Claire asked an interesting question on my You’ve Got Mail post. She asked, “It always seems so easy to be sassy and flirty on line but the thought of translating it all into real life is mighty scary. any tips on making the transition easier - and safer?”

Keeping it Real

Online dating can be a B~, particularly if you haven’t been keepin’ it real. But the fact is, if you live online most of the time, you will have to start being real some time with the people you interact with regularly. Consistency is a delicate thing over the internet, and the basis of a person’s credibility.

Point: If you are flirty and sassy online with someone, but you KNOW that you aren’t really as flirty/sassy offline… and you don’t intend to ever meet up with that person… you are fairly safe. But as friendships go, you will feel the urge to meet up with a chat mate in the future and be friends for real. Face-to-face real.

What you can do to make the online-offline transition smoother

• Come up with a disclaimer before your meet up - A line like “I may talk like this online, but off chat, I’m really a shy person” may get you far in terms of being ’safe’ on your first date.
• Do focus on your personality, not on your looks - A general idea of how you look is enough, and most people send each other photos anyway. It’s better to say “I laugh a lot” or “I love cheesy jokes” than “You know Jennifer Aniston? Well, she looks like me.”

Rule of thumb when discussing The Physical: Downplay your assets and the other person will discover them faster. If you’ve been highlighting your assets from the start, he will unconciously be looking for flaws. Much like a book story will always be more vivid than its movie version, a person’s mental image will always be more grand than reality.

Checklist Before the Offline Meetup

1. Review past chats and take note of the promises that you gave in the past (while you were being flirty and sassy) and decide whether to pretend not to remember them or ignore the fact that he wants you to remember them. Or, own up to the promises and keep ‘em.

2. Choose a descriptive outfit. Describing your outfit accurately is a lot better than asking your friend to look for the “long haired girl with a Venti Frapuccino”

3. Emotions check. Could you already be in love with this person? Are you expecting too much from this meet up? Be honest with your feelings before they run amok during your date.

After the First Real Date…

Scenario One: You still chat but less frequently (compared to the previous year of daily conversation), and mostly just hi and hello. The date could have been the first and last, and it’s time to move on. If you followed number 3 above and did a reality check on your feelings, you should be ok with the fact that maybe the other person didn’t share whatever feelings you might have been keeping.

Scenario Two: He insists on phone calls rather than chat, he sends emails rather than wait for you to show up on chat, he sends flowers and gifts on your birthday. Voila! That’s it… he’s into you for real. The only question is… are you into him too?

:lv:

Rate this: 3.2

I start my blog anniversary post with a heartfelt Thanks!

To everyone who I met through this blog and my activities online, THANK YOU for making my first blogging year a remarkable one.

A year after my first posts about “anything under the sun”, my blog has finally found ‘her’ identity. I am first and foremost a romance blogger because I have always been sensitive about feelings and sensations, whether from tangible or intangible causes.

Love or what we think is love varies from person to person, and I for one, am very curious about what love is to others. Hence, the evolution of this blog from what I think I am, to what I really am all about. But this of course doesn’t mean that romance is all there is to me.

In line with dr.claire’s tag, I will post links to some of my other blogs, which reflect how this sentimental b~tch has grown in terms of blogging, and communicating my emotions and opinions.

divablogger - my blog in identity crisis. She’s now an inspirational blog, but she used to be a blogging blog. I built it just because can’t resist the domain name. I am after all, a Diva and a Blogger.

mom by choice - My parenting blog. If you want to know more about the “Mom” part of the M.I.LF. acronym, this is where you go.

my party agenda - originally my sister’s party planning blog which I co-write. It documents our experiences as kids who grew up inside a booming catering business and our eventual sojourn to the party planning scene. All about parties, the wholesome kind.

I-Earn - Where I convert my non-blogger friends to my blogging minions… (*shrill evil laugh*)

To everyone who inspires me, makes me smile, turns my knees to jelly with just a simple comment or an IM “hello”… a wet kiss and a woobie hug to you!

