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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.
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Online dating service
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Online dating ( OD ) or Internet dating is a personal introductory system whereby individuals can find and contact each other over the Internet to arrange a date. usually with the objective of developing a personal, romantic, or sexual relationship. Online dating services usually provide unmoderated matchmaking over the Internet. through the use of personal computers or cell phones. Users of an online dating service would usually provide personal information, to enable them to search the service provider's database for other individuals. Members use criteria other members set, such as age range, gender and location.
Online dating sites use market metaphors to match people. Match Metaphors are conceptual frameworks that allow individuals to make sense of new concepts by drawing upon familiar experiences and frame-works. This metaphor of the marketplace – a place where people go to “shop” for potential romantic partners and to “sell” themselves in hopes of creating a successful romantic relationship – is highlighted by the layout and functionality of online dating websites. The marketplace metaphor may also resonate with participants’ conceptual orientation towards the process of? nding a romantic partner. [ 1 ] Most sites allow members to upload photos or videos of themselves and browse the photos and videos of others. Sites may offer additional services, such as webcasts. online chat. telephone chat (VOIP ), and message boards. Some sites provide free registration, but may offer services which require a monthly fee. Other sites depend on advertising for their revenue. Some sites such as OKCupid, Plenty of Fish and Badoo are free and offer additional paid services in a freemium revenue model. [ 2 ]
Some sites are broad-based, with members coming from a variety of backgrounds looking for different types of relationships. Other sites are more specific, based on the type of members, interests, location, or relationship desired. A 2005 study of data collected by the Pew Internet & American Life Project found that individuals are more likely to use an online dating service if they use the internet for a greater amount of tasks and less likely to use such a service if they are trusting of others. [ 3 ]
Why the Smartest People Have the Toughest Time Dating
I have a mini-confession to make: I wrote the Tao of Dating books specifically for really smart people. The writing of the books was precipitated by the endemic dating woes on the Harvard campus as I observed them as an advisor and, earlier, indulged in them as a student.
Those kids graduate and pretty much continue to have the same dating woes -- only now with fewer single people around who happen to live in the same building and share meals with them every day. So if they had challenges then, it gets about 1,000 times worse once they're tossed from the warm womb of their alma mater.
From my observations, the following dating challenges seem to be common to most smart people. In fact, the smarter you are, the more clueless you will be, and the more problems you're going to have in your dating life. Once upon a day I used to be pretty smart, and believe me, I had a lock on clueless.
On the one hand, this makes no sense. Smart people can figure stuff out, right? And this stuff is simple!
On the other hand, it makes total sense. For simple things, it takes someone smart to really screw it up. So whether you went (or should have gone) to the likes of Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, Columbia, Cornell, Swarthmore, Amherst, Dartmouth, Brown, Oxford, Cambridge, Berkeley, Penn, Caltech, Duke, read on:
1. Smart people spent more time on achievements than on relationships when growing up .
Smart kids usually come from smart families. And smart families are usually achievement-oriented. Bring me home those straight As, son. Get into those top colleges, daughter. Take piano, violin, tennis, swimming and Tibetan throat-singing lessons. Win every award there is in the book. Be "well-rounded."
Well, you're a talented little bugger. Of course you should develop those talents. At the same time, there's an opportunity cost associated with achievement. Time spent studying, doing homework, and practicing the violin is time not spent doing other things -- like chasing boys or girls, which turns out is fairly instrumental in making you a well-rounded human.
The upshot of all that achievement is that you get into a top college -- congratulations! -- and then continue doing even more of what you were doing before. Dating is at best another extracurricular, number six or number seven down the list, somewhere between Model UN and intramural badminton.
I've been co-hosting young alumni events for name-brand schools for long enough to know that these kids come out a little lopsided (which sounds so much better than "socially awkward," don't you think?). All they need is a little tune up, or a little dating textbook like The Tao of Dating for Women or The Tao of Dating for Men. to get them going -- plus a little practice.
Of course, as noted above, things only get worse once you graduate. And if you're frustrated with your love life, you just might try to compensate by working harder and achieving even more to fill that void. Left untreated, this condition can go on for decades. I know people in their 40s, 50s, 60s and beyond who still haven't figured out how to create an intimate connection with another human being.
It's because they've been going at it the wrong way. Which brings us to.
2. Smart people feel that they're entitled to love because of their achievements.
For most of their lives, smart people inhabit a seemingly-meritocratic universe: If they work hard, they get good results (or, in the case of really smart folks, even if they don't work hard, they still get good results). Good results mean kudos, strokes, positive reinforcement, respect from peers, love from parents.
So it only makes sense that in the romantic arena, it should work the same way. Right? The more stuff I do, the more accomplishments and awards I have, the more girls (or boys) will like me. Right? Please say I'm right, because I've spent a LOT of time and energy accumulating this mental jewelry, and I'm going to be really bummed if you tell me it's not going to get me laid.
