By Juliet O

“Take it slow” is probably the single best piece of relationship advice that people never seem to want to hear. Like relationships in real life, online relationships can also move way too fast. And I don’t have to remind you about the story of the turtle and the hare. There are many reasons to take things slowly on Zoosk, but the biggest reason is also the most obvious one: you don’t know this other Zoosker yet. And you should get to know them, before you meet in real life.

Reducing the speed at which you barrel toward love, marriage, and mortgage, actually makes dating more fun. Many people claim that the very best time to be in love is at the beginning of relationships, when all the euphoric, mesmerizing feelings of love are at their most intense. Why not prolong that intensity as long as possible? When poets write about love, they are almost never talking about comfortable long term relationships. They write about the dizzying feeling of falling in love with someone and the first stages of blossoming affection. Let the excitement of falling in love last as long as possible! There is simply no need to hurry. What’s the rush? If it’s meant to be, it will be.

A good rule of thumb: learn about your partner online first — exchange messages for a few days — before moving on to the phone. When you’re at the stage where you’re making phone calls, take time out of your day to really connect with one another on the phone. See how long you can talk on the phone. If you can’t even talk on the phone for a couple of hours, how are you going to make it through a two-hour dinner date?

Here are some good rules to follow during any phone date. Use the telephone as a screening device to judge if you really do want to meet this person in real life. It’s good to keep things at the phone stage for awhile before pushing forward to meeting in real life. Jason and Ang, our August success story of the month, is a great example of how this works. They chatted on the phone for almost a month before meeting in real life. Jason says, “We have been talking on the phone for around 3 weeks, sometimes 4-5 hours at a time.  Our conversations are very diverse, and quickly realized there may be something special here.”

And once you meet in person, it’s good to take things slow in real life, as you have been doing online. Even if you feel you know this other person from chatting with them online and on the phone, it’s a good idea to get to redo the getting-to-know process with them in real life, before becoming physically or emotionally intimate with someone you meet on Zoosk. First, there are the obvious safety concerns. But it’s also just good practice in dating to really learn about a person before inviting them into your heart. Your heart is a special place. Save it for the ones who truly matter!

So, we all agree that taking it slow is a good thing. But generally, it’s easier said than done. What are some easy tips to follow, when you feel things are moving too quickly and you want to take a step back?

1. Communicate.

Wanna cool the acceleration? Simply say so. You should always feel, in any relationship, like you can address your own needs. Should you feel that things are moving too quickly for your liking, you need to pipe up and say so. Any partner worth having will listen and immediately take your feelings into consideration.

2. Keep things light.

There are lots of reasons why you shouldn’t talk about getting serious too early in a relationship, the biggest being that you will probably scare the person away. People do not fall in love at the same pace. Someone always has to say “I love you” first. It’s also difficult to discern, in the beginning, if what you are feeling is really meaningful, or mere infatuation, and it’s always good to marinate in your feelings and reflect on them before taking things to a more serious place.

3. Live in the moment, not the future.

Enjoy the precious moments of your new relationship. Don’t worry about the future! The future will come, and when it arrives, you might even find yourself nostalgic for the past.

4. Never lose your head.

The term “head over heels” is an accurate one, in the sense that people do run the risk of losing their heads when walking, blindly, into a new relationship. Keep your head on straight. Try not to let your emotions control you. In any relationship, you are ultimately in control of your own actions, and to a degree, you can control your feelings as well. Be rational!

5. Don’t try to define anything too early.

Lastly, I don’t know about you, but I sincerely hate the “what are we” conversation. I don’t really believe that people need to know, when they are in the beginning of a relationship, if its going to work out in the long term. As long as you are enjoying yourself now, that should be all that matters. Try not to succumb to the need to define your relation early on. You’ll miss out on all the fun of the relationship if you spend your days worrying about what to call it! Trust!

photo credit: malias

By Juliet O

When you’re out on the town, the ‘art of seduction’ seems relatively straightforward. Basic grooming, eye contact, and physical (even if imaginary) confidence go a long way when trying to catch the eye of that special someone. You’re at a bar, you see someone you like, and after a few drinks you gather up enough courage to strike up a conversation.

It’s pretty simple, really.

