Are you embarrassed to admit to friends and family that you are using an online dating service?

I think this is an interesting question to pose because for whatever reason, online dating still seems to hold some sort of stigma with people. Many people who use online dating and realize the benefits of it are embarrassed to tell others what they’re up to.

It’s not uncommon for couples who meet online to come up with a “story” on how they met, as opposed to telling people they met online. It’s easier for them to concoct a lie about meeting as opposed to just telling the truth. Funny scenario, isn’t it?

This may have to do with the fact that people assume the only normal way to meet other singles is through the traditional channels, such as work, church, social groups or through friends. If someone resorts to alternative methods, friends and families have preconceived notions that the person must have become desperate in their search for others.

Estimates on active members of online dating sites vary, due to the vague nature of the term “active”. Let’s assume active to mean someone who has logged into their online dating account within the past month.

Estimates of active online dating accounts in the United States are around 20 million people, but let’s cut that number in half, to 10 million people. The United States has a population of 300 million people, so 1 in every 30 United States citizens (3.3%) uses online dating. That looks like a pretty small percentage.

Let’s adjust the number to give us a more reflective number of singles. After a quick glance at Wikipedia, we see that approximately 25% of the population (or 75 million people) are under the age of 18. We’ll eliminate the minors from our starting figure of 300 million, to give us a pool of 225 million adults.

Married couples make up approximately 25% of the population (or 75 million people), so we need to exclude them from our figures as well. That now brings our pool of 225 million adults down to 150 million eligible singles.

Going back to our original estimate of 10 million active members of online dating sites and you’ll see that almost 1 in every 15 eligible singles in the United States is using online dating.

The number of people who uses online dating sites has increased every single year, so expect the ratio to decrease over time. Also bear in mind that I estimated my figures on the conservative side with 10 million current online users.

Online dating is a growing trend. As hard as it is for many to fathom, 10’s of 1000’s of people log onto the internet for the first time each and every day. It’s an every growing market place that isn’t going to disappear.

I believe that the stigma of online dating will disappear over the next few years. It’s incumbent that users who have found success with online dating share their stories with others. I know that if I find something that works for me, I am willing to share it with all of my friends in the hopes that they can benefit as well.

Meeting people is a difficult thing to do, and it would be foolish not to look at all of your available options. The more we can get people to discuss the merits of online dating, the quicker the stigma and embarrassment will disappear.

Following the lead of New Jersey, which became the first state to pass legislation to protect online daters back in January, Florida is hoping to pass “The Internet Predator Awareness and Online Safety Act, HB 411.” This bill would require that all online dating sites to disclose to their prospective and current customers whether or not they provide security checks on their clients.

The Florida bill goes further and requires dating sites to disclose what types of background and security checks they are doing. The minimum it hopes to include in each background check is a search for felony, misdemeanor, and sexual offense convictions.

If the dating service does not provide background checks on their members, the state of Florida wants the online dating site to communicate “clearly and conspicuously” that the site does not provide criminal background checks.

The bill is being pushed through by Rep. Kevin Ambler, who has tried to push this bill through on 4 other occasions. He believes that the main constituency that this protects is senior women, either widowed or divorced, who seem to be most vulnerable to internet fraud.

Widowed seniors tend to be ideal targets for unscrupulous Romeos. They are desperate for companionship after many years of marital harmony. Most importantly, they tend to have healthy savings accounts, which is what online predators are looking for.

“Sweetheart Swindles” are not a new thing, but there appears to be a steady rise in their occurrence within the past few years. These crimes focus on predators focusing on desperate singles who are tired of being alone and willing to try a lot of things to find that special someone.

The National Consumers League began tracking these sweetheart crimes back in July of 2007, and they reported 184 cases to close out the calendar year. On average, the losses reported by the victims in these schemes amounted to just over $3,000 per person.

These are just reported cases, and I think it’s safe to speculate that many victims of these crimes never bother to report them. Once a victim has been taken, they are often too embarrassed to contact authorities and report the incident.

Opponents of the bill argue that this legislation may lull dating site users into a false sense of security. When using an online dating service, it is imperative to protect your personal information. Use your common sense, and if something doesn’t seem right, it most likely isn’t.

