Courtship
Contents
Duration [ edit ]
The average duration of courtship varies considerably throughout the world. Furthermore, there is vast individual variation between couples. Courtship may be completely omitted, as in cases of some arranged marriages where the couple do not meet before the wedding.
In the United Kingdom. a poll of 3,000 [ 1 ] engaged or married couples resulted in an average duration between first meeting and accepted proposal of marriage of 2 years and 11 months, [ 1 ] [ 2 ] with the women feeling ready to accept at an average of 2 years and 7 months. [ 1 ] Regarding duration between proposal and wedding, the UK poll above gave an average of 2 years and 3 months. [ 2 ]
Courtship traditions [ edit ]
While the date is fairly casual in most European-influenced cultures, in some traditional societies, courtship is a highly structured activity, with very specific formal rules.
In some societies, the parents or community propose potential partners, and then allow limited dating to determine whether the parties are suited. In Japan. there is a such type of courtship called Omiai. with similar practices called "Xiangqin" (??) in the Greater China Area .
Parents will hire a matchmaker to provide pictures and resumes of potential mates, and if the couple agrees, there will be a formal meeting with the matchmaker and often parents in attendance. The matchmaker and parents will often exert pressure on the couple to decide whether they want to marry or not after a few dates.
Courtship in the Philippines is one known complex form of courtship. Unlike what is regularly seen in other societies, it takes a far more subdued and indirect approach. It is complex in that it involves stages, and it is considered normal for courtship to last a year or longer. It is common to see the male showing off by sending love letters and love poems, singing romantic songs and buying gifts for the female. The parents are also seen as part of the courtship practice, as their approval is commonly needed before courtship may begin, or before the female gives the male an answer to his advances.
In more closed societies, courtship is virtually eliminated altogether by the practice of arranged marriages. where partners are chosen for young people, typically by their parents. Forbidding experimental and serial courtship and sanctioning only arranged matches is partly a means of guarding the chastity of young people and partly a matter of furthering family interests, which in such cultures may be considered more important than individual romantic preferences.
Over recent decades though, the concept of arranged marriage has changed or simply been mixed with other forms of dating, including Eastern and Indian ones; potential couples have the opportunity to meet and date each other before one decides on whether to continue the relationship or not.
Modern people [ edit ]
In earlier 1800s, young adults were expected to court with the intention of finding a marriage partner, rather than for social reasons. In America, in the 1820s, the phrase "date" was most closely associated with prostitution. However, by the Jazz Age of the 1920s, dating for fun was becoming a cultural expectation, and by the 1930s, it was assumed that any popular young person would have lots of dates. This form of dating, though, was usually chaster than is seen today, since premarital sex was not considered the norm. [ citation needed ]
Courtship in social theory [ edit ]
Courtship is used by a number of theorists to explain gendering processes and sexual identity. Scientific research into courtship began in the 1980s after which time academic researchers started to generate theories about modern dating practices and norms. Both Moore and Perper found that, contrary to popular beliefs, courtship is normally triggered and controlled by women, [ 3 ] [ 4 ] driven mainly by non-verbal behaviours to which men respond.
This is generally supported by other theorists who specialise in the study of body language. [ 5 ] There are some feminist scholars, however, who regard courtship as a socially constructed (and male-led) process organised to subjugate women. [ 6 ] [ 7 ] Farrell reports, for example, that magazines about marriage and romantic fiction continue to attract a 98% female readership. [ 8 ] Systematic research into courtship processes inside the workplace [ 9 ] [ 10 ] as well two 10-year studies examining norms in different international settings [ 11 ] [ 12 ] continue to support a view that courtship is a social process that socialises both sexes into accepting forms of relationship that maximise the chances of successfully raising children. Whilst this may negatively impact women, particularly those seeking independence and equality at work, [ 13 ] [ 14 ] it is argued that the majority of negative impacts accrue to men in the form of shorter life-expectancy, higher rates of suicide, alcoholism, homelessness and imprisonment. [ 15 ] [ 16 ]
Commercial dating services [ edit ]
Speed dating
Speed dating is a formalized matchmaking process or dating system whose purpose is to encourage people to meet a large number of new people. Its origins are credited to Rabbi Yaacov Deyo of Aish HaTorah. originally as a way to help Jewish singles meet and marry. [ 1 ] [ 2 ] [ 3 ] SpeedDating . as a single word, is a registered trademark of Aish HaTorah. Speed dating . as two separate words, is often used as a generic term for similar events.
