Ladies and gentlemen, make sure you look your very best before posting those pictures to the online dating site you’ve chosen to use. You may have the best written profile, so you don’t want to take away from it by posting some funky looking pictures of yourself. Lose the evil red eye and that selfie in the bathroom mirror; it’s not exactly presenting you in the best light. You want to put your best look forward.

We should be using technology the best way we can to help us find that special someone. Online dating allows you to easily get to know people and share your story and hopefully meet someone and have things develop into a long-term relationship. Remember a picture is worth a thousand words, so what do you want your pictures to say.

Online dating can be a blessing for introverts that have never been very good at approaching people, especially someone you find attractive. The Internet gives everyone a chance to share their feelings with another person and get to know them at their own pace. And, when you feel comfortable, you meet them in person. Maybe you move things to the phone first, but meeting becomes easier after chatting online a bit, as it no longer feels you are meeting a stranger. This is another reason you need a good picture, so you can easily recognize them when you arrive.

No matter what online dating site you choose, you want to present your best self. You are going to have the chance to meet all kinds of people. Not all of them will be there for the same reasons you are, but you should be able to relatively easily find people that are seeking the same things you are. Pay attention to what you think of the profiles you view and make sure you aren’t doing any of the things that put you off in your own profile.

Don’t be scared of online dating. Yes, some people may not be honest in their profiles and uses fake pictures of themselves. But, they aren’t really all that different to the problems of traditional dating. People can be dishonest when you meet them in person. Online dating may be even more secure than traditional. You can keep your personal information, like where you work or live, etc., to yourself until you feel comfortable sharing them, which can be long after you’ve met the person a few times. Be smart and use the benefits of online dating to your advantage and get yourself out there.

Finding the right person to date has never been a simple task. Yet, no matter how hard you try there is always a feeling that there is someone out there just for you, but you just can’t seem to them. Finding your better half consumes lots and lots of time and energy. Well, when entering the world of online dating, you no longer have to search via your friends and acquaintances or hit the bar scene. Just log on to an online dating site and you are ready to go to find that special someone.

It can be a weird thing to put your desires and expectations into meeting someone online. Yet, there are many benefits to this pursuit.

Anonymity is the first and foremost benefit that online dating provides you. You can hide your personal information etc. This provides you a freedom to attempt to get to know many different people while still feeling safe and secure. You can choose to be anonymous for as long as you want until you build some level of trust. If something feels off, you can just block them.

This type of security also allows you to set the when and where you finally meet someone in person. This takes much of the fear of meeting someone new. Just logging onto the right dating site can provide you access to lots of great people you would probably have never met otherwise.

A Few Thoughts Regarding Your Online Dating Adventure:

• Don’t be halfhearted and completely risk averse. Not everything is going to go well, so it is appropriate to prepare yourself for some let downs. Just be sure what you want and do thorough research before actual dating.
• Don’t be afraid to spoil yourself a little and treat yourself to some new clothes, so you feel relaxed and confident.
• Decide in advance your reasons for dating. Be sure what you want from a potential partner and don’t veer from your online dating goal.
• Boost your confidence before going on any dates. Attend some social gatherings or parties and have some fun with your friends. This will surely enhance your abilities in social situations.
• Pick the meeting place well ahead of time. Be sure the place is public enough, but not a night club or the like. Obviously you don’t want to need to scream to converse with your date. Choose a place like a coffee shop, which proves to be ideal for talking.
• Most importantly, enjoy yourself while online dating. If you aren’t enjoying yourself, they won’t be either.

I know the movie Must Love Dogs came out a while ago but I just caught it last night on HBO for the first time. It is an OK movie but while watching it all I could think about was: What was PerfectMatch thinking? Why would they want to be associated with this? Not because the movie was bad but because the portrayal of online dating was.

I understand the marketing and promotion idea behind getting your name out in a big screen flick with great actors like John Cusack and Diane Lane. Yet everybody in the movie is lying on his or her profiles or other people have set them up for them.

