Article Subject: Dr Dato’s series on online dating etiquette - Part 1 - English grammar

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

You may think that shortening the words from ‘you’ to ‘u’ looks very techspeak and cool but you will be surprised to learn that other members in particular females are actually turned off by this lingo. Whereas these abbreviations are ok in the restricted world of SMS texting or twitter and understood, they are actually bad when you put this up on your dating profile.

There are some permissible words such as ‘lol’, ‘haha’ and other emoticon words used in the context of communicating. However, an intriguing word such as ‘hehe’ can have differing view points and can almost sound like one has an ulterior motive behind the saying.

Today, it is so easy to pass your words through spell checker and not only that, all the online services ie. email applications, wordpress, forms that you use has automatic built-in spell checkers. In case you were wandering that when you fill out a form, why some of your words appear with a red dotted line beneath it, it’s because the system has detected a word that it couldn’t recognize or mistyped. Use it to your advantage and then you can always go to google and type the word you are having difficulty with and google instantly brings back suggestions, so you can tell right away that you have misspelt your word or not.

When you are creating your profile, pay attention to the proper structuring of your sentences, grammar and spelling errors, they can stand out like a sore thumb. After all, you want to have all those males and females look over your profile and not do the disappearing act when you type your location as ‘Kantucky, USA’.

Also inject a good sense of humor into your profile and try to write in such a way to induce some amusement or laughter in the other person but not from your grammatical mistakes!

For more information on good writing style, please visit my previous post on “Dating online? Beware of grammar errors!“.

mistakes like this may look amusing but leaves a bad impression

Tags: dating etiquette, dating language, dating profile tips, dating writing tips

Article Subject: Looking for love? Start at the public library

Article Link: http://www.royalcityrecord.com/news/Looking+love+Start+public+library/4313012/story.html

Article Rating: 2.8 (out of 5)

Website:

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

Here is an interesting thought about looking for love at the public library. When I read the title of this post I actually thought someone was going to provide tips on looking for a partner in the public library.

I am sad to say that this post says nothing of the like and only talks about an event held at a local public library where the staff will present some examples of online dating websites and how they work. In fact the full details of the event are given below:

Where: New Westminster Public Library
When: Thursday, Feb. 24, at 7 p.m.
Tel: 604-527-4667
Web: www.nwpl.ca

For the rest of us, we need to go to all our local public libraries and tell them to host such a unique event and providing the example here.

public library can host a range of events including help with online dating

Tags: dating help advice, nwpl.ca, online dating help, public library dating

Article Subject: Online Dating Site Tracking Spammers

Article Link: none

Article Rating: 3.0 (out of 5)

Website: http://romancescams.org/

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

The above site romancescams.org appears to be a genuine site that is tracking online dating spammers. Although I could not say how comprehensive and up to date their site, they do have a few good tools to locate spammers by their photo and other forms of identification.

Most of the spammers that target dating sites are usually stolen identities and they may originate overseas but they are able to disguise themselves as coming from the USA. You can usually spot spammers from their pictures, messages, request for money and other abnormal behavior. I have reported how spammers can operate in my last post called.

For tools to do a search of spammers, you can visit the following links:

By emails, ID, and other identifications (database)
http://www.ecriteria.net/LinkSearchData.asp?DBName=scammers

By photo (database)
http://album.romancescams.info/

online dating scammers can be hard to sport, you need to distant yourself emotionally

Tags: picture profile scammer, spammer directory site, spotting dating scammer

Article Subject: Online Dating Experience Boyfriend Still Online Dating

Article Link: http://www.onlinedatingmagazine.com/datingexperiences/51-boyfriendstillonlinedating.html

Article Rating: 3.0 (out of 5)

Website: none

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

commented - published right away

This is a bit of a sad story of where a woman falls in love only to find that her boyfriend is still pursuing other online daters. It often happens that women can commit to a relationship without reading the tell-tale signs of infidelity in their partners but this situation can also happen to men too.

Often it takes a good judge of character and experience to look underneath the personality of the person and unfortunately in relationships of the opposite sexes our emotions and feelings can get in the way. My advice is to always pay attention to the ‘red flags’ that come up now and then and watch for your partners reaction to any events where you have an uneasy feeling.

Most often or not, we can become gullible to what people would say and believe their stories because we set standards on them similar to ourselves. This in fact is a wrong thing to do, everyone is different and you should look at it from that point of view. When we look at seeking companionship, love and affection as a way to bring relief or sense of hope to our empty lives, it is then that we are the most vulnerable. As a result of the trust that we place on these emotional values with another person, some of us can become very untrustworthy and not give others a chance whereas some will choose to ignore it and get hurt time and time again.

How do we strike a balance? We need to take control and understand this complex nature of love and affection with another person and keep in mind that by doing this you are actually opening your heart to more love and affection. We should seek within our own selves the temperament, the fervor and love that emanates from within us and not to look for it in the object of our desire. You will almost surely find that the other person will be drawn to this similar feeling of ’self-control’ and ’self-worth’ that makes you a substantially more appealing person.

we need to appreciate our self-worth first before we can truly love another

Tags: dating intimacy, dating issues, loving relationships, understanding opposite sex

Article Subject: Love & Money: Online Dating Financial Scams

Article Link: http://www.blackenterprise.com/2011/02/15/love-and-money-online-dating-financial-scams/

Article Rating: 3.0 (out of 5)

Website: none

Dr. Dato’s Brief:

This is a good post on potential online dating financial scams that are still in play today. Although, most of us are aware of the many scams still at work today, we have become accustomed to some of them including the Nigerian scam where an email is sent to individuals making an appeal of clemency on behalf of a distressed widow of an army officer with millions of dollars stashed away in a foreign bank.

We have to continue to be alert to some of the creative ways that scammers are coming up with to swindle people out of money and it is no different to the online dating world where scammers prey on some of those people and prey on their vulnerabilities. The post gives good tips on how to be more alert to these type of scams and make you more savvy in detecting others.

Don’t rely on a photo
Photos are the easiest way to convince and attract the opposite sex. Pictures of women dressed too provocatively can be tell tale signs of scammers, if you are not sure, read carefully the communication that ensues.

Don’t give or accept money
These are the surest signs of scam, whenever a user asks for money or tries to give you money. Couple this with the photo and messages sent and you can probably string them together to discover their act.

Some dating sites such as Jumpdates.com has an excellent scam screening process and the site makes it very easy for users to report a scammer and warning other members on the site.

online dating scams can be very creative but usually involves money

Tags: dating advice, dating scammers, online dating photos