Contents
Organization [ edit ]
Usually advance registration is required for speed dating events. Men and women are rotated to meet each other over a series of short "dates" usually lasting from three to eight minutes depending on the organization running the event. At the end of each interval, the organizer rings a bell, clinks a glass, or blows a whistle to signal the participants to move on to the next date. At the end of the event participants submit to the organizers a list of who they would like to provide their contact information to. If there is a match, contact information is forwarded to both parties. Contact information cannot be traded during the initial meeting, in order to reduce pressure to accept or reject a suitor to his or her face.
There are many speed dating events now in the United Kingdom. Canada. and the United States. Requirements for each event vary with the organizer. Specific age range based on gender is a common restriction for events. Many speed dating events are targeted at particular communities: for example, LGBT people, polyamorists. [ 4 ] Christians. [ 5 ] Graduate student speed dating events are common. [ 6 ]
Practice [ edit ]
Some feel that speed dating has some obvious advantages over most other venues for meeting people, such as bars, discotheques. etc. in that everybody is purportedly there to meet someone, they are grouped into compatible age ranges, it is time-efficient, and the structured interaction eliminates the need to introduce oneself. Unlike many bars, a speed dating event will, by necessity, be quiet enough for people to talk comfortably. Speed dating is for singles.
Participants can come alone without feeling out of place; alternatively it is something that women who like to go out in groups can do together. [ 7 ]
Because the matching itself happens after the event, people do not feel pressured to select or reject each other in person. On the other hand, feedback and gratification are delayed as participants must wait a day or two for their results to come in.
The time limit ensures that a participant will not be stuck with a boorish match for very long, and prevents participants from monopolizing one another's time. On the other hand, a couple that decides they are incompatible early on will have to sit together for the duration of the round.
Most speed dating events match people at random, and participants will meet different "types" that they might not normally talk to in a club. On the other hand, the random matching precludes the various cues, such as eye contact, that people use in bars to preselect each other before chatting them up.
Online speed dating [ edit ]
Several online dating services offer online speed dating where users meet online for video, audio or text chats. The advantage of online speed dating is that users can go on dates from home as it can be done from any internet enabled computer. The disadvantage is people do not actually meet one another.
Scientific research [ edit ]
There have been several studies of the round-robin dating systems themselves, as well as studies of interpersonal attraction that are relevant to these events. Other studies found speed-dating data useful as a way to observe individual choices among random participants.
First impressions [ edit ]
A 2005 study at the University of Pennsylvania of multiple HurryDate speed dating events found that most people made their choices within the first three seconds of meeting. Furthermore, issues such as religion, previous marriages, and smoking habits were found to play much less of a role than expected. [ 8 ] [ 9 ]
A 2006 study in Edinburgh, Scotland showed that 45% of the women participants in a speed-dating event and 22% of the men had come to a decision within the first 30 seconds. It also found that dialogue concerning travel resulted in more matches than dialogue about films. [ 10 ]
In a 2012 study, researchers found that activation of specific brain regions while viewing images of opposite-sex speed dating participants was predictive of whether or not a participant would later pursue or reject the viewed participants at an actual speed dating event. Men and women made decisions in a similar manner which incorporated the physical attractiveness and likability of the viewed participants in their evaluation. [ 11 ]
Subconscious preferences [ edit ]
Malcolm Gladwell 's book on split-second decision making, Blink , introduces two professors at Columbia University who run speed-dating events. Drs. Sheena Iyengar and Raymond Fisman found, from having the participants fill out questionnaires, that what people said they wanted in an ideal mate did not match their subconscious preferences. [ 12 ] [ 13 ]
Olfaction and the MHC [ edit ]
A 1995 study at the University of Bern showed that women appear to be attracted to the smell of men who have different MHC profiles from their own, and that oral contraceptives reversed this effect. [ 14 ]
The MHC is a region of the human genome involved with immune function. Because parents with more diverse MHC profiles would be expected to produce offspring with stronger immune systems. dissimilar MHC may play a role in sexual selection.
