Again, thanks to Dr. Ian Kerner, CNBC relationship guru for leading me down this path.

4. Opposites attract! Anyone who has read Obama’s memoir, Dreams From My Father, knows that his childhood was anything but “typical.” His mother and father were divorced when he was a baby. He is bi-racial and grew up largely in Hawaii under the joint supervision and tutelage of his mother and maternal grandparents. During one period, he moved to Indonesia with his mother to live with his new stepfather. That marriage also ended in divorce. He then returned to Hawaii where he remained through high school, mostly in the care of his grandparents. Barack Obama notes: “Michelle’s family life was different, very stable, with two parents, a stay-at-home mom, a brother, a dog, that kind of thing. They’ve lived in the same house all their lives … a part of me was wondering what a strong, reassuring family life would look like while Michelle, in a way, wanted to break from that model.”

Opposites attract. Something to keep in mind when sifting through FlirtySomething profiles. You may think you want someone with your same background, but perhaps when it comes down to it, the real chemistry is in the mix. Which is why so many of the first generation “niche” dating sites are foundering. I think the online dating market has spoken, and it says it’s looking for diversity.

5. Be a relationship role model. Those in a relationship, and those looking for a soul mate need to think long and hard about this lesson. Love relationships should be a model of just that: two people respecting and caring for each other. Absent that, what you have is people saying one thing (”I love you”) and doing another — which makes everybody crazy.

People treating each other rudely under the cover of relative anonymity on online dating sites is a most unfortunate and unintended consequence. FlirtySomething is all about innovations in online dating that enable and reward better behavior. So, whether you meet your soul mate or not, you build a good reputation in the FlirtySomething community when you treat others well. What we say in our personal profiles — e.g. “I am a sensitive, spiritual soul…blah blah blah” — is not nearly as important as how we actually treat each other.  Kindness, compassion, truthfulness — all of these qualities are contagious. As Kerner points out, “It’s no surprise that the Obama children beam with life. They have happy parents who aren’t afraid to show their love to each other. And that love is contagious.”

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How crass have homo sapiens become? I ran across this article about a recent speed dating event featuring men with big wallets and women with big attributes of the gold digger kind. Decide for yourself.

I’ve never attended a speed dating event but suppose it could be kind of like a moveable feast. You get to test the chemistry with not one but a whole roomful of strangers, all in one fell swoop. One shower and shave, one carefully assembled ensemble, one trip across town. Not for just one first meeting with a potential soul mate. No, to meet a roomful of candidates. Exponentially increasing the odds that you’ll blend well with someone. Right?

Not necessarily. Success at speed dating it seems would also depend on how promiscuous you are, meaning easy to blend with. Setting aside all Puritanical or otherwise derived connotations commonly associated with the word, promiscuous originated in chemistry, and meant two substances that blend easily.

Speed dating — I picture squirrels in ties and heels racing from table to table trading inanities, chomping on nuts, appraising each other. Like Bartleby, I think to myself, “I’d prefer not to.”

How about slow-dating, on the other hand? That’s where you get lost in conversation, and time recedes into the background. Some moments are captured in your memory for playback. You’re so inside other moments, you can’t even remember a lot of the date, just that it was a very pleasant respite from an often hectic life. That’s when I enjoy a date!

A slow date is a slice of life…Salsa dancing on the sidewalk…Watching a swimmer emerge from the night sea…Holding hands as you cross the street…

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Even though some people are turning to free social networking sites like MySpace for dating, there’s a trade-off in terms of safety and security. I don’t know about you, but I’m more than happy to pay a modest monthly rate to know that I’m not networking with minors or child molesters.

FlirtySomething builds safety into its features, too. With so many ways to communicate between and about members, FlirtySomething’s functionality enables singles to stand on their reputation in the community, just as in the real world.

In general, if you’re cyber dating, it makes sense to…

1. Arrange to meet for coffee or lunch rather than dinner. Not only are you safer in the day but you don’t waste so much time if it doesn’t work.

2. Help prevent any unwanted advances by being polite but not leading them on. If you don’t fancy them, just say “You’re a lovely person, but unfortunately, not what I was looking for.”

3. Don’t invite strangers to your home and don’t go to theirs until you know them very well. Just don’t. Anyone you meet online is a stranger. Even on FlirtySomething.

4. Trust your gut instinct and listen carefully to their relationship history. Are they on FlirtySomething for the right reasons or are they just looking to hook-up?

