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Theresa was drowning in regret. The man who invaded her dreams, the man who had induced in her multiple inner swoons as soon as she clapped eyes on him, the man unlike any other male creature walking the Earth had turned out to be a sleazy, non calling the next day player.  Ouch. Double ouch when she realised she was one of many ‘victims’, and he had in fact seduced two of our other friends the same week.  Triple ouch that she had tried to send a friendly text only to be greeted with stone walled silence, and quadruple ouch when she came to hear how his friends had been treated to every single detail. “I wish I could turn back the clocks” she lamented. “I’m just a number”. As I considered and related to her cringe factor, it got me thinking, there wasn’t one of our group of friends who hadn’t, at some point, suffered at the hands of a creep ridden player.  However, were any of us ‘victims’? I looked around the room, and thought, despite the occasional bout of misjudged idiocy, we were a pretty rock solid bunch.

Recently airing was web based comedy “Dating Rules From My Future Self”, which features a girl who receives advice from the future, via text, to stop her from making mistakes in her love life.

It got me thinking, would I rather cringe about something I had done, or regret something I hadn’t? I asked myself, if I was given the option to improve my love life by heeding warning texts from my future self, would I opt to receive these nuggets of foresight? After much debate, I’d like to think the answer would have to be no. I would rather not know and experience the full on cringe. And that includes incidents high on the cringe richter scale, such as the love letter I sent to my teacher, and being rejected by my piano teacher, and still having to take lessons. Looking back, there isn’t a single dating mistake I can recount that hasn’t in the long run improved my judgement when it comes to future relationships.

Theresa’s experience happened in college.  Since then, she met and married a wonderful man, who wasn’t the alpha, hunter type she used to go for, but the open, sensitive type who made a great husband, and fantastic Dad to their two year old daughter. I wonder if close encounters with the wrong kind is necessary to re-jigging our tastes in men, and preparing us to embrace the kind of men that actually deserve a place in our future.

It used to be so simple. Painful, of course, but simple at least. He sent his buddy to break up with you (if you were in grade school), or he did it over the phone. Now the possibilities for breakups are almost endless. IM, Skype, Facebook, Twitter, Text, Email… It seems the more connected we are these days, the easier it is to avoid the uncomfortable breakup by hiding behind these technologies.

Drew Barrymore said it best.

Men and women alike are using these technologies to send the message “I’m just not that into you!” But have we gone too far? Are we eroding all sense of courtesy and responsibility by employing these tactics?

I had a friend who was de-friended on Facebook – that was the first inkling he had that she wasn’t seeing him anymore. Ouch. But perhaps it says more about her than it does him. They had been seeing other for about 6 weeks. Surely she could have braved a conversation, or perhaps a less cowardly text message. Wow. I never thought I’d hear myself say that a text message is less cowardly.

Facebook leads to the demise of countless relationships. Pictures, status updates and wall posts from the wrong person can lead to jealousy and lack of trust. Like my friend, it’s even possible to find out you’ve been dumped just by logging onto Facebook! A text is bad, but breaking up with someone on a social network – that’s like making an announcement about it to everyone you know. It’s humiliating! Not to mention you were probably the last to know.

Will we get to a point where I will think a Facebook de-friend is preferable to something else? Where does the degradation end?

For anyone who watched last season of the Bachelor, I’m sure you remember runner-up, Lindzi Cox. On the show, Lindzi shared with viewers that prior to coming on the Bachelor, she was dumped by a text message sent by her (now ex) boyfriend of about a year! The text read: “Welcome to Dumpsville…population YOU!” Lindzi said that the Dumpsville text was worse than being dumped on national TV.

It’s not about the method of technology used (they’re all bad), but the message being sent. Using technology to breakup with someone is like saying ‘our relationship meant nothing to me, so little in fact it’s not worth my time to talk about it, so I’m going to send you a one sentence text and then move on with my life.’ It’s harsh, I know.

When technology is used to end a relationship, there is no sense of closure. Julia, a friend of mine, was dumped via text message. She called her ex to try and get some answers, but he labeled her as a stalker and told all of his friends she was crazy.  She’s not crazy; she just wanted a straightforward answer. To this day she doesn’t understand what went wrong in that relationship.

It’s common courtesy people!  Breakups are uncomfortable, awkward and painful for everyone involved, but having an adult conversation is still the best way to do it. With a deep breath and little bit of confidence (and maybe some rehearsing) you’ll get through it. In the end, you’ll still have your dignity and your ex will— in time, respect you for it.

