Is There A Right Way To Ask The Moving In Question?

14th July 2009

Last week I walked into a local retail store and the owner struck up a conversation with me. "What do you do for a living?" she asked. When I answered, her eyes lit up and she started to tell me about a friend of hers whose 6 month long boyfriend had popped the moving in question the night before. Her cautious response - could she think about it and maybe they could discuss it more later - was met with anger. Eventually, her bf decided to recant his offer because she "didn't immediately jump at the suggestion".

Here's the thing: sure, there is something to be said for being impulsive, acting in the moment and letting passion reign. Telling someone "I love you," is a leap of faith, and asking someone about moving in is a similar proposition. You have to know the person really well, or at least know they really need a place to stay. (Ok, I'm joking on that last one, but its not that uncommon either in today's economic climate).

So although I understand the gent's reaction and disappointment, I didn't understand his recanting the moving in offer. Perhaps he felt he had jumped the gun a bit and was embarrassed, but I didn't hear enough of the story to be sure. I did however applaud the woman in the equation for standing her ground. She wasn't bullied or coerced into making a decision she wasn't ready to. And frankly, its doubtful the gent had never though of her moving in before the conversation took place either; he likely stewed it over for some time before he asked. So why shouldn't the person moving in be offered the same courtesy? Moving in is a huge decision, especially after only six months of dating.

Study Shows Living Together Not A Relationship Test

13th July 2009

About Dating►All

A USA Today article recently discussed the early results of a study that has many more years to go before it completes, where researchers found that (so far) the 18 to 34 year old respondents chose to live with the person they are dating not as a relationship test or as a trial for marriage, but rather that they wanted to spend more time together; more than half of the men and women chose the latter answer, whereas only 9% of men and 5% of women stated it was to "test the relationship before marriage".

Of the 1,294 participants in the study, the 32% that are currently cohabiting said:

66% moved in together before making any marriage plans;
23% wanted to get married but hadn't made it formal, and
11% got engaged and moved in together.

Most of the respondents stated they'd 'slid into' moving into together, or talked about it vaguely or briefly but it just happened, whereas one third said they'd formally had a discussion about moving in together before taking the plunge.

Reader Question - Is It Ok For Her To Oogle?

8th July 2009

About Dating►All

Jeff asks: "Me and my girlfriend have been dating for nearly four months now. Throughout the whole four months, I've noticed that when we are together she will often oogle other guys. She rarely stares long because if she does she knows I will see her looking. I've confronted her about it once before but it still happens. There is one guy in particular that she seems fond of and it bugs me. What should I do? What does this mean? Is she losing interest? Am I wrong for being upset about this?"

My opinion? You're taking things a bit too seriously. Do you not oogle women at all when you're out and about? Sure, she could be a bit more respectful if she's oogling guys in front of you non-stop, especially if you've mentioned it to her before. But in the grand scheme of life, she's being appreciative of others and not much more.

Now, if she's leering and can't keep her eyes off every hot guy that walks by or if she ignores you completely for five or more minutes at a time to oogle someone - then there's a problem. But you even say she doesn't "do it for long" because you believe she's trying to be respectful to you. To me, that says a lot, and in a positive way. Her natural tendency (from what you've shared) is to oogle other guys, but she's trying to reign it in for you.

Reader Question About Dating Your Best Friend's Girl

3rd July 2009

About Dating►All

A gent who asked me to refer to him as "stricken" has written in asking for some advice about how he can turn a platonic relationship with his best friend's friends with benefits into a dating relationship for himself. Or in other words, he's looking to ask out the woman who his best friend has been intimate with for the past year.

Stricken says: "My best friend for many years has a friend with benefits he has been seeing for a little under a year now. He met her through a mutual friend and they drunkenly hooked up one night and continued the trend to this day. From the day I met this girl I have been crazy about her. Seeing her has been few and far between but when I do it makes my week. She's gorgeous, funny, amazing personality, basically the whole package. Today me, this girl, my friend and another mutual friend spent the day together and me and this girl and I really hit it off. She completely ignored my friend and spend the entire day flirting and joking with me. When we split off she called me and we spent about 3 hours talking on the phone. I'm completely convinced she feels the same way about me that I feel about her. Now my best friend was recently talking to me about seeing if he could actually date this girl or not and my advice on it. I am a loyal friend and don't want to do anything that would jeopardize our friendship but I als can't get this girl out of my head. Do I just forget about her because there is no way of making this transition? The only thing I can think of that would make this work is if I can get him to date someone else soon and then I could move in on this girl. Any other ideas?

So readers, what advice do you have for Stricken?

Reader Question About Emotionless Love Making

30th June 2009

About Dating►All

A reader has a touchy question about making love with his girlfriend of seven months, and has asked me to post his question here in the hopes that one of you can shed some light on his challenging situation.

In a nutshell, he's frustrated because he feels his girlfriend is "very emotionless and unresponsive" when they are in bed together. He says: "She has never even kissed or touched me sexually in the whole time we have been together and lies there with her arms defensively clamped across her chest looking awkward and uninterested. She tells me she loves me, and I believe she does, but as hard as I have tried to improve our relationship and resolve this problem she does not seem to be willing to help herself to get over whatever it is holding her back. She has told me that there is no particular reason other than not knowing how to express herself and she feels she has made progress in the last 7 months. I try to encourage and support this but inside I am upset that this has only progressed as far as her initiating a cuddle in bed. This is not satisfying my needs that have been neglected since we have been together. I have always had a very high sex drive and thrive on passion but her lack of enthusiasm is affecting my drive, confidence and sexual attractiveness towards her. I have tried to look beyond sex and sacrifice it for the sake of us having a lot in common but this fundamental part of any relationship is causing me to start to distance myself and has led to arguments between us, doubts in my mind and suspicions in hers.

