By Juliet O

The next time you find yourself heartsick and glum, please do yourself a favor and have a good cry. Your friends might tell you that he or she isn’t worth wasting tears over, but you’d probably yourself more harm to keep the tears in rather than just to let them out.

Crying may indicate, on the emotional level, that something is wrong. But did you know that the act of crying can actually be good for both your physical and emotional health? Conventional wisdom has stated for years that crying can be good for you, and recently, scientific research has also come to support that claim.

Human beings are the only living creatures who actually weep. While weeping is uncommon among the living species, the act of shedding tears is universal when it comes to the human experience. No person on Earth has not, at some point in their lives, cried. Babies are born crying and, from the time we’re born, we cry throughout our lives for a variety of reasons. We often find ourselves crying because of grief, pain, loss, stress. We cry at movies when something sad or sentimental happens on the big screen. Songs, books, and even newspaper articles can make people cry. That we can cry at not only our own sorrows but the sorrows of other people as well shows something quite amazing about the human ability to empathize and feel for our fellow creatures.

While tears are often associated with a feeling of sadness, we also cry out of happiness, pride, relief, and elation too. Looking back at some of the happiest and proudest moments of your life, did you feel your eyes dampen with emotion and that tight constricted feeling in your chest that indicates a wave of tears? I have definitely cried out of happiness, and it felt wonderful. In our lives there aren’t many things that happen that make us so joyous that we cry, so those moments and those tears seem extra special.

These aforementioned examples show how crying is emotionally good for you. Tears are a good indicator that your emotions are working and that you even have emotions in the first place. So how, you might wonder, is crying so good for our physical health as well?

Crying is scientifically proven to be good for your body because it releases stress hormones from the bloodstream. Prior to crying, your body’s levels of stress hormones is at a peak. We often cry because our bodies can’t physically handle all those stress hormones pumping through its system.

This is why we usually feel a pervasive sense of relief — what they call the calm after the storm — after a bout of tears. Compared to the heightened emotions that lead to tears, that relief feels soothing and wonderful. There is a scientific explanation for this. When we cry, we actually release stress hormones. Those hormones are regarded as toxic and bad for the body — high numbers of them can even cause brain and cellular damage — and when we cry, our tears contain large amounts of those hormones. In effect, we’re washing those hormones out of our bodies via our tear ducts. As more and more stress hormones get released, the calmer we feel: hence, that wonderful feeling of quietude one experiences after a good long cry.

I think we should promote a National Cry Day! With all the tax payer dollars spent on public health issues, particularly because of the high incidence of heart disease and high blood pressure (that scientists and doctors know are aggravated by things like stress and distress), don’t you think that a National Cry Day might be good for not just our bodies and our souls, but also society as a whole? Rather than telling yourself to keep a stiff upper lip, let yourself release the toxic and negative stress from your body and your mind.

photo credit: laradana

By Anne B

Anytime that we experience something painful in our lives our intuitive reaction is to avoid it. If a surface is hot, we instinctively remove our hand before we get burned. We might even avoid approaching a potential love interest because of the anxiety we feel about starting that initial ice breaker conversation. However psychologists are saying that some problems just “are” and trying to make them disappear might not be the answer.

I feel confident saying most of us try to avoid pain when it comes our way. Our natural response to any kind of unpleasant thought or feeling is to resist even having those thoughts or feelings to begin with. For example, you’ve just broken up with someone. The thoughts and feelings you are faced with are by no means happy ones. In fact, you’d like to avoid having them altogether. So you stop going to the bar where you first met. You stop eating chicken parmesan, because it was your lost lover’s favorite dish. It hurts to be reminded, so you take a small detour when these things cross your path. If you are honest with yourself, you know that many times negative situations and the negative feelings they bring about cannot be avoided.

