Online dating...the Good the Bad and the Ugly (The Savvy dater Book 2)

Online Dating: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly In true gentleman fashion, he escorts his date to the passenger side of his car and opens.
Table of contents

Published in and documenting events around , the book already feels incredibly dated. Although Webb is writing about a time when online dating was becoming more common, the sites that she used JDate and Match. Are you getting the sense that Amy Webb is a methodical, mathematically-minded, and unromantic individual? She is indeed, and most of the fun of this book what little fun there is, really is watching an utterly pragmatic, unsentimental person try to find love in a businesslike, research-backed manner.

It was almost charming how Amy Webb behaves like the antithesis of a rom com heroine. One of John Green's teen protagonists once claimed, "Love is graphable! Less fun is reading about how Webb behaved on her dates, because she acts less like someone trying to form a personal connection with another human being, and more like Jane Goodall observing the apes. Early in her experiments, Webb would haul her laptop along with her on dates, and then bring the laptop into the bathroom with her so she could take notes on how things were going.

Also, she emails recaps of every date to a group of her friends and family, which It was at this point that I texted the friend who lent me the book: If you love that kind of thing, this will probably be fascinating to you. I was mostly impressed at the level of focus present - when Webb first gets her research idea, she spends a solid six hours working on it. At one point, Webb decides that she needs to figure out how her own profile is being presented on the site, and to whom.

Okay, fine, but then she actually interacts with real women on the site, responding to messages while posing as a man. She had a rule, she assures us, that after three messages she broke off the conversations, to avoid leading the women on and creating an awkward situation. So, good for her for not wanting to catfish anyone, but still, the ethics of this part of the experiment seem…iffy. But in the end , none of this work matters.


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How, you may be asking, does Amy Webb finally attract the man of her dreams? Not even a little bit. Amy Webb finds her current I assume husband by doing the following: Or just come for the joy of reading the anti-rom com. View all 4 comments. Miriam Petra X wrote: I'm just about to try this 'game'.

Sep 14, Michael So, this is the female version of Sheldon Cooper dating online? Nov 25, Jenne rated it it was ok Shelves: Well, this was a very sweet story, but I don't think the author is taking her own advice that correlation does not equal causation. She has a whole bunch of fun crunchy math stuff, like with equations and things, but I don't really see any evidence that her 'gaming' of online dating made much difference at all.

It seemed to me she pretty much got lucky and fell in love with the first guy she went out with after she rewrote her profile. Useful advice that exists in the book: View all 3 comments. Feb 10, Anna rated it really liked it Shelves: Amy Webb delivers a poignant, honest portrayal of the modern search for love. I was quickly captured by her first person narrative that managed to engage and not pander to her audience in exploring her quest for her perfect match.

Her world of internet dating is as gruesome as the one I remember, but with spreadsheets in hand she decides to "game the system. If I just date enough men, she Amy Webb delivers a poignant, honest portrayal of the modern search for love. If I just date enough men, she rationalized, I will eventually meet my match. Date after horrific date leads her mathematically inclined brain to come up with a rating formula. I have to wonder how I would have rated some of my online dates Not well I'm sure. She decides to use reason and logic to weed out the men who would never make her happy.

With the realization that they would have to like her back, she then tackles the question of what women do right when designing online profiles. Along with the enjoyable narrative, the reader gets some interesting background on the history of online dating and some helpful hints on how to get over your ego and write a "super profile. Data, A Love Story is a rallying cry for every woman who has been told to settle. While her goal was to find a husband, I think it does criticize the crazy notion that, in this day and age, any mate is better than going alone.

Jan 10, Bethany Larson rated it liked it. I met my boyfriend online. The hard part is being completely honest about a who you are, and b what you want out of online dating. Which is, you know, a little creepy, but fine. Read the rest of my review here Aug 10, Laura rated it did not like it. I agree with these comments offered by another reviewer: I think it goes deeper than frustration with her neuroticism and lack of social grace.

