Love. Relationships. Science.
Science isn’t just for splitting atoms or figuring out how to start a colony on Mars, you can also use it to make your relationships happier, stronger, and last longer. This week on Daytime, I’m talking about some new scientific data empirically proven to make your love life better.
xo,
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Well, it’s not a box from Tiffany’s…
I’ve been covering Valentine’s Day for about 15 years. As a dating expert, it’s pretty much my busiest day of the year. If you need to know what to do if you’re dateless on Valentine’s Day, or what you should smell like for your big Valentine’s Day date, or what to do if you’re planning to spend date night on your couch, I’m your girl.
Here in the US, Valentines Day usually means chocolate hearts, red roses by the dozen, lingerie, and possibly an expensive dinner out. If you’re lucky, it might include a little blue box from an iconic jewelry store. But around the globe, Valentine’s Day is celebrated with some pretty bizarre and interesting traditions, which is what I’ll be telling you all about on the Daytime Show this week.
xo,
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It’s been forever since I’ve posted.
Thanks to all of you who’ve been watching me every Tuesday on the Daytime show, and hanging out with with me on Twitter and Facebook and Instagram. I’m always really glad to connect with you.
I’ve been terrible lately about posting on the blog — and I hope you found what you were looking for in the archives. There’s been a lot going on with me in the last few months. Aside from dealing with a fairly significant family tragedy, I’ve been working these last many months on a new novel for St. Martin’s Press which should be coming out in 2017. (If I ever get my edits done to the manuscript.) 🙂
I’ll have lots of great things to look forward to in 2016, and much to be thankful for in 2015, my favorites of which are:
More on that to come.
Thanks for reading.
xo,
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Are you social habits repelling potential dates? Does it still matter who makes more money? Can emojis improve your love life?
Every year, Match.com conducts the Singles in America study, which is a comprehensive study of the habits and preferences of American daters. This week on the Daytime Show, I’m talking about some of the weirder dating findings from the study, like the connection between emojis and sex. (Yes, seriously.)
The great thing about studies like this one, is that it’s a great way to learn about the strange, wonderful, and not-so-wonderful habits of your fellow daters.
Check it out.
xo,
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You might have seen John Oliver’s recent segment about how your credit rating can impact everything from your ability to secure housing to finding employment.
But what you might not know is that your credit score can actually affect your relationships as well — and no, I’m not just talking about those dates who will run a full background check on you before they meet you for coffee.
This week on the Daytime Show, I’ll tell you all about a new study that says your credit score impacts the length of your relationship, including how your credit score affects your chances for long-term love, what happens when your credit score is dramatically different from your partner’s, and whether or not you’re doomed to short-term relationships if you have terrible credit.
Be sure to check it out.
xo,
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Just came across this incredibly cool, very sweet proposal. A couple of NYC dancers are performing in Central Park to Frank Sinatra’s “You Make Me Feel So Young” (one of my all-time favorite songs!) for their performance reel. What the lovely female performer doesn’t know is that it’s also an incredibly romantic marriage proposal.
Cue the Bubble Guy.
Enjoy!
(c) Copyright 2001-2015 by Lisa Daily. All Rights Reserved. Plus me on Google, darling, would you please? Thanks!
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TMZ reported that former LA Clipper, soon to be Memphis Grizzly player Matt Barnes had gone on two dates with superstar Rihanna.
And a few days later Matt gives an interview to TMZ where he basically says he and Rihanna are an item, saying there’s “yeah, possibly” a future between them, and remarking about the budding (and imaginary) romance “I think it just passed the crush stage.” When asked directly if he and Rihanna are dating, he says, “Um, Rihanna’s my friend right now…we’ll see where it goes.” When quizzed about whether his upcoming move to Memphis might put a crimp in the relationship, Barnes answers, “Nah, she’s rich.” As though they’ve stayed up talking all night, snuggling in their PJs, and gabbing about how they can work out the kinks in their long distance relationship.
Here he is, sticking his foot in his mouth:
Once this aired, Rihanna took to Instagram to call Barnes out with a stunning hashtag takedown. According to the divine Miss R, she’s never actually met Barnes. And she thinks he’s the devil.
#thedevilisaliar #shesnotthatintoyou #shesnotintoyouatall #shesneverevenmetyou #thisactuallyhurtmyfeelings #defamationofcharacter
Barnes was arrested on domestic violence charges back in 2010, and again on unrelated charges in 2012, while making national news for his use of gay slurs, so there’s yet another reason Rihanna is smart to steer clear.
I’ll be chatting about Rihanna and Barnes tonight on TalkSport radio (UK) at 9:30 pm EST. Listen live here: www.TalkSport.com
(c) Copyright 2001-2015 by Lisa Daily. All Rights Reserved. Plus me on Google, darling, would you please? Thanks!
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WARNING: People May Be Larger Than They Appear
By Lisa Daily
We’ve all heard the saying you can’t judge a book by its cover, but when it comes to dating, we’re all prone to snap judgments, right? He wears socks with sandals, or drips nacho cheese on his Mickey Mouse tie all night? He’s a loser. She shows you a photo of her girlfriend Maggie’s new baby, her girlfriend Heather’s new baby, her girlfriend Marissa’s new baby? Clearly a bridal-pathic husband-hunter just looking to get her claws in some poor sap and drag him down the aisle.
