LA Peeps! Find a Date and Get a Free Ride!

 

 

I am super excited to announce that one of my favorite dating services is launching in Los Angeles!  Read my review of Coffee Meets Bagel, a free dating site that utilizes your network on Facebook.  Get bagelin’ daters!

Ask Miss Singlefied: Is she interested or just being nice? (special Coffee Meets Bagel edition)

Miss Singlefied recommends the book: Around the world in 80 Girls: The epic 3 year trip of a backpacking Casanova

Ask Miss Singlefied: What to do on a first date? (special Coffee Meets Bagel edition)

Miss Singlefied recommends the book: Around the world in 80 Girls: The epic 3 year trip of a backpacking Casanova

Less is More: Coffee Meets Bagel

While living in Beijing for first half of the year, I kept hearing about this new dating site that I was missing out on back in NYC.  In fact, Chinese people couldn’t stop tweeting about it, disappointed that they couldn’t try it out first hand.  So, I had to see what all the fuss was about and was lucky enough to interview co-founder Dawoon Kang.  Coffee Meets Bagel is name of the site.  And I have to say: simply brilliant.

Here’s how it works – 

1) You sign up using your Facebook account, with a couple simple questions and some are already auto-filled.

2) The magical algorithm will do its job to dig into your friends’ inventory of friends, collecting your potential matches.

3) At noon every day, you’re given one choice (aka Bagel), and you can either LIKE or PASS.

4) If you both choose LIKE, you’ll be notified and it’s up to you two to take it from there!

Here’s why I think it’s dope:

• Less is more.  You’re only given one choice a day.  I recently watched a TED talk from Sheena Iyengar called “How to make choosing easier.”  Basically she talks about how the more options we’re presented with, the less we’re able to make confident decisions, leading to higher chances of buyer’s remorse.  Well, the same goes for online dating.  Remember my post on The Curse of the Buffet (lots of titties in case you’re easily offended by funbags)?  The reason why people get so burnt out by online dating is that it’s hard to focus on the matches, when you’re busy thinking about what other matches may be out there.  Also, after looking at gazillion profiles, they all mush together.
• Less creepy.  You and your matches will have friends in common.  This technically makes them AND YOU less creepy, even if you’re creeper-certified.  According to the site, people are 37% more likely to date someone if they have Facebook friends in common.
• Instant dating resume (possibly).  Sometimes dating gets difficult when you meet a rando at a bar and you have no idea what their story is.  So  meeting someone with friends in common gives you instant insights into this person’s history and dating patterns.
• Perfect for lazy people.  Let’s face it.  You’re lazy.  It probably took you lots of energy to read up to here.  Now all you need to do is lift a finger to press LIKE or PASS once every day.  Takes less effort than taking a shit.

Bad news bears:

• Rejection on the spot.  Rejection is a lot easier when it’s from strangers who never return your emails.  But it may be a little tricky when it’s a friend of a friend who chose PASS on your mug.  Don’t worry, if you ever meet this person out, just get really really really drunk.
• Available only in NYC and Boston.  But don’t worry, they’re expanding quicker than you can bitch about it.
• Matches not ideal.  In order to appear as one of your Bagels, that person would’ve had to sign up, too.  This obviously limits your matches to people who 1) have heard about the site and 2) are willing to put themselves out there forgoing the anonymity they get from traditional dating sites.  But if they value their anonymity so much, they might also be at home collecting human skin and snorting bath salts.  Just sayin’.

Overall, you don’t have much to lose with Coffee Meets Bagel.  Quite a few of my friends and clients have signed up for it.  So far, nobody’s found their dreamboat, but at least they’re having fun doing it.  Because after all, isn’t that what dating should be about?  Having fun?  LIKE!

And just some random facts about how your college affects your dating experience (according to the Coffee Meets Bagel blog):

Miss Singlefied recommends the book: Around the world in 80 Girls: The epic 3 year trip of a backpacking Casanova

Your 2011 Year in Review

2011 was a great year for Singlefied.  We officially launched the blog, created great partnerships, attracted worthy attention from the press, started the successful show Ask Miss Singlefied, and ended the year with a sexy write-up on Jackfroot.com.  But most importantly, we met you.  Thank you for your support, feedback, stories and discussions.  As a thank you, let’s review all the popular posts from 2011 that will make your dating life even better in 2012 [given that the world does not fucking end].