It's that she has a genuine disregard for other people! Webb, who engages with 96 women on jdate who all believe her to be a man looking to date women. Almost as mean-spirited as I agree with these comments offered by another reviewer: Almost as mean-spirited as her merciless mocking of these women's profiles, who never intended to put themselves out there for such a purpose. I was aghast at Webb's treatment of these women for her own purposes, but I shouldn't have been. In her listing of 72 traits she wants in her ideal man, she makes her values clear. Her listing fails to make mention of wanting a guy who is kind to others, who appreciates their dignity and worth.

But on human kindness, she'll take a pass. Mar 24, Jane rated it it was ok. The biggest problem with this book is that the author comes off as very unlikeable.

Fat Guy Tinder Date (Social Experiment)

And for a memoir, there is remarkably little emotion throughout the whole book. Look, I love a good spreadsheet as much as Amy Webb. And I get that this is about online dating and your search for Mr. But when you toss in that your mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the midst of all this, not only does that make it really hard to sympathize with you trying to find a date who doesn't use "irregardle The biggest problem with this book is that the author comes off as very unlikeable. But when you toss in that your mother was diagnosed with terminal cancer in the midst of all this, not only does that make it really hard to sympathize with you trying to find a date who doesn't use "irregardless" in conversation, but you darned well better be prepared to talk about how this affects your drive to get married and have children.

Because it's got to have affected you. And if you weren't interested in showing us how it affected you, don't write a memoir. Write Love in the Time of Algorithms instead. This gets two stars, instead of one, because I actually finished the whole thing. Silly me, I kept thinking that at some point someone would have some feelings. Apr 25, Amanda rated it it was ok. Frustrated by horrendous dates with men she met online, Webb decides to approach dating websites with a new strategy. She draws up an exhaustive list of exactly what she's looking for, ranks the qualities with numerical values, creates "tiers" think "most important," "desirable," and "would be nice" and commits to not meeting anyone who doesn't score at least out of But what's really brazen is how she creates several male profiles and masquerades as "Frank" and "Ben" in order to see Frustrated by horrendous dates with men she met online, Webb decides to approach dating websites with a new strategy.

But what's really brazen is how she creates several male profiles and masquerades as "Frank" and "Ben" in order to see what kind of women she's up against in the online dating pool. While the concept is intriguing, the book soon became tiresome.

Online Dating: The Good, The Bad and The Ugly

Webb went on and on about her own career achievements and the minutae of what she was wearing and the take-out food she was eating while building her online fake profiles. The other annoying thing about the book is how mean-spirited Webb seems to be. At one point she describes a meeting in which her supervisor pronounces the state "Illinois" with an audible "s" on the end. Yeah, it's a stupid mistake, but she takes such glee in staring him down and trying to make him feel like an idiot, that instead of wanting to chuckle at the guy, I wanted to slap her.

Apr 16, Zoe Heimdal rated it really liked it Recommended to Zoe by: This is a true story where the author chronicles her efforts to not just sit back and let love find her -- but instead, she actively works the online-dating system to find her PERFECT match. A man who scores very high, on the scale of things that are important to her. On one hand it's pretty great I love people who are active problem solvers. I could not help but be impr This is a true story where the author chronicles her efforts to not just sit back and let love find her -- but instead, she actively works the online-dating system to find her PERFECT match.

I could not help but be impressed by her go-gettum style. And she IS successful in the end which she states at the beginning, so this is not a spoiler! However she IS a little nuts. The way she breaks down her life in min charted increments I'm just saying that I can imagine some people would find her too extreme to actually enjoy reading about her.

To me though, she was mostly just extremely quirky The parts that challenged me and my enjoyment of her process were: That being said -- I finished the book and enjoyed it -- and would recommend it However if you're a person who would be put-off by the thought of a woman working extremely hard to find a husband -- then you will absolutely hate this book. May 07, Joanna rated it it was ok Shelves: I wanted to like this book. I wanted to like the author.

Sadly, nope and nope. The author comes across as neurotic, whiny, a tad unethical, and surprisingly vicious. The book has a good project, but it never hit the mark as either advice or an interesting memoir. The author showed almost none of her softer emotions. She tells us that her mother had terminal cancer and that she felt sad. But there's no vulnerability, no opening of her heart to the reader -- just factual telling. She recounts her I wanted to like this book.

