I am cut and pasting the articles below, which are posted across the internet, for your edification. What are your thoughts on these?: The internet guide to dating: Updated version: From Salon.com TIPS: Everybody you meet in online dating are the same exact people you will meet in non-online dating. There is no such thing as waiting for “the natural” moment in the real world. If it existed it would have already happened for you decades ago. Online dating is the best chance to meet single people in any large city. The single most important thing to realize is that "chemistry" is a series of bio-chemical and audio-visual reactions to the way a person looks and how they remind you of subconscious things in-person. It does not work-over the internet. Chemistry is not a metaphysical thing. You will not be able to decide about a person unless you meet them in person. The internet is just a place to see that certain people are single. The way that media has programmed you, the type of people the media have told you are attractive and the look and feel of the people you have gathered around you will determine how the 42+ different psycho-visual, olfactory and other sensory reactions determine if you will allow yourself to be attracted to one person over another. 1. Generally: People have made up their mind about whether or not they want to be with you 15 minutes after you have met them. Generally, men make up their minds more quickly than women because they are sensorial reactive. Decision processing is usually dramatically out-of-sync between genders based on genetic hunter/gatherer evolutionary programming. Both genders need to adjust to find the happy medium.. 2. Most internet dates end in the first few emails because of misinterpretation. Many people are typing on their cell phone or iphone or they are at work or they are joking and you can’t see it in email. Do not make prejudgments based on the first few emails, they are often wrong or unfair to the other person. 3. A large number of people follow “the third date” rule. This means that if the two of you have not decided to be intimate by the third date you probably never will. 4. Almost a majority of first meetings are cancelled by one of the two people just prior to meeting because people feel no commitment to a stranger. Do not be surprised if people using the service are not too motivated re: the first meeting as many have been through these out-of-the-blue cancellations already. 5. Men are genetically ingrained to be territorial. Women’s men “friends” may suddenly nay-say the new guy, use psychological tricks to create stress and suddenly confess their “secret love” for you in order to cut the new guy off at the knees. As soon as your guy friends, ex husband, old boyfriend, (even your children) etc, hear that you have a date, they will often try to jack-up your plans in order to protect their turf. If you are divorced then you usually already have a conflict relationship over child custody and schedules, watch for the ex-husband to constantly change child pick-up times, days to pick-up and other schedule shifts at the last minute if he suspects you have dating plans. Stand firm on your plans so you are not victimized by the ex-husband’s territorial strategies 6. Many single people have an obsessive relationship with their pets if they are single. Consider how much you talk about or plan your life around your pet. 7. Men have a hard time talking about feelings. 8. Meet as soon as possible. A majority of people that spend time talking, first, on this online dating, seem to be disappointed. The majority have a wonderful set of emails and phone calls and think they have met the love of their life. .. but when they meet, the chemistry is not there and both parties are twice as hurt by the brick wall because they have already created expectations and wishful thinking via advance communication. Most people find each other adorable on hours of phone calls but only 1% of the people said they had chemistry in person and vice versa. That has been the story that most other users on online dating have posted in tens of thousands of blogs so this appears to be the consensus of a general trend. Just an FYI. One would be losing relationships if they try to force a computer system to act human by using it for the initial interaction. You have to meet in the real world to not get screwed up by the computer and its process. One has to get out of the digital/chat room world as fast as they can and into the tangible real world of touch, vision and the other senses. Another reason for meeting soon is that people blog that a large number of people they start emailing with, suddenly cancel future meetings because someone else they were emailing with met them sooner. In many cases, when they have to book the first meeting a week or more out, they will contact you the day before and cancel the meeting because they starting seeing others they dated within that week delay. Most connections never happen because someone else gets there first. 