What Women Want. Whether you’re new to meeting women online, or you’ve got multiple online dating profiles at several different sites, I think you’ll benefit from incorporating a few of my scientifically tested email writing tips that will help you get more responses from the women you’re trying to meet.
There are 2 rules of thumb to go by when it comes to writing these emails.
1) People like people who are like themselves.
2) People like people who like them.
In order for a woman to begin to believe that you like her and that the two of you are indeed alike, you’ll have to speak to her on a personal level. A good way to talk to talk to women is to treat her like she’s the only woman in the room, so to speak.
This means you need to do your homework by reading through her profile and finding ways to make her feel as though she’s the only woman you’re talking to.
You can still continue to email as many women as you’d like, but steer clear of using an obvious cut and paste email template that makes the woman feel like she’s one of many on an assembly line.
You can also give her a compliment—but watch out for going overboard here. There’s a fine line between simple admiration and begging for her approval. And with most women, erring on the side of less is better than more will go a long way in building up some intrigue about you in her mind.
So don’t be excessively gushy. And definitely don’t throw in any cheesy pickup lines.
Your email should also include a question or two, asking the woman to expand on something she mentioned in her profile. Be careful not to sound too eager with this as well.
Your question can be as simple as, “I see that you said you’re into parasailing. I’ve always thought that looked fun. How long have you been doing that?"
And finally, one of the most important online dating secrets is crafting a good subject line. If the subject line isn’t intriguing, she probably won’t even open your email—which would be a waste of the time you spent writing the actual email.
Concentrate on writing subject lines that are conversational. It’s also useful to work a question or challenge based on something she mentioned in her profile into the subject line.
Be creative and have fun with it. If you mess up with one woman, there are always plenty more out there to talk to!
Thursday, October 22, 2009
Some Guidance on Understanding Men and Dating Him in a Special Way
We all know that men and women do have different psyche. This is the reason why both men and women look at things differently. So with the existing difference, will it be hard for a woman to decipher a man's needs? This article talks about some things that every single woman should keep in mind to make things work to attract a man and to be persistently present in a man's thoughts.
Men are known for staring at women for it is said that the grass always looks greener on the other side. However, any woman who is dating a man should understand that this is how they are meant to be.
They just like to look at other pretty girls. So rather than getting insecure about why is your guy looking at other girl, you should understand your man. So, rather than getting angry, you can make this incident fun by pointing out any such girl on your own and appreciating your looks. Any such event happening during your date will only receive appreciation from your man..
So how do you make your man feel special while you are dating him? Below mentioned are some tips for attracting a man and making him fall for you.
1. Enchant him with your looks. This is very important step for initially attracting a man towards you. Try to be visually attractive for being capable of attracting a man. However, as you move on, your presentation of self will become more important rather than your looks.
2. Avoid giving out too much piece of information during any meeting.
3. Try getting less emotional during a date. Carry a sense of humor along with you while going on for any date.
4. Surprise your love by telling him things you know about him. However, for doing any such thing, you need to understand your man and his personality.
5. Surprise your love by gifting him small items desired by him. This will make him feel special and too much for you.
6. Dating a man can be made different by inviting him over to your place, cooking special meal and then treating him with champagne, soft music and candles. Such an evening would only shower love and warmth from your love.
7. Make your man go crazy for you by calling him after the date and letting him know of what you think was special about the date. Talk to him about the things you liked in him and your appreciating for him. This will make him feel passionate for love.
You should remember that man like women who are a little mysterious. Hence, while dating a man and attracting him, you should not give out everything that you feel about a man and should make him want more from you.
This would encourage him to come again and again to you and will keep alive the passion of love. It is essential for a woman to understand a man; however, a man should never be able to understand a woman completely. Enigmatic woman stay on the top of mind of every man.
Michael Douglas is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who supports women in creating ideal relationships. Check out his most recent website Nurturing Relationships where he reveals the secrets of flirting with men and learn infallible strategies for making yourself irresistible to men
Men are known for staring at women for it is said that the grass always looks greener on the other side. However, any woman who is dating a man should understand that this is how they are meant to be.
They just like to look at other pretty girls. So rather than getting insecure about why is your guy looking at other girl, you should understand your man. So, rather than getting angry, you can make this incident fun by pointing out any such girl on your own and appreciating your looks. Any such event happening during your date will only receive appreciation from your man..
So how do you make your man feel special while you are dating him? Below mentioned are some tips for attracting a man and making him fall for you.
1. Enchant him with your looks. This is very important step for initially attracting a man towards you. Try to be visually attractive for being capable of attracting a man. However, as you move on, your presentation of self will become more important rather than your looks.
2. Avoid giving out too much piece of information during any meeting.
3. Try getting less emotional during a date. Carry a sense of humor along with you while going on for any date.
4. Surprise your love by telling him things you know about him. However, for doing any such thing, you need to understand your man and his personality.
5. Surprise your love by gifting him small items desired by him. This will make him feel special and too much for you.
6. Dating a man can be made different by inviting him over to your place, cooking special meal and then treating him with champagne, soft music and candles. Such an evening would only shower love and warmth from your love.