She recounts her bad dates in funny, but detached, language. Her method of "gaming" online dating is both overly complicated and overly obvious. She engages a complicated research project that involves creating ten fake male profiles to interact with women to inspect the "competition. While she creates rules for the interactions to try to prevent unethical line-crossing e.

Not the crime of the century, but wrong nonetheless. And she analyzes word choice and interactions to come to the completely unsurprising realization that her profile should have good pictures and be relatively upbeat and approachable. She also comes up with a 72 point list of requirements for a partner and a scoring system.

In an author that I'd come to root for and like, I might have found this list endearing if silly, but since I found the author rather off-putting, I found the list seriously ridiculous and neurotic instead. Finally, the book suffers from the smug, happy-ending that seems to be part of the format for these quarter-life-crisis books, but that's really pretty annoying.

Right from the start, she tells you that things worked out and she met her happily-ever-after husband. And I suppose she wouldn't have much credibility writing about how to game the system if it hadn't worked. But it still feels awfully smug: My life was incomplete until I finally met the right man.

Take my advice and you can too Mar 04, Helen Yee rated it it was ok Shelves: Can you spell "false advertising"? I kinda felt gamed after reading this - sure she tweaked her profile but I think her magical match was more of a happy coincidence than anything else. It wasn't really rocket science, even if you can go all geeky with mathematical formulas. The point of this book only really clicked when I read she founded a digital strategy consultancy.

Jun 22, Roz Warren rated it liked it. Wrongs that eHarmony and JDate kept matching her with. So she sat down, drink in hand, and listed every single quality she wanted her future husband to have. She also wanted to avoid certain annoying habits, which led to criteria like: But how to find him?

First Webb decided to check out the competition. She went online, disguised as her dream date. This meant upgrading her photo. The old one showed her in a suit, giving a lecture at a prestigious conference. Many seemed like winners. Webb, a lover of spreadsheets and data analysis, was no longer leaving anything to chance. A few of my favorite items: Stylish balding with high-end glasses? Likes Peter Sellers movies. I cannot stress this enough. He has to be amazing. And not on the list, but surely implicit?

So what happened when Webb finally found Brian, Mr. Not only that but she also gets a published book out of the experience. This review first appeared on www. Feb 11, Amanda rated it really liked it. A bad break-up and several horrific first and last! Our intrepid heroine goes in for pie charts instead, and does for us what we have been heretofore unwilling to do for ourselves - she breaks down the system of dating into small, bite-sized and manageable pieces. Herein, W A bad break-up and several horrific first and last! Herein, Webb bravely documents her first hesitant but hopeful attempts at dating after the end of a relationship, all of which range from wince-worthy to beat-about-the-head-and-shoulders-with-a-blunt-implement-worthy.

After a last-straw dating disaster, Webb opens a bottle of wine and spends a maniacal weekend breaking down the data on jdate. After what she calls her "Mary Poppins List", a 72 point list of qualities in a mate some essential, some just desirable , she realizes who she is looking for. She also decides to spend several weeks logging as "man seeking woman", so she can check out the profiles that rank as her competition. What she learns about her potential dating pool and about how to market herself therein is the crux of Webb's story, and what ultimately lead her - no spoilers here, since Webb reveals this outcome in her own title - to the perfect match for her.

As a math-o-phobe of long standing, but one who spent much of the late 90s and early s on dating websites, I found the minutiae of breaking down date trending quite interesting. Even more interesting is how Webb uses her information to assess herself as she appears in her online profile and particularly how her newly discovered data rates her past relationships. After crafting this detailed list, Webb realizes that when she compares it against her past relationships - including the shipwreck that begins the book - none of her past loves had more than four of her required traits. Setting aside the trending and the rating system and how Webb would ultimately recreate herself on the site in her "super profile", Webb learns that much of her problems have resulted not from being too picky, but by not being picky enough.

