Enjoy Your Love Search – a safe place to meet online
There’s a lot talked about using online communities and their potential risks to your personal information, personal finances and even personal safety. But in truth it doesn’t take a lot to minimise those risks, if not eliminate them completely.
Follow these few simple check points and you’ll have nothing to worry about.
Passwords
As with any login information, choose a password that you can easily remember but that would be difficult for anyone else to guess. Childrens’ names are easy to remember but could be quite straightforward for someone who knows you to guess. Passwords such as “password”, “123456″ or “qwerty” are a definite no-no, as is your own name! Your Love Search will never send you e-mail asking for your password, so if you get anything like this, please forward it on to us.
Personal information
We all want to appear open and friendly when we’re meeting new people, but we should also be careful to make sure we want someone to have our information before giving it out. Your Love Search has a wonderful Messaging system which means you don’t need to give out any contact information at all until you’re happy to, so don’t be afraid to tell someone that you’d rather stick to the on-site system for a bit longer. If they’re genuine then they won’t have a problem.
Scammers
You should treat people in much the same way online as you do in the real world. If someone you barely know asks to borrow money or asks for any sort of financial details whatsoever, then alarm bells should start to ring. You wouldn’t expect someone you met in the pub last week to ask for money, and you shouldn’t expect it online either. If you have any such contact from another Member then you should use the “Report this profile” link to alert our team.
Personal safety
There’s plenty of advice knocking around for when meeting up with someone you’ve met online, but the bottom line is that you should always stay in control. Meet in a public place, tell someone when and where you’re going, and arrange to call them at a given time to confirm all’s going well. If your date is worth their salt, they will completely understand and, rather than having a problem with your caution, will probably just be impressed at how well organised you are.
Don’t panic!
When all’s said and done, the vast majority of people you meet online will be genuine people just like you who are simply looking for a date and a bit of fun. Unfortunately, it’s best to plan for the worst and then allow people to prove themselves otherwise, but don’t let the occasional dodgy character spoil your enjoyment. Just be aware that there is the odd one out there and exercise a little caution, as you would in any other place where you’re meeting new people.
Enjoy your time with us
The YLS Team
Safe sex ignored by virgins
A quarter of people in the UK are likely to forgo contraception when they have sex for the first time, a new study suggests. The survey of sexual habits, conducted by condom makers Durex, found that just 74 per cent of people in the UK use contraception the first time they have sex.
Moreover, the research also found that 14 per cent of people are under the influence of drugs or alcohol when they lose their virginity. A total of 26,000 people in 26 countries were questioned for the survey, and Greece came out on top in terms of the number of first-timers who use contraception (88 per cent).
Other countries that fared well in the contraception stakes were Poland (86 per cent) and Thailand (84 per cent). Countries with a lower rate of first-timers taking precautions included the US, Australia and France, which were all around the 60 per cent mark.
The study also indicated that women were 25 per cent more likely than men to use contraception. However, it was also found that 15 per cent of men were likely to feel pressured into having sex, compared to 28 per cent of women.
Online Dating to Social Dating?
In the online dating business where new sites close as quickly as they open and only a handful have mastered the art of matchmaking, a new generation of services is courting the billion-dollar industry by leveraging all that personal information on social networks.
Their hope: that matchmaking based on social media such as Facebook or Twitter, which some argue provide a more accurate snapshot of users’ lives, can lead to better connections.
“It’s hard to fake a Twitter stream or Flickr photos. That authenticity is what makes good and safer dates,” said Steve Odom, founder of Gelato, an online dating service in Texas that launched in September. “I’m surprised that no one had built it before me because it makes total sense.”
Gelato is a service that lets users create their profiles based on information from services like Twitter, Facebook, Hulu, Netflix and Last.fm. That way, other users can see in real time the last post someone made or the movies someone else recently saw.
Another ongoing concern with online dating is safety, but some companies try to mitigate that by basing their services on users’ existing connections.
Thread, a San Francisco site that opened in September, takes a jab at the awkwardness of navigating the Internet to meet strangers by helping Facebook users connect with the friends of their friends. Thread users can browse their friends’ contacts, ask for introductions or play matchmaker by suggesting dates to other people.
These new startups could be appealing among those in their 20s who are more comfortable with sharing personal information publicly and more interested in casual dating and expanding their networks.
For instance, almost two-thirds of the 30 million users on Zoosk, an online dating site in San Francisco, are younger than 30.
Social dating
The Web site claims to be the first site in a new category: social dating, a combination of social networks and online dating. The pitch is, make your dating profile available to Zoosk users using the same social networks – Facebook, Hi5, MySpace, Friendster, etc. – and let your friends write a good word for you in the form of testimonials.
Co-founder Shayan Zadeh said that the site’s platform is the digital equivalent of going out to a bar with friends and meeting new people.
The appeal, Zadeh said, is that meeting people through social networks takes the pressure off of going on the hunt solely for a meaningful relationship.
“In real life you’re not in a mission to find your soul mate,” he said. “Real life is about meeting new people and if it happens that I find someone I have a connection with, great. But otherwise, I’m not a loser if I don’t find a date in six months.”
BlackBox Republic is another newcomer that wants to turn online dating into a more lasting and meaningful experience.
On the one hand, the company offers a closed-door networking environment – people must pay a $25 registration to participate – for people who relate to the sex-positive community, which basically means being open to making friends with diverse sexual orientations and all kinds of relationship preferences.