A toast: To absent friends, lost loves, old gods, and the season of mists; and may each and every one of us always give the devil his due. (Neil Gaiman, Season of Mists)

Rate this: 3.6 (1 person)

It’s time for another AskWoobie feedback! As you read this post, you will see why this topic deserves its own page (and why I asked the feedback giver to let me publish her issue).

Tala (not her real name) wrote me this initially. The stuff in square brackets is mine:

“I am surprised you are not white. By the way you speak, I couldn’t tell. It is easy for you to get chats in rooms because they think you are not [Asian]?”

One of the more startling news to me since I published this romance blog is finding out some reasons why people do not want to try internet dating. Some simply do not want to fall in love online, while some others (like Tala ) fear that being unable to speak perfect English is a horrible liability.

Not true. The fact that you are from another country and that you probably live each day in a different way compared to them will get attention faster than the fact that you are a walking lexicon. It’s the willingness to interact that matters to people who are also there for that same reason.

If you find a gem of a chatmate, let your guard down, speak in a manner that you are comfortable with and focus on pushing your personality more than writing out all your sentences perfectly. Intelligible communication means being understood and conveying a message, even if it is not said in a Pulitzer-award-winning way.

Playing the “Exotic” Card

Once your online date notices that you speak in a peculiar manner, he or she will start getting curious about your country, the stuff that you can share about it, and travelling to your location. It’s a vast world, and not everyone will know about what’s uniquely Asian, African or Meditterranean (in my case, Filipino). They crave for information that is dished from a local. It is what will keep them rapt for a long time, maybe even forever.

When I find a wonderful chat companion, I instantly reveal that I am Filipina, In a sense, I am even helping out my country’s travel industry by talking about it and describing it to people I meet online. Being “exotic” isn’t a fault, and if you feel at ease about who you are and how you interact, you don’t have to get pressured by the fact that your English is “funny”.

Just the same as you won’t go under the knife for a nose job if you feel comfortable with your nose, you don’t have to speak “perfect” English to express yourself when you feel comfortable talking the way you do.

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Rate this: 3.2

I think I am…
I am fading away to rage and bitterness…
The demon has been unleashed,
And women have nothing to blame for it
but themselves.
Muhahahahhahahahaha…”
-Linc, thirty-something years old bachelor, on his love life’s status. Click the link and find out what a great guy he is. Picky, but a great guy, nonetheless. Happy Birthday, Mr. Leo Guy.

:heh:

A study on the occurrence of Alzheimer’s disease among single and dating middle-aged individuals showed that the latter have less tendency of developing the disorder than the former. I, however, have always questioned the subjectivity of sanity or what is normal. The world could be crazy and you could be the only sane person in it, and not the other way around, right?

I once wrote a post about Panic Mode at Late 20s. Your twenty-something years are probably the best times to start thinking about life and what else it could offer in terms of lasting happiness. Most people get married or have moved in with their partners at 27-35 years of age. And, while the singlehood stage called “soul searching phase” is all comfy and nice, one needs to rouse one’s self to the fact that time (and the good ones) won’t wait for a 10-year decision to start dating for real.

For those who want to take the leap of faith and brave the sometimes murky waters of the online dating world, here is the link to my dating page. After all, your soulmate won’t find you if you don’t start looking for her or him first.
:)

Rate this: 3.6 (4 people)

Attraction could translate as ‘crush’ or ‘extreme liking’. Some define it as love or being in love. Nonetheless, the best and most vague way to define it is this:

The person incites a feeling in you
that you cannot even begin to explain,
but you don’t complain
because you actually like that weird, crazy feeling.

Sexual tension is something that happens when two people who share a mutual attraction for each other play the game of “signs”. Simply put, one does something then wait for a reaction from the other. This could go on and on without direction, until

1. both take the first step towards a more intimate relationship, Or
2. lose interest because of the lack of a real opening.