Who are you?

Get to know yourself: the good, the bad, the ugly.

How to stop being victimized as the nice guy.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Where are you?

With each new year means movement in your Dating Timeline.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who are women?

How do women think differently.

How to talk to her.

How she becomes attracted to you.

How to handle hot, bitchy women.

How to tell when she’s truly interested.

How to handle rejection.

Why she swallows.

 

 

 

What do women like in bed?

Learn from porn for women.

How to keep your dick hard.

 

 

 

 

 

Tools of dating:

Online dating

Speed dating

What colors to wear on a date

Handling the ex

Coping with heartbreak

The Creeper Sweeper

 

 

 

WARNINGS

5 things that won’t get you another date

Curse of the buffet (dating too many women at once)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

SpeedDating(SM): A Timesaving Guide to Finding Your Lifelong Love

Ask Miss Singlefied: How to find a girl who will understand your extreme family obligations?

The new Kindle Touch now available for only $99 at Amazon

Chivas Tasting Event: Winner Announced & Date Tips

Wow, some of you guys are so romantical and some of you are just douchey.  It’s all good, because the girls of Singlefied have picked a winner: Aaron H.  Congrats Aaron, you and a guest will be attending the Chivas Tasting Event courtesy of Sparkology!  Check out the winning date idea below, and scroll through to see some of the entries that stood out to us.

WINNING DATE:

Start out in Central Park by surprising her with a lunch picnic including some of her favorite dishes.  Bring extra blankets in case it’s chilly.  After lunch, take her on a dessert tour while walking downtown.  Map out 5-6 bakeries along the way.  At the last bakery, have a pre-planned dessert with a rose attached (set up ahead of time).  She’ll be pleasantly surprised.  Reward all this walking with aperitivo at Casa Nonna, an Italian style happy hour where you have access to a buffet of appetizers with the purchase of a cocktail.  Drop her off in a cab and walk your ass home.

Our verdict: How thoughtful, well-planned, simple, and romantic!  This date requires some pre-planning, but it’ll make any girl impressed and giddy.  And hello dessert tour?  Hell yeah!  Well done, Aaron.  We all want to date you now.

STAND-OUT ENTRIES:

1) 1st date Strbcks in mall, be late so she buys her own drnk, get an iced chai, chat abt life n thn buy af1s while askn 4 input

Our verdict: Yo, we said $100 budget, not $1.50.  And btw, don’t ever be late for a date.

2) The date starts at the Brooklyn Bridge, where you greet her with a single red rose (or other flower;$3-$5). You walk across the bridge to the middle deck and take out some red wine to have a toast (Trader Joe’s wine, $4). Next, onto Flamenco dance lessons at Dance New Amsterdam ($16.50 each). The studio is a few blocks from the bridge. After dance lessons, get onto the 6 train going downtown. This train ride loops back uptown at the last stop, taking you through beautiful, historic City Hall train station that many people don’t know about. The view is very beautiful and romantic. Ride the train until you get to Grand Central (train ride $4.50). Stroll trough Grand Central and then on to Bryant Park. Across from the park, make a stop at Lily O’brien’s for Coffee or Hot Chocolate and receive a free gourmet chocolate with your drink (with a 2 for 1 coupon on their website the cost will be about $3.50). She will appreciate a bargain and the resourcefulness. After coffee, stroll through Times Square and enjoy the lights. Then on to 5 Napkin Burger. Don’t let the name fool you, this restaurant has great food, drinks and atmosphere, at very reasonable prices(entrees range from about $12-$16). The menu includes great sushi, delicious gourmet burgers, salads and other seafood dishes. At this point you should have just enough money to finish the night off with a drink….and that concludes my version of the perfect date for under a $100. With this date I would hope to have given the impression that I am fun, creative, outgoing, and romantic.