A speed "date" lasting several minutes should be long enough for the MHC hypothesis to come into play, provided the participants are seated close enough together. [ citation needed ]
Olfaction and pheromones [ edit ]
The TV newsmagazine 20/20 once sent both a male and a female set of twins to a speed dating event. One of each set was wearing pheromones. and the ones wearing pheromones received more matches. [ 15 ]
Age and height preference [ edit ]
A 2006 study by Michele Belot and Marco Francesconi into the relative effects of preference versus opportunity in mate selection showed, while concluding that opportunity was more important than preference, that a woman's age is the single most important factor determining demand by men. [ 16 ] Although less important than it is to men, age is still a highly significant factor determining demand by women.
The same study found that a man's height had a significant impact upon his desirability, with a reduction in height causing a decrease in desirability at the rate of 5% per inch.
Selectivity [ edit ]
Studies of speed dating events generally show more selectivity among women than among men. For instance, the Penn study reported that the average man was chosen by 34% of the women and the average woman was chosen by 49% of the men. [ 8 ] New studies suggest that the selectivity is based on which gender is seated and which is rotating. This new study showed that when men were seated and the women rotated, the men were more selective. [ 17 ]
Spin-offs [ edit ]
The popularity or charm of speed dating has led to at least one offspring: Speed Networking. A structured way of running business networking events with the goal of making meeting potential business contacts easier and more productive. Some speed dating companies have now started offering free speed dating where you do not pay unless you meet somebody you like.
Business speed dating has also been used in China as a way for business people to meet each other and to decide if they have similar business objectives and synergies. [ citation needed ] Speed dating offers participating investors and companies an opportunity to have focused private meetings with targeted groups in a compact time frame.
Exactly What To Say In A First Message
Ok, here’s the experiment. We analyzed over 500,000 first contacts on our dating site, OkCupid. Our program looked at keywords and phrases, how they affected reply rates, and what trends were statistically significant. The result: a set of rules for what you should and shouldn’t say when introducing yourself. Online dating advice at its best. Let’s go:
Rule 1
Be literate
Netspeak, bad grammar, and bad spelling are huge turn-offs. Our negative correlation list is a fool’s lexicon: ur . u . wat . wont . and so on. These all make a terrible first impression. In fact, if you count hit (and we do!) the worst 6 words you can use in a first message are all stupid slang.
Language like this is such a strong deal-breaker that correctly written but otherwise workaday words like don’t and won’t have nicely above average response rates ( 36% and 37%. respectively).
Interesting exceptions to the “no netspeak” rule are expressions of amusement. haha ( 45% reply rate) and lol ( 41% ) both turned out to be quite good for the sender. This makes a certain sense: people like a sense of humor, and you need to be casual to convey genuine laughter. hehe was also a successful word, but much less so ( 33% ). Scientifically, this is because it’s a little evil sounding.
So, in short, it’s okay to laugh, but keep the rest of your message grammatical and punctuated.
Rule 2
Avoid physical compliments
Although the data shows this advice holds true for both sexes, it’s mostly directed at guys, because they are way more likely to talk about looks. You might think that words like gorgeous . beautiful . and sexy are nice things to say to someone, but no one wants to hear them. As we all know, people normally like compliments, but when they’re used as pick-up lines, before you’ve even met in person, they inevitably feel…ew. Besides, when you tell a woman she’s beautiful, chances are you’re not.
On the other hand, more general compliments seem to work well:
The word pretty is a perfect case study for our point. As an adjective, it’s a physical compliment, but as an adverb (as in, “I’m pretty good at sports.”) it’s is just another word.
When used as an adverb it actually does very well (a phenomenon we’ll examine in detail below), but as pretty ‘s uses become more clearly about looks, reply rates decline sharply. You’re pretty and your pretty are phrases that could go either way (physical or non-). But very pretty is almost always used to describe the way something or someone looks, and you can see how that works out.