5. Give the details of your date to several friends - where you’ll be, the time you’ll meet, the person’s name, phone number and address.

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I received the following story from a FlirtySomething member. It’s a cautionary tale, and one most online daters can relate to.

“Randy was handsome, English, and his favorite movie was Ingmar Bergman’s Wild Strawberries. ‘Looks aren’t important to me,’ his profile said. ‘I’m looking for personality.’ I emailed him, and he responded within the hour.

We moved quickly from email to phone calls to first date. He was as attractive in person as in his photo – a full head of wavy red hair, rugged face with twinkling blue eyes. After a game of pool, he kissed me unexpectedly across the table. Nice. And that English accent. Doesn’t anything said with an English accent sound classy?

Still, with all his attractive traits, something didn’t seem right. I determined to meet him again, but to hold back on getting too interested.

We went on dates weekly for the next month. He was charming, interesting – full of stories. He had traveled. He took classes, even one in watercolor. The perfect man?

There was one very strange thing about Randy. On each of our dates, when it was time to order drinks, I’d order something non-alcoholic. And every time, yes, every time, he’d ask me why I didn’t drink. He’d probe for reasons. It usually took fifteen minutes to convince him I really didn’t like alcohol, as though he hadn’t heard exactly the same explanation the week before. It was odd.

Finally, my intuition told me that despite all his obvious attributes, there was no connection. I met him at a local bar, and gave him the ‘this isn’t working’ speech. It went well. We agreed to end as friends.

‘Now that we’re friends,’ I said, ‘I can ask you something that’s been driving me crazy. Why is it that every time we go out, you ask me why I don’t drink? Don’t you remember from the last time?’

He paused and looked thoughtful. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘first, forgive me for my forgetfulness regarding your beverage preferences, but now that we’re friends, I suppose I can tell you. I’ve been very busy these last few weeks. About the same time you contacted me on the dating site, two other women contacted me. I’ve been seeing all of you each week, waiting to see who I wanted to be with. I’ve slept with both of them, and I was just waiting to sleep with you before I decided who the winner was. And, I guess, alcohol consumption is usually a good prelude for that.’

I beamed. He looked at me in confusion.

‘What?’ he asked.

I could not relax the smile that I could feel stretching from ear to ear. ‘You make me so happy! So very happy!”

‘But why?’ I’d just broken up with him: how could I be happy?

I placed my hands on Randy’s shoulders and looked him square in the face. He had just revealed to me that I had escaped being one of the women in an unannounced sex contest. He was handsome and charming, and there was no chance I was going to sleep with him only to find out that he was sleeping with two other women while he waited to find out who was ‘best.’ Life was good.

‘Because I’m not dating you,’ I told him. ‘Because I’m not dating you!”’

______

Actually, it’s kind of a pedestrian story in the online dating universe. Most of us online daters, especially, have been part of such a competition, wittingly and unwittingly. And it begs the following questions:

1. Do you think comparison shopping-for-the-best girlfriend/boyfriend is inherent in online dating?

2. When do you take your dating profile out of play? Should two people have a “taking our profiles out of play” conversation? Why, and when?

3. Have you ever broken it off with someone early on because they were always on Match.com or POF, even as you two were seeing each other?

4. Have you yourself been an online dating-aholic?

Please post all your favorite dating stories, hellish to hilarious to heavenly…on FlirtySomething.com  of FlirtySomething’s Facebook page today!

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Read this with Michelle playing in the background.

Here’s the deal…Barack Obama is still head over heals about Michelle. After 20 years of being a couple, he talks about the awesomeness of gazing into her eyes and feeling mystery and surprise.

Says the Prez, “Sometimes, when we’re lying together, I look at her and I feel dizzy with the realization that here is another distinct person from me, who has memories, origins, thoughts, feelings that are different from my own. That tension between familiarity and mystery meshes something strong between us. Even if one builds a life together based on trust, attentiveness and mutual support, I think that’s it’s important that a partner continues to surprise.”

According to Today Show sexpert, Ian Kerner, the president could not have accounted for the first couple’s nearly perfect union any better. Kerner notes that “marriages are built on a foundation of responsibility, dependability and predictability. But sexual attraction is based on spontaneity, unpredictability and, to Obama’s point, a little mystery. Reconciling those two opposite poles — familiarity and mystery — is one of the biggest challenges a couple faces.”

To do so requires a mutual effort by both parties in a relationship.

