Relationships

Pokemon Go took the world by storm when it launched this summer. The app has successfully gotten people up off their couches to explore new neighborhoods in order to play, so it’s only natural that its positive momentum to connect people can influence the online dating sphere, too.

And now thanks to Project Fixup, a US-based dating and matchmaking service, you can sign up with a new service dubbed PokeDates in order to find your “PokeMate.”

PokéDates aim is simple: it offers single Pokémon Go players a chance to meet up at a prearranged "PokéStop” or "PokéGym" before exploring their city for various Pokemons, adding a social – and potentially romantic – element to the hugely popular game.

Here’s how it works: Pokémon Go players answer a few questions about themselves and what they’re looking for in a potential date, plus whether they have any deal breakers. Next, players/ users add in dates and times when they’re available to play the augmented reality game with a potential date. Then the Pokédaters each get an email with all the details about when and where to meet their match. After that, it’s up to the players to see if there's chemistry.

Sounds great, right? You can play the highly addictive Pokemon game, which had crowds at Central Park last week searching together madly for a rare Pokemon, and potentially meet the love of your life while doing it.

There’s a catch, however.

The first date is free with Promo code POKEDATES2016, but after that, it costs $20 per date to play, which is kind of pricey by online dating standards. It’s currently available in the US and Canada, but only for players 25 and older.

Sarah Press, Project Fixup CEO cofounder, said in a statement: "Pokémon Go has taken the world by storm and it’s more fun to play with a companion. We hope PokéDates will bring singles together to experience the joy of the game and explore their city while getting to know one another."

Of course, you could just meet other Pokemon Go players while you are out playing, as long as you take some time to strike up a conversation. But where’s the fun in that?

According to Business Insider, PokéDates claimed to have over 2,200 new signups within eight hours of being live, with 10-15 new ones occurring every minute.

And according to US Weekly, Since Pokémon Go launched in early July, it has broken records as the fastest mobile game to hit 10 million downloads.

According to Match’s Singles in America Study, most people are interested in long-term relationships, especially men. However, if you spend much time in the real world of online dating and dating apps, you see a different story unfold: most people are afraid to commit, less they lose their options for meeting other people.

It’s a double-edged sword: there are more options now thanks to apps like Tinder which have made meeting people online very easy, but there’s also the problem of choice as Aziz Ansari talks about in his book Modern Romance. When there are too many options, people tend to feel less satisfied with any one choice.

So what should daters do?

I read a Washington Post article recently penned by a single Mom, who used to find online dating a horrible, time-consuming experience. But since apps came into the picture and she’s able to swipe at any time, like say – between diaper changes or feedings, she finds it absolutely freeing. Dating apps have given her more confidence, because she knows that even when she has a bad date, she can always find someone else. At any time.

But for those of us who have experience looking for love for months or even years, you can start to feel a little bitter and exhausted from the process. After all, how many first dates can you go on before you feel like you’ve had the same conversations and met the same types over and over?

That’s why this summer I have a proposition: instead of looking for someone special, or jumping into a relationship too soon, or getting too excited about an online match before you’ve even met, try taking a step back. Swipe right on more profiles than you want. Try dating a range of people outside of a “type” you find most attractive.

And most importantly, date more than one person at a time. Really.

There’s no reason to continue with serial monogamy this summer, when you do have choices and you can explore your dating options a bit more than you have in the past. Instead of getting excited and let down, riding that roller coaster, try scheduling more dates and seeing all the people you can meet.

There’s no reason to fixate on one choice when you aren’t exclusive. Dating means exploring your options, testing the waters, and seeing who is out there. Plus, when you date outside your type, you are adding to your choices.

I’m not trying to stress out your already busy schedule, but why not take advantage of longer summer nights by keeping your options open? It can’t hurt. And you might have more fun when you don’t take things so seriously.

I just turned 58-years-old and am still clicking on women’s faces appearing on OK Cupid, one of the most popular internet dating sites. No dates went beyond a few, but I have some great stories to tell. Here’s my favorite and most horrific which i call SCREENSAVER GIRL:

I took Screensaver Girl to a seafood restaurant in Sheepshead Bay. Our conversation was typical for a first OK Cupid date. A Q&A followed by the parts of our life stories that weren’t too revealing. We continued our conversation as we walked along the bay. Suddenly, she bent over the metal fence along the perimeter of the bay and regurgitated on the mother of a swan family.

Was it the calamari? That legendary squid? Who knows. All I knew was that Screensaver Girl turned the swan’s white head to dark green. After a few minutes, she raised herself back up. “I’m so sorry, Barry. I ruined a great evening.”

Tinder has been at the forefront of online dating industry growth, making it more accessible to more users than any other online dating platform. So it’s only natural that its accessibility extends to daters in the transgender community.

Transgender online daters don’t have many options when they go online to try and date, because most apps, including Tinder, only allow them to identify as male or female. In the next couple of months, Tinder has said they will be adding more gender identification choices along with more dating preferences.

Tinder is owned by Match Group, but it’s late to the party: other online dating platforms within Match Group, such as OkCupid, have already added more gender preferences to their platforms. In addition to “woman” and “man,” OkCupid’s gender options include “agender, adrogynous, bigender, cis man, cis woman, genderfluid, genderqueer, hijra, intersex, non-binary, other, pangender, transfeminine, transgender, transmasculine, transsexual, trans man, trans woman,” and “two-spirit,” as of November 2014.