Nobody enjoys feelings of loneliness, but what do you do about it? You could try to fight the feelings. You could do whatever it takes to make them go away. These feelings are coming from somewhere though. So if you try to make them go away, you might just be providing yourself with a momentary distraction. It feels good and it helps for a while, but the root of it is still there.

What most people don’t realize is that we have primary and secondary emotions. I’ll use an example to illustrate what these are. Let’s say you have a million things to do and you are getting pretty stressed out about it. That’s the primary emotion. The secondary emotion would be that now you are getting upset because you hate feeling stressed out. But by focusing on the painful part of the situation, your stress level, it prolongs the stress.

What if, brace yourselves now, you just accepted the primary emotion for what it is? If you’ve broken up with someone your primary emotion might be some form of heartache. It’s normal to have feelings of loneliness, sadness, or longing, but you tell yourself you need to make those feelings go away. This puts all of the focus on the negative feelings. Why not just accept them, and remind yourself that these feelings are a normal and natural part of life? Everyone experiences similar ups and downs at some point and, as strange as it may sound, it’s ok to feel that way.

This doesn’t mean that you have to like what is happening, and it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t be looking for ways to improve the current situation and move past it. It means that you have control of the impact that this emotion is going to have on your life. You can isolate it for what it is. Kabat-Zinn is a scientist, author, and meditation thought leader, who teaches that when you are mindful of these feelings, you can label them for what they are, and then focus your energy on other things. It’s a practice of identifying the negative situation, but ending your emotional involvement with it there. After all these are just thoughts and they don’t need to dictate your next move.

My friends, I’m no moth. I see the flame for what it is. I can’t change it. I can’t make it go away, but I won’t get burned.

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.

Love shouldn’t drive you to die. It should give you a reason to live. And yet if you were to read The Sorrows of Young Werther or Romeo and Juliet or Wuthering Heights, you’d think love and suffering were one and the same, that you couldn’t fully love someone without suffering great pain and loss. Even cinema reflects this strange comparison of love and suffering. Just look at movies like Titanic or Gone with the Wind or Moulin Rouge or Casablanca. Even though the two main characters in all these movies are separated by the film’s end, even though we’re deprived as an audience of a happy ending, we blissfully watch these movies and use them as actual examples of “true love”. Would these movies have been as romantic had the characters gotten together and lived happily ever after? I doubt it. I certainly wouldn’t have cried so hard at the end of Casablanca had Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman flown off together in a plane to get married and settle down. We love their story because it ends in loss.

These stories that we tell ourselves are beautiful and enjoyable, but it’s important to realize that they’re just stories. They’re a work of fiction that represent an idea that has little bearing in real life. Real love is far from the idea of love. Real love isn’t always exciting; it’s actually frequently boring. Unlike these dramatic stories and movies that operate by a series of ups and downs, high highs and low lows, mystery and intensity, unexpected twists and turns, the real thing is actually far from turbulent. Real love, the kind that sustains over time and contributes to ones life in a positive way, is actually really stable. And when you love someone, you don’t expect them to be like heroes or heroines in plays, movies, or novels. You accept them as real people with real personalities. People are not ideas, and if you like someone because they symbolize or represent something to you, you’re in for a disappointment. No one can live up to your ideas, because those ideas aren’t theirs but yours, and as such, when you love your ideas, you aren’t in love with anyone else; you’re actually in love with yourself. You’re in love with a figment of your own imagination.

So next time you tell someone that you like your guy because he reminds you of someone else or that your gal is great because she represents an attractive ideal, think long and hard about whether you’re actually in love or just infatuated with the idea of love. These things are distinct and highly incompatible, and to think they are one and the same is to accept a delusion that can only lead to disappointment.

Real love sustains and leads to happiness. So wouldn’t you rather go for the real thing?