My girlfriend Tina can weed through thirty dating profiles in about a minute and a half, and filter out the guys she’d never go out with from the guys she’d definitely go out with. She’s the Tomahawk Missile of daters. And she’s not alone.
Studies show we actually make a decision about whether or not we want to date someone within the first few minutes of meeting them.
And if “meeting them” is via an online dating profile, we likely spend even less time making a yay or nay decision.
Dr. Patricia Farrell, author of How to Be Your Own Therapist (McGraw-Hill) says, “there is something called “thin slicing” where you make very quick judgments about people from small bits of behavior and information you glean within the first 15 minutes or so with them. Some research studies have shown that these judgments can be 80% accurate, so making snap judgments isn’t always a bad thing. Listen to your gut and make decisions based on past experience.”
But sometimes, when we form our opinions of people too quickly, we may be missing out on someone great. Example? I recently received a letter from a Lavalife member who was a single guy, living with mom and dad, and having a hard time snagging a date. Uh, yeah.
Perception: He’s a thirty-something leech. Dad’s still paying the bills, Mom’s still doing his laundry, and on alternate Friday nights he gets to borrow the family station wagon.
Gee, I thought to myself after reading his first sentence, how do I tell this guy that until he moves out of the basement, he’s dooming himself to a social life comprised of microwave linguine and the streaming + DVD plan on Netflix?
Then, I read the rest of his letter.
Reality: He’s a successful guy, making $140K a year who owns his own business (and his parents’ home) and is living there to care for them because they suffer from health issues.
Screech. This guy just went from un-dateable loser to the best prospect on the planet in a single paragraph.
And yet, he’s still not getting any dates.
Tina Tessina, psychotherapist and author of It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction (New Page ) explains it this way, “We live in a very media saturated culture, where we are influenced to focus on surface things and not look beneath. But in a long-term, loving relationship, looks very quickly cease to matter, and character is what counts. We are all in a rush to do everything, today, it seems. The speed of technology and communication gets reflected in our desire to speed up the dating/mating process, but rushing into a relationship means rushing out of it very soon. Partnership needs infrastructure, or it won’t last.”
The truth is, while we might be able to rely on our first impressions in person, they’re hardly accurate when we’re browsing profiles. Think about it. About 70% of all communication is non-verbal. When you meet someone for the first time, you’re not just making a judgment based on what they say, but how they carry themselves, what they wear, how they smell, and how their chemistry reacts with yours. With a mere dating profile, you miss nearly all of that. So you base your judgments on things that feel important, but in the long run, might not really matter. Like how tall someone is, what they do for a living, and er, whether or not they still bunk at Mom and Dad’s.
A friend of mine met her future husband in a bar. He sat nursing a beer, in his fashion-backward plaid shirt, and smiled at her all night. She, however, was quite busy making googley-eyes at some other guy who, coincidentally, turned out to be married. At the end of the night (after discovering her first choice was not an option) she declared, “I think I’ll give plaid guy a chance.” She talked to him, they started dating, fell madly in love and have been happily ever after ever since.
Her initial impression? Hard-working (good), reasonably handsome (could be better) police officer (too dangerous) with no handyman skills whatsoever (the horror!) seeks long-term relationship. The real guy? Hardworking (good) goofy to her serious (fantastic), easygoing, sweet as pie, and worships the ground she walks on but doesn’t take any of her crap. In other words, the exact, perfect guy for her.
The lesson here? Sometimes there’s a prince lurking beneath that frog-skin jacket. Try not to eliminate someone solely based on your snap reaction of their one-dimensional dating profile. If you dig just a little deeper, you might find exactly what you’ve been looking for in a most unexpected place.
Give plaid guy a chance.
xo,
(c) Copyright 2001-2015 by Lisa Daily. All Rights Reserved. Plus me on Google, darling, would you please? Thanks!
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Yep, this one’s for you 🙂
Should You Google Your Dates?
By Lisa Daily
It’s a truly modern love story:
Boy meets girl online.
Boy ogles girl. Girl Googles boy.
Girl passes visual check, boy passes criminal check.
They meet, they date, they fall madly in love.
Then, after a satisfactory waiting period, his-and-her D&Bs, and an ironclad pre-nup, boy and girl live happily every after.
Ask any online dater if they “Google” their online matches, and the answer is frequently yes. (Or, “Why, what have you heard?”) Thanks to the magic of Google, you can learn that your date-to-be was winner of the National Peanut Brittle Eating Competition, was recently married in lovely ceremony at the Kiwanis Club, or is currently serving 5-10 for impersonating a real estate agent.
John Seely, author of Get Unstuck! The Simple Guide to Restart Your Life, says, “Google your prospective dates. It’s good to know what you can before you even meet them. It may offer some topics of conversation, like “I understand that you have a Pulitzer Prize, or I read that you’ve been in prison.” Either way it will make interesting conversation, and open up some real dialog. It really is important to know who you’re dating, not just for safety’s sake, but for knowing who this potential partner is.”
