Author Archive
Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week: A Very Furry Romantic Moment
There are few things more universal than romance. After all, every culture in the world and throughout all of time has had their own notion of what it means to be romantic.
And this isn’t exclusive to people. Lots of animals, otters for example, keep their mates for life and one can’t help but think that some sort of animal romance has something to do with that otterly whole-hearted sense of commitment. Speaking of adorable critters, in this week’s video, we explore some furry romance with the video for Burning by Adrian Lux feat. Dante.
Five Reasons to Sweat With Your Sweetheart
Spring is upon us and for many our resolutions have also sprung… a leak, that is. Studies show that 50% of folks who make resolutions have thrown in the towel by the end of February. And, “losing weight” as well as “staying healthy” consistently make the top ten most popular resolutions.
So, what can we do to get our fitness resolutions back on track? Turn to our partners. Yes, our partners. Why not? With spring in the air, it’s time to start anew, to take advantage of Spring Fever, and to start exercising alongside the love of our lives. It could be surfing on the weekends, playing tennis in the evenings, hitting the gym after work or starting one of those intense 90-day DVD programs, as my wife and I recently completed.
Here are five reasons you should work out with your partner:
1. It’s a time saver. Life is busy. It’s easy to let something fall through the cracks, be it focus on your relationship or keeping to your fitness plan. When you exercise with your significant other, you are killing two birds with one stone.
2. It’s sexy. When you exercise together, you sweat together. You feel good about yourself and your partner. When you start to notice your partner’s changing body, let them know how good it looks on them. Odds are, the compliment will be reciprocated. And, when you know your partner finds you hot, you feel good about yourself and what you are doing.
3. It inspires you. Exercising is one of those things that is easily pushed pushed aside. And, once you skip a day, the next day is even easier to skip until you’ve missed a week and figure it’s time to throw in the proverbial towel. Studies show that working out with a partner holds you accountable to your resolution. When you see your partner getting out there and sweating, that can inspire you to follow suit. Encouraging one another is the motivation that many need.
4. It connects you. Having our own individual interests and lives is important in relationships. But so are shared and common interests. If you are sharing an exercise Boot Camp, cross country skiing or training for a half marathon together, not only are you physically with one another while you work on your fitness, but you also have a common activity you can talk about with each other when you are not training.
5. Endorphins! When you exercise your brain releases endorphins, neurotransmitters that get you high on life. These buggers fire when we win a competition, make love and laugh. They are why we don’t want to stop winning, making love or laughing. When you get these guys firing and you are feeling amazing, you’ll associate that feeling with your activity as well as the person you share that activity with.
So, get back on the resolution track and drag your partner with you! Neither of you will be sorry you did and you can share what happens in our comments section!
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
Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week: This week, Nelly has a Romantic Moment
There’s two things last week’s song by Justin Bieber lacked: bass and Nelly. In a rare departure from his usual style, Nelly’s Just a Dream video is full of romantic moments and even has a flying car, Back to the Future-style – except more black and white. See if you can spot the enormous engagement ring making cameo appearances throughout this. You might think that’s computer-generated, but we think it’s very much real and actually filled with chocolate!
Arguing: Do it nicely
Every relationship is bound to have some conflict in it — some would say that’s even healthy. The question is: how do you make the best of your arguments and avoid lasting damage to your relationship.
1. Take a time-out (aka check yourself before you wreck yourself)
This is the oldest advice in the book, but it’s the best thing you can do in an argument: cool off, whether by counting to 10 in your head or politely excusing yourself to the bathroom and splashing water on your face. The idea is that you want to act with your whole brain, not just with the raging emotions you feel.
2. Maintain respect – affirm your partner
Even while totally disagreeing, you can still respect your partner’s opinion. If you’re in a place where you just can’t see their perspective, try remembering that they still have a right to their own perspective even if it makes no sense to you. Communicate that as nicely as you can by saying something like, “I am on a totally different page from you, but I respect that you feel differently.”
3. Don’t be hard-headed: avoid black and white thinking
Do you find yourself thinking in terms of conflict and extremes? Thoughts such as “I’m right and you’re wrong” or “You NEVER do such and such” are bound to be at least partly wrong. Chances are, the truth is a little more subtle than these extreme thoughts. Try to remember that and balance out your extreme thoughts with a dose of reality. Allow room for some “Well, maybe I’m a little wrong” or “Well, you sometimes do such and such, just not as much as I’d like”.
4. Keep the big picture in mind
If you’re arguing about who should do the dishes, ask yourself: is it worth breaking up over the dishes? In most cases, the answer is NO. So try this technique to bring you back to a more reasonable state of mind. If it’s not worth breaking up over the dishes, be sure to not act like a total jerk about it!
5. Make the choice to make up
At some point, even if you don’t agree and still have major conflict… you have to make up (unless you’re going to break up!). Don’t just make up gradually after a long angry silence — instead choose to be sweet and kind and love-y! Try to focus on how relieved you are that the argument wasn’t worse, or how much you appreciate having your partner in your life. If you’re mad about something big, focus on the little stuff to take away your anger. Spend some time doing something fun together to distract you both, or if you are feeling affectionate enough, cuddle together. It’s important to put time and effort into making up.
Do you have other suggestions for resolving an argument? Share them in our comments section!
-Beth Budwig is happily married to a man who cooks. When not eating, she builds web pages for Zoosk and goes hiking in the Oakland hills.
Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week – This Week, We’re a #Beleiber
As the romantic social network, it’s pretty much our responsibility to bring you all things romance, couply and relationship-y. So we wouldn’t be doing our job very well if we didn’t share this brand new runaway hit from Justin Bieber! It’s racked up over 60million views in just over a month but, if somehow you managed to miss it – sit back, relax and #believe in boyfriendness!
Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week – No Cure for that Friday Feeling
We don’t know about you, but this four-day week didn’t seem too short for us! There’s always more work to be done here at the romantic social network. It’s only right that our Romantic Song of the Week is a celebration of all things Friday (without getting Rebecca Black involved!)
Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week – in Loving Memory of Robin Gibb
This week, Zoosk mourns the passing of Robin Gibb, with one of his most romantic songs, reminding us all what it’s like to love somebody.
Worth 1000 Words: Making the Most of Your Online Dating Profile Picture
Along with your profile text, your picture is, really, all you are on line. Your words are your voice and your picture gives you a face. Zoosk has policies about prohibited photos (https://www.zoosk.com/photo_guidelines.php) and we require that you have at least one photo on your profile before you interact with other members; a clear picture of just you, showing your full (or mostly) face. If you think about it, that makes sense: without a face your messages are just a voice with no body! You’re like a ghost: Spooooooky! So if you want to be not-so-creepy, you’ll want the best pictures you can get. Now, in all honesty, I am not a photographer, but from several years working online I can offer you some good advice about what is a bad photograph!
The most common problem is the blurry shot. Back in the day this was caused by poorly focused lenses and incorrect shutter speed, but no one uses such jargon when talking about digital photographs: what matters is called “resolution” or “pixels-per-inch” and when a picture gets blurry it’s called “pixelation”. Forget the lingo: what it means is that some pictures look quite nice very small but when enlarged they look horrid! Here is a sample:
Notice that the smaller version looks ok. When expanded to display size (as on your Zoosk datecard) the picture looses all clarity. This is a bad choice for any photo and our moderating team will probably delete it. The solution is to start with a larger photo:
If you have a larger photo to start with it won’t expand and so it will show in exactly the way you expect it to. A blurry pic doesn’t say anything bad. Other pictures manage to convey a message you mightn’t like however.
Don’t hide your face! This sends a message, loud and clear, to the other Zooskers looking at your profile: “I have something to hide. There’s a reason I’m too embarrassed to show off my face!” Got a girlfriend already? If you don’t want to look like some sort of creepy lurker, show your face!
One other problem affects other-wise perfectly good photos: the group shot.
Whose profile is this? Yes, you might be able to piece it together from other parts of the profile or by pairing it up with other pictures, but what if this is your only photo? We do ask that your primary photo, at least, be of you only: a clear shot of your face. Imagine going on your first date in a candle-lit restaurant, would your fellow Zoosker know you from your photo?
Of course you could edit this picture so it was only one face or the other, but then you’d have a too-small picture that would show up blurry on the site just like our first example. This is fated to be a second photo, but not a primary one.
A companion problem is pictures that are too dark. These are usually taken with your computer camera – often with a light coming from behind. This throws off what is called the “exposure” in the picture:
Natural lighting works best, but sometimes your computer may not want to travel outside! Cell phones are good if they take good photos and you can easily get the photo from your phone to the web. If you have an Android phone or an iPhone/iPad, our Zoosk Apps (available for all three) will let you take a photo and upload it directly to your Zoosk Datecard!
There are some photo problems that seem to affect some users more than others.
Guys seem to take this picture a lot, and we’ve noticed that woman just don’t like it. At all. Not one little bit. In fact, we get complaints about pictures like this and so it violates our moderation rules. We delete pictures like this whenever we see them. Why do guys take this picture over and over? This may be one of the great mysteries of the universe. This says several things to other users:
You have no friends.
You do have a very big ego.
Probably not much else, however.
You wouldn’t know how to get a woman’s attention if you tried.
Trust me: you have friends! One of them will help you take pictures! Just ask – and if you do, indeed, have the sort of body that you can show off, a picture of you relaxing by the pool on vacation is way better than inside your bathroom!
What works best for a primary photo is a nice, smiling picture; the classic head-shot. But what happens if you add a picture to your profile and instead of looking right it looks like the one below?
We’ve got you covered there! Next to each picture uploaded on your photo page, you’ll find a blue button that says “Edit”. Clicking there will help you make simple changes: you can rotate the picture and cut it to size.
There we go!
We do allow secondary photos on your profile, you can have a total of six different shots. It’s best to show your readers things you enjoy such as you skiing or you in the Community Choir, or you relaxing on the beach with a tropical beverage (preferably with lots of fruit and an umbrella).
All pictures are seen by our moderation team and in the review process they may get deleted. If a picture suddenly vanishes from your profile, it’s possible it was moderated and deleted. There are some things that we just don’t allow and you can find out about that on our photo policy page, https://www.zoosk.com/photo_guidelines.php. Those aside I hope this post helps you avoid not just “illegal” pics but also “bad” ones. Feel free to contact customer support by email (mailto:support@zoosk.com) or by phone (888-939-6675) if you have any questions.
Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week – This week, the New Romantics
Continuing Zoosk’s weekly tradition of the Romantic Song of the Week – this week, we go back to our romantic social network roots with the New Romantics track that made them famous! Tell us what you think about this one in our comments section! After all, your comments are what we like about YOU!
Introducing: Zoosk’s Romantic Song of the Week
It’s too easy to forget the key role music can play in your romantic journey. After all, the right soundtrack can turn a great evening together into a magically-romantic night! That’s why the Zoosk Blog is proud to present a brand new addition: The Zoosk Romantic Song of the Week!
We’re hard at work digging, researching, asking our friends and looking at tea leaves to identify the most romantic music of all time and bring it all to you, right here, every week!
Zoosk has received heart-warming letters from couples from all over the world have found love on Zoosk. We are proud to share 