Note: This is a guest post by WeLoveDates

Contrary to popular belief, it’s not just about looks.

What you’re NOT wearing. 

What women wear can tell a guy a lot about them, but what they aren’t wearing says even more.  When you walk into a room, what you don’t have on is just as important as what you do. Of course, it’s all assumptions, but that’s what first impressions are all about.  A guy will do a quick scan when he see’s a woman he finds attractive, making sure you aren’t wearing the obvious things like a wedding ring, but that’s not all that he will base his initial judgments on. He might notice that you aren’t wearing any makeup, and he’ll assume that you are laid back and low maintenance, perfectly comfortable in your own skin…even though the  truth is that you just rolled out of bed to grab a coffee and you never like leaving the house without a full face on.  Or maybe he notices that you are overdressed, wearing heels in a sea of flip-flops, and wrongly assumes that you must be super high maintenance…when in actuality, you have dinner plans later that caused you to dress up a bit more than usual.

How you treat the people around you.

Women always talk about how one of the biggest red flags when dating is if a guy is rude to a server, bartender or valet.  But the same goes for women, except it doesn’t just apply to those in the service industry. Men are looking to see how you treat the people you’re with, and the people you’re not with.  Women have a bad reputation of being a bit catty, especially when there are other attractive women in their midst.  Do you roll your eyes at someone’s outfit, or appear standoffish in situations when you’re a bit uncomfortable?  Above all, men are attracted to women who won’t be full of drama, so if a guy notices that you’re easy to get along with and not easily threatened, he’ll assume that you’re easy-going and therefore be more likely to approach you.

Your energy and confidence.

You know how some women breeze into a room and it’s actually more like a tornado-they have so.much.energy!  Maybe they talk a mile a minute, and seem like they take over the place with their intense personalities.  Or how other women fly under the radar, not desperate to be the center of attention-quite the opposite actually.  They are subtle and demand attention in their own way.  One personality type isn’t better than the other.  What’s crucial is that the way you act in public is a correct reflection of what kind of person you are, and no matter what you do you with the utmost confidence.  Trying to be someone you’re not might work initially, but if you’re hoping to meet someone for the long-term, he’ll eventually get to see your true colors.  If you’re hyper, rock it.  If you’re shy and reserved, own it.  Do you-nobody does it better.

 WeLoveDates is a worldwide online dating site. Join for free using code WLD GUEST and check out their free guide to online dating eBook. For more dating advice and tips, visit their popular WeLoveDates blog.

Mel was dating a magician … of sorts. Every now and then her boyfriend Greg would vanish into thin air. Unreachable by phone, email or via door bell, Greg would literally disappear. As much as three weeks would go by before Greg would ‘ta da’ back into existence, and like all good magicians, he would never reveal his tricks, and offer very little explanation. Having investigated ‘Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus’, Mel figured he was just disappearing to his cave, as all men do from time to time. It just happened to be a very big cave, very far away, and with very little phone signal. Like all magic tricks, repeated a few too many times, they become tedious. Tired of having her self esteem chipped away by his Houdini routine, Mel decided this time she would be the one to disappear, and the ticket to her cave was one way.

Greg’s tricks had left a dent in her trust, and fearful of the prospect of meeting another vanishing act, she took some time to wonder whether there were any signals from the outset to suggest he might be this kind of guy, signals to look out for in future dates. She didn’t think so. Greg jumped into their relationship with both feet, professing his investment from very early on. She had very little reason to doubt that this wasn’t love at first sight. According to Marni Battista and Christian Anderson, perhaps this was exactly the problem:

Mel eventually realised that having constructed a mountain of expectation from the outset, Greg had put himself under a ridiculous amount of pressure, under which he was apt to bolt. He was also more invested in fantasy than reality, and in short, a poor candidate for a relationship. If she had seen through the hazy smoke of fresh infatuation, there had been signs all along.

A generation bred on romcoms, where handsome protagonists waltz into our lives and sweep us off our feet, are we subject to buying into these fantasies too? An interested party professing love at first sight can be intoxicating, mesmerising and make floating off the grounds of Planet Reality near impossible to resist. But is insisting on slowing the pace, keeping perspective in the picture, and our objective wits about us the only means by which we can spot a magician before he saws our self esteem in half?

My usual preference for first dates is to meet for a nice meal, but having compromised my dignity on a previous date in a spinach-related incident, I decided to suggest just drinks instead. My new date Eric agreed and we met at a trendy bar in the centre of town, where we experimented with cheap happy hour cocktails.