Even for those of us who may never return to the world of online dating, the book offers two extraordinarily useful bits of information. The first, of course, is the Mary Poppins list. If you don't know what you're looking for, you can't possibly know how to find it. The second is Webb's discovery of what makes the "popular" girls popular surprise, it's not just being a size zero and how to accomplish it in her own Amy-like way. Webb's first person narrative makes no effort to articially polish anything. From the details of the unraveling affair that opens the book, to her mother's ultimately futile battle with a rare form of cancer, she is direct and unsentimental, but still allows a warmth and vulnerability to come through.

Her "loud, Jewish family" plays a large secondary role in this book, including her sister Hilary, who operates as sounding board, fashion consultant, best friend, ninja defender and thread of reason, and her parents, who are loving, but anxious to see Webb settled and happy. I listened to the audiobook, which has its pros and cons.

On the upside, Webb reads the book herself. She's funny, she's self-effacing, she's unapologetically awkward and geeky and has no trouble detailing her many quirks and singularities. One hilarious chapter illustrates her absolutely religious worship of color coding and spreadsheets when she documents her preparation to meet a therapist for the first time, and presents a three-holed binder with charts, graphs, a spreadsheet, all detailing her current emotional and psychological state.

As anyone who has ever been in therapy can imagine, the therapist seems to consider this as more of a symptom than a study aid, which baffles Webb. The other positive side of the audio book is that Webb's ultimate perfect match, her now-husband Brian Wolf, weighs in with his reaction to Amy, to her system, to her Mary Poppins list which he calls "creepy, but not for the reasons you'd expect. Given how invested we are in Webb's welfare by the end of the book, we're happy to leave her in his hands. The downside of the audiobook is that we miss the print edition artwork - photos and graphs I'm guessing they are in abundance, given who we're dealing with here.

I am seriously considering investing in the Kindle edition, once I have some discretionary capital at my disposal. Absent the artwork at the moment, I console myself with the "movie trailer for my book" as Webb calls it, which one can find at YouTube by searching the title of the book. A very enlightening, funny book with a sad beginning, a hair-raising middle and a very happy ending. Jun 23, Christina rated it really liked it. Data, A Love Story is the brutally honest account of how to succeed in the dating world online. Amy Webb had a panic attack trying on clothes in Banana Republic and her sister called the store to get the sales associate to help Amy pick out date-worthy clothes.

Amy Webb is right that a woman has to dumb down her profile and NOT lead with her accomplishments. I did this and all sorts of guys starting getting interested in me. I read the book from the middle to the end and through the notes because I Data, A Love Story is the brutally honest account of how to succeed in the dating world online. I read the book from the middle to the end and through the notes because I wanted to get to the good parts quickly. Everything Amy Webb tells you to do is true. The quality of your photos is the number-one factor in whether guys will be interested in you.

It doesn't hurt if you're pretty and skinny. If you're not, you have to be shot in great photos and have a bulletproof profile and essay. You might think only guys are visual creatures. My male friend claims women are just as shallow in wanting to date attractive guys. Yet I can tell you the quality of your photos is a must.

Be brave, be yourself and don't lie about your height or weight. Don't tell a woman you graduated from Harvard if you barely eked out a GED. At least, I don't want to get involved with an unethical liar. Maybe another woman might want to. Data, A Love Story is top-shelf reading. Memorize the key points in Amy Webb's notes. Get quality photos taken. Write a witty essay that is breezy and conversational. You can game online dating. Amy shows you how. Feb 05, Helen rated it liked it Shelves: This book appealed to me because I like tales of adventures and misadventures in relationships by writers who have a sense of humor miss you, Nora Ephron!

I read an excerpt of Amy Webb's book on Slate. She defined what she wanted in a mate and created a scoring system. She created algorithms and spreadsheets to analyze this, which made her seem like a control freak if not downright manipulative. For example, she learned it was important to have a nice picture, showing yourself enjoying life and showing some skin.

