With just hours to go before Rosh Hashanah. Religious or not, this time of year everyone begins to reflect on there life, and the upcoming year. We look to see what we can improve on, and maybe ways to help others. We also ask for forgiveness. Maybe we should ask those that we may have hurt during the dating process? Even if you don’t ask them directly you can speak to G-D and ask. If you are a non-believer, then maybe just ask yourself, to forgive for any wrong doings you may have done.

Dating is difficult, and no matter what, some people will get hurt in the process. Let’s go into the New Year, with maybe a better understanding that we will do our best not to hurt eachother, not only with dating, but in our every day life.

Maybe it is also time to ask yourself, are you being realistic in your dating and that type of person you are looking for. Remember no one is perfect, look at some of the compromises that you may be willing to make in a relationship. Let’s have this year, a year of many simcha’s, (celebrations).

Shana Tovah, and may this year we all get what we are looking and asking for.

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I thought I would talk a little about what people should be dressed like on a first date. For some of you it may be obvious but it is not to all of you since I have heard various stories of people showing up on dates not looking their best. I know you want to be yourself and relaxed and don’t want to give someone the wrong impression of you but you need to look good and presentable to at least catch someones eye. Let’s separate the men from the women.

Men:

1- Please please shave before you go on a date! (Unless of course you have a beard which if you do should be in your current picture online!!). There is no bigger turn off when a man shows up with a stubble looking like he just woke up. Also if you need to have a haircut, have one before you go on a date.

2- No jeans and a t-shirt. Unless your first date is playing a game of football, I think men should dress business casual, meaning a nice pair of pants and a button down shirt.

3- No heavy cologne. It is great to smell nice (everyone should shower before meeting!) but don’t over do it.

4- Wear nice shoes. There is nothing worse then when a man shows up looking nice but when you look down at his feet his shoes look like they belong in a dump!

Women

1- Don’t over do the make up. You want to look nice but not like you are trying to enter a beauty pageant.

2- Don’t wear to revealing attire. You don’t want your cleavage to be distracting to not only your date but to all men around you. Also you are sending not necessarily the right message to your match.

3-Wear comfortable shoes. Save the nine inch heals for the wedding next week and stick with a decent pairs of low healed shoes.  

4 – I also thing women should wear business casual clothes. A nice black dress never did any woman wrong.

Just remember to wear nice and comfortable clothing and you should look great!

Nechama

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I was speaking with someone today, and he was telling me his dating stories. It was incredible to think how one person could have been hurt so many times over the years, while dating.

I don’t think anyone purposely goes out to hurt someone during the process of dating. So why do we hear so many nightmare stories of how people were so hurt? Is it so difficult to be nice to someone when ending a relationship? I realize that usually someone will get hurt, but maybe if we try to be a little more sensitive when doing so, it won’t last as long.

On the other side, I spoke to someone who was involved with someone, and things weren’t working out, but the relationship ended by them both speaking it through, and realized together this was for the best for both of them.

Dating is difficult enough, but to be spiteful and hurt others feelings, I don’t think that is anyone’s intention. With Rosh Hashanah just days away, maybe this is one area that you can try to be more sensitive about. Treat others how you yourself would want to be treated. Just try.

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Dating is difficult, but when you only will go out with your ‘ideal’ match the chances will be slim. As a matchmaker on a on-line site, I am tired if hearing some of the same excuses for not accepting the match.

* she /he seems perfect but physically is not for me. Physically, half the time the pictures on the site don’t do a person justice, or they are glamour shots so they are not the real thing. If everything is perfect then accept the match and meet up and see for yourself if there is a physical attraction.

* Education level. Some one could have a great education, but when you meet them they have nothing to say. Other’s who have no formal education, are bright, articulate, and have incredible “street smarts”. Meet them, speak with them. Many people are very happy and one partner has there Doctorate when the other has a Associate degree. Remember as well, having an education doesn’t always mean a better job. Many people have great jobs and are high earners with a high school degree.

* I don’t like pets and they do. Just because some one like’s a pet, doesn’t mean they will choose the pet over you.

* Age. Age is only a number, many people are in there late 40′s-50′s and are more athletic, outgoing then those in there 20′s. You may also meet a man/woman,  young/older, a few years either way is really no big deal.

This are just a few of my ‘pet peeves’ with excuses, there are still more. But enough for one time

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Here is my beef today. What is with all of you that just call each other back and forth and don’t actually make a time to meet. What do you think you are going to discover in a phone call? Your love of your life? Phone calls can lead to big disappointments when meeting in person. Why? because on the phone we can be whoever we want to be and not always the real me. OK i know you want to check out this person to make sure they are not a freak or something but seriously you WILL NEVER really know if they are a match or not until you actually meet up. As I have said in the past you don’t have to make the first date a huge thing. Just meet up in a park for a stroll or for coffee in a nice empty cafe. Only face to face will you really get to know if he/she is the one.

