In real life, we often meet new people through family and friends. Social media already facilitates these connections. If you set your privacy settings on Facebook to be available to “friends of friends” then you’re likely to find folks who hang in similar circles as yourself. It’s one thing to have interests in common or to like the same bands, but if you’re both friends with someone, there’s a common ground that’s more specific than a bunch of data points. You likely share a similar worldview or social class or what-have-you. The same cohort.

Same with Twitter. You can now see the people that you both follow. And it stands to reason that if you both enjoy reading similar tweets, you have some indefinable thread that connects you intellectually or socially.

Compare this with online dating. You’re basically starting at zero when you sign up at an online dating site. You’re isolated from your network, and it’s just you amidst a sea of seekers. You can search for a date using any number of variables, but in the real world, some of the most important variables are the people that you’re close to. This social graph is much more valuable as a tool than demographic info and a list of interests. After all, our friendships and families are often the glue that holds relationships together.

Yes, our primary relationships do not function in a vacuum. Just as it takes a village to raise a family, why isn’t it the case that it takes one to keep two people together? And why only depend on them after you have met someone?

Comment below: What are your thoughts? Do Facebook and Twitter supplant the need for traditional online dating sites?

HerWay believes that when a woman makes the first move, a face-to-face connection is more likely, as women know what they want in a man. Also, she feels more empowered because she is not being bombarded with emails and feeling obligated to respond to men to tell them why she’s not interested.

From the perspective of evolutionary biology, this approach to online dating does make sense – to an extent. After all, it is the female who must be selective, because she is the one who must bear and raise offspring, so she is looking for a mate with the best possible genes. Yet instead of appraising the men who approach her, on HerWay she looks for those traits that she finds most attractive.

It’s not all that different than looking for a sperm donor: Ivy League education, over six feet tall, earns six figures. But unlike at a clinic, she has to take the risk that the guy doesn’t reciprocate the attraction.

I would think that all the usual issues about appearing appealing on an online dating site will still apply for the woman (having the right photo, etc.) but she’s just saving herself a lot of time and headache by having to weed through hundreds of messages and winks.

This site has the potential to bring up some interesting questions when the gender roles are reversed:

• How does a woman go about expressing her interest?
• How does a man let a woman know that he’s not all that interested?
• Given the self-selection process, is this site going to attract assertive women and passive/receptive men?

Comment below: What do you think of this approach to online dating?

One of the things that’s hardest to keep a secret on Facebook (or in life in general, really) is one’s relationship status. Not only is it listed right away on your profile, but it’s one of the things people are nosiest about. Even with the new privacy changes Facebook is making, choosing to share your status with ‘just friends’ still doesn’t narrow down the crop much. If your relationship status changes at all, expect to get plenty of comments from friends (many people have 500 ‘friends’ or more), and know that the guy you met at the bar this weekend probably friended you mostly to see if you had a boyfriend you forgot to mention.

However, it’s not just friends and acquaintances who are getting data from your profile. Outside vendors also glean information from the site and uncover which ads to throw on your sidebar based on your likes, your favorite music, and – you guessed it – your relationship status. Single? Expect to see plenty of online dating or matchmaking ads right below your events and birthdays for the week. In a relationship? Plenty of people will tell you they’ve seen engagement ring advertisements and promotions for cookware and food alongside their friends’ party pictures. Whether you’re completely unattached or married, Facebook probably has an ad targeted at you based on what you say about your relationship or lack thereof. Your status is no longer there just to let friends and would-be significant others know if you’re on the market or not. Now it’s used to make money for Zuckerberg and company.

When it comes down to it though, Facebook is on the Internet, and whatever you put there – save secure passwords and financial information (hopefully) – is fair game. Yes, Facebook started as a social networking site meant to connect you to your friends at school. But now – as you should well know unless you’ve been living under a rock – Facebook is accessible to everyone and is being used as a business tool in many capacities. This includes using your relationship status to target you for advertisements, which some are definitely not OK with.

What do you think? Does it bother you when Facebook suggests you join Zoosk.com or buy kitchen utensils? Are you hesitant about changing your relationship status for fear that everyone will speculate and comment on the recent news? Does the recent news that Facebook was never intended to be super-private make you think twice about saying anything about your dating life? Or have you managed to avoid these issues completely by taking down your relationship status altogether?

