Choosing a Good Restaurant for a Date
March 21, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Food is more than fuel for our bodies, especially on a date. It becomes a celebration, a first impression and an ice breaker if all else fails. If you are dating someone for the first time, and you would like for it to go well, then you most choose the restaurant with the utmost care and attention to detail. One bad move and you could ruin what might have been the beginning of something beautiful. On the other hand, a really good choice could very well save you from sheer disaster.
If this is a first date, then take the time to get to know a little bit about your companion’s preferences. There is nothing worse than showing up in front of the local steak house only to find out that your date is a die hard vegetarian. If you know any of her friends or family, pick their brains for her favorite meals, or any other tidbits. It will make you look like a very caring man and you start the evening off already ahead on “points”.
Skip the five star places, you will either come off looking pretentious or pathetic. Save those places for special occasions later in the relationship. On the other hand, don’t go totally cheap and try a fast food place either; nothing says I don’t care like a date that starts off with talking into a plastic clown head. Your best bet is to choose a mid-price, sit down type restaurant with a wide ranging menu. Most places can accommodate special requests, so don’t be afraid to ask.
Choosing a good restaurant for your date also means choosing to dress appropriately and to use good manners as well. Don’t think you are going to get very far with a date if you have just walked up to the door of a very nice, Italian restaurant in cut off jeans and flip flops. Humiliation is not an aphrodisiac, trust me. Do show up nicely dressed, and hold the door open for her, good manners never go out of style.
At the table, decide whether or not you will order for both of you, or if she would prefer to give her selection to the server herself. Some women think that is urbane and sophisticated, others find it creepy and demeaning, so ask first. Watch for her cues for your own behavior. If she does not even glance at the wine menu, ask if she would mind if you had a glass first, she might be anti-alcohol, and your glass of wine may just cost you, big time.
Definitely offer her dessert. If she refuses, but does so rather reluctantly, then order her something to go, or offer to split her choice with her. (If it is chocolate, you will have earned major brownie points, pardon the pun).
Lastly, when the check comes, don’t make some huge production about paying it. If she wants to pay part, and you want to pay the whole thing, do not ruin a nice evening with an argument. Suggest that she pay the tip, or pay for the movie. Or better yet, tell her that she can buy the meal on your next date. You have just deflected potential hurt feelings, and asked for a second date in one smooth move. You have to admire an efficient man!
The Best Place to Find a Date
March 18, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Girls? You want to know where the best place to find a date is? Listen to the words of the old song, “where the boys are.” That is where you will find a date. Honestly, where you will find men is the best place to meet them. Need a new hammer? Head over to the local hardware store and check out the hammers and the men while you are at it. If anything, you have a perfect ice breaker if you do find a likely prospect. “Pardon me, which of these hammers would you recommend?” In my experience, most men love to talk to women, and they love to talk about tools, so before you know it you just might have date. I just hope for you sake he is done talking about hammers by then.
Local sporting events might be a good place to look too. If you are lucky enough to live near a college or university, you can attend their games for far less than what you would pay for professional sports. If you really are a devoted sports fan, then season tickets to the team of your choice can go a long way to making new friends for you. Can’t afford them? Pool resources with other people and work out a schedule for who uses the tickets and when. You have just expanded your circle of friends, possibly to your dating advantage.
Never turn down an invitation. Your friend asked you over for a party? Put on a bright smile and go, you never know when someone will have dragged their unattached cousin along with them. Unless you live in a rural area, you are probably surrounded by people at least part of each day, so smile and strike up conversations wherever you go. If nothing else, you will be sharpening your social skills.
If you are truly, painfully shy though, and none of your friends is willing or able to set you up with a date, then you might consider online dating. There are countless dating sites, offering nearly every niche and taste imaginable. There is literally something for everybody on the Internet, you simply have to know where to look. Check out the bigger name sites first and see if you are at all interested. The better sites allow you to look around before you actually sign up, so keep that in mind before you sign up. Do not get roped into a lengthy contract before you know exactly what you expect to find from the site itself and from any potential matches. Some sites have listings for marriage minded as well as people only looking for casual dating, so know what you want and what you are getting.
If the Internet is really not for you and you are just not meeting the right person, consider the speed dating events that are held in most major cities. You sit at a table while a volley of men sit across from you and attempt to dazzle you in five minutes. A bell rings, and a new man takes the seat and gives the same thing a try. At the end of the night, you rate the men and whether or not you would consider an actual date with them or not. The events get high reviews from participants for the most part, and if they work, why not?
