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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You’re single but open to the idea of a companion, a friend, a lover, a date, a partner…whatever. You’re not miserable. You have a life. You have plenty to do. Sometimes you’re bored or lonely, but so are people in relationships.

So, you join FlirtySomething because you like to flirt. And, who knows, you may just meet someone who makes you want to skip the final season premiere of The Sopranos just to meet him.

This guy  from “datingcentral.com” might have pried me loose. His profile was interesting. Nice photos. We exchanged emails and spoke on the phone. He has a great Brooklyn accent. Everything seemed in the ball park. He suggested we meet halfway for coffee or a drink.

I agreed to touch base over the weekend. Then he sent me this:

“Dear C.,

“By the written work and the oral word there are ways to get to know someone before you meet in the flesh. To do this I want to ask you three questions, two of which I might get to “feel out” when face to face.

You are under no obligation to answer. Bit if you do not I’ll send Punjab to see you. You recall Punjab? Orphink Anise? Daddy Bulgebucks?

1 How do you love your man?

2 What is the nature of loving and being loved?

3 What is life all about?

Love,
____”

The first episode of the Sopranos was great!

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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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Here’s the FlirtySomething 12-step program, loosely adapted from the original AA 12-Steps. As the dating site that emulates real world falling-in-love, FlirtySomething is all about you, your experience as a single adult searching for a holistic relationship, a soulmate possibly, at the very least positive online dating experiences:

1. Admit that you need the help of a great dating site to enliven your dating life.
2. Believe that FlirtySomething can restore your faith in love and romance.
3. Decide to turn your will and dating life at least partially over to the care of FlirtySomething.
4. Post a searching and fearless profile of your true self on FlirtySomething.
5. Admit to yourself and others who you truly are, your weaknesses and strengths, especially when it comes to relationships.
6. Be open and willing to change.
7. Be prepared to stand on your good reputation in the FlirtySomething community.
8. Practice common civility in all matters of the heart.
9. Be honest and forthright with other FlirtySomething members, whether you want to date them or not, except when to do so would injure them or others.
10. Realize that being single is about the journey, and for some it may never end. So enjoy the FlirtySomething experience no matter what the outcome.
11. Use FlirtySomething to grow your awareness of self and others.
12. Spread the word about FlirtySomething to single friends and acquaintances.

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At flirtysomething, storytelling (distinguished from kissing and telling) is highly recommended. See our Dream and Nightmare Date Story feature, and please send us some of your own most memorable date stories. All names of people in your stories will be changed to protect the innocent, and not-so-innocent alike. Hey, it’s the classy thing to do, not to mention it protects us from potential lawsuits!

Here’s a member’s story about an ill-fated first date with a groper:

I recently exchanged numbers with a cute guy I met online. After getting to know each other a little bit on the phone we decided to attend a jazz concert together for our first date.  Things started off fine…

He picked me up outside my apartment and we chatted happily as he drove to the concert in his car.  On the way there, he said he needed to stop for gas. He pulled over and pumped gas as I waited in the car.  When he got back in the car, he closed the door then immediately reached over and cupped my breast as he tried to kiss me.  I was shocked.  “What do you think you are doing?” I asked.  “What?”  He said, with a surprised look. “I just wanted to kiss you”, he said.  “I am talking about you trying to feel my breast”.  He adamantly denied that he tried to touch my breast and claimed his hand accidentally brushed it.  “A girl knows a brush from a feel”, I tell him.  He continued to deny it but apologized anyway insisting that’s not what happened.  I was definitely not convinced but after he apologized, profusely, I agreed to continue the date.

He parked the car and we walked to the event location.   We were walking up a crowded staircase leading to the concert, when I felt someone grab my backside.  I turned around but my “date” was not immediately behind me.  He was slightly to the side but still in arms reach.  “Did you just grab my butt?” I asked.  He smiled and said, “no”.  I almost laughed at his gall. I told him he definitely had a problem.