Recently, while on their whirlwind European tour, the Obama’s even made time for a much ballyhooed date night in Prague. Both the President and the First Lady make intimate time with each other a big priority, even amidst the demands of their busy schedules. Date nights sustain their relationship by allowing time to reignite the flame, to rediscover each other, to further probe the mystery of their union.

The Queen Bee’s takeaway: a great romance is one in which neither partner takes the relationship for granted.

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This article is a must read for FlirtySomething members interested in an authoritative, accurate, and in-depth analysis of online dating. A summary of its findings legitimizes our assumptions about online dating, from the user perspective, and, specifically, the quasi-scientific compatibility tests that function as matchmakers on some of the major dating sites.

The findings concur with what we drew from experience and research when we first dreamt-up FlirtySomething a couple of years ago. They guide us going forward as we seek to develop FlirtySomething into the Trader Joe’s of online dating, a place that people visit for the experience, ambiance and possibilities for phatic communcation as much as for the “goodies” you may take away with you when you leave.

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A_. cut my hair the other day at
Carefree Haircutting on 2nd Street in Belmont Shore. You can hardly tell. That’s why I go to her. And I like her personality. I’m not a salon girl. But I like A_. She knows her way around my head, and she has me in and out in 15 minutes.

She’s a curly-haired redhead in her mid-twenties from a family of farmers and truck drivers in Buffalo, New York. She just got her first solo apartment in Long Beach, and she’s really enjoying the privacy and autonomy that affords her. She said she’s not going out so compulsively. In fact, she loves to stay home now and cook dinner and luxuriate in her singlehood. Her favorite meal is Sloppy Joes. Kind of a throwback…

She met a really nice guy recently, a Spaniard. They’ve gone out a couple of times, but she’s taking it slow. For the first time, she’s able to communicate her feelings with a guy, she told me. Apparently, this guy from Spain has tapped into something in her that eluded the farmers and truck drivers she grew up with. He showed up at the salon while A_ was cutting my hair. Surprised her with a large Jamba Juice. Maybe he’ll teach her a thing or two about nutrition! Looking forward to next haircut and a progress report on this budding relationship.

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Situation: You meet a guy or gal online, offline, in line…wherever. You make and keep a date with that person. In its aftermath, you wonder how they felt about the date, and you’d like to let them know what you’re thinking too. For better or worse, it’s only human to reflect and to want to communicate.

Something feels too overt, too forward, too aggressive about either phoning or emailing this person. But you want to tell them that their profile picture doesn’t do them justice, or that you’re not used to a guy opening the car door, or to generally communicate that you’d like to go out again, or not….

As a service for singles in search of a soul mate, FlirtySomething is all about making the journey as fun, frustration-free, and functional as possible.

• So we devised the Apres Date Review system — to provide a dynamic new communication channel for FlirtySomething members.
•  Sign up or sign in to FlirtySomething today and post an Apres Date Review about the last date you went on. Don’t worry, the review will not be published with your profile unless both you and your date approve!
• Please send us any feedback, comments, critiques of your experience using the FlirtySomething Apres Date Review system.

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It’s taken two thirds of my lifetime (if I’m lucky) to even begin to wrap my mind around the meaning of the phrase, “Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness” so skillfully borrowed from John Locke and embedded in the Declaration of Independence by Thomas Jefferson. Jefferson’s only change to Locke’s phrasing was to replace Locke’s “property” with “happiness.” Scholars have long since speculated on Jefferson’s intention and pondered the connection between property and happiness.

Happiness is a huge subject, examined from the beginning of human record and defined and redefined by theologians, philosophers and scientists. The concensus is that it’s a good thing, maybe even the best thing of all.

And during this economic downturn, happiness certainly beats precipitously devalued real estate, if that’s what Locke meant by property. So, if you’re wondering how happy you are, here’s a test devised by Oxford University scientists to gauge your own personal happiness. I took it. I thought it sucked, but I distrust personal inventory testing. Unless, of course, I like the results.

Here’s what I think. The preponderance of scientific research may indicate that married folks without children are the most blissfully happy of all — but I think that’s a lot of bunk. Number one. I don’t believe that happiness is quantifiable. One minute you may love the stability and intimacy you share with your mate of 25 years, the next minute you’re grinding your teeth at the sound of his/her voice.

Moreover, these days upwards of 50% of urban adult heads of household are single. I think, in fact, that singlehood may be a chronic, congenital, or permanent condition for so many precisely because it’s all about the pursuit of happiness. One partner for life is a lovely idea. But so may be many partners, maybe even so many you lose count. Happiness is an inside job. Embrace it. Keep on dating. Who knows, maybe your soul mate is waiting for you on FlirtySomething. Or maybe your soul mates!

