Author Archives: alexatzoosk

5 Ways to Create a Date Night Worth Putting on the Calendar

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by Julie Spira, the CyberDating Expert

I’ve gone on record as saying the ritual of having a ‘Date Night’ can actually save your relationship. It’s important to ‘date your mate’ and keep the romance alive after the honeymoon phase is over. Trust me, you can make those work deadlines and still have time for date night. Juggling your calendar is hard, but it can be done. Not sure where to start? Here are some of my tips.

1. Select a day and stick to it. Make sure you know your date night won’t be pre-empted by a football game or a standing nail appointment and stick to it. Every week on the same evening, you’ll be scheduling a romantic evening for you and your honey. Date night is sacred. Hire a babysitter, dog sitter, and take a pass on the happy hour invite.

2. Take turns on scheduling plans. Every week, you and your honey should alternate as to who selects the outing. Get creative. It can be as simple as in-room-dining by candlelight, to finding events to attend such as comedy shows, movies, plays, or free concerts.

3. Pre-date night foreplay. Show some enthusiasm and excitement leading up to your date. Leave a love note on your pillow or send a sexy text messages to each other in anticipation of your special night. Take out the lingerie that has been collecting dust in your bureau and wear it all day long.

4. Leave the boardroom behind. If you have had a fight with your boss or are worried about an upcoming presentation, take a break from talking about it on date night. There’s plenty of time to talk about work outside of your special evening.

5. Memorialize it. Be your own love historian. Bring your iPhone to take cute photos and videos, log into instagram and post a lovey-dovey shot of you and your sweetheart, and upload them to your photo sharing account on Flickr or to Facebook, if you’ve already announced to the world that you’re “In a Relationship.” Upload your favorite shot onto your desktop for quick viewing in between date nights.

The simple ritual of creating a date night can help you become as excited as you did during the first three months of dating, and can last for months, years, or decades to come!

Do you have your own date-night suggestions? Share them in our comment section!

About the author: Julie Spira is an online dating expert and bestselling author of The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. Julie was an early adopter of online dating and creates irresistible profiles for singles on the dating scene. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com for dating advice and follow Julie @JulieSpira on Twitter and at Facebook.com/CyberDatingExpert

Photo via Flickr. Creative Commons License: Attribution-Sharealike.

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Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week: Jay Z and Beyonce can’t run from romance

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As Zoosk’s RomanceFTW contestenters its final leg, it’s only right that this week’s Romantic Song reflects some coupleness. So, this week, we called on Jay Z and Beyonce for a love lesson in evading the law.

Zoosk’s Romance FTW Contest Enters Final Month – Are These America’s 5 Most Romantic Couples ?

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It’s been almost a month since Zoosk announced its Romance FTW competition to find America’s most romantic couple. Couples from around the country have been creating their couple profiles, posting their romantic moments and inviting their friends to like and comment on the milestones of their relationships. And, of course, the couple with the most friends, likes and comments – according to the Zoosk Leaderboard get to win a trip to one of America’s most romantic cities, as well as a whopping ten-thousand dollars!

As the competition heats up, we wanted to highlight the five couples in the lead right now – including one of the stars of Gordon Ramsey’s Hell’s Kitchen on Fox – Kimmie Willis and her fiancé Robert from Memphis, who have been sharing dozens of romantic moments from their travels and Kimmie’s famous BBQing talents!

Not to be outdone, Irene and Jeff from Castro Valley, California are engaged and they’ve been turning up the cuteness with their romantic moments. Along with some vacation shots that are sure to inspire pangs of jealousy for those of us sat in an office instead of poolside!
Theresa and Steven who are married and live in Maine, have gone so far as to share a romantic moment of their six guinea pigs!

Sheila Lach and John Walker from Florida have been sharing their romance with each other – and with bloody marys – on their couple profile. We’re big fans of both!

And, finally, the top-5 couple countdown wouldn’t be complete without Tabitha and Anthony. Tabitha lets Anthony play Xbox whenever, however long he wants – which we’re pretty sure is as romantic as it gets!

Zoosk’s Romance FTW contest ends August 5th so every couple still has a chance to join in! Stop by the Romance FTW Contest Page and get started by creating and sharing your romantic journey for a chance to win!

Double Your Fun with a Double Date!

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It’s a common phenomenon that, once a couple settles into the joys of relationshipped life, hanging out with friends takes on a totally new dynamic. Whether you’re a guy or a gal, hanging out with your single friends as a couple becomes weird and oddly unsatisfying. And, in turn, your single friends end up feeling like the third wheel on your love bike when you, newly coupled, spend time with them. Suddenly, their most-colorful of dating stories seem weirdly inappropriate conversation topics and stories of your couple adventures don’t burn quite as brightly as when you tell them to your coupled friends.