After the concert, I stopped and purchased a beverage before I got back in the car with Mr. Octopus. He managed to drive me home without incident. He then pulled into a parking space outside my place.  I told him that the date was over and there was no need for him to park. He actually leaned in and tried to kiss me again…and this time he made a very obvious play for my breast.  I smacked his hand away.  “Are you crazy?  What is your problem?”  I asked.  “What, I’m just attracted to you?”  He said plainly, as if that made it okay.  “You grabbed my breast and backside earlier, didn’t you?”  I asked again.  “Yeah”, he laughed, “I did. What’s the big deal, aren’t you flattered?”  “What do you think?” I yelled, as I tossed my drink in his lap and exited his car.  Needless to say, that was my last encounter with that sea monster.

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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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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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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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Having just dismissed as reductive articles that abuse division and classification in order to dummy down complex subject matter, I’m going to do that very thing in today’s post!

It’s clear to me that people date for different purposes at different times of life. And I think it would behoove all of us to be more aware of just why we are dating, and to know that our purpose is often a shared one with contemporaries. That’s why, at least for the most part, it makes good sense to date people who are in the same phase of life as you are.

[Of course men and women often prefer to date outside their life-phase. Call them what you will — normal, dirty old men, cougars, oedipal — we’ll leave that discussion for another post.]

These dating-life phases are approximations. Some people mature really young. Some maybe never. But in general, here’s the why people of a certain age are dating:

1.  Teens- early 20’s date to play. To act largely on hormonal impulses and in-so-doing, to learn the rules of the road. To discover sexuality and the agreements that sometimes accompany it called “relationships.”

2.  Mid-20’s through 30’s date to mate. If you’re interested in, hell-bent on, or chosen to procreate, it will most likely occur during this time frame. So, it makes sense that dating is very bound up with mating. The gal or guy you date is potentially part of your off-spring’s gene pool. This is very serious business.

3. 40’s through 60’s date to relate. At this point, you likely have already procreated and divorced (arrghhh…shouldn’t have married that high school sweetheart, after all!) Even if you haven’t, you are not likely to be looking to start at family much past 40. You still want a relationship, or a series of relationships, or a bunch of contiguous relationships. This is the practice you started back in your teens, and you’re still in the process of perfecting it. Or attempting to.

4. 70’s+ date to play again. Or so I believe. Haven’t hit that mark quite yet. But I have observed that as people age, they often revert back to childhood or to more youthful pursuits. Time is wicked and spares no woman or man. But the saving grace, hopefully, is that we all get to play in the end. No more imperative to procreate. No lingering fascination with a perfect relationship. Just dating for the sheer pleasure of the other’s company.

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Are you straight, gay, bisexual, monogamous, polyamorous, or, perhaps, a bit ambivalent about any or all of these categories? Is there a nook or cranny of your sexuality that you have left unexplored, or that you have explored but have kept mostly hidden from friends and family?

FlirtySomething’s Queen Bee finally got around to screening Vicky Christina Barcelona over the weekend and was mesmerized by Woody Allan’s meditation on romance, love, sex, and human relationships. If you haven’t yet seen the film, just know that it features sumptuous Spain, stand-out performances by Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Scarlett Johansson,  and an intelligent script, devoid of the sad contrivances of some of Allan’s more recent work. Perhaps, he was liberated both by the displacement of a new location, as well as the exotic flavors brought to bear on the project by the fabulous cast. The story explores love duets, triangles and quartets so breezily that it feels like a throwback to an earlier form of romantic comedy, pre-WW II, maybe even Shakespearian.

Vicky Christina Barcelona also reminded me of the late 60’s and 70’s, the heady days of the sexual revolution, when the Queen Bee came of age. It reminded me that free love wasn’t just a smarmy euphemism for sluttish behavior. It called into question all of the “norms”  and conventions of “mainstream” relationships.

With this mindset in play, I clicked into this insightful article on bisexuality, an interesting read, and one that raises many of the same questions posed in the film.

Perhaps if we were all a bit more comfortable with our own and others’ sexual identity, be they ever so wide-ranging, the world would be a healthier place. What say you, dear readers?

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