In the end, you know yourself and your tastes better than anybody else does. You don’t go looking for a husband in a bar and you don’t try to hook up for a one night stand with the choir master at your local church. Know what you will want and that will narrow down your searching spots. Happy hunting!
How to Start Dating Online
March 12, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
The first step, of course, is to decide which online dating site you will use. There are countless sites to choose from. One man I know views online dating like a job. He belongs to several sites and keeps notebooks with notations about profiles and his hits and misses. The man is totally obsessed. That is an extreme case, so don’t let that scare you off. Select a few sites by reputation and then narrow it down to the one that you can best afford. Remember, you are going to be dating now, you are going to need new shoes. Budget wisely.
Once you have selected the site, the next step is your picture. The first thing that people will look at is the photo. If yours is great, you could practically describe beating your mailman to death with a bagful of kittens and you will still get a handful of responses. Okay, so those responses are from people you want to say far, far away from, but you get the point. Pick a picture that highlights your best facial feature, like your sparkling eyes or your perfect smile. Try not to use that glamour shot that you got last year at the mall though, especially if a light brushing of mascara and some lip balm is your idea of putting on make up. Use a flattering, but truthful, realistic picture.
After the right picture is found, you will need to write a good, eye catching profile. Again, try to be honest and don’t oversell yourself. Remember, you do want to meet some of these people in real life. Avoid over the top, million dollar words that you would not use in regular conversation. Try to remain upbeat but not annoyingly perky. In the section marked “pets” list what you have and be done with it. Now is not the time to spill your guts about every precious thing that little Sparky has done. Check the box and move along.
Consider online dating to be a process not a miracle maker. Just as you are not going to wake up one day to find that you have been declared CEO of your company, you are not going to log on and find a love connection with the first man that you date. You might find yourself repeating the same process over and over until you finally get it right. You go back and forth with the emails, answering questions and reading responses, until you get to the answer that is the deal breaker. You move on to the next match and start all over again. You might even get to the part where you even get to meet someone in real life. Maybe he is the one for you, maybe not, but that is what dating is all about whether it is online or not. It is a gamble. You roll the dice, sometimes you get snake eyes and sometimes you hit the jackpot.
How to Ditch a Bad Date
March 8, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Ugh! You are trapped on the worse date ever! He is loud, obnoxious and what the hell is wrong with that man’s left eye? You have choked down your meal faster than an Indy pit crew in hopes of ending the date, but he is simply not eating fast enough. You are half tempted to reach other there and start feeding him. With both hands. How do you ditch this clunker of a bad date?
If you were smart, and believe me, you will be after this little life lesson, you checked out the floor plan of the restaurant that you are currently being tortured in. Is there a door near the ladies room? Pop in to “freshen up” and then slip on out. Even if you have to run all the way around the building to get to your car, it is worth the effort to ditch that insufferable loser.
If you are on a bad date at a dance club, sweetly lead him to the dance floor and then allow the crowd to swallow you up. By the time Goofy VonBadDate whines and worms his way through the crowd, you will be long gone. If you are feeling particularly malicious, walk over to a bouncer and point him out as a stalker that just will not leave you alone. He gets tossed out on his ear, you get to stay and party.
If you are a direct person, you could of course tell him flat out that it is not working and that you are going to bail out of the date, but most women are just not wired to be that open. Society has ingrained us to be polite, no matter how unhappy it makes us, so that leaves us to do a little creative date ditching.
Wait for a private moment and then call a friend. Have her call the restaurant and fake an emergency call for your date. This only works if you know his full name of course, but it is a classic when done properly. He gets an overhead page, and then returns bewildered, saying there is an emergency. He leaves and you are off the hook, relatively guilt free.
A little psychological warfare can chase off a bad date too, but proceed carefully. Look him in the eye and announce that you think that your babies would be positively beautiful. With any luck, that little gem will have him slipping out after having suddenly remembered some pressing engagement. If not, you may have just encouraged him a little further.
Getting blindingly drunk in an effort to embarrass a bad date away is a bad idea for a lot of reasons. For one thing, being drunk puts you at risk for bad decisions. What if you drink that loser suddenly attractive? You think its hard to ditch a bad date in a restaurant? Try ditching that clinger after sleeping with him in an alcohol fueled stupor. You could toss him into an ocean tied to a Buick and he would still show back up.
