Crowd sourcing your love life

December 22, 2009 at 8:30 am | Posted in Matchmaking, News, Social Media | 1 Comment
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Rather than randomly trawl the internet for Mr Right, Sarah Stokely plans to date 100 bachelors "recommended by actual humans". Photo: Simon O'Dwyer

Frustrating dating experiences often make people turn their love lives over to a matchmaker. But how bad would it have to be before you turn yours over to Twitter?

That’s what one single Australian gal is doing. Unable to find her perfect match on her own, Sarah Stokely’s letting her matchmakers do the grunt work for her — all 1,694 of them and counting.

Part social media experiment, part summer fling(s), the 36-year-old media consultant is counting on her Twitter followers to set her up on 100 blind dates and watch (or is it read?) her love life unfold online.

Stokely calls it ”crowd-sourcing for pleasure.”

By reaching far out into her social network, she’s hoping someone she knows can do a better job than online dating sites of finding her the man of her dreams. Or at least a decent dinner date.

Stokely is quoted in the The Sydney Morning Herald:

”I was hoping people who had been recommended by actual humans will be better than what has turned out for me under that online dating process,” she says. ”It’s nice not to be that passive person with their photo up on a website, hoping someone will talk to them. It’s actually going out there and saying, ‘Hey, I want this to happen and it will be fun’, and people are responding to that.”

But before you recommend she meet your second cousin who’s a huge surfing fan, not so fast: she won’t accept a date with just anyone (she’s not *that* desperate). Potential daters must nominate themselves or be recommended for a date by a friend and complete a questionnaire that will be scruntized by 100 random Twitter follower pundits. Hence, the matchmaking.

Stokely has had requests from friends for similar dating “crowdsourcing” websites.

A similar approach, albeit a much less public experience, would be to use Thread.com to get your friends to play matchmaker for you with people from their Facebook friends network.

Source: The Sydney Morning Herald

The new “double dating”

November 30, 2009 at 8:00 am | Posted in Dating Tips, Matchmaking, News | Leave a comment
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New dating tip: before going out on a blind date, check your rolodex to see if you've already met the person.

New question to ask before being set up on a blind date: Have I already been set up with her?

The only thing worse than an awkward blind date is being set up on another blind date with that same person. Again.

That really happened to Scott Alan Mantz, film critic for “Access Hollywood,” whose recent marriage to actress Andrea Ronni Sabesin was profiled in the New York Times Weddings and Celebrations:

Mr. Mantz’s moment of truth was on a particularly awkward blind date: “We met at the restaurant, and I realized I had gone out with her 10 years before,” he said.

Awwwwkward. Is the world really so small and the dating pool so shallow that if you stay single long enough you will run out of new people to date? Mantz’ story may sound extreme, but he’s not alone. A search on the subject quickly turned up another disaster about a woman who has been set up on a blind date with the same person twice multiple times.

If this happens to you, either fate is telling you something or you need to expand your search a bit. But until then there’s no harm in erring on the side of caution and asking for details before a setup while cross-checking your dating resume to make sure you’re not double dating the same person. Or ask for a photo.

5 Reasons to Go on a Blind Date

November 23, 2009 at 9:33 am | Posted in Dating Tips, Matchmaking | Leave a comment
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Your friends may have the best intentions when it comes to setting you up on a blind date, but they don’t always have the best taste. Blind dates from hell make “You should meet my friend” seem like the five scariest words ever told to a single person.

But if you’ve sworn off meeting your friend’s friends, perhaps you should reconsider: 34 percent of married couples say they met through family or friends, according to The Pew Internet and American Life Online Dating survey.

Not convinced the odds are in your favor? Here are five reasons to accept a blind date:

You already have one thing in common: Many blind daters struggle to find common ground with a total stranger, but at least on a setup through friends you’ll be able to dish about someone you both know. If you both have the same friend, you will likely share other common interests.

Your friends won’t set you up with a douche: At least they shouldn’t. Your friends are your first line of defense when it comes to judging character, and with them arranging the date, you can be reasonably confident that he or she won’t be a total ass.

Your friends know you better than you think: Given the dating resume you’ve presented to your friends and family, they know you pretty well. More important than knowing ” your type,” they know the type of person you really should be dating instead of the losers who normally drive you crazy and break your heart. And better yet, they can warn your date of your dating deal-killers and hot buttons which will hopefully make the first date run a little more smoothly.

You’ve been meaning to expand your social circle anyway: It would be unfair to expect every blind date to be “the one” (plus it’s huge pressure on the matchmaker). But it could be the one who leads you to the one. Expanding your social network opens a lot of opportunities — romantic and otherwise. You may not find the perfect match, but you might make a new friend.

You might actually have fun: Breaking out of your old patterns and meeting someone new doesn’t have to hurt. In fact, make a point to enjoy yourself by trying a new restaurant or dragging your date to that movie you’ve been wanting to see but couldn’t find anyone to go with. But whether you explore a new neighborhood or play it safe at your favorite dive, dinner or drinks with someone new –especially if they have news stories to tell about your common friends– can be a surprisingly nice way to spend a few hours.

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