Dating site for beautiful people expels ‘fatties’ after holiday weight gain
By Mallory Simon, CNN

(CNN)—A dating site that markets itself as an elite community for beautiful people with a “strict ban on ugly people” has axed about 5,000 members for packing on the pounds during the holiday season.

The international site BeautifulPeople.com threw out members after they posted photos “revealing that they have let themselves go,” according to a company statement.

“As a business, we mourn the loss of any member, but the fact remains that our members demand the high standard of beauty be upheld,” said Robert Hintze, founder of BeautifulPeople.com. “Letting fatties roam the site is a direct threat to our business model and the very concept for which BeautifulPeople.com was founded.”

The site describes itself as an “elite online club, where every member works the door”—that is, users can join only after enough members vote them “beautiful” during the 48 hours after their profile is uploaded.

And apparently, enough beautiful people were angry that some members had enjoyed a bit too many treats during the holiday season.

So BeautifulPeople.com sent those flagged members e-mails, according to the company statement, telling them they could register again for the site when the extra pudge was gone.

“We responded to complaints by moving the newly chubby members back to the rating stage. This is the same as having them re-apply,” Greg Hodge, managing director of BeautifulPeople.com, said in a statement.

The company said it “expelled” 1,520 users from the U.S., 832 from the U.K., 533 from Canada, 510 from Poland, 425 from Germany, 402 from Italy, 323 from France, 220 from Denmark, 176 from Turkey and 88 people from Russia. In the e-mail, it gave users suggestions for boot camps and workout facilities to get themselves back in shape.

Some gave the site a shot again, hoping fellow users might not see them as the “fatties” others had.

“Their re-applications were reviewed by existing members, and only a few hundred were voted back in. Over 5,000 were rejected,” Hodge added.

Hodge admits, and has admitted from the time his company started, that his site may not be fair, but people want to date someone they are attracted to.

“Is it elitist? Yes, it is, because our members want it to be,” Hodge said when the company started out in 2005. “Is it lookist? Yes, it is, because our members want it to be. Is it PC? No, it’s not, but it’s honest.”

And on this site, beauty is certainly in the eye of the beholder; only one in five applicants is normally accepted, a company statement said.

Maintaining those standards is what the site is about, Hodge said, and that’s why people were expelled.

“Every year we see that some of our members from Western cultures eat and drink to excess over the holidays, and clearly their looks suffer,” he said in a statement. “The U.S.A. has been grossly over-indulging since Thanksgiving. It’s no wonder that so many members have been expelled from the network. We hope they will be back after shedding the festive pounds.”

The Post-Breakup Technology Cleanse
by Melissa Noble

If you’re one of the three people out there who endures a completely mutual, pain-free and friendly as a bouquet of roses break-up, then read no further. The below is not intended for you. Now, if you fall into the category of “everyone else” and your recent split caused a rush of heated double-clicks and jealous scrolls through a flurry of screens large and small, then you really ought to fumigate your technology like you would a roach-infested kitchen.

Here’s how:

1.) Delete every single e-mail ever given or received
As cathartic as it might sound to keep an archive of sweet messages, witty one-liners and even the cruel and brutal (as a remembrance as to why you should never reconcile) just don’t. Instead, search and delete every received and sent message. It might sound time-consuming and dramatic, but you’ll come to realize how much you’ll enjoy having an ex-free inbox.

2.) Cleanse your smart phone
Deleting someone’s number isn’t good enough. Nay. Go in and scrub away every trace like you would shower grime. In one broad stroke, eliminate every missed, outgoing and dialed call, plus every sent and received text and picture. You want no excuse to cave, crumble and call.

3.) Un-friend from Facebook and possibly block
Facebook is the Mecca of peeping Toms and an all-access pass to an ex’s status updates, wall posts from attractive members of the opposite sex, and pictures with said attractive members of the opposite sex. Unless you’re a masochist, it’s just bad, bad, bad news. Absolutely un-friend, and if you want to take it one step further (and why wouldn’t you?) use that nifty “block button.” Blocking eliminates you from coming up on a search and showing up on a mutual friend’s list of friends, so your ex likewise won’t be reminded of you and reach out in a fit of nostalgia. 