Better to stay sober and keep an eye out for your chance to make a break for it. Hopefully he is not the worse kind of bad dates, the one that will not leave your side for a single second. They remain at the table no matter what, and follow you like a basset hound wherever you go. He even stands outside of the ladies room door when you go. Looks like this one has been date ditched a time or two before, huh? Maybe there will be a window in that bathroom.
Senior Internet Dating A Whole New World
March 8, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Senior internet dating has given a new lease on life for many senior citizens worldwide who are looking for love and friendship. The world wide web makes it easy to make new friends and meet love interests online. You only need a home computer and an internet connection to get started. Then you have the potential to communicate with eligible singles from all over the world.
First, you need to select a senior online dating service. There are many to choose between so you will have to do some research to find one that offers you a good opportunity of meeting someone online. Keep in mind that along with the behemoth sites that have hundreds of thousands of members, there are smaller, more specialized sites as well.
Most sites will offer you a free trial period. This way you can test the service out first so you can see just what it offers you. Don’t use any service that doesn’t offer either a free trial or limited membership. They may be scams. There are plenty of senior internet dating services that allow you access without paying upfront or giving them any information about yourself.
When you have found a senior internet dating service that you feel will give you a good chance of meeting a potential date, you can create your free account. Then start browsing the profiles. At first, you’ll be looking for how many senior singles you have living in your area, and how many of these singles have their photo attached to their profile. This gives you a good idea of how much chance you’ll have at interacting with someone who you can meet if things work out. Also, singles who post their photo are more serious about internet dating, and you’ll have a better chance of a response from them.
You should also put your picture on your profile. If you don’t, you may have very limited numbers of contacts. Singles with a photo on their personal ad get 20 times more messages sent to them. The reasons are numerous but boil down to the fact that no one wants to communicate with someone who won’t show their face. Additionally, most people who use the search function search only for profiles with photographs, so you won’t show up if you don’t have one posted.
When you want to start sending emails, you will need to upgrade your membership. This can range from a few dollars a month to hundreds of dollars a year. However, the point of putting up a profile is to meet people, and sending emails is the way you communicate through these services.
Once you’ve started your senior internet dating you’ll begin to enjoy it. While it might seem a bit daunting at first, everyone already on the site was in your position once. Just remember that everyone who is a member of an online dating service is there because they want to be contacted.
Dating a Younger Man
March 4, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
First know this: every catty comment hissed at you by your friends and coworkers is nothing more than the bitter taste of jealousy. They eat their heart out every time that young man comes to your office. Your neighbors crowd around doors and peepholes when he comes to your home to pick you up. They are wildly mad with jealousy, it practically kills them. Ignore them, the poor dears.
Know that younger men are actually more open to learning new things both in and out of bed. Older men have the notion that they already know everything about pleasing a woman and will bristle at any suggestion to the contrary. Younger men not only want you to teach them how best to please you, they are enthusiastic students. Very enthusiastic students!
Not only are they willing to learn what pleases a woman, they also want to know a few social lessons as well. They want to learn from your experiences; they want to learn about grace and good manners in both business and social situations. They are just starting to build their career, but the young man is usually not insecure about your own successes. In fact, they are usually quite supportive and proud of all that you have done.
Dating a younger man is going to mean that you are going to stay active. Not only will you feel that you must keep everything as toned and taut as possible for your man, he will want you to come along with him on active pursuits. Most younger men do not want a sideline girlfriend, they want someone who will actually come along and participate in whatever comes along.
Younger men are pretty flexible about clothing, so do not go overboard trying to wear the latest trends. There is a point in a woman’s life where she must realize that able to wear something is not the same as should be wearing it. Simply fitting into something does not mean it is attractive on you. Think about it, when was the last time you saw an older woman who actually looked great in a miniskirt? Okay, besides Tina Turner. No one is saying start wearing granny gear, but shopping in the junior miss when you are well past that age group is a no-no.
Speaking of no-no’s: do not use the term “boy toy” in reference to the younger man you are dating. Do not allow others to use the term either. It is degrading and minimizes any sense of real feeling that you might have for each other. Allowing others to use the term says that you have no real respect for your guy. Using the term yourself says the same thing, as well as saying that you view him as an object, no an equal partner. Even if you say it in a playful, teasing manner, the message is sent and read loud and clear.