If you enjoyed this article, be sure to check out our other articles on love:
When it comes to love, it’s worth a try
In love, remember to check your baggage at the door
How to talk to women 101
Online dating rule: take things slow

Photo credit: deardarling

By Anne B

Once upon a time a young woman in her early-mid twenties with stars in her eyes moved to a charming little city called San Francisco. Naturally when single and living in San Francisco with a cute little apartment, what better accessory to your lifestyle could you find than a scooter? Not just any scooter, a midnight blue Vespa, 200 cc’s, with a tan suede seat. She had dreams of sunny Saturday afternoon rides spent scooting across the Golden Gate Bridge. Sigh, all too picture perfect.

Then finally it happened. She got a parking ticket. Although her girl-meets-scooter experience was slightly tarnished and it set her back 70 dollars, she looked optimistically passed it. She focused on how amazing those new bomber leather Marc Jacob pumps would look riding her blue stallion.

I don’t have the heart to tell her that just around the corner she is in for another, and slightly more serious, setback. This time she’ll have an accident on a slippery rode and have to repair a broken rear view mirror. In spite of a few lingering scratches from the slip she will be fine, but her rattled nerves will make it just a little more difficult to rationalize eating noodles again for dinner in order to pay the insurance bill she’ll have to hand over to Geico on the first of the month.

Such is life. The tragic heroine of our story saw a beautiful Vespa and without knowing what was in store or considering the possible implications of her investment she threw herself whole heartedly into the decision she made. Although it may not have been the most practical of choices, and even poses potential danger, she was determined that it was the right fit for her. Shouldn’t loving it and having an intense desire to see it work out be enough?

Is it any different in our relationships? I’m not implying that a boyfriend or girlfriend is like a scooter, attractive yet functional accessories to life that have their hazards but can be a lot of fun to ride. Um, when you look at it that way, I guess I should clarify. I’m not saying that long-term boyfriends and girlfriends are like scooters. My point is, sometimes we don’t know what is good for us and we have to get hurt to find out. Loving someone might not always be enough, but at least you have loved.

We can be open to new relationships and maybe even make mistakes to recognize who the right fit is when he or she comes along. It hurt for our girl to realize that she might be more of a Volvo kinda girl when she just bought a Vespa. Even worse, it hurts to have your heart broken when you realize that the apple of your eye is just not going to be a part of your apple pie. But now you know, and it didn’t kill you. You can and will move on. Our heroine knows a little bit more about herself through the whole experience. Although it wasn’t what she needed, it was a great ride that taught her valuable lessons.

Many people have a list of qualities they are looking for, and are unwilling to see beyond the criteria they have set for a potential partner. You can’t compromise on values like honesty, loyalty, and trust; it doesn’t end well for either party involved. Values are one thing, but try to have an open mind with the nitty-gritty details. When you find yourself overlooking a great person simply because they might laugh like a hyena when you are at the movie theatre, maybe next time just watch the comedy at home? What if you are always reaching for cookie dough when, if you just gave it a chance, mint chocolate chip might really blow your taste buds away?

What truly makes an incredible experience is when we can let go and allow ourselves to love deeply. These are the experiences that set the course of our lives. Keep your eyes open for foolish choices and potential accidents. Just know that you’ll make mistakes, but you won’t make them twice.

Photo credit: gaioum

By Juliet O

A widely accepted law of dating states that the longer you date, the more baggage you accumulate. Thinking back to your earliest relationships, don’t certain words come to mind, like naive, innocent, simple? Things were so uncomplicated way back when all you had to worry about regarding love was a curfew and what your parents were going to say. A first love is such a beautiful thing, because the first loves seem so innocent, unbridled, and pastoral. But the moment you get hurt for the first time, everything changes. After our first loves wane away, we develop shells and shields and build walls — we close ourselves up out of defense, and we don’t let anyone access those deep, vulnerable parts of ourselves quite that way ever ever again. And like a hermit crab that carries everything on its back, we start dragging our baggage along everywhere.

