Posts Tagged dating
Love, versus the “idea of being in love”
By Juliet O
Have you ever heard the phrase “I’m in love with the idea of being in love”? This phrase relates to a real phenomenon. Many of us, your author included, have at one time or another been in love with the idea of love.
It is actually quite easy to be seduced by a concept. And love is a seductive concept. Our literary and artistic culture is riddled with hyperbolic, overwrought, and unattainable descriptions of what love means. The way love is described in famous novels is so exaggerated, it becomes almost absurd. In Goethe’s famous novel, Sorrows of Young Werther, the main protagonist actually takes his own life because the woman he loves doesn’t love him back. When the novel was published in 1774, it inspired a wave of “Werther fever” as young men throughout Europe began dressing in the style of the main character as described in the book. This “Werther fever” even lead to many copycat suicides as readers actually took their own lives, like Werther did, when confronted with unrequited love. This example shows how susceptible we are to ideas of love, even when these ideas in no way resembles the real thing. (more…)
Add comment November 13, 2009
It’s my Zoosk in a box
By Juliet Ohai
I think we could all benefit from a little Zooskbox 101 today. It’s always nice to have a quick brush up just to make sure we’re all on the same page. To begin: what’s a Zooskbox? A Zooskbox is your “message inbox” on Zoosk, where you receive messages, flirtations, winks, and virtual gifts from other Zooskers. As you see on the image above, you can sort your messages by categories like sent, received, unread, and trashed — just like most email inboxes. However, your Zooskbox is different from regular email in important ways too. It’s geared toward Zoosk and functions as a dating portal through which you communicate with other members of our site. The purpose of this post is to guide a beginning user through using their Zooskbox, but even seasoned Zooskbox users could benefit from glancing at this tutorial — who knows what you might learn? (more…)
2 comments October 30, 2009
5 online dating fears and how to overcome them
Photo credit: Sabrina’s Stash
By Juliet O
All daters have fears. By dating, we make ourselves vulnerable to being hurt in many ways that are precluded by choosing to remain single. As daters, we tend to hold onto our fears, much to our own detriment. Fears hold us back and hinder us from opening ourselves up to love and fulfillment. Part of the battle of dating is in eliminating your fears — of intimacy, of vulnerability, of emotional honesty, of betrayal, of rejection, of ourselves — so that you can open yourself to the possibility of love. It’s not always easy.
Online dating presents a unique set of fears and challenges. While it may seem difficult, these fears need to be overcome if you want to date online successfully. We want to guide you through these online dating fears and give you tips on how to overcome them, because we want online dating to be a great experience for you. And why shouldn’t it be a positive experience? By online dating, you have an automatic dating pool of singles all using Zoosk for the same purpose: to hopefully find romance and connection. But how can you find romance or connection if you’re still holding onto all that fear and baggage? If you still hold onto fears or reservations regarding online dating, read this post for helpful tips on overcoming your trepidation, in order to engage with the online medium openly and fortuitously. (more…)
3 comments October 28, 2009
Promoting your online dating profile via social media tools
By Juliet O
You’ve put all that work in making a great Date Card, but you’re still not fully satisfied with the number of clicks you’re getting? You want to raise your page views, but don’t know what to do? It’s not you, don’t worry. But it’s not your Date Card, either. There are simple ways to get even more profile views and raise your chances of meeting the right person on Zoosk, by simply following some of our tips on promoting your online dating profile via social media tools.
Great online dating profiles shouldn’t just sit there waiting to be discovered. Take your online dating fate into your own ambitious, single-person hands! If you want love in this day and age, there is no shame on promoting yourself, within reason, to making finding it an easier process. There are definitely ways to raise your chances of having your profile fall across the path of the right person, on Zoosk and on the web. Here are our suggestions. (more…)
1 comment October 27, 2009
How to talk about relationships without talking about relationships
By Juliet O
You know in those beginning stages of getting to know someone (whether in real life or online) when you know you like this person but you’re trying to figure out if they like you? You don’t really know how they feel 100% (plus you’re shy) so you don’t really want to start talking about being “in a relationship”, plus you don’t know how to bring up the topic in the first place without being the weirdo who brings up the topic in the first place. Right? How existential and circular. I feel like I’m in a Charlie Kaufman screenplay. But seriously, how do you talk about relationships without talking about relationships? Specifically, how do you say things like “I want to be in a relationship with you but let’s talk about it” without sending out total creep or stalker or crazy person vibes?
Through my extensive first person research and years spent analyzing this very topic exactly, I know of some great methods for talking about relationships without talking about relationships. There are ways, as counterintuitive as it seems, to bring up the relationship chat without explicitly bringing it up. I suppose some people would view this as a failure of communication, but I think of it more as “communicating subtly” (i.e. self preservation). For the shy ones out there, here’s how you do it.