Rule 3
Use an unusual greeting
We took a close look at salutations. After all, the way you choose to start your initial message to someone is the “first impression of your first impression.” The results surprised us:
The top three most popular ways to say “hello” were all actually bad beginnings. Even the slangy holla and yo perform better, bucking the general “be literate” rule. In fact, it’s smarter to use no traditional salutation at all (which earns you the reply rate of 27% ) and just dive into whatever you have to say than to start with hi . I’m not sure why this is: maybe the ubiquity of the most popular openings means people are more likely to just stop reading when they see them.
The more informal standard greetings: how’s it going . what’s up . and howdy all did very well. Maybe they set a more casual tone that people prefer, though I have to say, You had me at ‘what’s up’ doesn’t quite have the same ring to it.
Rule 4
Don’t take it outside
Obviously, all successful OkCupid relationships outgrow our in-site messaging feature. But an offer to chat or of an email address right off the bat is a sure turn off. One of the things online dating has going for it is its relative anonymity, and if you start chipping away at that too early, you’ll scare the other person off.
Also, don’t ask for or give away a cell number ( 10% ). I thought that was a no-brainer.
Rule 4
Bring up specific interests
There are many words on the effective end of our list like zombie . band . tattoo . literature . studying . vegetarian (yes!), and metal (double yes!) that are all clearly referencing something important to the sender, the recipient, or, ideally, both. Talking about specific things that interest you or that you might have in common with someone is a time-honored way to make a connection, and we have proof here that it works. We’re presenting just a smattering: in fact every “niche” word that we have significant data on has a positive effect on messaging.
Even more effective are phrases that engage the reader’s own interests, or show you’ve read their profile:
Rule 5
If you’re a guy, be self-effacing
Awkward . sorry . apologize . kinda . and probably all made male messages more successful, yet none of them except sorry affects female messages. As we mentioned before, pretty . no doubt because of its adverbial meaning of “to a fair degree; moderately” also helps male messages. A lot of real-world dating advice tells men to be more confident, but apparently hemming and hawing a little works well online.
It could be that appearing unsure makes the writer seem more vulnerable and less threatening. It could be that women like guys who write mumbly. But either way: men should be careful not to let the appearance of vulnerability become the appearance of sweaty desperation: please is on the negative list ( 22% reply rate), and in fact it is the only word that is actually worse for you than its netspeak equivalent ( pls . 23% )!
Rule 6
Consider becoming an atheist
Mentioning your religion helps you, but, paradoxically, it helps you most if you have no religion. We know that’s going to piss a lot of people off, and we’re more or less tongue-in-cheek with this advice, but it’s what the numbers say.
These are the religious terms that appeared a statistically significant number of times. Atheist actually showed up surprisingly often (342 times per 10,000 messages, second only to 552 mentions of christian and ahead of 278 for jewish and 142 for muslim ).
Though very few people actually do it, invoking the sky-breaking thunderbolts of zeus does help a person get noticed (reply rate 56% ), but maybe that shouldn’t be a surprise on a site that is itself named for a member of the Classical pantheon. So if you can’t bring yourself to deny the deity, consider opening yourself up to a whole wacky bunch of them. But ideally you should just disbelieve the whole thing. It can help your love life, and, besides, if there really was a god, wouldn’t first messages always get a reply?
A word about user privacy on OkCupid
Though this post talks in detail about the content of people’s messages on OkCupid, all messages have been anonymized, with sender and recipient data and all IP and timestamp information stripped out. In addition, our analysis program looked at messages only two or three words at a time, to track the success of certain words or phrases (like “what’s up” vs. “wats up”). The program then aggregated results by phrase before presenting the data. No one at OkCupid read any actual user messages to compile this post.
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Friday, February 15, 2013
The Advantage of Dating After 30
Two women step out of their front doors on a Friday night in New York City. It is the middle of winter and a light snow is just starting to fall. Both women are dressed up and heading out to meet with their respective friends for some drinks. One woman is 23 years old and the other is 32. Both are single and want little more than to ultimately find true love.
