Click here and enjoy listening to the love story of Trudy and Joe Hunter!

This is but one of the many recorded by an awesome organization, StoryCorps. FlirtySomething visualizes an initiative with StoryCorps where members can record stories of courtship and romance and upload them to their profiles using mobile StoryCorps studios.

The Queen Bee is buzzing about StoryCorps and hope they will response in the affirmative. For now, enjoy this story and visit StoryCorp site for more!

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I’m convinced that online, as elsewhere, most “content” is empty, and also that a frequent indicator of something not worth reading is a title that announces a big topic broken into x-number of stages, phases, steps or whatever.

But ISO inspirational, educational, or entertaining material on dating to share with my readers, I clicked into the “8 phases of dating” and was pleasantly surprised!

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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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1. You’re not in a bad relationship. With upwards of 50% of first marriages in America ending in divorce, and the rates sky-rocketing even higher for subsequent marriages, and considering the substantial downside to divorce, one can only surmise that many, maybe even the majority of relationships are unhappily unhappy. No matter whether it’s the mythology of the “perfect relationship” that dooms so many to failure, or the shifting sands of gender roles, or the natural evolution of society away from the “traditional” nuclear family — who knows? But the fact remains that being single sure as heck beats feeling trapped and miserable in a relationship. So, be careful what you wish for, and appreciate what you have. Freedom to come and go as you please, peace and quiet in abundance, and a world of possibilities in terms of who you might meet this afternoon for coffee!

2. You get to flirt. And flirting is so much fun. One of FlirtySomething’s most formidable competitors just so happens to have posted a pretty good primer on the hows and whys of flirting for fun. Of course, flirting can be a prelude to something more serious. But, don’t jump the gun. Enjoy the game, and don’t sweat the outcome. By-products of flirting include sharpening your mind and bolstering your self-confidence. And, it’s excellent practice for what to do when someone special does come along.

3. You can fantasize without guilt. Not only that, sexual fantasies are normal and healthy, the weirder the better according to some research on the subject. It’s just that the mythology surrounding them makes them verboten for many if not most couples to enjoy together. Of course your fantasies are wild and kinky and something even taboo. That’s why they’re called fantasies. Yes, sometimes we actualize our fantasies, so they become reality. Truth be known, they’re usually more exciting as figments of our imagination. Either which way, being single allows one the freedom to enjoy fantasies with impunity, unfettered by the shackles and constraints that relationships tend to place on such flights of sexual fancy.

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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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First off, for those of you who don’t already know,  guided communication is a model employed by several major dating sites, ostensibly to safeguard users’ anonymity in the matching process, while, through the grace of relationship science, ensuring the optimal context for matchmaking. Depending on the particular site, you post a profile, it’s hidden, and the algorithms go to work to match you with the best candidate mates. Once you’re notified of a match, you are then stepped through a series of Q & A structured emails with that person. If the Q & A’s are mutually satisfactory, then you are finally granted the ability to openly communicate. To buy into guided communication requires that online daters:

•  Suspend disbelief in the gods of “relationship science.”

•  Give up a portion of  freedom of expression.

For the most part, people subscribe to dating sites that feature guided communication mainly to hide the fact that they are online dating from friends, family and/or colleagues. There will always be people who want to hide and, therefore, a market these dating services.

But with the gradual mainstreaming of social networking and specifically online dating, that market is narrowing. FlirtySomething dislikes guided communication for 3 big reasons:

1. It stifles the human voice.

2. It’s rigid and Orwellian and doesn’t allow for intimacy to form through phatic communication.

3. We prefer that people be/choose their own guides. We do not pretend to be relationship scientists, nor do we have the tools to predict compatibility. In fact, we don’t believe anyone really does!

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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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