9. Sexual politics have killed off a majority of first dates. While it may seem rude or inappropriate to discuss sex on the first few dates, it is a large part of “dating”. If you get down the road and have actual sex only to find that you have two different styles, then the whole relationship is over in minutes after weeks or months of wasted “dating”. Kissing and petting are key to testing the waters early. Also, if you have not gone into Walgreen’s and asked the pharmacist for the “Home Access Express HIV Test Kit” , gotten a Gardisil vaccination and acquired “Plan B” pills (Google these if you don’t know what they are) then you are not ready to even go there. Condoms leak, spillover and break so must have these back-ups in place. 10. Brush your teeth and take Breath Assure tablets. Bad breath kills off many dates. 11. Know what you really want. Most people are specifically looking for marriages, sex, babies, distractions, fun, social status, therapy or other certain things. Compare notes on your actual needs in the first date. There is nothing wrong with just looking for sex, the volume of people is higher with computer dating so the odds are better, just be clear up front. In fact few people can have “just sex” without falling in love afterwards. 12. People with kids are able to date just as much as people without kids if they have a balanced life. Most single parents are able to get 3 full nights a week totally to themselves. If you can’t pull this off, talk to a parent who does to figure it out. 13. Don’t discuss emotional topics in email with someone you have never met. 14. On spending money: Women expect men to pay and men expect women to practice the “womens liberation” they fought for. Women want proof of stability and men want sexual reciprocation. Men get burned out buying a string of meals for strangers they will never see again. Men feel used and women feel diminished if the man doesn’t pay…This is the hardest subject in dating. Manage expectations on this from the beginning. Dating math = To find a great marital partner you will spend the rest of your life with you need to meet at least 1000 people. To find a great LTR dating partner you need to meet at least 150. 99% of these meetings will not work out. If a guy meets one person a day for a month and the cost of food, parking & misc. adds up to $95/night then he has to spend nearly $3000.00 a month just to see if there is a chance. If the lady says to the man that "Her mom taught her that the man must always pay", or "she was raised in the South", or 'She was brought up to let the man be the provider", in a recession. How do you think this makes the guys feel? Avoid dinners for the first few dates or agree to dutch treat unless you both are looking for a trophy-partner or transactional-sexual relationship. 15. We live in an age where advertising and media train us to be attracted to certain facial types: sorority girl looks like fraternity guy looks, biker guy looks like biker girl looks, hipster guy looks like hipster girl types. Realize that we are all being forced to be superficial by this. Try to get past this, or you will miss people who are, otherwise, perfect matches. 16. Exchange cell phone numbers for the first meeting. Most people do not look like their pictures and many people never find each other the first time. Use a Google-voice number or get a $27.00 phone from Walgreens if you don’t want to give out your real number. 17. Where to meet is a political consideration. People who have done a few weeks of internet dating know that 99% of the first meetings don’t click and they will never see that person again , so they are hesitant to go too far for a first meeting . Women think men should drive to their location. Men think that they are going to have to pay for everything so the women should come to them. A good fix is to meet half-way. 18. In life you have gathered people that are very similar to you around you in order to create a controlled and comfortable insulation. In online dating you will meet the full breadth of people and they are of every type. Be prepared to broaden your horizons. 19. If you feel the need to tell people that “you need to go slow” (A concept foreign to most men) or “are still hurt from your last relationship”.. you may not be ready to date. Not only are most people on a dating site eager and willing to be in a relationship, but things move much faster online than not online. Don’t hurt yourself, and others, by using a dating site for therapy. People on dating sites go fast, generally. 