4.) If you met on a dating site, remove from favorites and block
If you met on an online dating site, definitely remove your ex from your favorites and block him/her from contacting you. This one is a no-brainer.

5.) Un-follow and block on Twitter
The same rational for Facebook goes for Twitter. If you and significant other were tweeters and hung on each others posts, it’s time to unfollow and block. Life is just too short for 140 characters to unleash the millions of angry memories. Just trust us on this.

6.) Remove from IM
In Gmail, it’s possible to suppress a contact from appearing in your Gchat list. You can also remove or block a buddy in AIM, Skype and other such instant messaging systems. When you’re trying to write an e-mail to your mom or cruise a dating site for new love interests, what benefit is there in seeing your ex’s name in your chat list?

Yes, this technology cleanse is extreme. Think about it this way: seeing your ex online/in your phone will only make you think about what he/she is doing, realize you’re no longer privy to that info (at least not right now, maybe friendship lies ahead), and�as any human would�suffer as a result. Why not make technology work for you and remove the catalysts for this negative reminder?

If your ex wants to reconcile, he/she will find you. Or, given your freedom to exist without constant reminders, maybe you’ll see him/her in a new light and decide to reach out. Either way, keeping an ex’s fingerprints all over your technology will only help keep you jailed in breakup pain. We say, cleanse and be free. You’re too fabulous to wallow.

Marriage and divorce ... with a modern twist: PDQuotient
By John Campanelli, The Plain Dealer

(edited)

8—Percent decline in the divorce rate from 2003 to 2008 in states without constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

20.7—Percent decline in the divorce rate from 2003 to 2008 in Massachusetts, the first state to legalize gay marriage (2004).

0.9—Percent increase in the divorce rate from 2003 to 2008 in the states with constitutional bans on same-sex marriage.

About 20—Percent of new divorce cases that contain the word “Facebook” in their petitions.

30—Percent of “singles” on online dating sites who aren’t single.

More than 4.5 million—Members of AshleyMadison.com, the dating site for married people that carries the tagline “Life is short. Have an affair.”

70—Percent of AshleyMadison.com members who are male.

Online dating more popular

NEW YORK - ANY lingering stigma about finding true love online seems to be fading, particularly among older adults, researchers found.

In a study of 175 newlywed couples scientists at Iowa State University said those who met through online dating agencies, or social networking sites, tended to be older than other couples who met through traditional ways offline.

They were also less likely to be marrying for the first time and had shorter courtships before tying the knot - 18.5 months instead of 42 months.

‘In many cases, there are real structural forces that encourage the support and use of these technologies,’ said Alicia Cast, an associate professor of sociology at the university. ‘And one of them is just structural constraints on people’s time - such as people who have kids, or have full-time jobs, or work long or extensive hours,’ she added in a statement.

But the online spouses were as attractive, intelligent and had the same self-esteem levels of the offline couples.

Prof Cast and her graduate assistant Jamie McCartney studied data on the couples over a three-year period. Twenty five couples in the study had met online. ‘My understanding is that there are very few studies that have been able to simultaneously get access to a source of couples who met through more conventional means, along with those who choose to meet people online,’ said Prof Cast.—REUTERS

Daters without borders New Yorkers find international love online

By CARRIE SEIM

There are more than 8 million people in the city of New York. Most are either too young, too old, too married or too incarcerated to date. The remaining 17 have weird hobbies, creepy hygiene and bad manners.

Plus you�ve already slept with them.

Time to look beyond the boroughs. And no, we�re not talking New Jersey. More and more New Yorkers are searching for love on European dating sites, living out fairy-tale fantasies of international romance.

�French men really treat you like a lady,� says Lillian, a 42-year-old Manhattan copy editor who signed up for Meetic.com, Europe�s largest dating site. �They wine you, they dine you, they make you feel like you�re the only one on the planet.�

Lillian describes the men she�s met on US-based dating sites as �sleazy,� and the real-life dating scene in New York as �nonexistent.�

�I go out here � and nothin�,� she says.

But on Meetic, she Skypes with a Parisian man from the site for an hour each day. This month they missed connections � she flew to France for vacation the same day he flew to NYC for business � yet Lillian managed to line up two dates with another Frenchman Meetic member while in Paris.