But baggage can also destroy relationships, especially when one tries to hoist their baggage on someone else. Say that your baggage is the memory of your ex. And you take that memory with you everywhere, including on dates with new people, and your ex becomes the ubiquitous elephant in the room? That can definitely damage your chances at a new relationship. Or what if your particular baggage is the jealousy that you developed as the result of getting hurt in the past? Hoisting that baggage on a new, unsuspecting partner cannot possibly be conducive to a future relationship. And when you act jealously toward people, and they leave you because they can’t take it anymore, you only become more jaded and more jealous. The danger of baggage is that it has a way of multiplying itself.

So how do we deal with this baggage issue? We all suffer from it, so what are some things we can do to alleviate the weight of all this emotional baggage we carry? How do we keep all the baggage at bay when getting to know someone knew — and then continue to keep it at bay as we grow relationships with new people?

The answer is: we have to make sure we’ve checked our emotional baggage before starting a new relationship. A new boyfriend or girlfriend can’t carry your bags or get rid of your demons for you. Embarking on a new relationship when you haven’t healed from old ones will just add fuel to the flame, and give you more baggage to carry down the line. We have to make a conscious effort to look on our past relationships and past history and heal all the wounds we’ve accumulated before stepping into a new relationship.

It’s important to remember that healing takes time. And healing isn’t easy. Getting rid of our baggage is often times more painful than merely carrying it along with us wherever we go, and it takes commitment and dedication to exorcise all that negativity from our lives. Find a path toward closure. If your baggage is due to a mistake you’ve made, ask for forgiveness. If your baggage is because of something that someone else did to you, try to find it in your heart to forgive. Our relationships with other people are the biggest cause of emotional baggage, but no matter how negative those relationships are, it’s important that we try to move on in a clear, positive manner. If closure cannot be found, then cut people out of your life that contribute to your emotional baggage. Cut painful relationships out, be they relationships with your exes, your frenemies, your acquaintances that add nothing positive to your life.

When dating new people, we should all adopt the basic philosophy: tabula rasa. This term, “tabula rasa,” means clean slate. This doesn’t mean that you have to treat every relationship like the first relationship you’ve ever had. Rather, this means that you should approach new relationships with all the wisdom and insight and learning that you’ve taken from past relationships — the positive forces — and relinquishing all the negative forces at the door, or to in all literalness check your baggage at the door.

For more dating tips and helpful dating advice, check out these articles as well:

Having a positive outlook will get you more dates
5 online dating fears and how to overcome them
Jealousy and how to prevent it
The importance of being earnest

photo credit: striatic

We have some fun news to share with you today! Zoosk has just launched Boost, a new service on our site that helps you get noticed by your fellow Zooskers. Every time you buy a Boost View, we’ll put you at the top of the search results or in a special place on the homepage of people interested in you.

Boosting your views is simple as can be. If you wish, you can purchase a set number of Boosk Views using your Zoosk coins. Getting a set number of Boost Views means that your profile will appear that same, set number of times at the very top of a search result or on a Zoosk front page.  Meaning, if you buy 500 Boosts, you will land at the top of the search results or the front page of Zoosk 500 individual times. How’s that for a leg up?

You can even track your current Boost numbers by visiting your Settings tab and clicking on the Boost link (like in the photo above). See the icon with the lightening bolt on it? Click that lightening bolt icon with the word “Boost” next to it in order to track your views.

With Boost, this is how your Date Card will appear in the search results of people who run searches that fit your criteria:

And with Boost, this is how your Date Card will appear on someone’s homepage:

Not only does Boost help you get noticed, but it gets you noticed in a big way. In life and in love, why not go bold?

*This number refers to the searches/logins of other Zooskers — not you. We never factor in how many times you view your own profile, so you should view your own profile as much as you want!