My first impression was that he wasn’t my usual type. But I decided to heed the preachings of my bossy best friend and keep an open mind. It wasn’t easy. Struggling to find common ground, I found myself disappearing to the toilet to think up areas of conversation, an activity that did not exclude whipping out my Smartphone and Googling ‘Areas of Conversation’.

My last resort was filling silences by taking long sips of my drinks. With a mouthful of liquid I would have a practical reason for not speaking and maybe a touch of Dutch courage would loosen up my inhibitions and kick start the flow in conversation. Alcohol worked. A few drinks in, we relaxed, and his bookish librarian-esque demeanor became less Bill Gates, and more Hugh Grant. The stilted start had turned to reckless giggling, shrill banter and the rest, well, I have a vague image of a slurpy goodnight kiss aimed in the vague direction of each other’s mouths, and stumbling into separate taxis, but not much else.

The next day was accompanied by the hangover from hell. When my friends launched into the traditional, “Well?? How did it go??” inquisition, I blinked a few times, referred to my filing cabinet of short term memories, and found it locked. My mind had drawn a decisive blank. “I honestly don’t know” was the only answer I could pathetically muster. My memory of the evening was a complete blur, and was playing out in my head as if it had taken place on a speeding merry-go-round.

Taking my version of a Sherlock Holmes approach, I deduced that if the date had been on a Wednesday and lasted till two in the morning, without any excuses being made to leave, some kind of rapport had to have been present between us in the bar that night. So, when Eric texted to arrange our next date, I took a there-is-no-reason-that-my-brain-has-retained-to-say-no stance and agreed. I’d decided, as an apology to my liver, to keep this date a sober affair. We decided on a coffee date, and lest I suffer a caffeine overdose, I decided to resist the sip-to-fill-the-silences technique.

As soon as the date started, beyond the polite “weren’t we crazy the other night?” exchange, I realised we were struggling for things to say. I noticed our eyes would intermittently wander towards the clock. When scraping the bottom of the conversation barrel produced a discussion about different varieties of bread, I knew the curtains were falling on our potential match. Two Americanos and a less than steamy debate on the decline of local housing prices later, we bid farewell, him taking a perception of me as, at my best, boring, at my worst, slurring, and I taking with me a lesson never again to assess a date through rose-coloured beer goggles.

A guest post by Deanna Atkins for CupidsPulse.com

It used to be clear: If a guy was interested in you, he would ask for your number. If you were intrigued, you’d comply and give up the goods. After that, it would be up to the gentleman to decide when to call you and ask you out (or not).

This method seemed simple enough, so when did all of this ambiguity arise in the dating world?

Well, let’s review.

When was the last time you received a phone call from a boy who wanted to take you out on a date? When was the last time you were asked out on an actual date, even just dinner and a movie? And when was the last time you pursued your crush without using Facebook to help you out? That’s what we thought.

Without even realizing it, Facebook has embedded itself into the way we interact with people. It’s easier to send someone a friend request after you’ve first met than to actually ask for his or her number. There’s less investment and less of a risk this way, which can make the gesture seem less sincere – and sometimes, it is.

A friend request can insinuate one of three things: that he’s into you; that he’s social and likes to accumulate Facebook friends; or that he literally just wants to be your friend. It can mean something, or it can mean absolutely nothing, which can be highly discouraging if you have hyped yourself up and called all of your friends and grandmother because of that one notification.

Without playing the devil’s advocate here, let’s assume that he friended you in an effort to get your attention and get to know you better. It’s still lame and not nearly as gratifying as if he asked you out in person. Sure, it’s a reason to be excited, but it’s not very romantic. You want a guy to have a little more guts than that, right ladies?

Consider how many times you have met a guy and immediately checked out his Facebook stats. You analyze his Facebook activity, or you may get a little more stalker-ish and look at his past relationships as well as every picture on his page. All girls engage in this behavior at one time or another – it’s like a routine. We’re all judgmental beings, and Facebook can just make us mean.

It’s hard to tell whether or not Mark Zuckerberg’s baby helps or hurts modern daters, but one thing can be determined: It’s not beneficial to couples. Those Facebook users who are involved in relationships can now access entirely too much information about their significant other. You can dig up dirt on your partner and also build-up ammunition for your next argument. People from your past can come back to haunt you. Of course, they may just want to “reconnect,” but that can be a dangerous path to venture down. What can start out as a meaningless chat with your ex can lead to something that makes your spouse really uncomfortable and upset.