Dating after Divorce
March 1, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Your marriage is over. After giving yourself time to heal and to recover, it is time to move on and resume dating. But, what is the best way to go about it? There are different methods for different situations, and no one thing will work universally, but there are some general tips.
If there are children involved, make sure that they are okay with the whole divorce situation before changing anything else. Be aware that dating is a learning process, so proceed with caution before introducing dates to your children. Do not allow an ever changing parade of faces to come and go from your children’s lives. They have had enough upheaval already. Wait until you yourself have gotten a bit more serious with someone before bringing the kids into it. On the other hand, do not ever hide the fact that you have children.
A divorce does more than change the family dynamic. Your relationship with friends will have changed as well. Though they will all deny it, your friends have all drawn battle lines before, during and after the marriage ended. No matter who has remained friends with you, the relationship itself will have changed. Maybe that single friend you have always admired can be something more now that you are single too. Feel uncomfortable with that idea? Then maybe he has other single friends he can introduce you to.
Questioning yourself and your attractiveness is normal after a divorce. Your husband no longer wants you after all, and you might allow yourself to think that no one else will either. Part of the healing process is knowing that your work as a human is not judged by the state of your marriage or the opinion of one man. Things did not work out with a single individual, not the whole gender.
The hardest part of dating after divorce, or of dating in general for that matter, is the first date. One you have made it through that very first date without a lot of emotional scars, the you will know you are on the road to recovery.
Sign up for a class at the community college and get out there meeting people. Before you know it, you will have a whole new circle of friends and potential dates. Get out there and start living your life again. Even if you do have children, you deserve some adult time with adult people. Get a new hair cut or a cute new outfit to signal your rebirth back into the world. Smile as much as you can, even if you have to fake it at first. Soon, those fake smiles will turn into the real thing and you will catch the eye of a nice man. Take it slowly, and realize that dating, especially after a divorce is about learning and growing. There will be failures. You might get your heart bruised, maybe even broken a time or two before you get it right. But one lesson that your divorce should have taught you is this: you are far stronger than you ever thought possible and you will get through this too, better, stronger and wiser on the other side.
How to Overcome a Painful Divorce
February 27, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Divorce is such an ugly word. It is almost as ugly and hurtful as the feelings that brew and boil inside of you after it happens. Even in the most amicable of divorces, there is still that feeling of failure, a feeling of letting go and that feeling of finality when the papers are signed and the marriage is legally declared “lover.” A marriage that ends tragically or angrily is even harder to deal with. It does more than just hurt, it kills part of your very soul.
I don’t know that you can truly overcome a painful divorce completely. I think instead that you heal around the scars that it leaves behind. You have to treat a divorce for what it truly is: an ending. It is just the same as a death in the family. You mourn the loss of a loved one, so too should you mourn the passing of a marriage.
Think back to your wedding day. You were filled with such love, joy and boundless hope at that time of your life. The future stretched out ahead of you like a rosy pink garden bursting with possibility. You saw days filled with laughter and nights filled with passion, never once dreaming of the turmoil and devastation that troubles you now. Divorce was merely something that happened to other people, except now it has in fact, happened to you,
Mourn. Allow yourself to feel your own feelings for your sanity’s sake. Do not let anybody ever tell you to forget it and just move on. Your heart is broken , damn it! Let it all go. Sob into your pillow, grab your best friend and weep on her shoulder, but let it go. Keeping it inside is not healthy. Express your feelings. Not a crier? Write in a journal, then or paint a picture, but those feelings of loss and sadness have to come out to make room for the more positive emotions to blossom when you are ready.
After you are done with the moping, you might be ready to move on to anger. Anger is also perfectly normal and healthy emotion to have after a painful divorce. Feel like kicking and screaming? Join a kick boxing class and wail tar out of a paid professional. You get buff while you vent, it’s a totally win-win situation! Why shouldn’t you be mad? That man stood before God, friends and family and swore he would love you ‘til death did you part. The last time you checked, neither of you were dead, so that means he lied to you and that is not fair! You’re right, it’s not fair and you have earned every right to be mad as hell.
Do you need counseling to overcome a painful divorce? That is a personal choice that only you can make. Some people cannot reach out to friends and family for support and would feel better taking their problems to a stranger. It is sad but true, some people cannot share their most intimate pain with blood relations, but can pick a stranger out of the phone book and spill their guts. And pay them to do it! If that is what you need to heal, then by all mean do so and do not let anyone talk you out of it. Talking will help, no matter who is doing the listening.