�I was talking to guys in Italy, France and Sweden all at once,� she brags.

Susan, a 22-year-old grad student, also struggled with dating locally, so she widened her eHarmony parameters.

�What are the odds that that perfect person is within a 25-mile radius of your home?� she asks.

Turns out her future husband was living 3,400 miles away in a tiny village with the population of 60. eHarmony matched her with Peter, a 30-year-old Slovakian living in England. After months of Webcam chats, Susan hopped the pond for a face-to-face.

�I was really, really nervous on the plane,� she remembers. �I don�t do this sort of thing! But he was that special.�

Peter proposed a few months later in a romantic English garden. They married last June near a lake in Aurora, NY, and he�s since moved here.

Even �Real Housewives of New York City� reality star Alex McCord and Simon van Kempen met through Matchmaker.com while living on different continents.

�I had already dated most of the guys I knew and wanted to date in New York,� says Alex.

Simon, meanwhile, was based in Sydney and posted a profile on the Australian section of the site. On a lark, he changed his location to New York during a work trip to the city.

�I wasn�t looking to find a New York woman and move here,� he insists.

Still, international love prevailed and they tied the knot in 2000.

�Expect it when you least expect it,� they say. In unison.

Mark Brooks, editor of OnlinePersonalsWatch.com, says international romance is a growing trend, due to singles� increasing pickiness about potential life partners.

�The longer the shopping list, the further afield you should cast your net,� he advises.

A single New Yorker four years ago, he flew to Prague for a European online dating conference where he met � and fell for � a Czech woman. They married last April and now live in Malta with two daughters.

It�s not just New Yorkers who are searching overseas for love. Sarah Shaw, 45, describes the dating scene in LA as �a nightmare,� so a French friend made her register with Meetic, where she stumbled upon Pierre Dubois, a handsome French painter. They fell into a whirlwind �fantasy� romance and were married soon after. Pierre moved to California and they now have identical twin girls.

Sarah credits European men with being more open and less threatened by female success than American men. Plus there�s that foreign accent.

�You have to be willing to look under every rock,� she says. �In every country.�

Here are some of the most popular dating sites from around the world:

* Europeans: Meetic.com

* Brits and Canadians: PlentyOfFish.com

* Asians: AsiaFriendFinder.com

* Australians: RSVP.com.au

* Indians: Shaadi.com

* Russians: Member.ru

Read more: http://www.nypost.com/p/lifestyle/dating/daters_without_borders_lE0aVEOO6fidW6lXlntY2H#ixzz0YYvNa9GM

‘White lies’ are a dating no-no

By KRYSTLE LAUB AND ERIN OUTERBRIDGE

Everyone tells a white lie now and again. Telling someone they don’t look horrible when they are clearly having a bad day is actually a nice thing to do and, in our eyes, acceptable. However, when you are out there dating, lying is one of the things you should avoid.

We are both single, and we find ourselves navigating the wide, wide world of Internet dating and the ever-popular blind date. “Don’t lie?!” you say? “Well, how will I ever get someone to date me?” We suggest the truth and being proud of who you are. This column is, in short, a guide to how the opposite sex is not stupid, and how lies are not a great way to start a new relationship.

The very first guy that Krystle met in person from Match.com was a teacher from Brooklyn. He drove all the way out to Hackensack to meet her at the Cheesecake Factory. That day she had scrolled through his profile for one last gander: six feet, brown hair, “athletic build.” When she arrived, the man in front of her had blond hair, and the top of his head barely reached her 5-foot, 9-inch height. Did he really think that she wouldn’t notice the obvious difference? Recently she met a guy at a bar that she had contacted on Match, only to find out that nearly everything he told her had been untrue. Everything: the town he lived in, his job, the types of cars he drove. Everything was false.

Last summer Erin experienced a similar situation. She went on a blind date with a guy who said he was 5 feet, 11 inches. This seemed to be the perfect height difference as she is 5 feet, 3 inches. Well, it was the perfect height difference until he walked in. When retelling the story to friends, Erin was generous and said he was 5 feet, 5 inches, but being honest, they were the same height. He was a great guy and the date went well (minus the mouse scurrying across the barroom floor), but his “white lie” and being more than 15 minutes late really put a damper on the chemistry.