There are ways to navigate the pitfalls that Facebook brings to relationships. For instance, my parents each have Facebook accounts, but they know each other’s passwords and have access to one another’s pages. Ask yourself: Would you give your password to your partner? If not, are there things that you’re hiding? Is your committed relationship really that perfect if you need to keep things from your significant other?

Until now, couples never had to worry about these things. Maybe it’s better to discover things about your partner sooner than later, but remember that it’s a give and take. It’s not being naive, but there are certain things you’re just better off not knowing.

It’s important to remember that Facebook isn’t evil. It allows you to instantly get in touch with tons of people while making you feel important, wanted and in-demand – which you are! But when it comes to dating, we need to bring ourselves back to the real world. Instead of poking that hot bartender on Facebook, go get a drink with your girlfriends and try chatting him up. You’ll feel so much better when you come out from behind your computer screen and make a real connection.

CupidsPulse.com is a first-of-its-kind relationship site that takes the latest celebrity news and repackages it to help singles and couples navigate their love lives. 

Being set up on a blind date is, let’s face it, a potential minefield.  Not only does it present challenges between the two parties on the date, but it can also be very telling about the perception your friends have of you and the type of person you should go out with.

This blind date was no different; in fact it left Shane quite perplexed as to his friend Mike’s intentions in arranging this setup.

When Sarah arrived at the restaurant, she was wearing a tight, red miniskirt that barely covered her underwear and a top that left little to the imagination. A tad too provocative for Shane’s tastes, but he wanted to give her the benefit of the doubt since Mike had bothered to set them up.

“So, what can I get you to drink?” He asked at the table as the waiter began to approach. “A glass of wine?”

“A double shot of Jameson,” she dismissively said to the waiter. “I need to relax after work,” she said to Shane with a flirtatious wink as she not-so-subtly eyeballed him up and down. He was trying to be polite and not stare too much at, well, you know.

When their drinks arrived, she threw back the double shot with a speed that, as he later learned, she had learned at numerous sorority parties in college. As Shane was reviewing the menu before deciding to order the chicken, Sarah said to the waiter, “Bring me another in ten minutes.”

She was throwing drinks back like the lady in this blind date from hell:

Shane could sense where this was going!  He did a quick mental check of the amount of money in his wallet – did he need to stop at an ATM?

“So, you’re 28, right?” Shane asked while their food was cooking. “Do you plan to stay and raise a family here in New York City soon?” It was a deliberately posed marriage-oriented question.  Mike knew of Shane’s goals to find a long term partner and that he pictures each date from the beginning as a potential wife and mother.  Mike must have seen something in Sarah as wife potential for Shane to have set them up.

“I don’t know,” she said with a laugh as she gulped her second double of Jameson. “I just want to have fun right now. You’re only 30 – why do you care about anything like that?” Shane gulped. This was clearly not going to work out – what had Mike been thinking?  But he couldn’t end the date there.  He would have to see it through at least until the end of the main course.

After their meals were delivered to the table, Shane concentrated on finishing his chicken.  Meanwhile, under the table, he felt her foot rubbing against his leg. Shocked, he jumped, hit the table, and knocked his glass of Riesling over. She laughed – but when he withdrew his leg, she gave a flirty pout.

He thought she had gotten the picture.  But then, as they almost finished our meals, she “popped the question”: “Do you want to have sex after dinner?” Whoa.

After stopping himself from spitting out the wine he had been drinking, he gave it fleeting consideration.  Yes, he’s a guy, and he has the same desires as any guy.  But he knew that it was not what he would (or should) do and that he was looking for the type of girl who would not have sex on the first date.

So, when they were finished, he paid the bill and walked her to a taxi. He never called her.

A few days later, Shane met Mike and a few friends for a beer after work. “WHY would you set me up with a girl like that?” he asked Mike. Mike and the others – who had been seemingly in on some type of joke – broke out in laughter.

“Dude,” Mike replied, “You haven’t gotten laid in so long. I showed your picture to my easy coworker, and she thought you were hot! I just wanted to help!”

I think we’ve all been there.  We’ve spotted that guy across the room that has the kind of presence that few men have.  He’s magnetic.  And charming.  Or at least it seems so – because the women seem to swarm around him like moths to a flame.    These women use all the tricks up their sleeves to get his attention – they are provocative and flirty.  And at some point, this guy will probably walk out with one of these girls on his arm.