The 23-year-old has had one serious boyfriend in her life. She slept with him during all of the 3 years they dated, until he broke up with her soon after they graduated from college. She recently had an exciting night of sex with a guy she met in a bar who was incredibly attractive. He had seemed interested in her - he was even affectionate in bed; but now he isn't calling. In the back of her mind she knows there will be attractive men out tonight, and she is hoping to eventually meet someone she can date seriously. However, she hasn't thought too much beyond the evening and maybe the start of a relationship. Right now, the excitement and nervousness of going to a high-end nightclub for the first time occupies her mind, as she grew up and went to college in the rural South where all they had were a few dive bars.
The 32-year-old has had five "official" boyfriends in her life. She's slept with eight men - four were her boyfriends and two were guys she was "just dating." They seemed interested but faded away after sex. The other two were drunken one-night stands during college, before she knew better - or more accurately, when she learned better. She is growing more and more self-conscious and concerned about the fact that she is still single in her thirties. While she knows she was probably too immature to get married previously, she also knows that her friends and extended family have started raising eyebrows. However, in the past two years she's really started to see trends and mistakes in her dating history, and she encountered a few ideas in books and online, and these have really changed her outlook. She knows now what she did wrong before. While she knows Manhattan is a horrible place for a single girl to live. she hasn't lost hope yet.
As the 23-year-old gets out of her cab in front of the nightclub where she'll meet her friends, the sharp cold bites at her face. It excites her because she only recently moved north, and this is the first time she's gone out to party in the snow. Stepping out onto the busy Manhattan sidewalk wearing high heels and her her new coat, she feels like she is on the set of Sex and The City, or one of her favorite romantic comedies. If she is honest with herself, she sort of expects to meet a guy in New York. though she definitely isn't ready to get married. She has a career and other aspirations to meet before she is ready to settle down.
As the 32-year-old gets out of the cab in front of the lounge where she'll meet her friends, the sharp cold bites at her face. It reminds her of the time three years ago when she first met her ex boyfriend. It was snowing then, too. She'd seen him looking at her earlier across the bar she was at with her friends, but he didn't approach. Then, by fate (she knows now it was just coincidence), they had both walked out of a bar at the same time (closing time). She'd been a little tipsy and given in when her girlfriends pressured her to go ask him for his number. It had felt a bit strange to do it, but in the end they dated for eight months, so for a while she thought it was the right move - at least until he dumped her for a girl who he said was more "his type ."
The 23-year-old meets her girlfriends, who are waiting in a big crowd at the velvet rope outside the nightclub. The single question that consumes her mind is whether or not she is hot enough to be let inside. She starts to feel nervous. She knows she is hot, but the other girls waiting to get in look like supermodels. But as the bouncer lifts the rope and chooses her and her friends before all the others, her excitement and ego both skyrocket. "I love nightclubs already" she thinks to herself, as she looks over her shoulder and sees the other girls outside in the cold, watching with jealously as she walks through the door. She feels sorry for the few girls who were clearly older than the others - probably over 30 ; they definitely aren't getting in.
The 32-year-old meets her two girlfriends at an upscale lounge that they've come to like, mostly because it is never too loud and has a good layout, conducive to meeting new people. It doesn't hurt that the men who go there are generally older professionals, men who have their shit together and don't drink until they fall down. They pick a good spot at the bar and order a drink. They've arrived early so the crowd is still a bit sparse, but this gives them time to actually hang out and talk before anyone else arrives and they get involved in other conversations. As the 32-year-old orders her drink, she chats with the bartender for a bit, because she knows that even a brief conversation with a stranger (male or female) will get her into a more social mood, which might help later if any men want to talk to her. She learned that trick when she first moved to the city and sometimes went out alone. In fact, she'd met one of the girls she was with tonight that way.
The 23-year-old is amazed by the decor and energy inside the club - she's never seen anything like it. She feels like a celebrity, surrounded by the dancers, the music, the lights, the men - the men! Through the heavy club atmosphere she sees them and wonders who these guys are. standing on couches, dancing with beautiful women and drinking expensive champagne by the bottle. Some of them look like they might be famous but she isn't sure. Almost all of the men are drunk already. A guy standing next to her, who looks a bit out-of-place in his simplicity (though he is fairly attractive), raises his voice to ask her what she thinks about the DJ tonight, adding that he would prefer more popular music, but overall he was quite good. "He is good" she says without making eye contact, but she turns away immediately. "What a stupid question," she thinks to herself (though if she is honest, she also admits that she didn't really know what to say in response). She wonders how she can get an invite to drink at one of the tables.