In short, both singles and couples often find themselves spending time hanging out with their own kind than crossing the relationship-status divide. It seems, wherever you are in your romantic journey, most folks prefer either singles’ night or double date as their social situation of choice.  But how can you easily find one? While it seems couples seem to gravitate toward other couples, it’s not always easy to find couple friends that you both get along with. And, just like dating, finding a couple that meshes well with the both of you can take some trial and error.

It’s worth starting the double date search by taking notice of the people in relationships that you already know. If you get along with someone who you know to be in a relationship, you’re already half-way down the road of finding a double date. It might be worth asking them if they and their partner might like to get a drink or join you at an event you’ve got plans to attend. Just like dating, committing to a full-on dinner might be a bit premature. Instead, take it slow and keep exploring the edges of your social circle and soon you’ll have plenty of couple friends to double-up on fun activities with you and your partner.

Alex Shapiro is the PR manager for Zoosk and has been on a number of fun double dates.

Have some extra fun double date suggestions? Share them on our comments section!

 

Behind the Scenes of a Love Lesson

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This has been my first experience behind the rolling cameras and the hot, expensive lights. Filming takes a lot of quality time. First we started off with the setup of the cameras, lighting, and furniture. The lighting needed to be at a right amount and right angle. I’ve always wondered how it looks like behind the cameras. It is so sophisticated with all these different types of technology, from the microphones to the Canon cameras, to the lights. All those items combined make a wonderful video, such as a Love Lesson. A Love Lesson is a series of videos of regular people with different careers from all over San Francisco, giving tips on what to do and what not to do in a relationship.
It has also been very interesting and exciting because I got to see what went wrong. Bloopers are usually not shown but I got to see it up front! Overall I really liked the experience and I will be always thinking of that when I watch a movie or a video.
Haitao is an intern and is learning about all aspects of what makes a tech company tick, including the Zoosk Blog!

Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week: Boyz II Men – need we say more?

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Maybe it’s because a lot of us at the Zoosk office grew up in the 90s, but this song sent Zoosk blog team strolling down memory lane like no other. Remember when ‘Friends’ and Bill Clinton were a novelty? If you do, then you’ll be loving this retro love song as much as we do!

What;s your favorite romantic 90s song?

International Kissing Day: A Guide

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July 6, International Kissing Day. What does that mean? How do we celebrate “Kissing Day”? Are we supposed to lock lips with someone special this day? Do we study kissing technique? Is the purpose to increase the quantity of smooches? Do we try new styles of kisses? Or is it just a play from Hershey’s to coerce us to buy their chocolate morsels?

Don’t we all already know how to kiss already? We’ve been kissing since we were toddlers. Do we really need a day focusing on it?

To be blunt, the answer is “yes.” We need to set aside one day for the kiss because it’s such an accepted intimate act that carries so much weight in a relationship. It seems that once they’ve been in a relationship for a while, most couples’ kissing styles begin to mesh and they find their smooching groove somewhere in the middle. But, for couples newly dating, without much kissing experience or even for some “old timers”, a little guidance might be in order to guarantee this intimate act is seen as sensual, rather than as a fiasco.

Hygiene

It all starts with cleanliness. You don’t want to go sticking your tongue into someone’s damp cave of halitosis. So, if you know there might be a make-out session in your near future, brush your teeth beforehand. If that’s not possible, carry a travel size bottle of Scope, some mints or a stick of gum to freshen and not offend.

I remember in high school kissing a girl once after she’d eaten what seemed like a wheel of cheese. She wanted to make this kiss an event. Not a good thing. And, while we’re on the subject, fellas, if kissing is in on the horizon, shave so you don’t leave her with stubble rash.

Eyes

The big question: open or closed? The simple answer: closed…duh. Once you have made lip-lock, there’s really no reason to open your eyes. Keep them closed and enjoy the ride. If you open them and your partner catches you, you run the risk of coming off kind of creepy. But, then again, you just caught them with their eyes open, too. Could be a match made in heaven.

Hands

Where do you put your hands while you’re kissing? It really depends on your position. Are you standing at a door? Sitting on a sofa? Lying on a bed? If you’re standing, wrapping your arms around your partner and rubbing their back is a safe way to go (think slow, sensual strokes). Another safe bet for most any position is even placing the hands the face (a hand cupping the jaw or lightly touching the cheek). Hands in your pockets? No!