Share your comments below.

However, it does happen that somewhere along the line, you might want to actually gain them back as a Facebook friend. While it’s pretty obvious how you would go about re-friending an ex, the real question is going to be why do you want to? And is it really a good idea, considering your reason?

You’re re-friending an ex in order to…

Check up on the ex

Many times, curiosity gets the best of us, and we really just have to know if our former flame is dating someone else or is even still in the same state as we are. Did he gain weight? Did she lose her job? Who’s writing on his wall?! While it might drive you crazy not to know what’s going on in his or her life, it will probably make you even more batty knowing what he or she is up to. In this case, if you’re just being nosy, and have no interest in getting back together with the ex, leave this one alone. Even if you hit the re-friend button, the other party in the past relationship might suspect something is up and deny your friend request anyway. Which will probably just take those crazy levels up another notch.

Let them see you and what you’re doing

If this is your motivation, I suspect life is going pretty well for you. And this is your way of gloating and saying, “Look how well I’m doing and how hot I’ve gotten since we broke up.” Frankly, probably not the most mature reason for trying to reconnect with an ex on Facebook, but I’m not here to judge. If this happens to be your logic, then consider why you want them to know you’re living life – post-relationship – to the fullest. Were you insecure about something when you were with her? Are you actually trying to make him want you back? Be honest with yourself on this one, and then decide whether or not re-friending the guy you recently referred to as your “psycho ex-boyfriend” is such a good idea.

Show that you’ve made amends

This is one intention I won’t argue with, because it’s actually a pretty good one. You’ve moved on, but you also want to show that you haven’t burned that bridge. Or if you have, you wouldn’t mind rebuilding it. Maybe you realize that you ended the relationship a bit dramatically, or that you flung some harsh words you didn’t mean, and having that person in your life wouldn’t be such a bad thing. As long as making amends doesn’t truly mean ‘stealing him back from the bitch he’s dating now,’ then, with this reason, you’re in the clear.

Just like any other way you might reconnect with an ex, consider seriously why you want to re-friend the old boyfriend or girlfriend on Facebook. If it’s with the best intentions, go for it. If not … well, again, there’s always de-friending.

Comment below: Have you re-friended an ex?

More Articles on Facebook and Your Ex:

• Keeping It Cool With an Ex on Facebook
• Let’s Not Be Friends: Facebook Ex Etiquette
• When Is It OK to Block or Defriend a Guy?
• Hate Reading Your Ex’s Facebook Wall? Learn How to STOP.
• Breaking up (on Facebook) is hard to do
• Facebook revenge: Announcing your breakup and blocking your ex

Our friends over at BadOnlineDates want to hear your worst dating stories. And they’re holding a contest with prizes – a $50 gift card, a “Worst Date Ever” T-shirt – to motivate you to participate! All you need to do is register an account with them and blog about it by June 1. Read the full details.

Be sure to tell them we sent you!

If you’re ready to take the plunge though, there are certain things to be careful of. When replying to an NSA ad, make sure to include all the information the poster wants, which is most often: age, weight and a recent photograph. But make sure you get at least that in return. Avoid posters who do not reciprocate photos, because they’re usually not serious or they’re not showing their picture for a reason. Avoid virgins and people asking for anything material in return – that’s the opposite of NSA. Try not to be too picky or worried about things like body-type or looks – you’re most likely never going to see this person again. Just make sure they’re down to get down and do exactly what you both want to do. If you’re too choosy, you’re never going to find the right (now) person.

Always make sure to trade phone numbers or screen names and keep the conversation to a minimum. Discuss only important things, like where you’re going to meet, where you’re going to do it and where you want to put it. Make sure the meeting place is in a public location. And because photos were traded, you should have no problem finding the person. Be weary of meeting up at someone’s house or in their hotel or motel room for safety reasons – you can never be too careful. Once you meet, if you’re ready to get down, then get to it. Make sure to drive separate cars, for a quick getaway in case things go awry, and head to whatever location you discussed earlier.

