The Marriage-Go-Round by Andrew J. Cherlin, a demographer and sociologist at Johns Hopkins University, makes the case that Americans venerate and practice marriage with more fervor than their Western nation counterparts. For many or most Americans, marriage represents the non plus ultra of human relationships.

Then there’s reality, the often ugly aftermath of marriage — the 50% divorce rate.

According to Cherlin, “‘two powerful forces are at war in America, a historic belief in marriage grounded in our religious heritage on the one hand and a foundational principle of individual freedom and a post-modern sense of the right to self-fulfillment on the other. When these values clash, breakup and divorce follow.’” We tend to rush into relationships, and we tend to suffer the unintended consequences.

Americans voted for the Obama platform, but also for the Obama relationship. We feel their chemistry. We approve of they way they treat each other,  at least in public. But you can’t fake tenderness. Theirs seems to be a marriage in the best sense of the word, a model to emulate in our own personal lives.

Which begs the question: How did this seemingly close-to-perfect union come to be in the first place.? Michelle has gone on record that she and Barack were friends first.

In an April, 2009 interview with Oprah, the first lady says: “Barack is a human being with flaws. And I can rattle down all the flaws and tease him about them every day, but those flaws are not fundamental. They don’t hit upon things that are intolerable to me. In terms of his core values, he has never disappointed me. … I don’t lose sight of the fact that he’s the president, but first and foremost he’s my husband, my friend, and the father of my children. That didn’t change with his hand on the Lincoln Bible. But it doesn’t mean I don’t appreciate the gravity of what he’s doing. The way I can honor that is by working by his side and adding value to what he’s doing in any way that I can.”

A  July, 2008 Chicago Sun Times story, encapsulates their romance:

“Michelle Robinson was a first-year attorney at the Chicago law firm of Sidley Austin. Word rippled through the law office that a hot-shot Harvard law student would be working at the firm that summer. The future Michelle Obama saw a photograph of the new hire and was less than dazzled.

‘I thought, OK, he’s probably not all that terrific, and he’s probably kind of a clown, and then I found out that his name was Barack Obama….And like everybody else, I thought, ‘Well, what kind of name is that?’
And then Michelle learned she’d been assigned to mentor the new guy. In the flesh, though, Barack was less geeky than he appeared in his photo, and he wasn’t the cocky Harvard student she’d been expecting.

He had both a worldly charm and a genuine desire to help the less-fortunate. Michelle found herself laughing at the same things as Barack. If she was cynical about something, he seemed to see it that way, too.

‘I was charmed, and we became instant friends after [the] first conversation,’ Michelle Obama said.”

They dated for two-plus years. Barack Obama was a bit skittish about the institution of marriage, but finally caved and proposed to his best friend and lover, Michelle.

Friends first. Friends forever.

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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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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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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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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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Sad news today of the deaths of Michael Jackson and Farrah Fawcett, and just days ago Ed McMahon. Death, especially when it’s a celebrity’s and trumpeted instantaneously and incessantly through the media, is the most urgent sort of messenger, and the message is to live life. Carpe diem. Seize the moment, because that’s really all we have.

Though his artistry and benevolence were overshadowed by personal scandal over the past fifteen or so years, in tribute to Michael Jackson’s genius and the indelible contribution he made to pop culture, we want to share this incredible video of him performing “Billie Jean” live in 2001. If this doesn’t get you up out of your seat and dancing, nothing will!

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Let’s face it. Sometimes you don’t know whether there’s chemistry on the first date, or maybe little red flags went up when he referred to a certain demographic as “those people”, or when he called his mother a narcissist. But she’s cute or he made you laugh. So you’re not sure about whether to book a second date. Three tips about second dates:

1. Use FlirtySomething’s Apres Date system. Write an Apres Date Review about the first date. It’s a nuanced way to communicate with someone you’re not sure about. The system is easy to use and walks you through the process step by step. Once your review is completed, the system will guide you in sending an invitation to your date to read what you’ve written about him or her. Your review will summarize what you did on your date, how you think the date went, whether or not you’d like to book a second date and why (or you can select not to answer that question). And if you met your date on FlirtySomething, the system will ask you to rate the accuracy of his or her FlirtySomething profile. In order to read your review, your date will first have to post one too. The pair of date reviews are confidential between you and your date unless you both choose to publish them in your FlirtySomething profiles.

2. Let’s say you both post Apres Date Reviews. One of you has indicated a strong interest in booking a second date. This makes the situation somewhat promising. At the very worst, the second date will clarify whether to go forward most likely right from the git-go, I’ve found. If it’s no, you can make it a quickie. Don’t ever book a concert or play for an iffy second date. Keep it loose, and allow yourself a polite early exit strategy. Either way, go forward or jump ship; the second date will make it very clear.

3. If you’re lonely and bored, book a second date. What have you got to lose? In fact, if it’s really really bad, at the very least, it cures your loneliness and boredom.

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Relationship experts are having a field-day with the First Couple. And so should we all. In a series of subsequent FlirtySomething posts, I’ll use “5 Love Lessons We Can Learn From the Obama’s” by Ian Kerner, Ph.D. as a jumping off point for discussions about how the Obamas’ example may inform our thinking about relationships as a nation.

After all, when we voted for Barack Obama, we voted for Michelle, their partnership, their family life, and for romance. We voted for the promise of two people who clearly love each other, and how that love imbues their adorable daughters and everyone in their sphere (even Queen Elizabeth!) with magic and happy vibrations.

I can’t tell you how many times I have replayed Beyonce’s beautiful rendition of “At Last” at the Neighborhood Inaugural Ball and have been moved by the spectacle of the first couple slow-dancing cheek-to-cheek.

In a recent interview, Michelle tells Oprah that the trials and tribulations of campaigning only made their love for each other stronger. “When you work on something really hard together and enjoy the successes and challenges with each other, and then get through it not just whole but stronger—you realize how blessed you are, how much love you have together. So, yes, I think we’ve grown. But not just me and Barack. It’s the girls, too. And our whole extended family.”

Next FlirtySomething post will focus on the “first lesson” — keeping mystery and surprise alive in a relationship.

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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, ‘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.’

I beamed. He looked at me in confusion.

‘What?’ he asked.

I could’’t stop the smile that I could feel running 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. I’ve been part of such a competition, wittingly and unwittingly.

Do you think comparison shopping-for-the-best girlfriend/boyfriend is inherent in online dating? 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? Have you ever broken it off with someone early on because they were always on Match.com, even as you were dating? Have you yourself been an online dating-aholic?

Post all your favorite date stories, hellish to hilarious to heavenly…on FlirtySomething.com today

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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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