Building Sexual Tension

Sexual Tension does not always lead to sex. In fact, it shouldn’t (at least not yet). What it will do is foster intimacy, make the other person think of you in a way that is more than ‘just friends’. This concept is quite similar to how a successful salesman made it; it involves a series of steps that will eventually lead to the point of sale… the bottleneck where someone chooses only between “yes” and “no”. One creates sexual tension by…Flirting with a Purpose

Some flirt to show appreciation, some do it to simply prove they can generate attraction, but building sexual tension by flirting is quite different. Underneath the eye contact, body language and the sweet talking is the underlying message: “know me more” and “be with me longer”. Some instances when two people can build sexual tension include sexy phone conversations, online chat sessions, watching a sultry sunset (or a movie) together and a very romantic dinner date.

What happens when Sexual Tension builds between friends?

Fostering intimacy between friends could aid the friendship-love transition, or it could simply result in a much stronger bond between the two individuals. Once sexual tension is released, through intimacy or passion, both will know what exactly they are to each other. They could still go their separate ways but they both realize that they will never have to live their lives guessing… “What could have happened if we encouraged that attraction instead of ignoring it like it didn’t exist?”

I wrote more about this topic over at Bobby and Mike’s blog, The Seduction Bible.

Rate this: 4.3 (5 people)

Once upon a time, a 16-year-old girl from a single gender Catholic school entered college with little or no knowledge about men, except the notions she learned from her hometown sweetheart and similarly inexperienced guy friends. When she and her hometown BF broke up because of the distance, she suddenly became aware that there was a sea of men in the city.

Friendly Dates: The Beginning

She got asked out by friends and friends of friends on apparently harmless snack and lunch dates. She never turned anyone down, because… well, they are just harmless chat dates where she got to know more about another person. Soon, she was having lunch with several sweet guys on different days. Until one of her well-meaning friends pointedly asked… “Do you really have FOUR boyfriends?!?”

Consulting the Dating Bible

“They’re not my boyfriends!” the girl answered defensively, “and those aren’t lovers’ dates, just friendly ones!”

However, once she was safe inside her dorm room, she consulted her ultimate dating resources at that time: Sweet Dreams and Sweet Valley High pocketbooks. Further analysis of the situations highlighted in her guide books made her heart sink: those snack times were indeed real dates, and it appears that she does have 4 boyfriends!

Coming Clean

She invited her new boyfriends to have lunch with her and all were shocked to find other guys there. She immediately confessed how she’s been seeing all of them and that she didn’t know that she was “on” with all of them already.

One guy stomped off without a word, one stayed a few minutes more to spitefully tell her “Playgirl!”… but weirdly enough, two of the guys stayed behind and started talking to each other about general things. She learned later that one of these two guys chose the gay lifestyle (a few years after the initial meeting), while the other guy remained her close friend.

What I Learned from this Experience

1. Some guys immediately claim exclusivity without really informing the girl. Like, it’s supposed to be a given when you have been seeing each other regularly already.

2. My previous idea of the start of a real relationship states that two people are only officially “on” when one or both profess love for each other (saying “i love you”)… apparently, not everyone thinks so.

3. Meditate long and hard about the meaning of the phrase “no strings attached,” and say the phrase at least once when someone asks you out on a friendly date. XD

Feedback needed: When do you consider another person your boyfriend or girlfriend? When does it start for you?

Rate this: 4.0 (6 people)

A good friend from way back pointed me to his club’s site and I got curious. It seems that here in the Philippines, some young and hip car owners have resolutely gone against the stereotype of yellow-painted service automobiles and painted their expensive show cars yellow. One of the best ways to establish ties with kindred souls is to go against the tide together, and this is exactly what these car enthusiasts are doing.

The best thing about this club is that it has a Female President, Shel Miranda, and she started the trend. My initial reaction to the club was, “they look like taxi cars”, but upon closer inspection, one cannot really mistake a yellow Evo 9 or the latest BMW model for a cab eh?

When I learned that this girl racer founded and is in control of a club composed of mostly male auto enthusiasts, I could not help but think what kind of guy she could be dating. Someone who is also a car enthusiast, or someone who owns a show car gallery, or both?

Conspicuously absent is a yellow colored Mercedez. I have to admit that I cannot for the life of me imagine one of the cars showcased in a sponsor’s site, New Mercedes DC, in yellow. But then, I have always been partial to the color red.