Now, do the deed. Avoid the nervous chatter and discussion, you both know why you’re there. Don’t stick to a strict script, make sure you feel comfortable with whatever’s going down – whether it be more or less than you discussed. Use protection, of course, because there’s nothing worse than getting the clap from someone from the list. Most importantly enjoy yourself! Sex almost always comes with strings attached – at least in one of the people’s minds. NSA sex is the perfect way to just get yours.

After it’s over, it’s up to the both of you whether you want to make the jump from NSA to FB (fuck buddy). If he or she doesn’t, don’t be hurt, that’s just he nature of NSA. Zip up your pants, tuck your underwear in your pocket and head out the door, deleting their number out of your phone on the way out.

Related:

• Casual Encounters: Strangers Connecting on Craigslist
• How to Respond to a Casual Encounters Personal Ad on Craigslist
• How to Find Sex Online (Without Being Slimy)

We talk about online dating here so much that it seems like the norm. And truthfully, it is becoming much more common. But often, we forget that there are still some people who are entirely, completely, wholeheartedly against it – even if they still choose to partake in it. For every person who, when asked, will tell you nonchalantly that she met her significant other online, there are plenty of others who will stumble their way through a vague story about meeting through friends.

If you haven’t already figured out your answer to the “How did you two meet?” question, now might be the time to start thinking about it – because it will, undoubtedly, come up. The first thing you need to do is sit down with the other party in your relationship and decide together what you want to say. This prevents those awkward moments when people meet your new guy or gal for the first time and one of you blurts out, “Match.com,” while the other stammers, “at a party,” when asked how you got together. Take it from someone who knows – it can be a bit disarming when a family member asks how you met, and your boyfriend shrugs and says, “online,” while you stare at him open-mouthed because you hadn’t even thought about how you’d answer the question yet.

If you are both modern, tech-embracing folks and really take no issue with telling the truth about how you met, at least let each other know this ahead of time, before anyone even asks. If one or both of you isn’t, then figure out if you’ll be able to make yourselves OK with it, or if you need to get your “story” straight before the interrogations start. (Hint: You’ll probably know from the start if your SO is OK with admitting to online dating. If he has “We’ll say we met in a bar” or “Can we pretend we met at Starbucks?” as his dating headline, chances are he won’t be cool with throwing around the fact that you met on the Internet.)

Your friends and family will want to know all the little details about your first rendezvous, so be prepared – but not too prepared. Unless you both have amazing memories and can lie with the ease of con artists, it’s best not to create an elaborate tale. One of you will likely say you met on a Saturday night at a party, and the other will say it was a Friday and a friend introduced you at a bar. Once your story gets twisted like that, people will probably catch on and you’ll have to own up to the truth. Keep it vague, but not so vague that it sounds like something out of a romantic comedy.

So should you or shouldn’t you tell the truth about how you met? Ultimately, it’s up to you and what you both agree on. Just know that intricately woven stories can get tricky to tell over and over again, and that in this day and age especially, honesty is usually the best policy.

Related:

• Overcome your resistance to online dating
• Full Disclosure in Online Dating
• How to Represent Yourself Honestly Online

Fast forward to this millennium, and we have a proliferation of online dating sites, all with profile pages. Some people think they can be casual with regards to what they put in their dating profiles. Wrong. If you are serious about attracting a mate – or just a date – you should craft these things as carefully as you would a resume for a potential employer. Let’s take a look at some common pitfalls and what you can do to avoid them.

Screen names

Some sites have you set up a screen name. Unlike chat rooms, where you are anonymous for as long as you like, your screen name is associated with your picture. Choosing the wrong name can have unfortunate consequences. Try for neutral rather than clever, since you might not be as clever as you think. Names like HarveyWallBanger, Magic Hands and The Tongue not only fail to impress but also set up the impression that you are looking for just one thing. Maybe you are, but do you want to be that obvious?

Pictures

Again, the theme is to set up the best impression you can. Pictures of you shirtless, in your bathing suit – or worse yet, nearly naked – may not impress people as much as you think. Keep your toys out of the pic as well. Pictures of you next to your car, on your motorcycle or in your boat give the impression that your toy is the most important thing in your life. This is hardly the message you want to send out, is it? Likewise for pics that include other people in your life. Keep your best buddy, your child, your coworkers or someone of the opposite sex out of the picture unless you want to send the message that your potential date is going to be playing second fiddle to other people in your life. And don’t use a picture that obviously clips out a person that shared a picture frame with you. It just makes people wonder if they will receive the same treatment from you. Use something current, not your prom picture from ten years ago. People want to see what you look like now. Last but not least, don’t even think of not putting up a picture. It just makes people wonder what you are trying to hide.