We hope you enjoy Boost! In the meantime, here are some other Zoosk features you might be interested in:

Breaking the ice with a virtual gift
Zoosk Desktop helps you work it real good
Zooskbox 101
How good photos increase your popularity on Zoosk

By Juliet O

No one likes to be around a negative person. This principle applies equally in the real world as in the world of online dating. Any hint of negativity on your Zoosk dating profile can really kill the mood with a prospective match. On your online dating profile, negativity (and its kin: sarcasm, pessimism, abrasiveness, misanthropy, and rancor) should be used cautiously and sparingly, or better yet not at all.

Why do we develop negative patterns of thinking? Many psychology experts believes that we become negative because negative thinking is easy — and it can easily become a habit. Bad thoughts perpetuate themselves. It’s the easy way out (and a total cop out) to be negative about our lives, because the alternative — positive thinking — requires a lot more effort. We have to choose to be happy and positive, and that choice has to be maintained over the course of our lives. Positive thinking takes constant work. In many ways, positive thinking is a choice. And positive thinking is absolutely essential for a relationship to succeed.

Hmm… takes constant effort, is a choice, requires reinforcement and reevaluation over time, and doesn’t come easy? Doesn’t it sound like positive thinking here can sort-of correlate to being in a relationship? Take out “positive thinking” and insert “a relationship” in the above sentences, and you see where I’m getting at. If you show signs of negativity on your profile, it indicates that you’re taking the easy, cynical way out — and if you’re that kind of person, how can you be the sort of person who can really put in the work necessary into being in a relationship, or even open yourself up to being in a relationship in the first place?

Being pessimistic about life can and does translate into being pessimistic about relationships with other people. Negative individuals close themselves off to others and constantly worry that they are going to be let down by the people around them. You can’t maintain that kind of thinking if you want to a relationship to succeed, because dating and relationships take hope, faith, and a belief that in the end, everything will work out. “Happily ever after” doesn’t just happen. You have to work at it and believe in it. And if you show signs of negativity on your profile, you are sending the message that you aren’t the kind of person who is capable of doing that.

So how do you change a negative framework into a positive one? Here are some simple tips that can lead you in the right direction.

• Think positively. Negative thinking becomes habit over time, and just like quitting any other bad habit, you have to be highly conscious of your bad habit and reroute your behavior and thinking patterns. When you find yourself lapsing, take a deep breath and be present in the moment. Be aware. If you start feeling like you’re going to have unjustified negative thoughts, catch yourself before they get the best of you and think about something positive instead — even if it’s entirely unrelated. After enough emotional distance has passed, perhaps you can re-evaluate the situation more clearly.
• Have faith in yourself and other people. If you think that you’re going to fail, either start thinking about success or tell yourself that failure in one thing does not signify failure in all things. Take life in stride. If you find yourself thinking about the faults of other people, think about their strengths instead. Always look at the good in others.
• Write down all the negative words you can think of. Now change them to positive words. “Can’t” becomes “can,” and “failure” becomes “success” and “loss” becomes “gain”. Etc.  This is a good mental exercise.
• Stop complaining, cold turkey. Probably the best thing negative people can do for themselves is to stop complaining for a day. If you find yourself trapped in negative patterns of thinking, try this exercise: for one who day, don’t let yourself complain. Out loud or in your head, complaining is off limits.
• Decide that you aren’t going to let your negative thinking get the best of you. Make an executive decision to change your life.

If you decide to alter your negative thinking into positive thinking, make sure you take a good look at your Zoosk Date Card and make sure that it coheres to that positivity. Make sure that, in your date card, you avoid the following patterns of negative thinking.

• Self-deprecation. In your date card, don’t talk about the ways you hate yourself or your low self-esteem. Take out anything that comes off as self-loathing.
• Sarcasm. A little sarcasm in person is fine, but it doesn’t translate well over the net. You can’t hear vocal inflections, you can see facial gestures, so sarcasm often comes off as rudeness. Take it out.
• Pessimism. Get it out of your date card.
• Anything that indicates a cynical worldview.
• Any and all complaints. Your date card is not a forum for your rants or complaints. Don’t use it as one.

