Is Your Light On This Valentine's Day?

Work, dancing, drinks and a smattering of “situationships”. Work, dancing, drinks and you’ve travelled the world solo. Work, dancing, drinks and your colleagues just got married. Work, dancing drinks and your school friends all have children. Work, dancing, drinks and your Tinder date just cancelled.

No matter how you arrived at being single it can be difficult to know where to start when it comes to finding love. If you’re new to the dating scene after a long hiatus it’s normal to feel alien. Let’s banish that martian and work out whether you’re truly available with your light on, putting you in the best position to meet someone out of this world!

Work Life Balance – Is your work life balance relatively stable? Perhaps you’ve thrown yourself into your career and with technological advances found work spilling into the majority of your time. Until now this may have been a welcome distraction. If dating is on the cards are you in a position to set aside some time for another person? Making time for a relationship is the only way it will truly flourish.

Your health and wellbeing- Are you taking good care of yourself?  It’s important to begin the dating journey happy in your own skin and mind; we are the masters of our happiness and we shouldn’t expect others to complete us. We should strive to bring our best self to the dating arena…. Would you date yourself? In the words of the fabulous Oscar Wilde ‘To love oneself is the beginning of a lifelong romance’.  

The Past - Are you over your past relationship? If you’re still clinging to “the one that got away” now might not be the time for you. Allow yourself time to mourn a relationship but don’t dwell on it and absolutely don’t you dare romanticise about how things could have worked out! It’s time to move on. Sever previous attachments because your future is waiting for you. If you would like a helping hand getting over an ex we know some amazing experts!

Expectations - Have you given up on your knight in shining armour? If you have then we curtsy to you. Realistic relationship expectations land you in a brilliant spot when it comes to meeting someone who is right for YOU. No, we’re not saying have low standards but an awareness that perfect people don’t exist is an excellent start. Unrealistic expectations are often the blockade to happiness in love.  You’re not Cinderella and he isn’t prince charming either and that’s great because there’s no beauty in perfection.

With all these points addressed only you will know if you’re ready to embrace the dating world. If you are and your light is shining brightly let’s not waste another moment, get in touch and we’ll meet for a cuppa and delve into our Little Black Book to find you the partner of your dreams.

Date Night

Hooray- you’ve got a date! But how is your dating game? Are you a seasoned dater who takes the prospect of meeting new people in your stride? Or does the mere thought of a first date send you into a tail spin and your head instantly fill with frenzied thoughts about where to go and what to do?! Regardless of what camp you are in, we can make sure you suitably impress with our exciting new partner ‘Date Night’.

Date Night pledge to ‘keep you at the top of your dating game with latest venues and dating tips’. They, like us realise the importance of making an effort. Regardless of how many dates you have been on with other people in the past, don’t be apathetic, treat this date as though it were the first: relax, turn on your chat, be present and most importantly enjoy the experience. Dr. Wendy Walsh, Clinical Psychologist and expert on relationships and human behaviour, maintains that we should make dating ceremonial: ‘If dating has become a gulp of martini in a busy happy hour, there’s a good chance you’ve lost focus. For romance to grow into something serious it should feel special.. Add some pomp and pageantry to the romantic memories you are creating’.

So as Walsh says, make the date impressive and memorable, every marriage or lifelong partnership begins with a first date, so make it a goodun, you never know this could be the story that you recount to your children and children’s children in years to come! Here’s how ‘Date Night’ can make that happen: They filter endless online content and select the newest, freshest and most exciting ideas for you. Saving you the time of trawling the web, reading masses of reviews to simply fall back on previous tried and trusted and dare I say, slightly boring venues.

If you want to leave ALL the planning to ‘Date Night’ use their unique service: ‘ Secret Dates’ and let them organise a one off experience with all the ‘buzz and none of the hassle’. All you need to do is show up! The thrilling part of using this service is that both parties are in the dark about the date, you will be sent cheeky messages in the run up to give you clues about what you are doing. All these details add intrigue and excitement and also put both parties on a neutral, level playing field, neither in each other’s ‘hood’.

At a fundamental level, humans connect through shared experience, so why not connect through a fabulous, memorable and exciting shared experience! Get yourselves on ‘Date Night’ and let them plan the date of all dates. Even if your date isn’t ‘the one’ you will both have had a brilliant night, and you never know, on your 10th wedding anniversary you may be going back to where it all began - like me next week ;-). Enjoy!

The Tinder Effect

The Tinder Effect

The number of people using Dating apps has exploded and the effect this is having on behaviour in the dating world is catastrophic. There are over 50 million Tinder users and 1.6 billion swipes daily…that’s a lot of people looking for hook ups! And the most worrying thing it’s based purely on physical attractiveness.

What dating apps has created is the phenomenon that dating is a game, sexualised by technology. As Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic explains, “Tinder is the latest example for the sexualisation of urban gadgets: It is nomophobia, Facebook-porn and Candy Crush Saga all in one”. Sadly, the perceived sea of choice that Tinder offers its users has led to an inability to commit. Instead, people date several people at once in a bid to keep their options open… ‘what if there is something better out there?’. I’ve purposely used ‘something’ rather than ‘someone’ because objectification is sadly rife.

The idea of ‘The Paradox of Choice’ shows that having lots of options can actually make decision making more confusing … have you ever tried to find a film on Netflix?Unfortunately when people are trying to find a real meaningful relationship in the real world they are taking their ‘Tinderisms’ with them. This fear of making a relationship official and focusing their attention on just one person means they are losing out on ever truly getting to know someone deeper than at a superficial level. As Clinical Psycholgist Dr. Wendy Walsh states, “we are wired to bond, this is good for us, but if there is so much sexual opportunity we’re actually not bonding…it is hard for us to focus on one relationship.” Walsh warns against using “short term dating strategies for long term goals”.

Another backlash of online dating and particularly apps is the absolute obsession with physical attractiveness. But let’s just talk about profiles for a moment; these pictures have been carefully curated and filtered to show their very best selves. This isn’t real life, nobody looks like their Tinder photo all of the time. This constant pool of Tinder perfect profiles has increased the average levels of attractiveness compared to the real 3D world.

So let’s get real, if you want to find a person to have a meaningful relationship with you need to step into the real world and leave your ‘swiping’ mentality at the door. Finding your partner isn’t about instant gratification and churning through potential dates. It is about taking the time to get to know somebody, and the key to remember; is they are a ‘somebody’. Looking for a life partner isn’t a game, and if a game is what you’re after.. stick to Tinder!