Well, it's not going to get you laid, brother (or sister). It may get you a first date, but it's probably not going to get you a second date. And it certainly won't bring you lasting love and fulfillment.
Here's the thing: Your romantic success has nothing to do with your mental jewelry and everything to do with how you make the other person feel. And making someone feel a certain way is a somewhat nonlinear process that requires a different kind of mastery than that of calculus or Shakespeare.
In other words, you need to earn love (or at least lust). Sadly, no mom, dad or professor teaches us about the power of the well-placed compliment (or put-down), giving attention but not too much attention, being caring without being needy. I wrote a whole 280-page book about that, so that's a story for a different day.
3. You don't feel like a fully-realized sexual being and therefore don't act like one.
At some point in your life, you got pegged as a smart person. From then on, that was your principal identity: The Smart One. Especially if you had a sibling who was better looking than you, in which case she (or he) was The Pretty One.
Now you could be absolutely stunning (in which case you're both smart AND pretty and everyone hates you except for me -- call me, like, immediately), but your identity is still bound up in being The Smart One. So maybe you dress frumpy and don't pay a lot of attention to your appearance. Or never bothered to cultivate your sensuality as a woman. Or your sexual aggression as a male.
Attracting a partner is all about the dance of polarity. Energy flows between positive and negative electrodes, anode and cathode, magnetic north and south. Unless you actually convey femininity as a woman or masculinity as a man, you're not going to attract a suitable companion of the opposite sex.
Part of the issue is this: When all of your personal energy is concentrated in the head, it never gets a chance to trickle down to the heart, or, god forbid, the groin. By virtue of being born of the union of male and female, yang and yin, you are a sexual being. Deal with it. Now do what you need to do to perpetuate the race already. Use what mama amoeba gave you.
That brings us to.
4. You're exceptionally talented at getting in the way of your own romantic success.
Here's an incontrovertible fact: Every one of your ancestors survived to reproductive age and got it on at least once with a member of the opposite sex. All the way back to Homo erectus . And even further back to Australopithecus . And even further back to monkeys, to lizards, to the first amphibian that crawled out of the slime, the fish that preceded that amphibian, the worm before the fish and the amoeba that preceded the worm.
And you, YOU, in the year 2009 C. E. the culmination of that miraculously unbroken line of succession, you, Homo sapiens sapiens . not just thinking man but thinking thinking man (or woman), are the only one smart enough to screw the whole thing up .
Perhaps you should consider thinking a little less then.
Because heaven knows that the amoeba, worm, fish, amphibian, monkey and primitive hominids didn't do a whole lot of thinking. Their DNA had a vested interest in perpetuating itself, so it made sure that happened.
Turns out your DNA works the same way, too. And maybe when you're really sloshed at a party and your whole frontal lobe is on vacation in the outer rings of Saturn, you've noticed that your lizard brain knows exactly how to grab that cute girl by the waist for a twirl on the dance floor. Or knows exactly how to arch your back, flip your hair and glance at that handsome hunk just so such that he comes on over to say hi.
To put it plainly, you are programmed to reproduce. Now quit thinking you're smarter than the 3 billion base pairs in your genome and 4 billion years of evolution. Actually, just stop thinking altogether. Let the program do its work.
5. By virtue (or vice) of being smart, you eliminate most of the planet's inhabitants as a dating prospect .
Let's say by "smart" we mean "in the top 5 percent of the population in terms of intelligence and education." Generally speaking, smart people seek out other smart people to hang out with, simply because they get bored otherwise. And if they're going to spend a lot of time with someone, intelligence in a partner is pretty much a requirement.
Well, congratulations -- you've just eliminated 95 percent of the world's population as a potential mate, Mr. or Ms. Smartypants. Now, luckily, the world's kinda big, so the remaining 5 percent of the gender of your choice is still a plentiful 160 million or so people. Even if only 1 percent of those are single enough, good-looking enough, local enough and just all-around cool enough for you, that's over a million people you can date out there.
Still, that's less than 1 in 5,000 people. And if you live in a smaller city, it may be just a handful of folks who are going to meet your stringent criteria.
At this point, you have three choices:
A) Loosen up
B) Do a very thorough search all over the planet and be prepared to move to Duesseldorf OR
C) Join a monastery.
My hearty recommendation is choice A. The purpose of relationship (and perhaps all of life) is to practice the loving. No partner is going to be 100 percent perfect anyway, so learn to appreciate people for what they have to offer, not what they don't. And love them for that. That's what real loving is.
Nobody's asking to lower your standards here; you should still spend time only with worthwhile company. But do question the standards to see whether they're serving you or you're serving them.
When you open your heart to love, you may find fulfillment in ways you never imagined possible -- like the day you tried sushi or beer in spite of your trepidation, found it surprisingly alright, and expanded your personal envelope of pleasure. Taking that into consideration, given a choice between happy-go-lucky and picky-but-lonely, happy sounds like more fun.
Write to me at dralex(at)taoofdating. com
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