Well boys and girls, we’ve come to the fourth and final installment of “What the hell did I get myself into?”: Online Dating Edition. It’s been a whirlwind of a month, and I am sad to say (spoiler alert) that I did not find a boyfriend. Cue the tears, cue Adele, and cue me shoveling Ben and Jerry’s down my throat. I’m okay though really. No tears for this girl. I might sound a little cocky when I say this, but the reason I didn’t find a boyfriend wasn’t because I couldn’t get a guy to look in my general direction. I got several messages from men throughout the day, everyday for four weeks. I had many guys interested in “me”, and I put “me” in quotation marks because I’m not sure how many of the guys really wanted to get to know me or just have sex with me (and I guess I’ll never know!). The reason why I didn’t come out of this challenge with the desired end result is because I realized that I don’t want a boyfriend.

I repeat: I do not want a boyfriend. Read More »

Match.com, PlentyOfFish, eHarmony…..with so many dating sites available these days, it’s no surprise that a substantial amount of relationships today start online. But what about us romantic hopefuls…in college?

Two lovely ladies at Columbia University developed the idea to start a dating site, DateMySchool.com, strictly for us collegiate lovers. That’s right, with this site you can breathe easy: there won’t be any creepy 50 year old friend requests or pokes from your younger brother’s annoying friends. To become a member of the site you must have a working .edu email address. Now you can automatically check “gives a damn about his education” off of your dating checklist! Read More »

Recently, BeautifulPeople.com – an online dating service for, well, beautiful people – cleansed itself of its fatter members. After receiving customer complaints (from some ridiculously good looking people, I presume), the website went through and kicked out anyone with a little extra junk in their trunk.

While I’m happy I was never a member of such a shallow and douchey organization (mostly because I would have been one of the many kicked off, thanks to my love of anything frosted), this move to improve the service for members got me thinking about my own online dating experiences.

I’ve been a member of an online dating site for a year now. I have yet to find the love of my life, but I have had a few good dates… and way too many creepy interactions to count. Seriously, these sites will let anyone with a computer and $29.99 a month to join. And I mean anyone. I’d like to believe that there is someone out there for me and that taking my dating online will increase my chances of finding him, but it’s nearly impossible to stay optimistic when this guy is sending me messages daily.

So maybe BeautifulPeople.com took things a tad too far (What – only thin people can be considered beautiful??), but as long as we’re on the subject, I’ve got a few online daters of my own that should get the boot. You listening, JDate? Read More »

If you’re one of those slackers who leaves your Christmas shopping until Christmas Eve (much to the scorn of retail workers everywhere) there’s no need to fret. Sex can be a great gift to anyone on your list this year. Yeah, that’s right, I said anyone.

Now before you start calling me perverted, let me show you what I mean.

Your Boyfriend
Um, duh. This one is obvious, but you can’t expect a plain romp in the hay to get you off the hook this
Christmas; you’ll have to spice it up a bit. Normally, I’d recommend getting yourself to a sex shop to pick up a new toy or some sexy lingerie, but it might be a little to late for that (are sex stores even open on Christmas Eve?). Instead of buying something special, you’ll have to do something special this year. Need some ideas? Try one (or all) of these sexy sex tips on for size. Even better, why not get the gift that keeps on giving, like Cosmo’s latest iPhone app? It gives you a new hot sex position every day, making it the best $1.99 you ever spent. And if that’s not your thing, maybe just put on your sexiest lingerie (or left-over Halloween costume… same thing, usually) and give him a strip tease that he’ll never forget.

Your Coupled Friends
Let’s be honest, what your coupled college friends need is alone time. And if that friend also happens to be a roommate, that is the cheapest gift you can give! Print out a few coupons for some “alone time” and let her redeem them whenever she wants. All you have to do is find somewhere else to sleep. Boom! Best gift ever.

Or, if you’re lookin’ to spend a little more and you’ve got some time between baking with mom and wrapping with the siblings, hop on over to Barnes and Noble where they have tons of great stuff for couples. A few of my faves: “365 Sex Positions: A New Way Everyday for a Steamy, Erotic Year” and “Cosmo’s Steamy Sex Games.” Hot, hot, hot. Don’t be surprised if the BFF’s BF calls to thank you.

Read More »

"What the eff am I supposed to do with a pap smear?!"

Oh, how I love Christmas morning.

There’s nothing quite like waking up to the smell of slow-roasting, honey-baked ham and my dad’s own personal off-key rendition of “Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire.” But, let’s be honest, as much as I love food/my family/blah blah blah, I (like most of you reading this) like getting presents the most. But, if there’s one thing I’ve come to learn in my 23 yrs. as an expert-present-opener, it’s that some presents (or maybe, some people?) just SUCK, plain and simple.

Believe me, as a poor college girl, there’s almost nothing I won’t take (or take and then pawn), but there are some presents that even I wouldn’t appreciate hiding out under my (fake) Christmas tree. Read More »

This is real. We're Facebook-Official.