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With the whole bunch of jewish holidays coming up right around the corner for some of you it might be hard reminder of being single. Most of us imagine the holidays with our families and our significant other and to once again face the reality of being single again at this time, this can be very hard. For those of you who get to together with family and friends, I think the holidays are a great time to network for matches. Speak to your cousin, uncle , aunt etc.. about their co-workers, neighbors or friends that they know who are single. Let them know what you are looking for and what you wont compromise on to avoid those horrible first dates. I think if everyone at the table took a little time to think about it they just might find you a date or two. Good luck and happy networking

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Dates, in order to meet someone you will probably have to go out on a date. We all want a relationship but you have to realize you will have to go out on those dreaded dates first to get to this stage.

Dating at first is not fun. Getting to know each other, the first conversations and trying to figure out the best things to say, or not to say. But another way of dating today is on-line. How can we have a few ‘fun’ dates this way.

I just read that a couple, with these days working up towards Rosh Hashanah, scheduled a visit to a Seniors home, each in there own city, spoke to the Seniors and arranged Shofer to be blown. Then after the visit, spoke about the experience to each other on-line. This got me thinking. On-line dating? This is a perfect example of being creative, and doing something together, without really being together. If you are in this situation, maybe try something similar.

Dating doesn’t have to be so bad. What ever your way of dating is, remember it is just the first step to meeting your partner, and if you don’t take those first steps you probably won’t have one.

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How do you know if you are being too picky? Do you hear from friends all the time that you need to relax what you are looking for? How about trying this cute quiz to see if it is really true

http://quiz.ivillage.com/love/tests/toopicky.htm

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Last night I was at a wedding. I looked around and noticed the amount of single’s. A thought came to my mind. What a great place to meet other single’s. Simcha’s - Weddings, Bar Mitzvah’s, what could the chances be. You hear about it, well why not for you?

Maybe it is time to try to “check out” who is around. If it is a religious event, and there is separate seating, maybe the people planning can have a common area where you can look, and if they see someone that may be of interest to ask around to see if someone knows this person for an introduction. What a great place to meet someone. The bride and groom have singles friends.

If there is mixed seating, maybe “mix” the seating up, it may be difficult to figure out who may get along, but look what the opportunities are.

So, the next wedding you go to, look around, you never know who you will meet.

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 Being a scientist, I love to look at things with a scientific eye every once in awhile. I remeber when I first heard of the love hormones called Phermones. These are hormones excreted by animals as well as humans when they are in “love”. I thought I would bring a little article about the chemistry of love that I found on line that talks about the role that different nerotransmitters play in love. The link is as follows for the whole article, I will just paste part of it.

The Chemistry of Love

There are a lot of chemicals racing around your brain and body when you’re in love. Researchers are gradually learning more and more about the roles they play both when we are falling in love and when we’re in long-term relationships. Of course, estrogen and testosterone play a role in the sex drive area (see How Sex Works). Without them, we might never venture into the “real love” arena.That initial giddiness that comes when we’re first falling in love includes a racing heart, flushed skin and sweaty palms. Researchers say this is due to the dopamine, norepinephrine and phenylethylamine we’re releasing. Dopamine is thought to be the “pleasure chemical,” producing a feeling of bliss. Norepinephrine is similar to adrenaline and produces the racing heart and excitement. According to Helen Fisher, anthropologist and well-known love researcher from Rutgers University, together these two chemicals produce elation, intense energy, sleeplessness, craving, loss of appetite and focused attention. She also says, “The human body releases the cocktail of love rapture only when certain conditions are met and … men more readily produce it than women, because of their more visual nature.”

Researchers are using functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI) to watch people’s brains when they look at a photograph of their object of affection. According to Helen Fisher, a well-known love researcher and an anthropologist at Rutgers University, what they see in those scans during that “crazed, can’t-think-of-anything-but stage of romance” — the attraction stage — is the biological drive to focus on one person. The scans showed increased blood flow in areas of the brain with high concentrations of receptors for dopamine — associated with states of euphoria, craving and addiction. High levels of dopamine are also associated with norepinephrine, which heightens attention, short-term memory, hyperactivity, sleeplessness and goal-oriented behavior. In other words, couples in this stage of love focus intently on the relationship and often on little else.

Another possible explanation for the intense focus and idealizing view that occurs in the attraction stage comes from researchers at University College London. They discovered that people in love have lower levels of serotonin and also that neural circuits associated with the way we assess others are suppressed. These lower serotonin levels are the same as those found in people with obsessive-compulsive disorders, possibly explaining why those in love “obsess” about their partner.

Lee Ann Obringer.  “How Love Works”.  February 12, 2005  http://people.howstuffworks.comlove6.htm  (August 30, 2007)

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