A divorce is an ending, but only of your marriage, not of your life. Maybe you can take this negative and turn it into something good. Your life is being overhauled already, maybe now is the time to take stock in other areas as well. Did you ever think about travel or a career change? Was there a restaurant that you always wanted to try but could not get your spouse interested in? Give it a try now, there is no one to stop you. Sign up for classes at the local community college, or go whole hog and aim for a degree. Write a novel, join the circus, do something to occupy yourself because as painful as it seems at this moment, divorce is not the end of the whole world.
How to Find a Dream Girl
February 27, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
If you know what you want, then you will know where to start looking. Just looking for a wild, one night throw down? Your dream girl might be found in the local bar then. Looking for something more serious? You might consider not looking for love in among the drunken and the desperate.
Start your search by sharing what you are looking for with your friends. Wild animals hunt in packs, so why not the human male? The more people you have on the search, the more likely you will turn up a strong candidate or two. The more options, the better the odds are that you will have some success.
Understand that the concept of a dream girl is a malleable one. What you think of as perfect can prove herself vapid and shallow in the blink of a false eyelash. Once your heart gets involved, that girl you have been kind of seeing can suddenly be bumped up to dream girl status. Don’t get hung up on what society declares ideal, you never know who you will click with once you are face to face.
So, where do you find your dream girl? She could be anywhere, really. She could be the perky blonde passing you in the hallway at work. She could be the smoldering brunette that washes her clothes in your apartment’s laundry room every Thursday night. She might even be the fiery red head that serves you your morning latte. Women are all around you and one of them might very well be your dream girl. You simply have to start talking to them and decide which ones to take out on a date for further consideration.
Remember too, that the dream itself might change when you do find the dream girl. You might have told everybody that you will remain single forever, no ifs, ands or buts about it. Then you meet “her” and everything changes. You start thinking about marriage and having visions of forever. The girl and the dream have changed and you could not be happier. Just think, if you had stayed mule headed about ti, you would have missed out on the opportunity to find this dream girl and the life she has brought with her.
So, smile at the perky blonde or the hot brunette; she just might be your dream girl in hiding. It’s up to you to find her and blow her cover.
Safe Dating Online
February 25, 2011 by admin · Leave a Comment
Searching for a date can be as simple as turning on your computer, but if you are not careful, you could end up with your heart broken or something far, far worse. You have to be safe in any dating situation, but online dating opens up more of the world to you, exposing you to a wider group of people. The more people that you meet, the bigger the odds that you will run into a bad apple or two in the barrel. You simply cannot go off uninformed. It’s a big, bad world out there and the Internet brings it right into your own home.
First things first; know who you are talking to. Meeting someone in a public chat room for a computer conversation is one thing. Meeting that person in real life is something entirely different. If you feel that this might be the one for you, proceed with extreme caution. Never give a stranger your full name, or your home address. Give only your cell phone number if you are giving numbers at this point at all. Do not get drawn or bullied into the “quiet night at home” idea for a first date. If that is the only acceptable idea for him, stop talking to him and block him from further contact.
Make sure that at least one person know that you are going out, where you will be going and when to expect you home. Make sure that you have your cell phone with you and check in with your friends often. Give them as much information as you can about your date. Tell your date up front that you need to touch base with your friends because they are worried about you. If he is a decent human, he will understand, if not, you might consider ending the date right there and then.
A better and usually safer option to prowling the chat rooms are the dating sites. There are countless sites available, some better than others. Look around and check out the features before you sign up. There are a few dating sites where membership and all of its benefits are free to women, so research can save you quite a bit of money. Once you have joined and found your matches, remember, the same rules of safety still apply.
Some people are uncomfortable with a Google search of their dates, some will not even consider a date without one. Either way it is always best to know at least a little bit about your date. Always know the warning signs and have an escape planned if the date goes sour. I know a girl that has a code word for truly awful dates. She calls her friend and pretends to be talking to an answering service. She then announces that she has an emergency and that she must go. For this reason, and for added safety, do not get into a car with someone that you have just met. Take separate cars even if the date is going well and you decide to continue onto a second location. Tell him that you will follow him and do not take no for an answer. A well mannered man will not want you to be uncomfortable, nor will he want to allow you to put yourself in a potentially unsafe situation. Know your dates or keep it public. Be safe or stay home. Period.