It was a quick, enjoyable read that made me glad Amy found happiness. He steps out of his car and saunters to her front door, obscuring a beautiful bouquet of flowers behind his back. As she steps outside, he places a courteous kiss upon her hand, tells her she looks divine and presents her with the sweet-smelling florist-bought flowers. He kindly offers an umbrella to shield her from the crashing raindrops as they hurry arm-in-arm to the car. In true gentleman fashion, he escorts his date to the passenger side of his car and opens the door for her.

She climbs in with poise without a flash of undergarment and almost immediately notices how spotless his car interior is not a festering Costa Coffee cup in sight and certainly no Maccy D wrappers hanging out of the glove department. The gentleman pulls out a chair and she sits gracefully at the candlelit table. The pair order a bottle of wine just the one and conversations flows naturally into the night. After dessert, the gentleman hands over the bill and then drives the lady home. Accompanying her to her door, he tells her that it has been a pleasure and then departs.

You may assume this is just a scene from some black and white film of yesteryear, but you are sadly mistaken. To older readers, the scenario above may hold a distant familiarity. But wistfully, for us century folk, this is nothing but a sepia fantasy. Oh, how our modern hearts yearn for a love so pure and simple!

Dating has drastically changed over the decades. By the time I had landed myself on the dating scene, these retro dating habits had already found themselves at the brink of extinction. Fine wine and dining? A phone the size of a brick, maybe! But a Dating app. I know, what a thought! I meant bump and grind! If we managed to get our hands on some digits, come morning, our clouded minds struggled to recall their faces, let alone their names. So without a blue friend to hold my hand, I pretty much walked into this daunting dating world blinded.

A lucky dip, if you will. I was no serial dater, quite the opposite, in fact. I endured three dates in my entire lifetime and they all made me run home crying. My first date chased me half way around town to get my number. It turned into some scene from mission impossible as I had this guy chasing me in and out of stores for the better half of an hour. Unfortunately, my attempts of hiding behind a clothes rack came to an abrupt end. There he stood, sweating and out of breath. For his efforts, I rewarded him with my number and we later arranged a date.

I then destroyed any chances of salvaging the pretty-much-already-over date by confessing my undying love for him. It was bloody terrible! My third date was my hairdresser for a brief while.

Data, A Love Story: How I Gamed Online Dating to Meet My Match

Between his endless bragging and gazing at his own reflection at any given opportunity — Oh, and not forgetting a continuous string of incorrect names. Who takes a selfie every second of the day? So, about that lucky dip. Although, I eventually struck luck years later, when I caught eyes with my future husband who was drunkenly throwing shapes on the dancefloor. Regardless of my dating disaster past, I am somewhat relieved to have dodged the modern day dating bullet. Call me old fashioned, but Online dating appears to be one slippery slope of demised standards and lost romance.

But is romance truly lost? And is modern day dating all that bad? Websites such as Match. They offered simple but functional features such as instant messaging and …um…instant messaging. Fast forward to modern day and online dating is no longer regarded as scraping the barrel. Online dating apps have become a way a life. In fact, dating has never been so easy. In one fleeting swipe of a thumb, you can bag yourself a match and have yourself a date within the hour.

The internet has opened up a whole new world of possibility in a mass of filtered-love matches and potential dates. Matchmaking heaven so sweet it makes me want to ditch my wedding vows and hit the dating scene! I know these advertisements featuring toothy loved up zealots are a far cry from the harsh reality of failed expectations and constant disappointments. But is online dating all enchanted hearts and candlelit romance as the commercials suggest? Or is it more dating disasters and meaningless flings?

Changing Your Relationship Status

Idly she flicks through picture after picture, reducing her victims to either the heart icon or the dreaded red X. Alas, she has been invited to start up a text conversation with a stranger who has deemed her attractive enough to confer. The pair continues to exchange messages for a while; the usual getting to know you business. After a few weeks, she takes the plunge to turn her cyber date into a reality, or in other words, she decides to meet him in the flesh.

Yes, the actual flesh. It takes her approximately 5 minutes to realise she has made a huge mistake. How did this get through the scanner without activating an army of screaming alarms? Whilst her date revealed every lousy detail of his 55 years Shock, Horror! He abruptly stops for a second…and then continues to witter on about his erectile dysfunction.