I thought PerfectMatch was similar to eHarmony or Chemistry.com but that is not what it looks like. You would think it was just like every other dating site out there after watching this movie. You surf through a bunch of profiles looking for someone to strike your fancy not that you are matched via some type of personality compatibility matching system.

Speaking of compatible none of her matches were. If I were PerfectMatch I wouldn’t have wanted to be portrayed in this way. Diane Lane’s character Sarah is signed up by her sister, so, hopefully the sister knows something about her. Otherwise where is the compatibility? Then when Sarah meets these people they are made up of every dating cliché out there. Like the guy who wants to date much younger or the weird guy who cries and can’t understand why he never gets any second dates. These are the matches she got from PerfectMatch. The ones she didn’t go out with were even worse.

Again I ask why would you want to associate yourself with this crappy portrayal of online dating. The only good thing about the movie was John Cusack’s character Jake and his assertion that two people should just put a lot of the small talk by the wayside and be open and honest with their dates. Giving each person a chance to learn about and get to know the real person. If they don’t like it then “you shake hands after dinner and never see each other again.”

Anyways that is my take on this. Have you seen Must Love Dogs? What did you think how online dating was portrayed? If you were PerfectMatch or any other online dating site would you have wanted to be attached to this? Leave your thoughts in the comments.

A First-Meetingâ„¢ is supposed to be an informal in person meeting. You setup a mutually agreed upon place and time to see if there is any chemistry. The suggested length of a First-Meetingâ„¢ is about 30 minutes or so. They say that should be long enough to gage whether or not there is any chemistry or not.

How to Initiate a First-Meetingâ„¢

You can attach a First-Meetingâ„¢ request to an email or you can just send the request from the email page for your match. Either way you then have to select your First-Meetingâ„¢ preferences.

The first question you have to answer is your availability: “What are the best days and times for you to go on a First-Meeting™?” You are given a grid of times by hour from 8:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. for each day of the week. You click the chechbox for each time you are available. Once you answer this question and click next a pop up asks you to read some safety tips and click a box that you have read them.

On the next page you are asked: “What kinds of food do you like to eat on a date?” You once again click a bunch of boxes next to things like American, Italian, Pub Fare, Fast Food, Dessert and Coffee or any if they all look good.

Next you answer: “What are your favorite date activities?” You can choose from Meet for coffee, a drink, dinner, movie, for a party, sporting event, a walk or any.

Lastly you are asked: “What do you expect from your date?” Things to check off under this question are splitting the check, showing good manners, good conversation, knowing when the date is over and others.

After the Questions What Happens?

Once the other person has accepted and filled in their preferences, the system then offers up a suggested meeting place based on your answers. Something that fits the times for both of you and something that is roughly halfway between you based on zip code. Or you can select an alternative and suggest another time and place if you wish.

Once you have both agreed on a time and place when you go to the active matches page next to them you will see that a First-Meetingâ„¢ has been set. When you click the button next to it a box pops up with all the meeting information. It also gives you the opportunity to cancel should you need to.

It is a nice little idea for an online dating site to include a system for helping people to actually meet. Unfortunately this system is a little awkward to use. Most of the material on the Chemistry.com site talks about informal meetings at a coffee shop for 20 or 30 minutes yet the system asks you for all kinds of dating info preferences. It is not clear what they are for or how the system uses that information. The help with facilitating an in person meeting is great though. It is something that other online dating sites should look into adding to there offerings. They should just make it a bit more user friendly.

Once you have met when you log back into Chemistry.com you are asked to give the system some feedback. Mostly though you are deciding whether or not you want to keep in contact with the match. If you do the system lets both of you no what the other decided. I will post more about that in a future post.

Have you used Chemistry.com? Gone on a First-Meetingâ„¢? What did you think of the System? Let us know in the comments.