Text

Some sites ask you questions, others leave it up to you. Some are a combination of both. Unless you are clever at turning a phrase, just keep it simple. To avoid are things typical of your gender. Most men have an interest in sports, so reinforcing that only makes a woman wonder if she would end up a sports widow … again. For women, phrases like “hanging out with my peeps” just has a guy wondering if you’d dish about the whole date with a bunch of people he doesn’t know. You will of course, but do you really want him to know that?

That should cover the basics, to keep you from bombing out before you start out, but if I missed something, share it with us. What turns you off in online dating profiles?

Related:

• 10 Profile Pics to Never Upload
• 10 Do’s and Don’ts for Picking Your Online Dating Profile Picture
• Should you hire someone to craft your online dating profile and emails?

Online dating sites are in on the trend, too. We no longer have to know what we’re looking for … they’ll tell us. You think it’s creepy when iTunes knows exactly what album you’ll love? Well how creepy is it when a Web site knows what guy you’ll love?

Match.com asks you questions about your interests and what you are looking for in a mate, and then offers recommendations based on that. If you’re not satisfied with your matches, you can simply browse for people whom you might be interested in, even if you aren’t a perfect “match.” Chemistry.com takes it a step further by having you take an intense personality test – and then shows you your perfect match based on your personality. The Match questionnaire is more about daily interests and activities, while Chemistry focuses on the big picture stuff. They want to know who you are … so then they can tell you who you want.

eHarmony is so committed to customer service and doing things for you that they actually … do things for you. Through “guided communication” (which is optional but they strongly recommend it), users don’t e-mail potential love interests directly. They request to begin communication. Then eHarm will start the conversation. I can’t shoot off a message that says, “Hey Jeffrey, noticed you like astrology … me too.” I have to answer eHarmony’s question. “Well, Jeffrey, if my house was burning down, here are the five things I’d save…” And then he has to respond – not with a response to my question, but with an answer to an entirely different question… “I do believe in life after death, Rachel, and here’s why…”

Sure, it’s nice to discuss the “big” stuff, but it seems a little ridiculous to have to let the company guide the conversation for five rounds before you can finally just say, “So what was your major in college?” or “Hey, want to get a drink?” (This might be why eHarmony is less good for looking for booty calls than other dating sites.) Yes, I’m looking for love online, but can’t I do some of the work myself?

New site Pickv.com is all about doing the work for you, simply based on what you like. This site connects you with people based on movies, music, books, TV shows, and food. Seeking out people who like the same things as you do seems inherently narcissistic, like the old SNL skit “Me Harmony” showed. Everyone was matched up with themselves in drag. “At Me Harmony, we guarantee someone who is exactly like you … with different sexual organs.”

The obvious problem with this is that just because someone loves noodle bars as much as you do doesn’t mean you’ll have anything else in common. And we all know that sometimes opposites attract. It also makes first date conversations awkward. Do we have to talk about noodle bars? Do we have to go to a noodle bar?

While it’s flattering that a dating site knows so much about you that they can tell you exactly which guys you want to date, there comes a point when there’s a thrill in discovering a little quirk or bit of chemistry on your own. Sure, you know he likes dogs, but when you realize on your first date that you both have a secret desire to raise a gaggle of pugs, that’s exciting. If the dating site has already told you this, you might wonder if he actually is into you … or if he’s just more turned on by how much you have in common.

While it’s nice to have that kind of commitment from a dating site, we have to wonder if it’s really necessary. It’s like the difference between being set up on a blind date or having your pushy mother come along on the blind date and interrupt every few minutes to say, “Jeffrey! Jeffrey! Tell her about your greatest accomplishment!” Matchmaking is great … but meddling might be going too far.

Related:

• Online Dating and Media Consumption: A Peek at Pickv
• Addicted to Online Dating?
• One Size Does Not Fit All: Choosing the Online Dating Site That’s Best for You