Tongue

Once the tongue comes into play with a kiss, you start to open the door to passion. A tongue can really heighten a kiss, but it can also douse the fires of excitement if used improperly. Remember, inch for inch, the tongue is the strongest muscle in the human body. So, use that power for good, not evil. That means no shoving or forced entry. And, by all means, keep it in the mouth. No one needs you lapping their lips and chin like a Golden Retriever. Use your tongue to tease and seduce, and you’ll be fine.

Celebrate the kiss today, July 6th. Smooch good-bye on the cheek. Give a peck on the lips in the morning. Increase the passion a la the French. But, be sure that there’s meaning behind each lip-lock. Have fun.

Leon Scott Baxter is America’s Romance Guru and author of A Labor With Love and Out of the Doghouse and the new book, The Finance of Romance

Got some kissing advice you’d like to share? Share your lippiest tips in our comment section!

The Romantic Social Network & The Kissing Expert

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Kissing.  It’s the ultimate expression of your affection for someone you like, love or lust after.  And with the worldwide celebration of International Kissing Day on July 6th, Zoosk and The Kissing Expert are encouraging lovers and friends everywhere to take a little romantic journey for the day, and kiss with abandon – it’s the perfect 007 license for seizing the moment with someone you have a crush, crinkl

Now if making a soul connection with someone who gives you butterfly flutters is not enough, here are a few more reasons to indulge in this sweet ‘n sexy pleasure on this happy holiday:e or crunch on, or have long been in a deep relationship with.

  • “A Kiss A Day Keeps the Doctor Away”: As one of The Kissing Expert’s mantras, kissing truly is a total body remedy.  It keeps your heart healthy (it lowers blood pressure), your mind at ease (it drives the secretion of feel good chemicals like serotonin and oxcytocin), your skin rosy and lips plump (the dilating blood vessels give you that fresh “glow”), and improves the essence of youth (passionate “necking” tones the muscles in the jaw and neck line)…If that wasn’t compelling enough, a vigorous smooch session burns calories too (who knew?), which is infinitely more fun than a treadmill (and will keep you tip top frisky!)!
  • Kissing makes your checking account go “ka-ching”: A German study showed that a man who was kissed by his wife before leaving for work was apt to make more money…The reason is simple – kissin
  • Kissing is the tiny spark that can ignite the raging fuego: Nothing says “I want you” better than a soft, sensual brushing of lingering lips.  And whether the relationship is in that fresh “I can’t get enough of you” phase, or totally “tried and true” (and maybe needs the occasional re-boot), getting “lip to lip” is the best sensual prelude for getting “skin to skin”.g breeds contentment, which in turn spurs confidence and self-esteem…This will not only motivate your lover professionally, but personally when it comes the happiness and well-being of your relationship.  You can never kiss too much…

So on July 6th, The Kissing Expert is calling out to the amorous everywhere to commemorate this special day with Zoosk by turning to someone you know, or even don’t know, and kiss with exuberance.  It could make our crazy world a better place!

Andréa Demirjian

The Kissing Expert

@thekissingexpert  www.facebook.com/kissingexpert

Got some kissing advice you’d like to share? Share your lip-lock lessons in our comment section!

A Celebration of Kissing

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With International Kissing Day right around the corner, one can’t help but think more about kissing. In a big way, kissing is the true odometer of your romantic journey. Think about it. That first one is full of significance and promise – a kind of romantic fanfare to welcome the possible beginning of a new relationship. Early on in dating, kissing becomes a sort of celebration of your romance evolving into something special. As the honeymoon period of dating begins to plateau, kissing becomes a more-casual way to confirm your togetherness. By now, you’re probably only really going at it like high schoolers when a bit tipsy or as a launch pad for a more-intimate encounter.

About a year into your coupledom, you’re unlikely to be making out at red lights. Now, it’s a way to say ‘thanks’, ‘hello’ or ‘have a good day at work.’ It’s affection, not passion. And it’s sublime. Primates: orangutans and chimps kiss. Not each other – they don’t live in the same habitats – but certainly within their own species. It’s a biological instinct wired right into our most ancient brains. It’s the most intimate way to communicate a feeling that’s hard to express otherwise. So, this July 6th, take some extra time to do a bit of extra kissing. There’s just no way you’ll regret it!

Alex Shapiro is the PR manager for Zoosk who likes to DJ, write and think about kissing.
How do you feel about kissing? Tell us in our comments section!