Rate this: 3.8 (2 people)

I’m running the risk of being called out for stereotypical thinking, but I have to get this post out of my system.

You see, if you don’t get something out of your system, it eats you up. You end up repressed and raring to do rebellious things; things that will turn you into a libidinous blogger, so that all you can talk about are the things that need to get out of your system… One day, you will suddenly snap and set up a blog, and talk about stuff that make you so, so hot… *screams*

But I digress.

The Girls from Exclusive High Schools

I graduated from an all-girl Catholic high school (middle school to our foreign friends, from 12 to 16 years old) and jumped right into the arms of my co-ed alma mater. All my previous exposure to guys did not prepare me for the reality of having to deal with them on a daily basis, in a school setting and in the dating scene. Suddenly, the whole classroom was filled with antics of the opposite sex, and initially, I was taken aback.

I am not saying that girls from exclusive high schools don’t meet guys, we do. We attend promenades and getting-to-know-you parties with guys from other exclusive schools; and every day, we find several hundred guys lined up in front of our high school at dismissal time, either waiting for their girlfriends or just checking out the fragrant herd of female species parading magnificently out of the school gate.

Female Bonding

Some girls could not stand the ‘pressure’ of not interacting with the opposite sex, but most of us who stayed inside the single gender school loved the feeling of being with other girls. It’s like a big slumber party where girls can discuss boys and girl stuff with their friends. The only trouble was, not many have had experiences dealing with the opposite sex, and almost all were just making up theories of how to run relationships and connect with guys. In fact, if one of us was rumored to have already kissed a guy, we would gather around her and would ask so many pointed questions (Was it a wet kiss? How did it feel? What does saliva taste like?).

Lesbianism and Bisexuality

There are three things that could happen when you spend 4 or so years in an exclusive school during the time when hormones just started going berserk and the notions of sexuality were just forming:

1. You appreciate the beauty of women so much that you fall in love with them.
2. You understand the concept of lesbianism and bisexuality way better than a coed-schooled person who did not go through the same experiences, and you do not find it weird that women can fall in love with other women; or that men can fall in love with other men. Or,
3. You become completely homophobic.

Womanhood Overdrive

While I would recommend that there should be a boot-camp for new single gender school graduates prior to entering college, I take pride in being one. Girls from single gender schools are more assertive than those from coed schools, particularly in relationships. Imagine listening to lectures pointing to women empowerment and women’s roles in society for four years; encouraging each other during recess to never take shit from men; and celebrating the goddess in every woman on a daily basis. Some of our country’s most radical Feminists and women politicians are from exclusive catholic girls’ schools, and that is telling of the quality of women these schools produce.

Rate this: 3.4 (2 people)

In my quest to find advertisers who can offer my readers a completely Free Dating Service, I found Meeta.com. Interaction and community building are free. While connecting online is free, they do offer other things, and these include opportunities for members to attend events in real life settings. That they don’t allow certain countries to participate in their community is understandable, as they want to target people who live near their existing members, for eyeball (EB)-related reasons.

EyeBall (EB) is a term coined to describe two or more people meeting offline for the first time, following a period of chatting online. The mere mention of this word takes me back to the time when I attended several EBs in a week. In fact, some of the best dating memories I will keep with me forever are from EBs.

While it is the prerogative of any chatting couple or groups to have their EB any time, a Grand EB is a completely different thing. It’s a massive event that needs proper planning, a lot of sponsors and several weeks of preparation.

Here’s a simple guide I prepared to help you organize your own Grand EB with minimum hassle.

Finding sponsors. The key to choosing who to approach to fund your event is knowing the demographics of your online community members, i.e. common factors such as age, ethnicity, interests and hobbies etc. The questions to ask yourself before writing a sponsorship request, include:

• Does this company offer a product that my members will like?
• Will this company benefit in the long run after this initial introduction to my group?
• Does this company NEED more publicity? Do they have a new product that they are launching soon?
• Does this company have a history of event sponsorship? Are they open to partnership requests?