Women are just as shady when it comes to dating. We decided to ask our guy friends for instances of dating horror stories. One friend told us about a first date with a girl in which he was really interested. During the conversation that night, they agreed that they both loved James Bond movies. On the second date, he cooked her dinner and they watched their mutually-agreed-upon favorite James Bond movie. Before the credits even finished rolling, she was berating him for choosing to watch this particular movie and lecturing him about how James Bond movies are demeaning to women.

Another guy friend told us about a woman who would say anything to him to seem open-minded. If you are a vegetarian, tell him before he recommends a steak house!

While we are all insecure about different things, being dishonest about anything is never a good idea. The whole concept behind dating is to find someone who loves you for you, not to trick someone into dating you.

Finding the special someone you want to spend the rest of your life with will come so long as you are honest about who you are and your intentions. Whether it’s big or small, about appearance or interests, fibbing isn’t going to get you anywhere with the other person. They will eventually find out the truth, and it will hurt your chances at a serious relationship.

So be brave, lay the cards out on the table, and tell the truth!

E-mail your questions to suburbanchatterbox@gmail.com.

Who do you turn to when you need advice? If a neutral sounding board is what you need, e-mail us! We are here to help you keep a level head and an open heart on life’s bumpy road to happiness.

Everyone tells a white lie now and again. Telling someone they don’t look horrible when they are clearly having a bad day is actually a nice thing to do and, in our eyes, acceptable. However, when you are out there dating, lying is one of the things you should avoid.

We are both single, and we find ourselves navigating the wide, wide world of Internet dating and the ever-popular blind date. “Don’t lie?!” you say? “Well, how will I ever get someone to date me?” We suggest the truth and being proud of who you are. This column is, in short, a guide to how the opposite sex is not stupid, and how lies are not a great way to start a new relationship.

The very first guy that Krystle met in person from Match.com was a teacher from Brooklyn. He drove all the way out to Hackensack to meet her at the Cheesecake Factory. That day she had scrolled through his profile for one last gander: six feet, brown hair, “athletic build.” When she arrived, the man in front of her had blond hair, and the top of his head barely reached her 5-foot, 9-inch height. Did he really think that she wouldn’t notice the obvious difference? Recently she met a guy at a bar that she had contacted on Match, only to find out that nearly everything he told her had been untrue. Everything: the town he lived in, his job, the types of cars he drove. Everything was fasle.

Last summer Erin experienced a similar situation. She went on a blind date with a guy who said he was 5 feet, 11 inches. This seemed to be the perfect height difference as she is 5 feet, 3 inches. Well, it was the perfect height difference until he walked in. When retelling the story to friends, Erin was generous and said he was 5 feet, 5 inches, but being honest, they were the same height. He was a great guy and the date went well (minus the mouse scurrying across the barroom floor), but his “white lie” and being more than 15 minutes late really put a damper on the chemistry.

Women are just as shady when it comes to dating. We decided to ask our guy friends for instances of dating horror stories. One friend told us about a first date with a girl in which he was really interested. During the conversation that night, they agreed that they both loved James Bond movies. On the second date, he cooked her dinner and they watched their mutually-agreed-upon favorite James Bond movie. Before the credits even finished rolling, she was berating him for choosing to watch this particular movie and lecturing him about how James Bond movies are demeaning to women.

Another guy friend told us about a woman who would say anything to him to seem open-minded. If you are a vegetarian, tell him before he recommends a steak house!

While we are all insecure about different things, being dishonest about anything is never a good idea. The whole concept behind dating is to find someone who loves you for you, not to trick someone into dating you.

Finding the special someone you want to spend the rest of your life with will come so long as you are honest about who you are and your intentions. Whether it’s big or small, about appearance or interests, fibbing isn’t going to get you anywhere with the other person. They will eventually find out the truth, and it will hurt your chances at a serious relationship.

So be brave, lay the cards out on the table, and tell the truth!

Viewpoint: ‘Serendipity’ takes online dating to the next level

By Sarah Raghubir

Apple�s iPhone can play music, it can play videos and soon, it will be able to play matchmaker too.