20. If you are wanting to blow somebody off and you are online dating, do not say you have “met someone” and then leave your profile up. If they see your profile still up or get a notice (such as match.com sends out to everybody each time you go into your profile) they may feel lied to. 21. IT bears repeating: If you just got out of a relationship, do not use a dating service to either A: See if you are over it or B: try to get your ex to become jealous and come back to you. It is cruel to the other people that are meeting you that area "ready-to-go". ATTRACTION CLIFF NOTES: OK. Here are the details from that TV show: You are a tool of the media. If you are “attractive” you go for people (without looking for depth) who always use you and dump you as they search for attraction without depth. Science says that women with “model attractive” aquiline facial features will usually fail in love unless they pick the least “model attractive” man with non aquiline facial features that they can find because two model attractive people generally do not develop the depth or intent beyond appearance and only see the lack of the depth after the superficial comfort has worn off. Other examples of pre-programming are documented in the TV series and text of: Discovery Channel’s Science of Sex Appeal- Cliff Notes: http://dsc.discovery.com/videos/science-of-sex-appeal/ The bottom line, based on over one hundred years of research by thousands of different entities: “What people think they want is wrong if they are looking for anything more than just sex” Your subconscious biological programming will ONLY steer you to “make more humans”, it WILL NOT allow you to pick a relationship partner. It will make you pick someone who is cute and mostly totally wrong for you. This is why 90% of dating experiences never work out and 70% of marriages end in divorce. Online dating causes most of the people that SHOULD be together to not get picked because the main choosing process is picture-based. * Social, media and genetic programming makes you do things you do not mean to do in the dating process. To be successful in dating you have to actually NOT go with your “intuition” or “first impressions” because science now shows us that it is a TRICK. Science now shows that reacting to pictures only, online, will only get you great sex and NEVER get you a deep or long lasting relationship. * You will not pick a person whose eye separation and distance from nose to brow is not the same as yours unless you consciously make yourself only look at the person in profile view. You unconsciously judge attraction based on equilateral positioning of all facial elements and geometric distances between points on the face. * Women are generally repelled by men’s scent (except when they are within a day or two of ovulation)... * One research study illustrated that women tend to choose partners based on status or resources as a priority. Groups of women, selected at random, were shown photos of similarly dressed men of relatively equal attractiveness. Following a baseline numerical rating of attractiveness, later groups were shown the same pictures, but with an indication of social and economic status -- five- or six-figure incomes. The attractiveness ratings rose or fell significantly in direct correlation to perceived income level. Men put fins and flames on their cars and wear giant watches in order to create status-attraction to attract women. * When women are ovulating; their voices change to a higher pitch to attract men, their skin tone changes to attract men, their pelvic muscles tighten to create a shimmier walk, they interpret smells different and they output different kinds of attracting odors. * The more a man sways his shoulders in a swager, the more women will be attracted to him. The more a woman sways her hips, the more men will be attracted to her. * And the science of partner selection continues with human odor as a factor. Couples can discern the special smell of their partner. Every man has a unique smell -- 'eau de man.' Research has demonstrated that odor affects us at a subconscious level. We can't control it. No two people smell the same or have the same ‘HMC’, as it is called. There is an optimum match for HMC. * Women are generally repelled by men’s scent (except when they are within a day or two of ovulation); but men, when exposed to odors, are consistently attracted. In experiments where men inhale imperceptible low doses of artificial copulants, the attractiveness rating of women shown in pictures is higher. Copulants impair men’s ability to discriminate whether a woman is attractive. The scent of copulants prevents them from thinking clearly. (Odor also helps us steer clear of relatives and has performed the evolutionary role of "incest avoidance.") * With chemistry-inspired flirting, lust, and love all continuously active below our level of consciousness, can we maintain attraction to one partner? Attraction has many stages, beginning with a single biochemical jolt resulting in a change reaction. Anecdotal reports indicate the ‘first kiss’ is highly memorable in the attraction that builds (or fails to build). The abundant testosterone in saliva increases the sex drive. * Men are genetically programmed at the core of their genes for tens of millions of years to sleep with as many women as possible in order to keep the species going. Just as women are programmed to want a baby like crazy as soon as they turn 18. A good college education or strict parents are not going to change this. Recent science has found a shot that can cause monogamy in men and a shot that can cause baby anxiety reduction in women. * Even more sex appeal chemistry influences occur through the dopamine triggered in our brains. Dopamine is the brain’s pleasure chemical that produces a high that can be addictive, energy producing, and exhilarating. Biochemistry