When you’re trying to attract someone online, however, the whole equation shifts. You don’t have to dress up or take a shower. You can be on Zoosk while slouched in front of the television, unshowered, wearing a bathrobe with your laptop balanced on a family-size bowl of Doritos, and you might be just as irresistible in this context — alone, at home, stuffing your face in front of the computer — as you are while dressed to the nines in swanky club. In a lot of ways, online dating presents far less pressure than dating IRL (‘in real life’). You don’t have to buy new clothes, you don’t have to put effort into looking good for someone else, and you don’t have to worry about what anyone is going to think. On Zoosk, you can relax and just be yourself.

But even for the experienced, online dating is far from being a walk in the park. Online dating presents its own unique challenges. Like, how are you going to get someone to notice you, when you’re on Zoosk, without relying on the same tricks that you’d use to get people to notice you in real life? On Zoosk, there are many ways to get noticed, and they’re as easy and simple as lifting your finger off the keyboard and hitting a few keys. To increase your date card views and get noticed by the hotties you’re trying to attract, follow these simple tips.

Turn your flabby, out-of-shape date card into a lean, mean, babe-attracting machine.

Trust me, people do notice your date card. Is it properly filled out? Is it specific? Do you have enough relevant information on your card? Are you representing yourself honestly? Did you remember to fill out your interests, including your favorite music and movies? We wrote a blog post a while back which gave some useful advice on how to trick out your date card for all the online hunnies out there. Did you read it? We also gave some advice on creating a date card that doesn’t suck. We are not just chatting for our own sake. There is useful information in these posts. We swear.

Make sweet sweet love to the camera.

You need photos. We’ve already put blood sweat and tears into reminding you to upload real, current, accurate photos of yourself onto Zoosk. Many of you listened, but some of you still don’t have photos on your profile. How are you going to attract anyone with the gray, faceless Zoosk avatar? Unless they have a serious thing for faceless avatars, there is no way anyone is going to contact you for a date without a photo.

“Brown paper packages tied up with string, these are a few of my favorite things!”

You should favorite your favorites. When you favorite another Zoosker, not only have you put a bookmark on their profile (so that you can revisit it with ease, later on), you have also alerted them that they have been favorited. When they go to their “Who Favorited You” page (the tab on your Zoosk page that features the double heart icon), your profile pops up. Getting noticed is that easy.

Use the “like” function.

When you “like” items on a Zoosker’s status page, you successfully put yourself in their line of sight. Depending on whether they have set up Zoosk Mobile, they might even receive a text message notification of this — Zoosk provides you with real time, on the spot flirting even when you are offline. Liking is a great way of making yourself visible online, especially for those shy ones who don’t like to make the first move via directly messaging another Zoosker. Not only is liking a form of positive energy and good karma, the more you like someone, the more they will like you back. So pay it forward!

View as many profiles as you can.

Now that Zoosk gives you the ability to unlock your “Who Viewed Me” page, all members, whether basic or premium, have the ability to see the profiles of other people who have viewed their date cards. When you use Zoosk, your profile becomes visible to those Zooskers whose profiles you have visited. Think of viewing others’ date cards like sowing seeds. The more you sow, the more you reap.

Be an active part of the community.
Yo, Zoosker! Holler on the Community Boards! Being active on our community forums is one of the best ways to get noticed on Zoosk. Zoosk has a wonderful, vocal, incredibly participatory community of daters all over the world. While we engineered the dating site and we run all the engineering behind the software, we didn’t engineer our community at all. You guys happened organically. You recognized a solid product, you wanted to meet potential matches online, and you trusted us to give you the hook up that you needed. Somewhere in that process, you came together on the Zoosk community forums and created a close-knit, accepting, open-minded online family. And it’s no coincidence that we notice, with increasing frequency, the number of matches that are made right on the community pages themselves. If you don’t believe me, check it out for yourself!

Wink wink.

If you are interested in a fellow Zoosker, but are not at the point where you want to send them a direct message, why not do the easy thing and click the wink button? They’ll be notified on email, and via SMS if they’ve subscribed to Zoosk Mobile. Winking is kind of hard to do smoothly in real life (sometimes, you try to wink and it gets confused for an odd facial tic) but luckily, it’s much easier to accomplish online.

Be Zoosk’s fan on Facebook.

Zoosk has a super active Facebook community. Have you seen it? Every day, we post updates on our Facebook Fan Page and our Facebook community is awesome about responding and engaging with our posts. Fan us on Facebook, and get noticed by our Facebook fan community.

Carpe diem. Put yourself out there.