�Serendipity,� Apple�s latest work in progress, could put a whole new spin on dating, giving Ottawa singles who have their hands full with a hectic schedule a chance to meet someone special.

The program will require its starry-eyed users to input a few personal details into their phone and be on their way with their regular routine: coffee and a newspaper at a local caf�, a bus ride down Elgin to work, or stopping in at the bank at the end of the day. �Serendipity,� using GPS technology, will vibrate to alert registered users that a possible love connection is in the area, making date-finding as simple as a thumbnail photo reading �Do you want to meet this person � yes or no?� This new technology makes speed dating and singles websites seem like a thing of the past.

Online dating services like Fastlife.ca suggest that though numbers change daily, they have over 10,000 registered users in the Ottawa-Gatineau area at any given time. So with Internet dating becoming a norm in today�s society, Apple seems to have spotted the market and jumped right into the deep end.

The iPhone�s target demographic has always been an entertainment-oriented crowd, especially compared to Blackberry or the new Nexus One�s business-minded users. If anyone has the potential to pull off an application like this, it�s certainly Apple.

But are Ottawa singles having so much trouble finding dates that they need a real-time software program playing cupid in their love lives? What happened to meeting people through friends, coworkers or family?

Just when we thought society couldn�t possibly be more dependent on their cell phones, it seems that even our relationships may be left up to technology.

Still, Apple might have its work cut out for it trying to get users to sign up for this program. Regardless of questions concerning privacy, costs and safety, dating in general is hard enough without a 24/7 fear that the love of your life, an avid iPhone user of course, could be around the corner at any moment. Dating is hard enough as it is without incorporating the constant mental stress and nerves of a first date (especially a blind one) into daily routine.

But maybe Apple could use this romantic gesture of a phenomenon to influence more than just the lives of hopeful singles.

Forget, for a second, the premise of the application as a dating tool. The idea of digitally connecting people with common interests could serve a useful purpose in a technology-based world of business. Perhaps on a personal level, �Serendipity� pushes the boundaries of unnecessary a little, but the concept of uniting partners, clients or companies with common goals and interests could be a more realistic use of this progressive new tool.

Nonetheless, if Apple is going to go forward with this application, they have some kinks to work out. �Serendipity� may take the work out of finding a date, but it certainly doesn�t ease the dating process itself.

So what�s next? A followup tool fully equipped with personalized date-night tips and pointers?

For all the romantics out there, let�s hope not.

However, in the spirit of passing on what might be valuable resources for my single friends, here’s the latest: Outsourcing your love life.

Outsource love life to virtual assistant?
By Judy McGuire, The Frisky

(The Frisky)—I am a huge fan of online dating. I met my long-term boyfriend on Nerve.com and the majority of the weddings I’ve been to over the past few years have been between people who met online.

Though I still have friends who are reluctant to try it (you know who you are!), I encourage every single person looking for love to give it a whirl.

But even I raised an eyebrow last year when I read writer/comedian Carrie Seim’s New York Post story on how she entrusted her love life to a virtual assistant in India.

It’s one thing to weed out dudes using their blurry photos and attempts at wit; it’s quite another to have some stranger pick your dates for you. After suffering through too many disastrous fix-ups, I even stopped letting my friends set me up.

But Carrie had a good experience. Suresh, her VA, found her two amazing guys with very little guidance from her.

“I’m very type-A with all aspects of my life, so it was tough for me to give up the reins,” she says. “He himself was a single guy looking for love in Bangalore, so he had a romantic streak. He was absolutely intent on finding me the perfect match. His enthusiasm was contagious—he even went to the point of penning love letters for me!”

Since her story, I’ve read several accounts of people outsourcing their love lives. An expert at outsourcing almost every aspect of his life, Tim “Four-Hour Work Week” Ferriss also tried it with excellent results.

A brief look through virtual assistant Web sites (there are tons) showed rates ranging anywhere from $4 up to $100 an hour, depending on what was expected and where they were based, with the average hourly rate being around $30.

So I was intrigued when I got a press release for a new(ish) company called Virtual Dating Assistants. When VDA began, they only serviced men, but have recently expanded their parameters to include the ladies. For $480 a month, they guarantee you two dates every 30 days. (They count on spending about 40 hours per month on each client, averaging out to about $12 an hour.)