Money should never be a topic of discussion when talking to someone online. If someone that you’ve just met starts to open up to you and discuss their financial hardships, it should be an immediate warning that something is not right.

Background checks could be a great addition to any online dating service, but they will only provide you with a small degree of protection. You work awful hard for your money and it would be a shame to see you part with it due to a lapse of common sense.

The goal of online dating is not to meet people and chat online, but to meet face-to-face other quality singles that you would be interested in dating.

Exchanging emails and chatting helps us to determine the people we would like to eventually meet in person. It’s a great tool to weed through the many different profiles on a dating site to find the ones we think are a good match.

How long should you wait before taking the step of a face to face meeting?

I think that you should set up a face-to-face meeting as quickly as possible.

Each single moves at their own pace and you have to be cognizant of someone’s comfort levels. Make sure that in your exuberance to meet someone that you don’t push them out of their comfort level. This will kill a relationship before it ever gets started.

Why such an urgency to meet face-to-face? Here’s a few reasons for you.

• The first date is a blind date.

Regardless of how many emails and chats you exchange, it doesn’t take away from the fact that your first meeting is a blind date. Chemistry is a funny thing in relationships, and you can’t make it happen. You either will have it with someone or you won’t. That’s just the way it is. Why waste your time and effort getting to know someone online if there just isn’t any physical attraction?

• Don’t let your imagination dictate the relationship.

The longer you put off meeting someone, the more you will develop pre-conceived notions on what they look like and how they’ll react. The internet gives us all anonymity, and we are able to answer and respond at our own leisurely pace. Someone may be able to craft a brilliant answer to a question via an email, but in person they may not be able to carry on a conversation. These are things you’ll want to know before getting too involved with someone, because life is full of normal conversation.

• Keep the initial meeting low-key.

Go out for coffee or for a lunch date. You’ll know pretty quickly whether a person is someone you want to know a little better. Don’t invest a lot of time or money on a blind date just to find out that there’s no spark.

• Meet two or three times.

Once you’ve decided to meet someone face-to-face, you’ve officially left cyberspace and you’ve entered the real world. Follow the rules you would use in traditional dating, unless there is no spark. Go out with someone at least two or three times before calling it off.

To give you an example, close friends of mine (Tom & Joan) had a disastrous first date. It involved Tom forgetting to bring his wallet, Tom accidentally locking the car keys in the car, and a five hour ordeal just to catch a movie.

A funny thing happened, Joan agreed to a second date and they are still happily married after 14 years. Through this series of mishaps, Tom and Joan got a chance to know each other a little better and saw first hand how they each responded to adversity.

Chemistry is the key to relationships, and good chemistry will overcome a bad first date. Don’t write someone off just because the first impression wasn’t the greatest.

Once you’ve found someone online, try to meet them in person as quickly as possible. Get out of cyberspace and into the real world of dating. You’ll be glad you did.

The goal of an online dating site profile is to entice other singles to click onto your profile, read through it, and make the effort to contact you to find out more about you.

You should not rush through this step. For a few fortunate people, writing is a very natural thing. They can sit down and look at a blank sheet of paper and within 15-20 minutes they are able to write a concise and well-written profile. These people are the exception.

Most of us fall into the second category of people who struggle with writing in general, let alone writing personal information about ourselves. This will be the most time consuming process of setting up your dating profile. It can take people many hours, if not days, to develop a profile that they’re comfortable in posting.

By nature, most people are not good at selling. Sales is a difficult process, and it takes a certain personality to succeed in sales. Yet every dating site you visit tells you that you need to develop a personal profile that “sells” yourself to other singles. This is a tough dilemma for many to deal with.

Generally speaking, most people are modest about selling themselves. From an early age, our parents go to great lengths to tell us what an admirable personality trait humility is, and we are encouraged to praise and extol the virtues of others while at the same time downplaying our own actions. We are not comfortable with “bragging” to others about what our strengths are.

Let’s take a look at this social trend we are taught, and let’s use it to our benefit to develop our online persona. This will require you to step outside your normal comfort zone, but the benefits you receive from it will be quite substantial in the long run.

• Ask your closest personal confidents if they could take a few minutes of their own time to write down what it is that they like most about you.