Okay, so as if the world of flirting/dating/hooking up in dark corners wasn’t already confusing enough, we now have Facebook thrown in the mix. You can poke the cutie from Calculus, send some racy “private messages,” and maybe even send a condom or two his way.

But when you actually really like the guy, and have even gone on a couple dates (aka met for lunch in the caf or taken a stroll through the plaza) the whole Facebook situation gets ten times more complicated.

And that brings us to the “relationship status.”  It sits in the corner of our profiles taunting us. “You’re still single??” it screams (accompanied by Facebook ads luring you to Match.com). But when you are seeing someone it’s even worse, nagging you day after day. “Are you official yet?! It’s been a month! Come on already!”

I don’t know how I feel about this little option. I won’t deny that it’s exciting to finally make the official switch to “in a relationship,” but the extra pressure it adds to my love life is a major negative.

Obviously, I’m torn.

Love It:

The fact that making a relationship Facebook official clears up a significant amount of issues surrounding a new relationship. First of all, there is none of that sitting up late at night with your roommate, dissecting his text messages and the way he hugged you goodbye. Does he want a commitment? Is he not sure? Of course he’s sure! He just changed his relationship status!  It sort of brings us back to those Pleasantville days when a guy simply pinned his girl and that was that; when you have been “Facebook officialed” you’re a couple. Done.

Ah, dating has become so black and white. Read More »

I’ve learned a ton of useful things at college, and I hate to say (sorry Mom and Dad) that most of most of this knowledge I’ve acquired outside of the classroom. One pivotal lesson I’ve gleaned from my 3 years in school: dating in college is hard.

Coming from a school with a 60/40 ratio of girls to guys, with a large slice of that 40% uninterested in boobs, I’ve got very few choices. The pool of college boys has been unimpressive and disappointing to say the least – I’m sick of random hookups with frat boys (yes, it’s true) and trying to get a college boy to commit.

I know there are some great guys out there, but maybe I’m looking in the wrong places. I’ve heard tons of success stories about online dating, but honestly, I’m a little nervous.  I’ve dabbled in the online pool, but I’m still not sure it’s the right thing for me.

Help! I’m torn. Read More »

Last Christmas, a nice family got together to take a photo for their yearly holiday cards. Last week, that same family discovered their photo…in Prague…being used for a local grocery store chain’s advertising campaign. Weird? Weird.

That little sitch got us thinking about all the photos we post online. Truth is, you never know who can get their grubby little paws on your stuff once you’ve handed it over to the world wide web, especially considering you can never really take it down. Who knows what weird company (CollegeCandy.com) is going to pick up your drunken selfie and splash it on billboards (or websites) nationwide?

It can happen to anyone, even you, drunk girl dancing on a table in the bar. Just look how simple it is:

Read More »

When you think of internet dating, you probably think about your best friend’s 59 year-old father and his many (failed) attempts to meet “the one” on Match.com.  Even if we were dismally lonely, I highly doubt most of us would allow ourselves to get so far as to post our own profile for the viewing pleasure of a middle-aged audience.  But what if the dating site was geared towards college students?

Now don’t get me wrong, people can still do shady s**t even if they are a 22 year old Dartmouth student.  The first “dating site” I saw that was remotely geared towards college students was the Craigslist personal ad section.  No offense to any of the upstanding gentlemen on Craigslist, but I think it’s a little odd to post an ad for yourself on the same site that you advertise the cactus that your roommate peed on at your last house party.  Plus, as we all know, thanks to the “Craigslist Killer,” it’s not exactly the safest way to meet people.

So what’s a lustful but “sick-of-all-these-douche-bags” kinda girl supposed to do?  Well StudentLove.com has the answer.  (It may not be the right answer, but it’s an answer.)  In order to join their dating site, you have to have an .edu email address, so it does a pretty job of keeping out the Scary Larrys.  But just because it’s there doesn’t mean it’s necessarily a good way to pick up the hotties.  Here is my oh-so-technical analysis of StudentLove: Read More »

Have you seen those ads? You know, those Match.com ads? The ones where some HOT guy is “video chatting” right on your screen? If you frequent MySpace, I’m sure you’ve seen them.

Every time one of those redonkulous video ads pops up on my browser, I want to punch whoever made them in the face. Because those guys aren’t on Match.com. Those guys have never needed an online dating site to help them find a chick (or a dude, as the case may be). Those guys are hot. Those guys have fantastic smiles. Those guys are actors.

According to this little article, the success rate of the online dating industry is 22%. Of course, the ads for EHarmony and Match.com don’t want you to know that. They want you to think hot, happy people are all over their websites. They want you to pay money to find these hot, happy people with fantastic smiles.

But I gotta say, after doing my own (ahem) research, I have found the amount of hot guys on dating sites to be alarmingly low. There’s certainly no body building Brad Pitt lookalike hoping to video chat with me. There’s someone who wants to chat about how it’s cool to be a nerd or make vegan cupcakes, but sadly, this someone cannot hold a candle to those dudes in the video ads.

What do you think? Is internet dating really as easy / successful as people say? Or is it just false advertising?