

The more open you are to dating outside your "type," the less likely you'll repeat the same relationship mistakes of the past. When you're in new territory, you have new experiences. You might even say, "I would never have gone out with him based on his profile, but I'm so glad I did!"