Our verdict: We love the romantic and surprising (Flamenco!) aspects of your date, but we do not love you pulling out a 2-for-1 coupon.  There’s nothing wrong with finding a bargain, but make it discreet.

3) While Lincoln Center is mostly known for it’s operas and ballets, it allows for an upscale variation on the tried and true movie dinner date as well. For $20 you can watch a screening of your favorite movie from a year ago followed by a live q&a with the director. Somewhere between the strangely polite audience (a rarity in NYC), the frank discussion with the director (the glitz and glamour of celebrity), and the outraged older woman in the front row berating said director (you are after all still in New York), you the makings of a date her roommates will definitely hear about. For a $10 cab ride you can end up on the corner of 49th and broadway at Hagi. While it’s pretty much as close to Times Square as you can be without technically being in it, the nondescript door filters out any fanny pack toting tourists. First made famous as a watering hole for Bourdain and culinary buddies, the menu features a slew of Japanese delicacies at an affordable price and pitchers cheap enough to never feel guilty about ordering another one.

Our verdict: A Bourdain-worthy restaurant is always a plus, but spending half of the date not talking to each other is a negative.  Save movie dates for a girlfriend, not a girl you’re trying to fuck.

4) Take her to Nobu and tell her she can order whatever she wants.  Throw in a couple bottles of champagne!  Then at the end of dinner, claim that you lost your wallet.   Be convincingly frazzled, then tell her you’ll make it up to her next time.

Our verdict: You’re a dick.

5) The date starts at lunch at an uncrowded Chelsea Market where we whet our appetites by slowly meandering and picking up pieces here and there from the various purveyors.  Inevitably, conversation steers towards food: we notice each other’s reactions to the tasty fare in the storefronts, to the samples of various goodies that we would not have tried normally, but the relaxed atmosphere encourages us to be indulgent.  Lunch in hand, we head southwest to Battery Park and hungrily dig into our makeshift picnic at the park near the World Financial Center.  The sight of moored yachts and sailboats make for a playful backdrop as we share stories of unforgettable meals.

The notion of being on the water on a sunny day grips us so we board the Staten Island Ferry and watch the skyline shrink and appreciate this token act of escapism.  Sea mist and unfamiliar views of familiar places give us a different, thus tastier slice of New York.  Swirls of history, nostalgia and PBS specials well up as we pass by the Statue of Liberty.  Finally, we arrive at Staten Island only to immediately go back and experience the whole thing in reverse.

Traipsing through TriBeCa, we grab a quick Vietnamese iced coffee to fuel us to Columbus park in the heart of Chinatown where we revel in the sensory chaos of amateur Beijing opera, handball, fishmongers and senior citizens showing off their tai chi skills to their grandchildren. We take mental notes as we casually mention tidbits of our travels, pressing for more details when it merits.

Then off to SoHo for a quiet(er) respite where we leaf through the new Visionaire and the photo-laden tomes at Tashen and Phaidon.  Eagerly showing each other images and/or prose that made an impression, we notice some shared tastes in art but more importantly, we take note of the differences that we can discuss later.

Finally, we take the subway to Coney Island. This short 45 minute train ride allows us to get a small gauge of how we would travel together.  We continue our travel talk, while witnessing the dramatic change in scenery from the above ground subway.  Escaping the hustle of Manhattan and emerging in the bustle of southern Brooklyn, we stroll on the boardwalk and determine that Nathan’s hotdogs are indeed better in Coney Island.  The cool sea air is especially romantic at dusk when on the ferris wheel.

Our verdict:  What a wonderfully poetic, scenic and well-scripted date.  However, how many hours do we need for this whole production?  And when can we take a break from all the traveling?  If you’re planning a very involved and active date, make sure to warn her the night before so she wears proper shoes! 

Check out “Sex Diaries” in New York Magazine, real life sex stories from New Yorkers.

YOU’RE INVITED: Sparkology Pre-Launch Event

Our friends at Sparkology.com have invited Singlefied readers to an exclusive pre-launch party in NYC on 10/22.  All the details below.  I think this is such a great idea and also an awesome chance for you guys to get a great profile picture while sippin’ on some gin and juice.