As it turns out, her date is also bankrupt Yep! He failed to mention this during his autobiographic rambles, or perhaps she was just too distracted by the spinach in his teeth? The landscape of love is changing. The old-fashioned rules of dating have been swiped away and in their place a whole new set have appeared.

The True Meaning Behind Facebook Relationship Status Updates | PairedLife

Is it healthy, even? Is there a better way? Or must all single people settle for this path? Tinder alone has a staggering 1. Love has never been so easy. You could potentially find the love of your life while you queue up in the supermarket waiting to buy your weekly food shop. A real-life date, with a real-life person! Plenty of Fish, Tinder and match. Heck, there is even a dating site for the technology-invading Amish!

Dating apps have provided us with a seemingly endless supply of people who are single and looking to date. Before online dating, this would have been a fruitless quest, but now, at any time of the day, no matter where we are, we are just a few phone taps away from sending a message to our very specific dream man or woman. Online dating has opened up a whole new realm of potential partners who would have otherwise been left undiscovered. Rather than fishing in the same old tiresome spot and pulling out the same old smelly trout, we can now fish farther afield and catch ourselves the dish of our dreams.

Those lucky dip days are over! Online dating offers a number of ways to get to know a potential date before meeting in person. Computer-mediated communications allow users to engage in a safe and convenient interaction, without much risk or time commitment. Do I stick my finger in this pie? Or, wait a minute, that pie looks quite nice too. Oh, and what about this pie with the crisscross on top? When there is a breadth of choice, we tend to get bewildered and end up focusing on superficial differences.

The reality is, our choices are killing us. We think choice means something. We think opportunity is good. We think the more chances we have, the better. Just as we begin to sink our teeth into one pie, we are already eyeing up the other pies on display, ready to put our finger into another.

We are constantly looking for the next thrill, the next jolt of excitement, the next instant gratification. But as one can imagine, eating all the pies in the pie shop is somewhat greedy, and might just put you off pies for life! Had her, had her, …Oooh, wait a minute, has blue hair and a tail.

The problem with having too much choice is that we become naturally pickier. I mean, why have a wafer thin ham when you can have steak, right? Singles are therefore limiting their search criteria to height, area code, income and even appearance. Like ordering fast food, we enter the credentials, scan the options and acquire an expectancy of how our food might taste or present itself.

Expectation tells us this food is going to taste as finger-licking awesome as it looks on its billboard display. But when reality is delivered to us a la plastic serving tray, we are too often enough greeted by a lopsided, gooey mess that leaves us with nothing but a bad taste and a feeling of dissatisfaction. Dating apps are slowly morphing us into a society of superficial arseholes.

See a Problem?

With a vast display of dating profiles to swipe through, we stop viewing people as people and begin to see them as products. Like shopping for a handbag, for example. The one with at least two addition compartments inside, a strap that fits comfortably around our shoulders and compliments our every outfit. In the pile of rejects they go. Hair out of place? Oh wait, is that a small wart on the right side of their nose?

Who knows, we might have swiped the soulmate of our dreams. All for the sake of misplaced hair. We have become a society that has become so comfortable hiding behind a safety blanket of texts that we have simply forgotten how to communicate with one another. How one presents themselves online might be a far cry from who they are in reality.

Same goes for Facebook.

Dating apps are much the same; we are out to impress in any way that we can, and if that means filtering the heck out of our profile pictures until they are barely recognisable, so be it! Computer-mediated communications generally have an artificial and unemotional quality. Try to be comfortable with the fact the person you are dating may be interested in others. Minutes turn into hours and hours turn into days. Dust yourself off and get back on the horse dating scene! The dating game can be a harsh one at times.

Kelly Clarkson said so! Sometimes we let our imagination run away with us. We create alternative realities; ones in which communication is effortless and intrinsic. Although this is completely natural, it could potentially raise issues when the reality fails to meet our expectations. Communicating online is completely different from face to face interaction. It builds fantasies, false hope, and misunderstandings that complicate communication. Unfortunately, dishonesty is just a part of the online dating parcel. People lie about their age. They lie about their weight.