For the shy, indirect methods of flirtation are always an option. But for the more adventurous, the best way to get someone’s attention on Zoosk is to pen them a message. We’ve published 5 tips on how to write the first message on Zoosk. Read it, live it, learn it! (Hint: gifting is encouraged).

photo credit: okko pyykko

If we could find a way to bottle your pheromones and send them over the internet with a box of aphrodisiac-laden chocolates and a bottle of French champagne, we’d do it — but since we can’t, we’re giving you the next best thing in the art of seduction: rad new features on our latest release that will be sure to boost your game and maximize your flirt potential all crazy-like. Now, on Zoosk, you have the ability to “like” notices on other members’ Activity Feeds, separate gifts by category, and get automatic notices of winks, flirts, and “likes,” right on your phone if you sign up for Zoosk Mobile. What a way to end the week, Zooskers!

Do you see the links that say “I like this”? You should click them. “Likes” are pretty much awesome, because they allow you to flirt with someone without sending a wink or a message. Basically, with “likes,” you’re given another option of flirting — and the more ways you can flirt, the better it is for all of us. When you “like” someone’s status report on their Activity Feed — for instance: some photos they uploaded, a new movie they listed as a favorite, or a new edit in their “Ideal Match” section just to name a few — they will be able to see your profile by looking at their own Feed. However, no one besides the person whose status you “liked” will be able to know you by profile — you’ll simply show up as “1 person likes this”. Which = duh. Everyone knows flirting is meant to be discreet!

That, above, is when you look at someone else’ Activity Feed. When you look at your own, it will look like this:

When you click on the icon of the person who “liked” your status, you go to their Date Card. Right on.

You’ll also notice that we have gift categories now. As we add more and more gifts into our toolbox of seduction, we see the benefit in helping Zooskers more easily find what kind of gift they want. We found that a whopping 76% of Zooskers are more likely to respond to a message if it came with a gift (who doesn’t like presents?) so we want to make it easier for you to break the ice with potential dates. Ergo, categories.

So far, our only “naughty” gift are these handcuffs (kinky!) but we will soon be adding new gifts to all the different categories, so that you can find the gift that best reflects you.

Lastly, Zoosk is introducing mobile alerts to your phone. If you’ve registered for Zoosk Mobile (and for those who haven’t, shame on you), you’ll begin to receive alerts whenever someone flirts with you, winks at you, or “likes” something on your profile. We know everyone has different limitations on text sizing and phone memory, so you won’t get a huge message texted to your phone — instead, you’ll just receive a nice, self-affirming little notification telling you that you’ve received a flirt or a wink. Think of it as a complement, sent straight to your pocket.

You can also get notifications about Zoosk, like added features or company news, should you choose. If and when you sign up for Zoosk Mobile, the default setting of all mobile alerts is ON. If you want to turn these off, you can simply go to your “Settings” tab and choose which alerts you’d like to receive. Customizable alerts? Hell yeah!

If you have questions about these or any other of our features, be sure to send us a message on our Support Page. Otherwise, enjoy the new features and stay tuned for more soon. Happy Zoosking.

Of course, we all look for unique and memorable ways to “break the ice,” to stand out from the crowd, and to let our personalities shine through with the hope that we’ll receive a positive response from a potential date. Fortunately, social dating gives you many unique opportunities to connect with other singles in a fun way.

Earlier this month, we conducted a survey among one thousand Zooskers to learn more about your thoughts on virtual gifts – those tokens of interest or affection that can say a lot more than simply sending a digital wink.

Here’s what you told us when it comes to virtual gift giving:

How sweet is a digital rose? Pretty sweet, Zooskers said.

• 76% of you said you would be more likely to respond to a potential match if you received a virtual gift from that person

Talk about missed opportunities!

• Only 15% of you said you have ever sent someone a virtual gift

71% of you said the virtual gifts you send are a reflection of your personality. And the survey said…

• 37% of you send “traditional” virtual gifts, such as digital flowers or a box of chocolates
• 27% of you show off your “wild side” by selecting virtual gifts like a martini or a strawberry dripped in chocolate
• 23% of you send “warm and fuzzy” virtual gifts like a teddy bear
• 13% of you prefer to send seasonal gifts

Now that we know how much you love receiving gifts, we have decided make it super easy to send them. You might have already noticed that we changed the Date Card view a little bit to make gifting more obvious. Simply click on the new ‘Gift’ button, click on a gift you like and hit ‘Send’. It’s that easy.

What are your thoughts and experiences with virtual gift giving? If you’ve sent or received gifts, we’d love to hear your stories. If you haven’t sent virtual gifts before….well, clearly you should consider it!