To some daters, Googling your date feels like a natural extension to online dating. After all, the technology is there, why not use it? To others, Googling seems like an invasion of the privacy of a stranger. It’s like being left alone in a guy’s apartment for the first time: Do you sit on the couch, innocently flipping through the pages of Bon Appétit and awaiting his return? Or do you use the 13.6 minutes he’ll be gone for a pizza run to rummage through the shoebox on the high shelf in his closet, check his nightstand drawers for evidence he’s sleeping around, or hunt for photos of your predecessor?
As one online dater put it, “No!!!! Don’t Google dates! — I was dating a divorced guy I met online and when I Googled him, I found an interview with his ex-wife. I had her pictures staring at me, found out their wedding dates, details of their honeymoon etc. I felt like I had just committed a major invasion of privacy. How was I supposed to react when it got to the point that this man was going to confide in me those details?”
And for that matter, how would you feel if you found out someone you’d only flirted with briefly over text or email spent time online getting to know you without actually getting to know you first?
But other daters feel it’s a matter of safety. One dating single mother of two met a man online who turned out to be a con artist. He forged checks, cleaned out her bank account and eventually forced her home into foreclosure. She warns, “Is it okay to check out dates? I say it is critical!!”
The truth is, there is a lot of information available. And, there’s a fine line between keeping yourself safe (good), satisfying your curiosity (not entirely terrible, within reason) and invading someone’s privacy. (Cue “stalker” soundtrack.)
And, while I’m not in favor of snooping through someone’s underwear drawer while they run down to pick up a bottle of wine, I do think Googling is a pretty good idea. After all, any information you find on Google is probably a matter of public record anyway. It’s not as though you’re breaking into the FBI mainframe to view secret files. Where Googling can help is to bring up any red flags: Maybe your new guy has been blogging a turkey baster manifesto. Maybe that hottie has collection of scary mug shots online. Or a promising woman who says she’s a partner at a big downtown law firm, but her name doesn’t come up on the firm website — Maybe it’s because she’s new, maybe it’s because she works in the mailroom.
Either way, it’s smarter to look for love with your heart and your eyes wide open.
(c) Copyright 2001-2015 by Lisa Daily. All Rights Reserved. Plus me on Google, darling, would you please? Thanks!
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Snuggle all night or separate beds? This week on Daytime I’m talking about what your sleeping habits say about your relationship. Turns out, a recent study from Ryerson University in Toronto found that 30 – 40% of couples don’t sleep in the same bed, which is what we’ll be talking about this week on the Daytime show.
Is sleeping separately a sign of relationship doom?
Oddly enough, the answer is no. Some couples just need their own space. Maybe your partner snores or has medical issues, or tosses and turns all night. Lots of couples sleep separately, and it doesn’t mean that their relationship is doomed. That said, if you went from snuggling all night to separate sides of the bed to separate bedrooms, you may be experiencing some trouble in your relationship. And a dramatic change in sleep or sex habits can spell infidelity.
Does the housing trend of dual master suites mean more couples want to sleep alone?
Some do, sure. But many of these home buyers want dual master suites for other reasons. Maybe they have an older parent who’s living with them, or maybe an adult child has moved home after facing a difficult job market. Also, when couples have young kids, sometimes the kids end up in mom and dad’s bed and there just isn’t enough room for everybody to sleep comfortably. Some partners snore. Some partners need the room warm and toasty while others want the air on full blast.
Benefits and downsides to sleeping together.
Here’s the good news: Of partners who slept less than 1 inch apart, 86% reported being happy, according to a study conducted at the University of Hertforshire. But only 66% of respondents in the same study reported being happy in their relationship when regularly sleeping 30 or more inches away from their partner. Snuggling and sleeping together have some serious upsides: First, sleeping together lowers your cortisol level — that’s the stress hormone released in your body when you’re under stress. Snuggling also boosts your oxytocin levels. Scientists refer to oxytocin as the “cuddle hormone.” It bonds mothers to their babies and couples to each other, and plays a big part in why we feel so close to someone when we cuddle with them. Now for the downside of sleeping in the same bed. Studies have shown that couples who sleep together continually wake each other up all night –so they never really get the benefits of deep sleep. If your partner’s snoring, tossing, or sleep habits keep you sleep deprived on a regular basis, you can suffer everything from obesity to depression. Not to mention chronic crankiness.
What should you do if you want to sleep in the same bed but your partner is driving you crazy?
If you’re desperate to avoid the I Love Lucy two-bed solution there are a few fixes you can try before you take your pillow and head for the couch.
1) Try a bed that minimizes movement (remember the guy jumping on the Tempurpedic without disturbing the wine glass?)
2) Have snuggle or sex time together, and then sleep separately.
3) Don’t exercise or use electronics at least an hour before bed.
4) Solve temperature issues with a heating pad or electric blanket.
5) If snoring solutions don’t work (try the strips, the pillow, and asking your partner to sleep on his/her side) you can always invest in ear plugs.
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