Let me illustrate the next steps with an example.

• I am throwing a party for my community in a particular dating site. I know that my members have established certain relationships with each other, and are looking to explore new levels of connection e.g. real dates. The venue will be a spacious function room in a cozy hotel where singles can either dance or simply sit around to talk. To be partly sponsored by the hotel itself (one that could offer accommodations at a discount to my members).

• I will then look for a good artist who will provide romantic ambiance through music. My choice is a violinist (like my friend Diwa) because of the soulful sound of any music created using a violin. He can meet potential clients within my group, couples who may get married someday, or men who may need music to properly propose to a girl they met in the party.

• Food will be sponsored in part by an independent caterer who specializes in date food, innovative finger food, like hors d’oeuvres, that doesn’t take much effort to eat while talking to another person.

• And, because I know that some members have already broken the friendship barrier and are already dating online, it is highly advisable that I partner with a company specializing in safe sex products like condoms. This is particularly applicable in Sex EB’s (to be discussed in another post, so you’d better subscribe *wink*)

Rate this: 2.9

Reading books on sex and love making can be entertaining and educational, but actually getting to experience the sexuality that is preached there is far more satisfying. Here’s a naughty little post for women who want to experience a bit more than the usual sex.

Don’t go struggling to do cartwheels and contortions. Going through the motions to create a ‘unique’ position is distracting as you have to concentrate long and hard on keeping from toppling over. That’s not fun. Stick to the basics, but with a twist.

Here are the more ‘ordinary’ positions and my take on how you and I can enjoy them more.

1. Missionary

• Wrapping your legs around his waist is ok for the first 15 to 30 minutes, any much longer and you will feel the tired feeling on those legs. Hold your legs by the crook of the knees and transfer the strain to your arms (which aren’t doing much in this particular position, anyway). Holding your legs apart yourself for the duration of this position will let you concentrate on your orgasm.

2. Doggy position

• Deep penetration from behind with a bit of help on your part (playing with your clitoris while your partner is making love to you) will make this position your new favorite. The strain here is on your arms, and maybe it’s difficult to use one to play with yourself. My suggestion: When you use one hand to fondle your clitoris, transfer your weight from the other arm supporting your upper body to your elbows and shoulders.

• Closed doggy. For this, you will need a lot of lubrication (waterbased KY jelly is recommended). Keep your legs closed while he makes love to you from behind. This variation works when your partner is particularly well endowed (in terms of length), and deep penetration via regular dog style is painful more than pleasurable. Your legs and your butt cheeks contribute to the friction, which is a bit different from the usual doggy style.

3. Girl on Top -

• If he is lying on his back, a woman can only use her legs for support. Legs get wobbly after a while and you find that you cannot move up and down after a few minutes as the knees become wobbly. The secret to this is weight distribution. If your legs are short, plant your feet firmly to his side and move up and down as if you’re squatting, equally distributing your weight on your thighs and legs. It’s a bit easier for those with long legs, because they can kneel while doing this, and the knees are included in the weight distribution.

• Girl on top In reverse - This is the easiest variation for me. Ride him with your back facing him. Weight distribution in this position is easier as you can use your arms as leverage (holding his knees).

• Make him sit up or recline - This way you can use his shoulders or neck for support. You still need to distribute your weight equally between your thighs and legs, but now you can hold on to him while you do so.

4. Standing up - For this you will need to recline against a wall for leverage. Plant one foot firmly on the ground, and hold the other up by the crook of the knees using one arm. Your other arm could hold on to his body. The strain on the arm holding one leg up is the main downside of this position, but if your partner does not mind you switching arms to lift one leg every once in a while, this could be your favorite position yet.

These tips are designed to keep the woman (you) comfortable for the duration of the intercourse. Orgasm comes to us only when we feel relaxed and not thinking of something else (like how tired you are). How to drive a man wild in bed? You have to start with how to drive yourself wild in bed.

This post is dedicated to my fiery Scorpio guy friends, reputed to last all night long.

:gg:

Rate this: 2.9