On the other hand, the company, which also describes itself as a social dating site, aims to provide an environment where people can create networks they can retain even after finding new love interests. In a way, its goal is to challenge the shop-and-go spirit of the classifieds system, BlackBox Republic CEO Sam Lawrence said.
Growing old together
“Right now, none of the (online dating) sites grow with you,” he said. “Sites are no longer helpful when you date someone, and it becomes a piece of yourself that can’t stay with you. We built this from the ground up to really marry the social space and the dating space and making it about your personal life.”
Big online dating players like Match.com have flirted with ways of leveraging social networks, but in general, they are confident in their methods and mostly focus their efforts on improving them.
OnlineDatingPost.com editor Dave Evans said it is difficult to break into a market dominated by 30 or so players as acquisition costs – the cost of attracting one new user – have skyrocketed to the point where only the big players can afford the price.
But social networks have opened a window of opportunity for startups, since it’s significantly more affordable to advertise through them. Moreover, young companies have a good shot at building their own customer bases since the top online dating companies’ clients are usually more mature and in the hunt for long-term relationships.
“What’s going to be the next paradigm of online dating?” Evans said. “You’re always going to have these dominant players, but the interesting stuff is with the edge cases. These guys have created a sexier proposition.”
We’d love to hear your thoughts on this topic. Do dating sites stay with you through the journey? Are they adapting quickly enough to your changing needs? Let us know what you and your friends think.
The YLS Team.
Online Dating Works
Internet dating sites now offer psychological tests to find your perfect match. So is it just a gimmick – or the path to true love? After being single for two years, I decided to delve into the world of online dating. I’d tried speed-dating and wine-tasting evenings for singles, but as a woman in her late 30s, I thought, the internet must be a more rational way to meet a man than stumbling across one randomly in a pub. I quickly discovered that I was not alone. More than five million UK adults use the internet to find their perfect partner – one in five people now marry someone they met on the web. In fact, the online dating industry in the UK is booming, valued at £80million last year. Online match: Marsha Walker and husband Graham. She was matched to 20 men – one of whom was her future spouse By 2010, there will be an estimated 16million single men and women in the UK. And now the internet offers an even more scientific way to narrow down the chances of finding someone special, because over the past year a number of online dating sites have launched psychometric testing – using psychological questionnaires to identify compatible partners. Intrigued, I discovered that match.com, datingdirect.com and eharmony.co.uk all now offer this service which promises to match you with your perfect partner on a more scientific and accurate level than a just shared love of pizza or poetry. With dozens of questions that test your values, attitudes and personality traits, they claim to match you to men who share similar attitudes to relationships, interests in life and emotional make-up. This is more than just a simple test of likes and dislikes; psychometric testing scientifically analyses how you interpret situations, the way that you make decisions and react to problems to create a personality type on a much deeper, psychological level than have previously been used in dating. ‘Psychometric assessment allows us to take the pool of all potential partners, narrow it down and introduce only those you’re highly compatible with,’ says Dr Gian Gonzaga, a senior research scientist at eharmony.co.uk. ‘In one study, we looked at a comparison between couples who had been matched on our website and other couples.’ But what is psychometric testing? ‘I may not have found Mr Right but there are plenty of fans of psychometric testing who are convinced it led them to love’ Developed in the early 20th century by scientists, these tests are detailed questions assessing your intellect, personality traits and knowledge. They were used to recruit spies by the British during World War II and were then later taken up by the CIA. In the Sixties, Professor Raymond Cattell invented questionnaires that looked at a range of personality traits in the workplace. The Civil Service still uses the system today both in recruiting and to help its managers find the best way to manage their staff according to their psychometric profiles. But could it find me love? On previous online dating sites, I’d write a short description of myself and hope for the best. Not any more. I found myself spending an hour online answering about 200 detailed questions about myself ranging from how much I valued a hygienic man, to whether I was a smoker to what I was looking for in a long-term partner. My results were fed into a computer and I was matched with about 20 men. Unfortunately, none of them quite clicked for me. While I met several lovely chaps who shared my passion for foreign films and country walks, the chemistry just wasn’t there. I remember that one of my dates shared an interest in travel which is one of my consuming passions. I thought the conversation would flow like wine but it was terribly stilted and I couldn’t wait to get out of the bar. I made an unconvincing excuse that I had a hair appointment at 8 am the following day, such was my desperation to escape. Another date bore no resemblance to his photograph and looked about ten years older – proving that however compatible our personalities may be, looks and honesty about one’s description are still a vital ingredient in finding a partner. I may not have found Mr Right but there are plenty of fans of psychometric testing who are convinced it led them to love.
Japanese writer offers dating tips
Dipping your toes into the big, deep pool of dating can be rather daunting at times, as of course can diving in headfirst!
As such, it is often nice to have some handy hints about how to go about searching for the perfect partner, and what the generally assumed dos and don´ts of dating are, and better still a guide which gives as much useful information as possible.
Japanese columnist Masao Usui is known for his witty and accurate style of writing, and following on from his success as a newspaper writer he has moved into the world of books an published a tome about dating.
Raging Hormones: Nature´s Untold Secrets is his first book in English, and takes a warm and humorous approach to relationships.
The book begins by questioning why people prefer to have a partner rather than being single, before moving on to dating and suggesting that being confident to ask someone out is a step in the right direction.
Usui then moves onto tips for dates, and advises things such as try not to be too open (i.e. talking about your ex) on a first date, and being aware of the importance of body language.
For ensuing dates, the author moves onto how things could progress and how to handle them, such as deeper conversations, and finding out how compatible you are with your potential partner.