The 32-year-old returns to her friends after her conversation with the bartender to find that a tall, very stylish and attractive man was asking her friends if they could introduce him to her. Her friends oblige, and he immediately isolates her from the group. This screams "predator" to her, but she knows that not all men have great game. so she doesn't bail yet. They talk for a few minutes, but the 32-year-old is further turned off by his constant smirk and the way he keeps touching her arm. She's met men like this before - in fact, one of her ex boyfriends approached her with the same cocky, sexual demeanor. They dated for about a year, but that transparent facade of pseudo-confidence remained throughout the relationship. She eventually dumped him and now considers the whole year wasted - at least from a dating perspective. When the arm-touching becomes a little too much to handle, she tells him it was nice to meet him and politely excuses herself to use the restroom.
The 23-year old and her friends are approached by a bouncer who invites them to drink with "some gentlemen at the VIP table." They gladly agree, and follow the bouncer as he ushers them through the crowd like celebrities. The "gentlemen" welcome them with free shots of a vodka, which looks like it is top-shelf (she gets a glimpse of the label; it is called Stolichayna or Stolishnaya - something like that. It looks so exotic - Russian, she thinks.) The 23-year-old takes a liking to the only guy at the table dressed in a suit; he is very good-looking and seems to be the leader, even though she guesses he is only 24 or 25. She is sure that she can have him because she knows she is hotter than her friends. By now she is getting fairly drunk and they start to dance. After several minutes his hands are holding her waist (she loves that feeling) and they kiss. He sits down with her to "take a break from dancing" and they start to make out on the couch. The music and alcohol drown out everything else and she is lost in the moment.
The 32-year-old returns from the bathroom. Her two friends are now talking to a group of three guys, one of whom is listening more than participating. She can tell from his posture that is isn't shy or socially awkward - but rather patient. This interests her. She intentionally positions herself right next to him as she re-joins the group. He introduces himself and they start to make small talk. She wouldn't have picked him out from the crowd for his looks, but his understated and confident demeanor is confirmed and grows on her as they talk. A couple times he mentions things in passing that really spike her interest. She would stop him and ask him to elaborate but she is also interested in what he is telling her at the moment. He is clearly experienced and intelligent, and she judges that he is probably at least in his mid-thirties. Although he is older, she's learned over time that this is better than the opposite. At one point it crosses her mind how glad she is to be in a venue where she can hear him clearly. Conversations like this were always impossible in the nightclubs she used to go to in her twenties. Their conversational chemistry is great, and they continue talking for almost two hours.
The 23-year-old is hammered by the time the lights come on at closing time, and she considers herself the luckiest girl in the club because of the guy she "picked up." He invites her back to his hotel room to "keep the party going." Despite her drunkenness, she hesitates. She knows she doesn't want to sleep with him - she remembers how that turned out last time. But she agrees to go anyway, reasoning to herself that she can always tell him no later. As he takes her hand and leads her out of the club and into a taxi, she catches a glimpse of the out-of-place guy who'd asked her about the DJ at the beginning of the night. He has a strangely smug look on his face as she trips into the cab with the guy in the suit. It occurs to her as they pull away in the taxi that the suited guy still hasn't asked for her name.
The 32-year-old is still talking to the quiet-but-confident guy when she realizes it is already a few minutes past midnight. Normally she leaves bars by 11 pm. but she really wasn't paying close attention to the time tonight. She tells him that she really needs to get home so that she can get up at a reasonable hour for her workout. He asks her for her name and then her phone number. She knows this drill; she'd been through it probably a hundred times before, but her gauge of personalities has gotten better and better over the years. She has a pretty good feeling about this guy, so she decides to give him her last name too. He suggests that they should meet up next week sometime for coffee. They say goodnight and go their separate ways. As she walks out the door, she catches a glimpse of the cocky. stylish guy that had approached her earlier. He had obviously been watching in confused surprise as she gave the less-attractive guy her number. "Filtered him out." she thought as she smiled to herself and slipped out the front door and into a passing cab. "Wouldn't have done that ten years ago. "
The Private Man
Helpful Hint For A Woman’s Online Dating Profile
Since this page is proving so popular I urge you readers to learn about the one-on-one, phone-based dating and attraction advice I offer.