They even lie about their height, income and marital status. No matter how much we say otherwise, we all tell a little fib from time to time. We all stretch the truth here and there. Okay, so perhaps we photoshopped our profile picture a smidgen. Does that make us a bad person? And maybe we twisted the truth a little when we boasted about being fluent in four different languages. Most lies and exaggerations are harmless, but honesty will always be the best policy. Especially when you find yourself on the receiving end of a big fat lie…. Using a 10 years old photo on your dating site is one thing, using a ten-year-old photo of a model is quite the other!

Naturally, the more comfort you become with someone, the more open and honest you will be. Forget Kinder surprise, now we have Tinder surprise! I thought that cat lady was my sister-in-law for a second there. Oh, and before we move on, my favourite…. From one night stands to casual flings, hooking up has pretty much become the norm. Quite the opposite, in fact. Intimacy and passion seems to be withering away. In this digital age where sex is so readily available, it becomes easier to clasp hold of immediacy and cheap thrills than chase longevity and commitment.

Why take the long route when you can take the short, right? I mean, they do the job. They fill in a temporary void. Instead of cutting corners and leaping into the arms of anyone who shows an interest, give yourself some time to settle into the right relationship. Modern dating is like a full-time job. Primarily fun, the enthusiasm soon fizzles out. The monotonous answering messages and scrolling through a sea of faces — that have all pretty much morphed into one — becomes nothing short of exhausting. Prepare yourself for a reality check.

The truth is, the internet masks a multitude of sins and we could only be a finger tap away from victimisation. Everyone has a dark side whether they admit it or not. Is this a cruel case of catfish, or are we playing into the hands of an online scam artist? Only this one has a cruel twist. Researchers estimate that 25 percent of rapists found people to assault through online dating services, according to the Privacy Rights Clearinghouse.

In New Zealand, year-old Woman was drugged and gang raped after meeting a man on app who brought a group of his friends to their date at a Sydney bar. Another New Zealand woman was killed after she was allegedly thrown off a Gold Coast balcony after meeting up with a man she met on Tinder. In another case, a sexual predator asked a reporter posing as a year-old girl to strip naked. These were just a few of the several hundred of cases to spring up on my google search. So how can we avoid walking into danger? Next time your date tells you he lives in a gated community. One out of five relationships start online.

We are The Emoji Generation. A Swipe, Tap and Click Cohort. Always moving, ever evolving. We think intimacy lies in a perfectly-executed string of emoji. We think romance equals ruffled bed sheets. I mean, we get jobs, rentals and plane tickets online — why not dates? Not only has it changed the landscape of love, but it is also bringing more people together than ever before. And so love letters have turned into long-winded texts, florist-bought flowers have transformed into a string of love heart emoji and fine dining has become Starbucks frappuccino. I'm just a small-town girl trying to make her mark on the world Grab yourself a cup of tea, pull up a pew and come read all about it!

There will be biscuits! See someone you liked? No need to remind me to stay out of over priced restaurants full of amorous young couples. Well, yes… I guess so! A night in with a bottle of red and some pizza would do just fine! Yo ar hot…… hot di di dot, was that a snot? Look at you,, well you obviously look at you in the mirror. I think my lungs is afected by that after the yell just leave everything behind meaning-husband, kids, familly, old familly, even older familly like your great great even greater grandparents, and just…..

Anyways, see you in Capri in two weeks. Glad to read you again, fun post, gotta make it funny to deal with hardship,, my theory anyways in the hays and I my self are even dismais? Brighter than the dreary old UK. You got me made, woman! The hangover from yesterday is shit, and now I have to run to the medical center wich is meters away from my house.

Have a great weekend Amanda. That was my ghetto accent. You had me in stitches once again. You have such an interesting way of viewing things, Amanda and you write beautifully. With the hair dresser you had me giggling like a little girl. Not into that world, I prefer the old fashion face to face kind of thing.

Although I do know, not the girls in my real physical life, they barely use the internet or barely know how to use it also ,not all the cases though, just some,they do wassup the whole time though.