Now that your date card has lost its negative elements, infuse it with signs of positivity. Here are some ideas:

• Talk about things you love and that make you happy.
• Discuss your goals for the future.
• Write about your relationship hopes.
• Let your sense of humor shine.
• Get your friends to write great testimonials for you.

Good luck. Like relationships, positivity isn’t easy, but if you’re up for the challenge, the rewards of happiness make everything worth it.

For more reading on getting dates on Zoosk, check out these articles.

Simple tips on how to get more attention on Zoosk
How to trick out your Zoosk date card
How to use Zoosk to get over a broken heart
Zoosk advice on how to overcome shyness

Photo credit: aussigall

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?

The above image is what tiered messages look like in your Zooskbox. You can see the link to the profile of the Zoosker who sent the message, a small icon of their photo, and the first few characters of the message they sent you. To read the rest of the message, you have to either click on the few characters of the text of that message or the reply icon. Clicking either of those things will take you to the next page, that looks like the image below:

Clicking to expand a message from your Zoosk inbox takes you to a new page, at the top of which you will see a reply screen. The reply screen is at the very top of the page, because the rest of the text is below. To see the entirety of the message thread, simply scroll down. Everything exchanged in the thread will be below the reply box, as you can see in the following image.

Continue scrolling until the end. The messages are staggered by how current they are — the most current message will be at the top (first below the reply screen). The messages are also all individually dated by how long ago they were sent.

Easy breezy!

Just remember, only premium subscribers on Zoosk can send unlimited messages. If you are a basic member contacting another basic member, coins or an upgrade to premium subscription are necessary in order to continue the conversation permanently.

This concludes our brief, simple Zooskbox 101 tutorial. Now that you’re an expert on your Zooskbox, why don’t you go at this very moment and send some messages to a cutie on Zoosk?

Some topics you might also be interested in:

• How to write that first message on Zoosk
• Breaking the ice with a virtual gift
• How to be a better online flirt
• How to talk to women 101

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.

Fear 1: Fear of the telephone.

It’s not always easy jumping into uncharted waters and talking on the telephone. For some, the telephone is viewed with a disproportionate amount of anxiety. Most of the anxiety stems from a fear of not having anything to talk about (which can be awkward indeed). But the phone isn’t as scary as it looks or seems. In August, we published a tutorial on how to be a smooth operator on the phone. We discussed some of the basic rules of phone conversation, and we even offered some wisdom on why the phone is an important first step in online dating. Another part of the fear re: phone calls is an absence of things to discuss, of awkward pauses and momentary glitches in the flow of conversation. Fear not: here are some conversation ideas. There is no shame in writing down topics in advance to make phone conversation smoother. Honestly. The only shame is in being so scared of the phone that you don’t even make it past the online stage to a real life meeting.

Fear 2: Fear of getting close.

We all have a fear of getting close to people, but we must overcome that fear if we want to find love. As we wrote previously, “our earnestness reflects our ability to open ourselves up in relationships and put ourselves out there — even if it means revealing our vulnerabilities.” A good way of overcoming this fear is to simply look at the alternative. Being hurt is painful, but there is also pain in prolonged solitude. What’s worse? The pain of heartbreak, which dulls over time, or the pain of solitude, which only grows as time goes on? In the end, love is worth the struggle, so swallow your fears and take the leap. Even if you fall, you’ll get back on your feet.

Fear 3: Fear of other people.

Other people can be really, really scary. The scariest aspect of other people is not knowing if your idea of who they are coheres with the actual truth of who they are. You might think someone likes you, for instance, but how do you know they actually do? We fear other people most when we have an unstable view of ourselves. We fear people because we fear that they have the ability to affect us, that their being in our lives somehow affects how we view our lives. What we must realize is that no matter what happens to us, we are still fundamentally who we are. No one can remove or take that.

Fear 4: Fear of failure.