[This post has persistence. With that in mind, here are three other posts that directly addresses some of the dating challenges that women face: A Dating Exercise For Women. the Amazing Follow-up , and A Huge Dating Secret For Women. Enjoy]
I read so many online dating profiles that I get dizzy. The vast majority of women’s online dating profiles are completely and utterly generic: Walks on the beach, shopping, I’m fabulous, I love my dog, no games, family and friends are important. This goes on ad infinitum and ad nauseam. Such generic text does not speak well of a woman’s sense of honest introspection.
Worse, the photos are simply awful. Bad photos tell men that the woman really isn’t making much of an effort. Advice? Professional photographs. I mean that. Who is telling women that men are not visual? Is Oprah or Dr. Phil telling those lies? Someone needs a clue-by-four upside the head.
It’s been said over and over again: Women must bring something to the dating and relationship table if they want something more than just a short-term fling. Women are the gatekeepers of sexuality. The flip side of that is that men are the gatekeepers of commitment. In the long run, men hold the relationship power (most of them just don’t know it).
With this in mind, a good online dating profile must clearly spell out what a woman offers to her potential paramour and candidate for a committed relationship. Here’s another huge mistake that a woman makes – she describes herself in terms of what she wants in a man. This is where the strong and independent fallacy takes shape. A woman wants a strong and independent man so she incorrectly believes that a man wants a strong and independent woman. That is completely wrong. Men want a feminine women but one who is resilient and self-reliant. The feminine attracts the masculine.
As men are rational and logical creatures regarding dating, a woman should specifically state what she offers in terms of what a man actually wants. A list is not the stuff of romance unicorns and rainbows. But a woman must consider her audience. Logic and reason are masculine qualities and a woman must communicate to such an audience with her profile.
I’ll make it easy for the women with an example and format to use. My comments are in brackets. These are only examples. If a woman wants to use this example, she best do a serious inventory of what she offers a man.
Top 10 Reasons Why I Would Be Your Best Girlfriend Ever:
10. You will see me wearing sexy lingerie more than “comfortable” undies. [I think this is fairly obvious.]
9. You won’t hear me nag and complain because I don’t sweat the small stuff. [Men loathe nagging and complaining. It's sandpaper on our eardrums and on our brains.]
8. You will be proud to have me on your arm when we go out in public and your friends will probably be envious. [Dresses, skirts, high heels makeup, and good hair. A man wants to take pride in the woman on his arm.]
7. You will never, ever compete with me. [Men compete with each other, not the woman in his life. competitiveness is a masculine trait.]
6. You will be nicely surprised when I kiss you passionately at unexpected times and in unexpected places. [Affection helps to bond a man to you.]
5. You will never see me roll my eyes at you when you say something because I will respect you. [Men want respect and even small signs of disrespect will drive a man away from you. Try that shit in public and I advise the man to walk away immediately without regret.]
4. You will see my smile far more often than my frown. [Negative feelings are mostly unnecessary drama for men. As the Swedes say about a good woman - she should be happy, horny, and grateful]
3. You will find yourself thinking seriously about my observations on life and current events. [Many men won't well tolerate a woman who only knows shopping and reality TV.]
2. You won’t be holding my purse at the shoe store. You won’t even BE at the shoe store with me. [Do you see that bored chump in the shoe store holding his girl's purse? 'Nuff said.]
1. You rarely, if ever, hear these awful words: “I’m not in the mood”. [Deny sex too often and he will deny or break his commitment. Go ahead ladies, try it. If he still sticks around anyway then you will quickly learn to loathe him.]
Notice how these statements are structured with the personal pronoun “you” leading each one. The emphasis is on the guy, not the gal. An entitlement princess would never write such things. This kind of list should lead the profile to show what the woman offers in the context of dating and relationships.
As for the rest of the profile, that advice will come later. Let’s just say it isn’t a list of demands but a more creative way of expressing a woman’s preferences in a man.
Final Note – Consider the services of a professional dating coach. Seriously, I mean that.
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