As much as I love her I have a feeling that she will never be able to offer me what I need if she doesn't start making changes and the neglect is starting to make me wonder if I should split from her before I begin to seek my needs elsewhere. I fear that separating from her may emotionally scar her further however."

Digging Into SinglesNet

28th March 2009

All►Online Dating Insider

Quinn Lipin is the CEO of SinglesNet, which is based outside of Boston in Needham,MA. He is also the CEO of Enesun, a company which places medical professionals that he founded in 1995.

The comments on this Center Networks story about SinglesNet advertising are interesting to say the least:

A woman saying that it’s her photo in SinglesNet ads:

ya this is funny bc the girl in the picture is me., i never got paid for it either.. a lt of my frieds called me telling me they are seeing my picture pop up on websites. this happened with true.com also. i got a holf of true.com and they flew me out to texas to do a shoot aqnd actually get paid for it. ive found tons of companies using my pics without my consent. i know true.com made me set up a profile but i dont run it

There are 12 pages of complaints at Complaintboard.

SinglesNet is incredibly stealthy. I’ve talked to executives in the past but they prefer to stay under the radar, which is understandable given their position in the market.

Traffic is down from 9 million visitors to 5 million in the last year. Where is the supposed recession boost? SinglesNet is successful for one reason, they drive a heck of a lot of traffic to the site. Is the cratering of their traffic due to less ad spend? Maybe they are converting members more efficiently and the drop in traffic is not affecting revenues? More questions than answers when it comes to the number one dating site.

Related posts:

How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year

28th March 2009

All►Online Dating Insider

Anyone starting or running a dating site should listen to this Venture Hacks podcast How IMVU learned its way to $10M a year. The dating industry growth hype due to the recession is leading many people to start dating sites. 98% of these companies are going to fail if they don’t pay attention to the details in the podcast and understand what they are getting themselves into.

Here’s the accompanying presentation.

View more [presentations](http://www.slideshare.net/) from [Venture hacks](http://www.slideshare.net/venturehacks) .

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Compatible Partners Time Warp

28th March 2009

All►Online Dating Insider

I signed up for Compatible Partners, the upcoming eHarmony same-sex dating site, several months ago. Today I received an email confirming my registration. I clicked the link and was directed to thank you for confirming your registration. That’s it. There is no website yet, it’s still under construction. This lack of attention to detail does not exactly bode well for the service.

I am curious if eHarmony is going to develop a new compatibility test. That would take a long time to develop, certainly longer than several months. Eharmony itself says they have no data on same-sex relationships.

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Nightline visits Match.com

28th March 2009

All►Online Dating Insider

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Marketing a Dating Site is More Expensive Than you Think

25th March 2009

All►Online Dating Insider

In a previous post I mentioned that Friend Finder Networks had an amazing advertising solution right under their nose but are distracted with the IPO plans. I went back and re-read some of the commentary about the IPO and thought it would be interesting to share some of it.

For people who think starting a dating site is cheap, read the Friend Finder Networks prospectus.

Net loss of $29.9 million on $48 million in revenue in 2007. For the first nine months of 2008, FriendFinder had operating income of $17.6 million and a net loss of $32.3 million on $244 million in revenue.
…company labors under default and nearly $400 million in debt coming due in the next three years.
In the first three quarters of 2008, FriendFinder spent $46 million on marketing, up from $3 million in the same period a year ago. FriendFinder’s net loss for the period widened to $32.3 million from a loss of $14.8 million. Revenue was $243.9 million for the nine months ending Sept. 30, compared with $26.7 million in the year-ago period.

Numbers seem a bit out of whack since they company a dating network to Penthouse magazine.

Point 1: Observe how much money it takes to be a major player in the online relationship space? Various, Inc. made things incredibly difficult for the new owners by doing things like “forgetting” to pay EU taxes for a few years and running the debt up incredibly high, which was required to get the footprint and mindshare they now enjoy. Irresponsible or not, they are in a very tight position.

Point 2: How long until Friend Finder Networks goes out of business or is forced to sell off assets in order to survive?

International Herald Tribune, WSJ, ZDNet, and TechCrunch for more details.

Someone left a comment on a previous post about the marketing costs associated with launching a dating site. They said $10,000 sounded about right as opposed to my $25,000. $10,000 gets you a month or two of late night radio spots in a single metro market and some Adwords. You haven’t tested your AdWords yet and don’t know what creative will perform the best so you throw away at least a few grand during the learning curve. Two months, budget gone, maybe 500 users if you’re lucky. I’m skimming over the details but anyone who runs a moderately successful dating site spends about $30,000/month on marketing. Once you start spending that much you can’t stop or your traffic will crater. It’s even worse if you’re a free site relaying on impressions and clicks.

I know companies who have spent $500 on AdWords and converted many more members than a $5,000 Yahoo ad buy during the same period. Dating sites like SinglesNet keep to themselves about their ad spending habits, we know the ballpark of what they spend but as for those first few critical months, who knows what they did to get the traffic?

Of course there is gorilla marketing, doing live events, partnering with blog networks, buying spot ads and all the other marketing tricks and advertising optimization tricks out there. That stuff takes a while to figure out, there is no hard and fast blueprint these days, only guidelines and best practices based on those who have launched before you.

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