We all fear failure, not just in our relationships, but in everything. But things that are high risk are sometimes associated with the highest rewards. Love is one of those things. By letting your fear of failure hold you back, you are also denying yourself the rewards of love. That doesn’t sound like a great trade-off. Unfortunately, people do fail in love — it’s a fact of dating. But people also succeed and win big all the time. Look at how many weddings are held each day, or how many people connect with one another each day to establish rewarding, substantial relationships. It’s a total game of chance, and sometimes, playing it safe has the biggest risk of all: the risk that, in the end, you’ll miss out on love completely.

Fear 5: Fear of real life.

Real life is definitely a scary place. When you’re dating online, you are shielded from the distractions and pressures of dating in real life. The thing is, all online relationships go to the real life stage at some point, if they are to be considered successful. And if you’re so scared of real life that you don’t ever take your romance out of the virtual realm, then you miss out on the possibility of growing your online relationship into something real and lasting. How do you overcome this fear of ‘IRL’ (in real life)? Get to know someone that you meet pretty well online first, taking it slow, before heading out to meet them in real life. That way, if you feel like you already know them, you can be confident that this person won’t surprise you in a negative way. One of the first rules of online dating is to take things slow, after all. Make yourself comfortable first, before heading to real life — no shame in overcoming fear slowly.

We hope these tips have been helpful. If you like these and other Zoosk online dating tips, remember to vote for Zoosk in Mashable’s 2009 OpenWeb Awards as best overall Facebook App! We love our fans and we’d love to see you love us back. Afterall, we’re both in the business of love!

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.

Post on Zoosk’s Community Pages

Our Community Pages are a great place to get valuable dating advice and voice your opinion on topics relevant to online dating. The pages are also a great place to have your profile seen by the dating community at large. By making yourself prominent on our boards and contributing great content to our community, you expose your profile in a positive way to the numerous Zooskers who visit them daily. Your comments on the boards are also added to your Zoosk status feed, which shows up on your Date Card and on the Zoosk front page that is seen by singles in your local area.

Fan Zoosk on Facebook and comment on our updates

Zoosk has a very active Facebook Fan community that is growing  by the day. Check out how many people comment or “like” each of our status updates! Join in on the discussion via our Facebook Fan page and meet other Zooskers via their virtual discussions. Invite your friends to join our Facebook community as well, and you might even get free coins from one of our Facebook fan contests! Keep an eye on our Fan Page in the future, to hear about Zoosk news, releases, dating advice and information, as well as future community contests and programs of interest to our beloved Zooskers.

Integrate Zoosk on Facebook

We are aware that not all people want to be public about their online dating lives. Our Facebook application allows you to adjust your privacy settings to hide all your Zoosk activity so that no one in your Facebook network has to know that you are involved in any manner with online dating. But for people who want to be a bit more public about Zoosk, you can install our Facebook application to your main FB page and let others know, via FB, that you are single and searching.

Tweet about online dating and follow us on Twitter

Another way to publicize your online dating profile is to use Twitter and “tweet” out about your involvement with Zoosk. Follow us on Twitter and tweet @Zoosk and we promise to send you a shout-out in return. Use #hashtags to talk about online dating like #zoosk or #onlinedating, write about your topics “@Zoosk,” and discover that Twitter is a great way to publicize your Zoosk Date Card to other  Zooskers on the site. You can also contact us on Twitter via a direct message or a Tweet if you have any questions or concerns about Zoosk. As we say, “Roses are red, violets are blue, you follow us, and we’ll follow you!”

Blog about online dating

Finally, blogging is a great way to let off some steam and write about your experiences. Who doesn’t have a personal blog these days? They can be so cathartic and therapeutic. There are so many online dating blogs and singles blogs that deal with issues like dating and romance, so why not join in on the dialogue and get your voice heard? The blogosphere is a great way to publicize your online dating profile, if you take the leap of faith and put yourself out there! Don’t worry, the web isn’t such a scary place. Embrace the future of love!

Photo credit: bobby-james