“What was it about this girl that he chose her?”, we ask ourselves.  But are we asking ourselves the right question?  Perhaps we should be asking whether an encounter like this between these two people actually has any hope of going anywhere long term.  This girl captured his attention, but for how long?

According to Rori Raye, relationship expert, in a recent video stream, women are going about trying to snag a guy in all the wrong ways, and the women that use their sexuality and let things get physical too soon are setting themselves up for failure.  That is not the way to create a lasting connection with a man.  So maybe that girl had a fun night with the charismatic guy, but it probably didn’t go anywhere.

So when did women start chasing men?  Isn’t it supposed to be the other way around?  Has equality gone too far?  Something to think about.

That’s not the only thing we’re doing wrong, Rori tells us.  Engaging with guys on an intellectual or mental level ain’t going to cut it either. Men don’t fall in love with our brains.

So what is the key, then?  An emotional connection, apparently.  If I understood Rori correctly, she advises that we make ourselves more open, more vulnerable , and in turn, our prospective guy will return the favor.

To watch the full videostream from Rori Raye, see below.

Rori teaches specific things you can do to raise your self-esteem that will make you irresistible to a man. To learn more subscribe to her free relationship advice e-newsletter. You’ll learn a whole new way of relating to men that will make you feel better about yourself while you find the relationship of your dreams.

At University, Matt was the boy you loved to hate, and hated to love, but did so nonetheless. Jack Nicholson, James Dean, and George Clooney all rolled into one, he could turn the charm on and off like a light switch, and exhibited more hot and cold behaviour than a faulty refrigerator.  His modus operandi consisted of swooping in and making a woman feel like the most special, sent from Heaven creature borne of divinity ever to grace the earth and sign up to a university course.

He was a little bit like the main protagonist in this video:

He would start his conquest by playing it cool and teasing her.  Once the girl felt flattered to have gotten his attention, the sleeping giant known as the girl’s ego was awoken and when he then withdrew, she found herself hooked on a feeling, eager for the same attention, and he, like a love drug dealer would have one more victim dependent on him for validation.

Until he met Polly.

A drama student, Polly was so lost in her own world, she was immune to the charms of a boy like Matt.  When he gave her his infamous predator look, she stared blankly back.  When he showered her with compliments, she thanked him, but remained unmoved, and when he went for his token withdrawal move, she barely noticed. Unwittingly, she managed to awaken an even larger sleeping giant, HIS ego. Underneath that cool as a cat charisma lay Matt’s pretty substantial insecurities, and when his notch on bedpost mode of self validation was scuppered by Polly’s indifference, he crumbled and Don Juan transformed into Desperado.  He sent text after text, would frequent the Student Union on the off chance she would be there, and even find himself hanging around a building formerly alien to him – a building known as the library.

Once, I asked Polly if she felt anything for Matt.  She turned to me and simply said, “My mother taught me that if something charges at you, run.” I suggested maybe she was special, and he had just met The One.  She simply replied, “Matt is a man who wants what he can’t have, and will never want what he has. It’s not about me.  I’m worth just as much as the girls who pine around him.  If I turned around and reciprocated, he’d pull back with me as well.  I’m not special”.  It’s statements like that that made me think Polly, at such a young age, was wrong.  She was special, and her mother should be cloned and sent to every teenage girl’s house in the country.

This week we unveiled our eagerly awaited ‘Breakup Stats’ page, allowing users to filter out anonymous, aggregated Top Breakup Reasons and Methods data by age, gender, length of the relationship and region.

We also released a new infographic, diving deeper into the top reasons users gave for breaking up.  Anonymously aggregated data from 500 random users during the site’s first three months revealed surprising takeaways, including:

• The site’s users are equally split between genders.  Everyone thought the site would skew much more female, but the difference is only one and a half percentage points.
• Early tech adopters don’t want kids?  Among people who said children were a reason for breaking up, four times as many users said the problem was their partner wanting kids when they didn’t vs. the other way around.
• Losing the ability to compromise:  The top three reasons among users who selected from the You’re Too Much category were: “too high maintenance,” “too demanding,” and “too inflexible.”  We all know people get married later today than previous generations did.  The top three reasons in this category all have something to do with rejecting a partner who requires a lot of work to be with.  Being single longer seems to have made us quite attached to that lifestyle.  It’s spoiled us a bit, and suggests the ability to compromise has dropped.