Explain to them why you’re asking them to do this, and you’ll find that they’ll be more than happy to help you out. Once you ask a few close friends, siblings, or even your parents to do this, you will find reoccurring themes that will continue to present themselves.

This will be embarrassing process for a many because it requires you to put yourself out there a little bit. You’ll be letting others know that you’re planning to use an online dating site. This might stop a few people from following my advice, because the anonymity of using an online dating service is a big selling point of the process.

Single people don’t like to have discussions on why they’re still single (again back to the issue of drawing attention to ourselves). If this describes you remember that you have little to lose. You’ve chosen a person who’s gotten to know you really well and they like what you have to offer.

Remember, you are joining an online dating service because you want a change in your life. Your current model for meeting singles isn’t working as you would like. You are tired of being alone and you are looking for someone to share your day-to-day activities with. A few minutes of what you perceive to be “embarrassment” with a friend who values you for who you are is really a small inconvenience.

The benefit of asking two or three people to do this for you is that the majority of your dating profile will be written for you. It will portray who you are and how people perceive you. It will be an honest representation of who you are, and research shows that honest online dating profiles tend to be the most successful.

You’ve gone through a lot of hard work to get your online dating profile set up. This is done for one specific reason; to get your profile to stand out among all the other profiles on the site. You’re hoping that others will want to get in contact with you to find out a little more about you.

The culmination of all of this effort materializes in your email inbox. You should start getting unsolicited emails and notifications from people who are hoping to get to know a little more about you.

You open up the email, and you click the link to take a look at that person’s profile. You try to decide if this is someone you may be interested in getting to know a little better. If so, I recommend you craft a response back to them in a prompt fashion.

That’s the best case scenario; however, what is the proper etiquette for responding to someone that you’re not interested in?

This question is up for debate among dating experts, with the schools of thought pretty evenly divided.

Option #1: Don’t Respond

Some experts suggest that there is no need to respond back to someone that you just aren’t interested in. They feel that you are under no obligation, and that this is one of the perks of using an online dating service. You can get to know as many people as you like, without having any strings attached.

Option #2: Respond

Put yourself in their shoes. If you found someone of interest you would send them an email (or wink) over to them to show your interest. You’re not expecting this person to drop everything that they’re doing to respond to you, but you are hoping to hear something back in a timely fashion.

We’re all grown ups, and rejection is a part of life. We don’t enjoy it, but in dating it’s just a part of the process. I would rather be told no than to than to not get any response at all.

I think it’s just as easy to take a few minutes of your time to respond back. Although I’m a big fan of personalizing each correspondence I make, in this instance I don’t see the need to do so. Just come up with a set response, save it as a file, and copy and paste it into emails as needed.

Here’s an example that you can use:

“Thank you very much for your interest. I’m flattered to hear from you, but after taking a few minutes to read through your profile, you don’t seem to share many of the interests that are important to me. Good luck with your dating search and best wishes!”

You’ve given the person the common courtesy of a response while at the same time you’ve let them know that you’re not interested. If they decide to respond back asking why, I think at that point you’re not under any obligation to respond.

How difficult is that?

Let’s start off with the negatives and get them out of the way before moving onto the positives. Since most initial conversation takes place through either an email or chat, let’s start with some basics.

• Don’t type in Caps. This is the internet equivalent of screaming. TYPING IN CAPS IS FROWNED UP.

• Don’t use “text talk” when responding to others. Here are a few examples of what I’m talking about: LOL, BRB, TTFN, CYA, OMG. There are too many people out there that just don’t understand what any of the abbreviations stand for. Take the time to write out each word and make sure to use proper punctuation. Remember, you are trying to entice the person you’re communicating with to want to learn more about you.

• Don’t use offensive language. Keep your initial discussion clear of colorful language. Once you get to know someone a little better, you’ll get the idea on whether or not they find this type of language to be appropriate. The last thing you want is for someone to lose interest in you early in the relationship because you let your language slip.

• Don’t force someone to proceed quicker than they wish. You may feel you are ready to move from email and chat conversations over to a telephone call, but don’t assume your partner is ready for that step. If they refuse your invitation, don’t badger them. When they are ready for that step, they will let you know.

• Don’t maintain an active profile if you are seeing someone else. This behavior is frowned upon in the online dating community.