shows the link between dopamine and testosterone with exhilaration and lust. But dopamine is not uniquely linked to sex appeal. The thrill of sports, bungee jumping for instance, can produce a dopamine rush. What about love? * Many of our unconscious preferences and behaviors are conditioned by our chemistry. Studies report that women find slightly feminized pictures of the same man more attractive when they are not ovulating. Married women are biologically driven to promiscuous behavior as reported by an experiment based on digital movies of the female participants dancing during a "girls’ night out." The women with long term partners and on their fertility cycles were the most provocative. This was concluded from movement and appearance analyzed through pixels and an estimated percentage of skin showing. These committed women sent out more sexual signals than the available ones. In contrast, other research pinpoints the role of the chemical oxcytocin in monogamy for women. * Many of our unconscious preferences and behaviors are conditioned by our chemistry. Studies report that women find slightly feminized pictures of the same man more attractive when they are not ovulating. Married women are biologically driven to promiscuous behavior as reported by an experiment based on digital movies of the female participants dancing during a "girls’ night out." The women with long term partners and on their fertility cycles were the most provocative. This was concluded from movement and appearance analyzed through pixels and an estimated percentage of skin showing. These committed women sent out more sexual signals than the available ones. In contrast, other research pinpoints the role of the chemical oxcytocin in monogamy for women. * The science on sexual attraction claims that evolution prepares us to stay together just long enough to raise children. One study across 58 societies demonstrated a dual reproductive system going from pair bonding to straying at about the four-year mark in a relationship. The study conclusion: we are fundamentally built to stray. Does this mean that our exhilarating experience of early love is destined to be undermined by our inherent biology? Will we always fail at long- term love? * Men put flame decals, fins, large spoilers, giant speakers, and raised tires on their cars to draw the attention of women in order to seek to demonstrate that they have a higher ability to acquire goods and survive in the urban jungle. * Science claims that the chemistry of passion, lust, and love bind us together for a limited period of time. Haven't most of us figured that out at a personal level? My observation is we already know we need to build for the future before the reality storm hits. Yet many of us neglect our marriages and relationships anyway. Over focus on careers or children, and overindulging in our selfish habits through individual use of time frequently lead to rampant neglect of our partners. Science help us? * It takes just three minutes to fall in love, scientists revealed today. What the heart wants, it can establish fairly quickly, according to American psychologists who studied the behaviour of 10,500 newly-introduced couples. “Some people say they’re looking for one kind of person, then choose another. Others say they don’t even know what they’re looking for,” said Robert Kurzban of the University of Pennsylvania. “But our data suggest that, however it happens, people know it quickly when they see it.” He claimed would-be lovers generally understand their own worth on the dating market, and so are able to judge potential compatibility within moments of meeting. Psychologists analysed the interactions between speed-dating participants, where men and women are given just three minutes to assess each other before moving on to the next person. At the end of a session each individual indicates which of the 25 or so people he or she met they would like to see again. “Although they had three minutes, most participants made their decision based on the information that they probably got in the first three seconds,” Kurzban said. “Somewhat surprisingly, factors that you might think would be really important to people, like religion, education and income, played very little role in their choices.” Psychologists have often likened relationships to transactions whereby people select mates based on the qualities their other half has to offer, such as power and money. But Kurzban’s data reveals that when people meet face- to-face, things like smoking preferences and bank accounts are not of great importance. Actual behaviour is worth more than stated beliefs, he said, particularly in the case of speed-dating when participants do not want to risk a bad date and so have more incentive to follow their hearts and desires. The researchers caution that speed dating is not necessarily typical of how people usually interact. Their findings will be published in US journal Evolution and Human Behaviour." Computer Taught To Recognize Attractiveness In Women ScienceDaily (Apr. 5, 2008) — "Beauty," goes the old saying, "is in the eye of the beholder." But does the beholder have to be human?