Sparkology Pre-Launch Party and Photo Event

10/22

1-4pm

The MiMa, MC Level, 450 West 42nd, bw 9 and 10th Ave

*YOU MUST RSVP TO GET IN*

MESSAGE FROM HOST

It’s official: You, our inaugural members and guests, are invited to join us for our launch mixer and photo session this Saturday.

The most important part of your image is your photo: Hannah Palmer Egan and Olivia Hall of Caras TriBeCa, a downtown beauty and photo studio, will take professional headshot and full-body photos that you can keep

Make-up by Melissa DiScala featuring MAC products will help you look your best

Vodka and mixed drinks provided by our sponsor Voli, the world’s first low calorie vodka

Plenty of wine and champagne to get you camera-ready

Beer provided by our sponsor Blue State Beer

Delicious catered hors d’oeuvres

Photos will be taken in natural light on the Terrace.  Please arrive early to ensure you get time with photographer
Best of all: kick back and relax with other ladies and gentlemen of Sparkology.  To join the invite-only community, use Singlefied’s private code.

***Guests are welcome but RSVP is required.  Please email: events@sparkology.com and mention you were referred by Singlefied.  This is a premier venue – if you aren’t on the list, you aren’t getting in.***

Please dress ready for the camera.

Check out “Sex Diaries” in New York Magazine, real life sex stories from New Yorkers.

Exclusive Invite to Test Out New Singles Site: Sparkology.com

How many posts have I written about online dating?  A million?  And what are all these sites turning into?  A virtual whorehouse of unemployed perverts lookin’ to pokey pokey.  I’m all for online brothels (it’s efficient and clean!) but there comes a point when having meaningless sex is just…meaningless.  My friend Dave recently told me that he believes sites like OkCupid and Match are taking the mystery out of dating.  In his own words, “I can fuck a different girl every night of the week, but that’s because I can’t have a real conversation with any of them.”

So, if you’re still in your manslut stages, go the traditional online dating route.  But if your penis has a taste for finer things, continue reading.  I recently was approached by the founder of Sparkology.com.  Keep in mind, I get bombarded with emails from these dating website startups that want me to review their site.  Most of them I politely ignore but Sparkology really caught my attention.  The site is not a dating site, it’s an online dating community for high-quality singles.  There are four selling points for me in particular:

1) Men have to pay per message.  This eliminates all of you trying to copy-and-paste mass messages, and it makes you really evaluate if you’re interested or not now that a dollar value is associated with it.  On the flip side, because girls know that you paid to message us, it makes us actually want to read your message.  Not to mention that it is totally flattering.

2) Invite-only.  That’s pretty self-explanatory.  Anytime you have an invite-only service, it creates a more exclusive environment and people tend to be more picky with whom they invite.

3) One-page profiles.  I hate the nonsense of personality questions and other redundant profile topics.  All the extra stuff should be left to in-person interactions.  The whole goal is to date offline…right?  I honestly don’t need to know how you would react if you saw a cat get hit by a truck.

4) They don’t want you to stay too long.  Most sites offer long term incentives hoping you’d keep renewing your membership.  That defeats the whole purpose of dating!  Sparkology focuses on the short term and makes sure you get the most out of their service as soon as you join.  They employ market-driven behavioral algorithms; meaning they analyze your real actions and interactions to learn who are the best candidates for you (like how Pandora finds you great music).

Sparkology is now exclusively inviting Singlefied readers to participate in the beta website, and after it is out of beta, you all get one month free.  I am unable to publicly post the code, but if you’re interested in checking it out, contact me or tweet me @SinglefiedYue and I will email you the code!  I just finished my profile yesterday and I gotta say, I dig the layout so far.  Looking forward to all of your feedback on the site. ***There are no more codes to hand out as Beta phase is over.  However, you can go through Singlefied’s special link to sign up for Sparkology and your application will be pushed to the front of the (VERY LONG) line!

The new MacBook Air, on sale for under $1000 at Amazon.com
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Ask Miss Singlefied: You meet a girl online who’s hotter in her pics than in real life. What do you do?