New Blog!

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for your patience as I spent the month of January working hard to prepare for the re-launch of the Economics of Love. Unfortunately someone had snatched that domain name and demanded that I pay $100,000 for it. I kid you not! So I’ve renamed my concept Accounting for Love, which, in my opinion, is a much more suitable name anyways. Sometimes, necessity really is the mother of invention!

Thanks for your readership through the past year, and I hope to share more with you in 2012. Be sure to get the new RSS feed and I have a small gift for those who would like to sign up for my mailing list. You have my word that I won’t spam you.

Without further ado, here’s the link for my new blog:

www.accountingforlove.com

Lulu

Almost there...

The prep work for the relaunch is almost done. Stay tune!

Blog Relaunch!

Hi everyone, just wanted to let you know that I'll be doing a relaunch of the blog with a brand new look and exciting new articles. So mark it on your calendar to check back in January 2012, and thank you so much for your support in this journey so far!

“Dating” for Girlfriends Part 4 of 4

Continuing…

2. Initially I thought I would be wide open when it comes to the potential friends’ philosophy on fitness. After all, I don’t have to be sexually attracted to them, why would I care if they’re obese? But as it turns out, the desire to stay healthy and fit translates into other parts of their personality too. One girl who sent me a coffee had on her profile: “Exercise: Are you kidding? Favourite hobby: Couch potato.” I realized right there that I am looking for the “til death do us part” type of friends, and don’t fancy much for them to die on me in a decade’s time.

3. I noticed repeated warnings that men are not allowed to pretend to be women and join the site. I can only imagine what type of creepy men would resort to that to pick women up. Ewww.

4. As it turns out, profile pictures send powerful signals in regular dating sites as well as here. One woman posted a provocative picture of herself with two-thirds of her breasts showing. Maybe she was trying to attract the men who pretended to be women, but it definitely didn’t work with me.

5. There was another woman in her early-20’s who used her profile to bitch about her life, work, lifestyle-related diseases. Oh, and she’s got a kid she has no contact with. Huh, being this young and this full of health-related baggage has more to do with personal choices than luck. And don’t women in our society generally get greater access to their children than men? That got me thinking:  did she abandon the kid? Was it taken away from her? If so, that does not speak well about her. She said she’s looking for someone to “lift her up.” As Plucky Duck would say, “This is a job for… someone else!”

6. Like dating, I found that too great an age and experience gap is still an issue.

7. Like dating, there are women who said hi, and totally disappeared after a few emails.

8. Like dating, personal safety is still a priority.

9. They say you are who you hang out with, so I stayed away from:

a.    A girl who has Jersey Shore and Sister Wives as her favourite shows.

b.    A girl who’s looking for clubbing and drinking buddies.

c.    A 20-year old with three children. Three kids at such a young age? I’m sorry. One is an accident, two is carelessness, three is a hobby.

I’m still debating about the lady with the Rottweiler and pit bull, but a dog walking date with her could be nice… At least the muggers will stay away. Well, wish me luck! As the Klingons say, good hunting!

“Dating” for Girlfriends Part 3 of 4

Continuing…

Last Sunday evening after my hubby went to bed, I googled “how to get more girlfriends”. Well, big mistake, because the top searches were all about how to pick up women, for men. They even got quite a few sites on how to steal other men’s girlfriends. Ack! After typing in numerous different keywords, I stumbled upon http://www.girlfriendsocial.com/. It’s exactly what I was hoping for – a social networking site for women to meet new girlfriends!

Now I feel like I’m in familiar territory. I can employ the same analytical skills and experience I’ve had with regular dating sites. Yay!

Just like a regular dating sites, Girlfriend Social requires me to set up a profile, post a picture, and name my interests (like favourite sports and movies, etc). It has instant chat, email service, discussion groups, etc. Instead of “roses” and “smiles,” members break the ice by sending each other “coffee” – how fitting!

I love the fact that I can search for friends using keywords from their profiles. But the problem is, when I typed in “Star Trek The Apartment Cole Porter,” the only chick I came up with was… me. So okay maybe I was a bit too specific. It was worth a shot, right? I settled with “sci-fi old movies broadway musical” and came up with a lot more results.

It’s been a few days since I joined the site. I think there’re a lot of great women on there. I received and sent a bunch of coffees, added a few friends and exchanges emails. A few things that I’ve learned:

1. Initially I thought that distance would matter less when one’s dating for girlfriends rather than men. After all, it’s not like I have to satisfy my urge to make out with them or anything like that. But guess what, distance does matter because the women there all express the need to find someone to go to movies with, to go to the local festivals with, or to have over for dinner, etc. I guess there are things that strictly online friends can’t replace.

(continued in my next post...)

“Dating” for Girlfriends Part 2 of 4

Continuing…

On the other hand, hunting for girlfriends should be easier than hunting men, because:

1. Unlike with a partner, you can have more than just one friend. In fact, the more the better! (Of course, though you cannot “cheat” on your friend, you could potentially hurt them through neglect.)
2. There’s no need to overthink who’s being the “man” in the relationship. In this case, neither is!
3. Have you ever heard people say they found someone online, thought they had a lot in common, then met in person and realized there’s neither chemistry nor physical attraction? Well, I’m looking for girls to laugh with, not to screw with. So that oughta makes it easier, right? There’s no danger of stepping into the “friend-zone” because that’s all I want anyways.

So how do you approach other women in pursuit of friendship, without looking like you’re after something more than just platonic?

In my personal experience, I’ve tried:

1. Joining new interest groups. Problem is, my interests tend to attract more men than women. While they’ve got speed dating at the local comic con now, girlfriend hook-ups remains rare. And the local astronomy chat room? Forget it, the male to female ratio is 8:1.
2. Joining fitness classes. But the women at pilates tend to be the super mom, do-the-exercise-then-run type. The women at yoga tend to be quite a bit older and I don’t have any grandchildren stories to share yet. Hack, I don’t even have any kids stories to share yet.
3. Borrowing my hubby’s female friends, and while the results had been positive, it might be a bit hard to share penis jokes with them. Cutting way too close there.

I thought to myself, wouldn’t it be great if there’s a dating site for girlfriends?

(continued in my next post...)

“Dating” for Girlfriends Part 1 of 4

Due to moving, getting married and other lifestyle changes, I’ve known for some time that I would like to expand my girlfriend circle. But with so many other obligations it has been put on the back burner for quite a while. Last week I finally did something about it.

In a way, finding new friends is more tricky than finding a new man, because:

1. The dating market, with all its faults, does have a very straight forward set of rules of engagement. People’s goals are generally clear (at least to themselves), ranging from wanting to get some, to wanting to get married, to everything in between.  In the quest for friends, it’s a lot harder to tell if the other person is also looking, or how things could proceed.
2. There are many levels of friendships: high school pals, acquaintances, work friends, business contacts, friends of the family, etc. There are people at certain stages in life where they do not perceive value in friendships at all, and there are people who could never become friends with their co-workers. I once considered a girl my real friend, and it turned out she was just a people collector (the type who maxed out her “friends” limit on Facebook). How embarrassing.
3. Society places a lot less emphasis on friendships than it does on romantic relations. There are far fewer songs and articles about friendships than there are about love.
4. Heartbreaks with the opposite sex tend to be explosive, and thank heaven, definite. But when a friendship dies a painful slow death, that profound sense of sadness is indescribable.
5. While people make time specifically to participate in the dating market, friendships tend to happen a lot more organically.  Not many people write “make more friends” as their New Year resolution over “lose weight” and “find Mr. Right.”

(continued in my next post...)