Add comment October 22, 2009
Vote Zoosk for Best Facebook App in Mashable’s 3rd Annual OpenWeb Awards
Mashable’s 3rd Annual OpenWeb Awards are open for user submitted nominations and votes. Last year, Zoosk won an OpenWeb Award for Best Dating and Romance site. This year, Dating and Romance is no longer a category, so Zoosk is up for overall Best Facebook Application! We’re excited for the opportunity to win this category, so help us out with your nominations and we will love you forever (and ever and ever).
How do you nominate Zoosk for Best Facebook Application? Simply go to the Best Facebook Application nomination landing page. Make sure you are logged into Mashable via your Facebook username and password (to vote, you must log in via Facebook Connect). Once you’re on the nominations landing page, type “Zoosk” into the field for “Best Facebook App”. Then hit “Submit”. You’re done. Beautiful.
Nominate us, and then tell your friends to nominate us. We love you dearly. Please love us back? 
Add comment October 19, 2009
Zooskers weigh in on jealousy and how to prevent it
By Juliet O
If you let it out of its cage, jealousy is the green-eyed monster that can and does cause irreparable damage to your relationship. A little bit of jealousy can be cute and even healthy. You should care if you see your partner flirting with someone else at a bar, but you shouldn’t get into a bar fight. But when it rages out of control, jealousy can damage your relationship with your partner, your friends, your family, and worst of all, yourself.
Fundamentally, jealousy is an insecurity: an inability to trust another person to be truthful to you. At its heart, jealousy stems from a lack of trust. Because jealous people don’t trust that their partners will act honestly, they attempt to coerce their partners with controlling, manipulative, and angry emotions. Nobody enjoys being manipulated or controlled, so often times, jealous behavior has the opposite effect than the one it intended: you end up pushing people away.
1 comment October 17, 2009
Why do we look for love?
By Juliet O
Why do we search for love? I might as well ask you why the sun shines or why water is wet. We don’t always know why we search for love; we just do it. Perhaps the only answer to such a complex question is simply “because.” Most of us hope that one day we will find someone we love who will love us back, with whom we can grow with in an affectionate, positive relationship of the sort that fairy tales describe as “happily ever after”. We don’t really question why. We feel an almost subconscious drive, and in our search most of us encounter a lot of false alarms, dead ends, and failures before finding the person who makes all our struggles worth the effort.
I recently posed to our Zoosk community a question, “Why do you search for love? What are your personal reasons for continuing along the path towards relationship fulfillment?” The answers I received were a surprising and poignant study on the depths of the human heart. It seems that our community is a romantic bunch, and they’re looking for love because, in the words of one Zoosker, “I am looking for hope.” Here’s what some of our other Zooskers had to say. Get out your Kleenex.
4 comments October 15, 2009
The importance of being earnest
By Juliet Ohai
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines the word earnest as: “a serious and intent mental state”. What does earnestness mean in connection to our personal relationships? We can view earnestness as our sincerity in relationships, our honest decision to really be ourselves. In a nutshell, our earnestness reflects our ability to open ourselves up in relationships and put ourselves out there — even if it means revealing our vulnerabilities. It is our conscious decision never to lie about ourselves or present ourselves falsely to those we love.
Part of the process of being in love means that we must let go out our fears and struggles. Love means baring your soul to another person. How do we do this? Naturally, it’s not always easy. The process takes time, trust, and commitment.
Perhaps we don’t open ourselves up right away. In fact, in the beginning, before we really grow to know another person and before we can trust our judgments when it comes to that person, perhaps it’s not so wise to bare our souls without hesitation. But once we decide that we are going to commit, that the leap into a serious relationship is one that we want to take, then we must also take the leap of faith and relinquish any fear we might have of being completely vulnerable.
5 comments October 12, 2009
Some conversation ideas for a first date
By Juliet Ohai
First date jitters are the worst. Letting your nerves get the best of you can lead to a number of absolute first date blunders: talking too much, saying weird things, saying things you don’t mean, sweating profusely, blushing constantly, stammering, being creepy… the list goes on.
One of the absolute worst things that can happen to you as a result of first-date jitters is not saying anything at all. Contributing to the conversation is something you absolutely have to do if you go on a date, and if conversation halts to a stand-still, both parties need to facilitate conversation to keep it going. Saying yes to a date is like signing a contract, agreeing, “As long as you aren’t some sort of twisted, loathsome supervillain, I will do my best to talk to you for the duration of our date.” But talking — even rote, mundane, smalltalk — isn’t always easy, particularly if you’re nervous.
So we’ve come up with some talking points for you, to use as a prompt when conversation starts to dry up. Don’t get flustered! Remember, this date is in your hands. Remember these prompts, and never have a silent, awkward date ever again.
4 comments October 7, 2009