Please note, I’m no supermodel, but for $20-a-month online subscription I was able to get two dates a week—more if I had the energy. But then not everyone has as much free time as I do.

VDA not only figures out which sites are the best fit for you, they select candidates, craft your profile, help you pick the best photos, and then correspond with potential dates. I asked Scott Valdez, one of the founders, how catering to women differed from servicing men.

“When a guy is less attractive, if he has a lot of other things going for him, he can still attract a woman,” Valdez says. Translation: money can buy even the fugliest dude love—a lesson I think we all learned from “Millionaire Matchmaker.”

Apparently this is not so true with a less-attractive woman, regardless of how successful she might be. Valdez and Co ran into a problem when one of their less-cute lady clients wanted them to bag her a fox.

“She was picky from a physical standpoint which made it very hard,” Valdez tells me. “It didn’t matter that she had money or confidence.” Ouch.

While she does have good looks going for her, a year after her original outsourcing, Carrie Seim remains pleasantly surprised by her outcome.

“I think when women search for dates online, we can get so carried away with external qualities, like a man’s education or job or height or bicep size, that we forget to look for values like integrity and kindness,” she says. “Suresh had a knack for sieving out the bad guys and finding treasures.”

So hey, you send out your dry-cleaning, why not give your love life a try?

Protecting Yourself.com

Here are some tips for defending your reputation online:

* Find out what people are saying about you. Search for yourself on search engines weekly and set up Google alerts and Twilert (for Twitter tweets) on your name.
* Sign up for free Web sites that allow you to create a brand for yourself, such as LinkedIn, Ziggs or Naymz.
* Buy the URL for your name from a site such as GoDaddy.com.
* Don’t respond online or in email to anyone who has said something bad about you on the Internet. This will only feed the fire.
* If someone has defamed you, check out the code of conduct regulations for the site where the comments were posted, and report the comments if they are a violation of the site’s abusive language policy. Copy the relevant regulation in your complaint.
* Create a blog and keep it updated. The goal is to make sure this new, accurate content rises to the top of a search of your name.
* If all else fails, hire an online-mangement service such as ReputationDefender to manage your reputation online.

To Text Or Not To Text - Dating In A Web 2.0 World

Sending a text message can be a fun and flirty way to communicate with members of the opposite sex. However, depending on the nature of your relationship, more often than not, texting can damage your relationship, create hurt feelings, and send your status from �hot� to �permanently deleted� as quickly as it takes to press the send button.

Here are some of my online dating tips as it relates to text messaging someone you are involved with.

1. Running late? Send a text message to let your date know, if you are unable to call instead.

2. In a meeting? Of course you can�t call, so go ahead and quickly send an update of your status if your plans have changed.

3. Flirting by text. If you are in a relationship and have discussed the use of text messaging, let your honey know you are thinking about them and go ahead and send a cute text. �Thinking about U� will always make your partner feel good about your relationship, but only if you have continuity and a regular phone and dating schedule.

4. Reconnecting with an old flame? Forget about it. It screams booty call. If your intentions are sincere, please pick up the telephone.

5. I Love You! The first time you tell your sweetie that you love them should always be in person, without alcohol, and while you are fully clothed. The anticipation of those three special words should never be done initially in a text message.

6. Breaking Up. Please give someone the courtesy of ending a relationship in person, or at least via phone. Only a coward would break up with someone in a text message.

7. The Morning After. If your date ends up with a pile of clothing on the floor, please don�t text the them to say you had a good time. If you truly hope to see them again, pick up the phone and tell them how special the evening was. Better yet, if it�s in your budget, send flowers or a box of chocolate. If you are a woman, don�t text the man to say, �How are you?� It could send a message that you are needy and you may not hear from him again.

Keep in mind that text messaging can end up being a unilateral form of communication. You don�t know for sure if the other party has read your text, if it got lost in cyberspace, or if they deliberately chose to delete it.

Julie Spira is a dating coach and author of the bestselling online dating book, The Perils of Cyber-Dating: Confessions of a Hopeful Romantic Looking for Love Online. She helps single create Irresistible Online Dating Profiles. Visit her at CyberDatingExpert.com. Email Julie Spira.