Members of the LGBTQ community have pushed for this change in online dating, as they have felt excluded and left out of the conversation as more features are added and improvements made to the online dating experience – except when it comes to their needs and preferences.

Huffington Post Live’s Alex Berg reported deleting her online dating account, writing: “In the grand scheme of problems for LGBTQ people, the options of a dating website might seem like minutia ... [but] that recognition has the power to change the hearts and minds of those who would deny our rights in the physical world.”

It seems Tinder Founder and CEO Sean Rad agrees. “For a long time we haven’t done enough to give [transgender members] a good experience,” he said at the Code Conference in Rancho Palos Verdes, Calif. “It’s harder for them to get what they are looking for. We have to modify our experience to address that.”

Tinder is working on the changes with transgender activist Andrea James and GLAAD, as part of its promise to be more inclusive to its community of daters.

“One challenge we face at Tinder is making sure our tens of millions of users around the world have the same user experience. No matter who you are, no matter what you’re looking for, you should get quality matches through the Tinder experience,” the company said to Fortune Magazine. “There’s an important transgender (and gender nonconforming) community on Tinder who haven’t had that experience … yet.”

It can be fun to get together with your single friends and compare your dating experiences. I blog about it, and when I was single, bad dates provided some pretty great ideas for posts!

But after a while, all the awkward and disappointing dates can get you down, especially when you commiserate with friends. In fact, you might be at the point where you don’t want to get together with friends at all, because the date bashing sessions can feel tired or depressing. You might wonder if dating is this way for everyone, or if there are any good men left.

Well, don’t worry – with over 50% of the American population who are single, and many more around the world, you can meet some pretty amazing people. You just have to keep perspective, which can be hard to do if you keep revisiting dating problems with your cynical friends.

There are different ways that your friends can influence your thinking and overall outlook on dating:

They stereotype.

Be careful of anyone using language like “all men are players,” or “nobody is looking for a serious relationship.” These blanket statements aren’t true, and worse, they are influencing how you think about your dates.

What you can do instead:

Approach every new person as a blank slate – assume nothing. Instead of believing your friend’s advice that men on Tinder are only looking for casual sex, take a different attitude. There are plenty of guys out there looking for relationships – you just have to put it out there that you are, too. If you're not finding it on Tinder, try a different app, or take a class, or join a running group. There are so many ways to meet new people - take advantage.

They encourage you to join in the rant.

It might feel good to get those bad dates off your chest, but then what? Usually, you all leave feeling a little more cynical about your dating prospects.

What you can do instead:

Rather than joining in the men-bashing, try thinking of positive things to say about the men in your life who you love, like your brother, cousin, or a good friend. It’s important to remember that dating is a process, and you’re not going to click romantically with everyone. But that doesn’t mean the men you date are bad people – they just aren’t for you.

They get quiet if you have a good date.

Did you have a good date, but nobody wants to hear about it? Or maybe they pick your date apart, looking for what’s wrong. Either way, this is not a good feeling, and can kill that good first date buzz.

What you can do instead:

Try mixing it up with your single friends and invite a friend or two who are in happy relationships. Sometimes it helps to get a little perspective. Dating can be exciting, too when a new relationship is starting to bloom. It's good to remember that it’s okay to be excited and hopeful. Yes, you might get hurt, but you also might find love. The risk you take is always worth it.

Much has been written about the May-December romance. We call women who date older men gold diggers. We call men who date younger women sugar daddies. And let’s not forget about the cougars and their cubs.

There’s something about an age gap that both fascinates and repels us. EliteSingles recently conducted a study to find out why, and found that many of our stereotypes are based in fact.

The dating site analyzed the upper and lower age search limits of more than 450,000 of its members for the answer a burning question: what age difference would you accept in your partner?

The stereotype of older men seeking increasingly younger partners proved true. Men aged 60-69 indicated, on average, a desired partner age of up to 11 years younger than themselves. And the other end of the spectrum? Brace yourself: the oldest they would accept is a partner just 1 year their senior.

It stings for older women, but before the mature ladies completely lose faith in humanity, younger men throw a twist into the story. Guys aged up to 30 prefer to date women who are older, rather than younger. Between the ages of 20-29, many men indicate a preference for a partner 3-6 years older than themselves. 

EliteSingles Partner Psychologist Sam Owen believes that ‘’the finding that men aged 20-29 prefer older women rather than the suspected ‘younger model’ is likely indicative of the change in gender roles in modern society towards more equality between the sexes. Young men nowadays probably also recognise that older women are adept at diligently juggling so many responsibilities (career, children, housekeeping, fitness, finances, socialising), which makes them intriguing and attractive and a more secure option.’’

Women may not be as keen on playing the cougar as men are on playing the cub, however. The data from female users suggests that women across the board prefer to be the younger half of a relationship. Women over the age of 50, for example, would ideally like a match who is 6 years older than their own age. And there’s little wiggle room in the other direction - anyone more than 5 years younger is deemed too young.

Younger women not only echo the sentiment, they amplify the interest in older men. For 20-29 year olds, the average age difference desired was up to 10 years, while women aged 30-39 sought a partner up to 8 years older. Women in their twenties weren’t interested in men more than 3 years their junior.

For more information on this dating service which conducted the study you can read our Elite Singles review.