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Steve joined the ranks of online daters just recently, and posts this story of his first Match.com in-person meeting. In the interim, he has joined FlirtySomething and has been having much better luck with the ladies. Here’s his story:

At about the time Barack Obama was announcing his plans to run for president my marriage of ten years was ending ignominiously. Do they ever end otherwise? Plenty of accountability to go around, but that’s not what this is about. A couple of years later the On-the-Rebound relationship I had sling-shot myself into after the marriage also came to a close. She moved 800 miles away, but that’s not what this is about either. And then my job went away.  But this isn’t about that either.

So it was that I greeted the onset of summer 2009 with a sense that things couldn’t get much worse. One consequence of which was my decision to try online dating. It promised, if not a cure for my ills, at least something new, a distraction. Time Magazine reports that online dating skyrockets during periods of economic stress. But I’m pretty sure this thought came from errant neurons somewhere in my temporal lobe spewing dopamine when they should of have been doing serotonin. But whatever the chemical or economic origins, online dating went to the top of my to do list.

It was an unaccountably attractive idea. First, there was the novelty of using the ‘net for something other than job hunting. And porn. This would be a new digital frontier. Second, let’s face it, companionship is an important part of a well-balanced life. So with credit card and password in hand, I became a fledgling member of Match.com.

The first challenge for the online dating neophyte is to create the persona he wishes to project to the universe of prospective companions. This is done by way of posting your personal profile. Writing this detailed story of your life is nothing if not tedious.  What do you do for work? (“Nothing” probably doesn’t work). What do you do for fun? (I have varied interests). What are your Favorite Things? (Blah blah blah), Your Favorite Hot Spots? (Yada yada). What have you read recently? What about your pets? And your answer to every nutty question will have a direct impact on your online dating success. So, while eager, I knew I needed to proceed thoughtfully and with care.

Drafting a description of myself that would create just the right balance of youthful maturity, intellectual capacity and physical virility was not easy. But with an active imagination, some help from the New York Times Book Review for the question “What have you read recently?”, and several successive café americanos, the profile took shape and my online dating career was launched.

Fast forward to the first date. My intent was to approach this event with no expectations. British Beach Babe, as she called herself in her profile, was a former Playboy Bunny. Not the kind of bunny in the centerfold, it turns out, but the kind that served cocktails at the playboy club in London. Plus, you had to admire the alliteration of British Beach Babe. Annie, her real life name, had clearly been beautiful in a spunky, Tippi Hedren sort of way. But those days were several decades and a few thousand cartons of Marlboros ago. So, from the moment I first laid eyes on her, I was called upon to silently invoke my mantra:  “You are here with no expectations. You are here with no expectations.”

She asked me in and offered a tour of her patio vegetable garden. Very nice, though the tour’s narrative was a bit slurred, and I noted during the next 15 or 20 minutes her consuming three more large glasses of wine. Which, of course, only aggravated the slurring. Okay then.

At the restaurant we spoke of the usual first date topics: our children’s careers, our own careers, the ups and downs of online dating … and her dependency on prescription pain killers. Stifling the urge to request the check immediately, I smiled and nodded and hailed the waiter when she was ready for the next glass of wine. And the next. When we got back to her door I demurred on the suggestion of a night cap.  Awfully late, I’ve got polo practice in the morning. She understood completely.

I should probably say here that I decided a long time ago to quit drinking and have been sober coming on 15 years. But I don’t expect anyone else to modify their behavior because I’ve made this choice. I’m perfectly comfortable being around others who are enjoying a glass of wine or a cocktail.  But Annie probably exceeded her level of tolerance before we left for dinner.

The next morning I sent off the following email:

Dear Annie,

Thank you for a memorable evening. In reviewing our time together I have concluded that the disparities in our lifestyles are too great to allow a mutually beneficial relationship to unfold.  I wish you the very best and know you will find a suitable companion if you keep at it.

Best,

<!–[if supportFields]> CONTACT _Con-3C7F7DEE1 c s l <![endif]–>Steve<!–[if supportFields]><![endif]–>

A few days later I received a reply that appeared to be written in a garbled language I have never seen before, and I quote:

Drrrr steve../.k iam sooo sryo yyouo[ di’nt lik me. To bd. It wsnt  ment to be/.k.

I swear.

British Beach Babe has not been heard from since.

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