Now that we’ve gotten those out of the way, let’s take a peek at some things that you should focus on. Follow these tips and you will be a highly regarded citizen of the web.

• Tell the truth and be yourself. Even little white lies will eventually come back to haunt you. The foundation of every relationship is trust.

• It’s OK to be in discussions with many different singles. In fact, this is one of the main benefits of using an online dating service. You want to be exposed to as many options as possible. As long as you’re not in an exclusive relationship, this is not seen as being sleazy.

• Listen to what people are telling you. Take the time to read their email or chat responses before formulating your response back to them.

• Personalize each response you make. It makes the recipient feel that you value your discussion with them.

• Respond back to people as soon as you can. It’s common courtesy to do so. Put yourself in their shoes. When you send out an email, you expect a response in a timely manner. One other point of note, if you wait too long to get back to someone, you may miss out on your opportunity to learn more about them. They may just move on to the next person that interests them. You just never know.

I was surfing online and I ran into a really interesting story written by Jessica Langdon in the Wichita Times Record News titled “Cheated Love: Woman Feels She Was Victim of Nigerian ‘Sweetheart Scam’.”

Before I go too much further, I have one quick confession I would like to make. I really do feel for the people of Nigeria. It’s a proud country with a storied history and rich cultural heritage. It is ranked as the 8^th most populous nation in the world with over 140 million citizens. Yet when most internet users think of Nigeria, negative images immediately come to mind.

Think about your own email inbox and how many times you’ve come across a variation of the great Nigerian Scam. I know if I had $1 for each of them I’ve received, I would literally have thousands of $$$’s sitting in my back account.

Each variation of the scam involves the victim wiring funds from their bank account in exchange for the promise of bigger riches in the future. Sadly, these riches never materialize. This scam has morphed itself in many forms; in this instance it involves a budding long distance relationship and innocent requests for money.

I think this article is a must read for anyone getting started in online dating. It gives a real life example of what you need to be cautious of when getting to know people in the cyber world. The article goes into great detail about a woman named Carrie Thompson, who fortunately did not suffer financial hardship but she goes to great lengths to show how it would be possible to get taken for a ride.

Some of the best bits of advice to take from the article:

1. Do not let the relationship move too quickly.

Although you may feel a real connection developing with another person, be cautious of someone who is inclined to say how much they “love” you or can’t imagine being without you before an actual face-to-face encounter.

2. If you meet through a dating site, be very cautious about moving all correspondence from the site’s email/chat system over to a private system.

In this story, Ms. Thompson met her acquaintance at Match.com, but her friend quickly convinced her to move all of their correspondence over to a personal Yahoo account. Think about it, if a person has nothing to hide, why would they be inclined to move the discussion elsewhere?

3. Be wary of a match who constantly brings up money.

Remember, dating online is not much different that meeting someone in a traditional method. Finances are not something that people readily share with one another. Money should never enter into a dating conversation until the relationship is very well established. If someone goes out of their way to mention how tight their finances are, use caution. Chances are they have an ulterior motive.

As with everything else with online dating, if it sounds too good to be true, it usually is. If your instincts are telling you that something doesn’t seem quite right, the smart thing to do is to err on the side of caution and follow your gut.

To read the full article, click here.

Spitzer is reported to have spent over $80,000 on prostitutes during his tenure as first New York State Attorney General and then as Governor. To compound Spitzer’s problem, he was also married with three children.

Never missing a chance for some free PR, online dating site Ashley Madison took out a full page newspaper ad in the New York Post to capitalize on Spitzer’s misfortune. Ashley Madison is an online dating site that caters to married couples looking to have a discreet affair (click here for our review). The website bills itself as the place to go when “monogamy turns into monotony.”

The ad, made out to look like an email to Spitzer and copied to New York State, states that “fooling around with ‘professionals’ is bound to get you into hot water.” It goes on to further state that “we hate to say we told you so. Approaching an affair the wrong way is always a recipe for disaster … We’re all of the fun and none of the trouble. …No headlines, no scandals.”

Advice that Spitzer probably could have used…..

To see the article and actual ad, click here.

While this may seem an insignificant stat to look at, let me spell out the reason I find it to be important.

On almost all major dating sites, profiles are sorted according to their last login. What I mean by that is that when you pull up your desired search preferences, the site will return the results in the order of their most recent log in. What this does is it filters the active accounts from the inactive ones.

If you really think about it, this is pretty much common sense. If a profile’s last login in is 3 months old, it’s safe to assume that it is not an active profile.

How long is too long? I think anyone who hasn’t logged in within two weeks should be considered a dormant profile. We all have reasons why we can’t login, including business travel and vacations. If someone has paid to use a dating service, it’s safe to assume that if they’re serious, they would be logging in regularly.

Why wouldn’t a member log in? There are only two reasons: 1. they aren’t seriously looking to meet other quality singles, or 2. they may have met already met one.

Anyone who’s been involved with online dating will tell you that the most important thing with online dating is getting your profile in front of as many people as possible. What makes online dating such an attractive alternative for many people is the ability to meet a ton of quality singles in one area.

When choosing an online dating site, it’s imperative to find out whether or not a site will work for you based on the amount of singles in your local area. Search options will give you different parameters to choose from, including sorting profiles by zip code.

This is done based on what you feel to be an acceptable distance to drive (i.e. 5, 10, or 25+ miles) because remember the goal of dating online is to actually go out and meet the person face to face. It does you no good to find that dream date online, only to find out they live three hours away from you.

If you perform this search, and the results come back and 5 of the first 10 results are profiles with no activity within the last two months, than odds are that the pool of available candidates at the site is not going to fit your needs. Conversely, if you pull this search and it returns pages of profiles that are active, sign up right away.

Why would a site not display the last login for each of their profiles? My guess would be because they want possible customers to think the site is a lot more active than it really is.

One note of caution, not all sites will operate in this style. A handful of sites give their members the option of purchasing a “premium” membership for an additional fee. The perk of this type of membership is that “premium” members will have their profile listed at the top each time a search is requested.

One last suggestion if you are planning to use an online dating service, make sure to log on regularly. You want to keep your profile in front of as many people as possible. The more you login, the higher your profile will show. It’s that simple!

Once you’ve figured that out, use the parts of those profiles as a template to work off of but insert your personal info. The most important part of this plan is that you need to make sure to write the things and beliefs that make you unique and will set you apart.

An example of this would be that you’ve seen a profile that drew you in because it quoted the lyrics of a song that you really enjoy.

The use of the song lyric is what drew you in, so incorporate a similar strategy when piecing together your profile. I’m not suggesting that you use that exact lyric, but rather come up with another favorite lyric or line of poetry to help convey your message.

You don’t need to reinvent the wheel, but these profiles were interesting to you and most likely will be interesting to people with tastes similar to yours. It only works if you personalize it to represent you. If not, the people that you’re trying to meet will recognize this as soon as they get to know you and in many cases dismiss you as a fraud.

In the online community, many people aren’t even bothering to put any thought or originality into their own online persona. There’s a fantastic article written by Jennifer Saranow of the Wall Street Journal titled “The Cut-and-Paste Personality” which goes into great detail.

The gist of the article is that there is rampant plagiarism running through not only online dating site profiles but also many of the social networking sites such as MySpace. For a lot of people, it’s much easier for them to copy a dating profile than to sit down and put the effort into creating their own original profile.

Ms. Saranow points out that people aren’t just taking lines or small quotes from other profiles, but that they are actually copying profiles in their entirety. She uses the example of a writer named Hugh Gallagher, who has had parts of one of his college essays from over 20 years ago copied in over 50 different profiles on Match.com alone.

That’s just one dating site. Imagine with all of the dating sites out there how many other times his work has been plagiarized?

The anonymity of the internet makes a lot of this quite possible. It’s quite easy to google any subject imaginable and it will return hundreds or even thousands of pages that reference what you’re looking for. The amount of written material to borrow from is immense, and it grows on a daily basis. I speak from experience as I’ve visited numerous other dating sites and I’ve found many of the articles I’ve written posted on their sites without any credit being referenced back to me.

The bottom line is that when you are creating your online dating profile; make it as unique as possible. Make sure it represents who you are. You may be able to fool someone into clicking onto your profile, but relationships built on false pretenses rarely succeed.