7. Make your man go crazy for you by calling him after the date and letting him know of what you think was special about the date. Talk to him about the things you liked in him and your appreciating for him. This will make him feel passionate for love.
You should remember that man like women who are a little mysterious. Hence, while dating a man and attracting him, you should not give out everything that you feel about a man and should make him want more from you.
This would encourage him to come again and again to you and will keep alive the passion of love. It is essential for a woman to understand a man; however, a man should never be able to understand a woman completely. Enigmatic woman stay on the top of mind of every man.
Michael Douglas is a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist who supports women in creating ideal relationships. Check out his most recent website Nurturing Relationships where he reveals the secrets of flirting with men and learn infallible strategies for making yourself irresistible to men
How women Test Men They Are Dating!
“How Women Will Test You! And What To Do About It…" By Mick Jones Author of ‘How To Meet Women on the Internet’ No doubt dating online or off, you have been and are been tested by women. Why? Well that’s a long winded answer, and I gave up physco analyzing women a long time ago. Even women will admit they can’t understand themselves! So what chance do us humble males have?
Zip! None! Zilch! So best to just ACCEPT that they do and will test us. Be aware of it when it happens and deal with it in a way that gains us the authority and understanding in the relationship. Below are some examples of how women test us.
Why the testing? 1. They test us to see how strong emotionally we are. 2. They test us to see how smart we are. 3. They test us because they crave drama in their lives. 4. Some test because they enjoy making us uncomfortable. 5. They test us because they can. :-] The following examples are tests from the type of women you do not want to get involved with. So be aware of, and try to avoid these types of women.
Let’s look at the tests. 1) The old 'outrageously flirting with another man in front of you' test. 2) The old 'yelling at you for checking out another girl to see what you do’ test. 3) The horrible and dreaded 'canceling a date at the last moment for no reason' test. 4) The worst one of all, 'getting you really turned on while making out and then saying no to see if you really respect me' test.
[I really don’t like this one.] There are many, many more tests but this is enough for the purpose of this article. Now let’s look at ways to RESPOND to these nasty little tests as opposed to REACTING.
1) The old 'outrageously flirting with another man in front of you' test. a. This one was really tough to take with a woman I was in love with for a long time. I thought she would grow out of it. But she didn’t. What I learnt to do however was to ignore her when it happened and enjoy my evening by chatting to other women or friends of hers. The best thing you can do is to NOT make a mention of it or big deal of it. If possible strike up a conversation with either her good looking friends or other women at the venue you are in. This will cool her off and if it doesn’t, you may have an unsuitable partner who will flirt every time you go out. You can only change yourself and your emotions so it’s unlikely she will change this habit. If she flirts, ignore it and enjoy your night. If she is always a flirt, you need to move on from her, she is trouble.
2) The old 'yelling at you for checking out another girl’s arse to see what you do’ test. a. To start with, try to avoid checking out other girls in her presence. This gives you integrity and a style above others. If she does lose it without reason for doing so, she is likely insecure and looking for drama. Don’t yell back at her and calmly tell her to settle down. Smiling, tell her you are going to spank her when you get home if she doesn’t behave. This should defuse it, by getting a laugh and she may just want you to spank her! :-]
3) The horrible and dreaded 'canceling a date at the last moment for no reason' test. a. This is really disappointing isn’t it? You are about to walk out the door and she sends a sms Canceling. The most effective way to avoid this is to mention that one of the worst things women can do is to not show up and cancel dates. If you state this when you arrange for a meeting, it does help
prevent it from happening. We are all busy and need to plan ahead to be effective. However be careful not to write her off as she may have a legit reason for it happening. If it happens twice in a row, she’s gone…don’t put up with it!
4) The worst one of all, 'getting you really turned on while making out but then saying no to see if you really respect me' test.
The toughest one of all. Best to back off a little and be calm about it. Don’t sulk or push it. Just relax and have a bit of fun somehow. If you are cool about it and she can see that you aren’t stressed, she’ll likely relax and you have passed the test. Then just gently start making out again.
Chances are you have proven that you respect her by remaining calm and playful. There you have it. You will be tested, that’s life, How we respond to it is the key… http://www.howtomeetwomenontheinternet.com Mick has cut his teeth on the front line of the online dating battlefields. After many wounds and scars, he now has consistent success! You can too, to sign up to his free newsletter, subscribe box is on our home page at http://www.howtomeetwomenontheinternet.com
Zip! None! Zilch! So best to just ACCEPT that they do and will test us. Be aware of it when it happens and deal with it in a way that gains us the authority and understanding in the relationship. Below are some examples of how women test us.
Why the testing? 1. They test us to see how strong emotionally we are. 2. They test us to see how smart we are. 3. They test us because they crave drama in their lives. 4. Some test because they enjoy making us uncomfortable. 5. They test us because they can. :-] The following examples are tests from the type of women you do not want to get involved with. So be aware of, and try to avoid these types of women.
Let’s look at the tests. 1) The old 'outrageously flirting with another man in front of you' test. 2) The old 'yelling at you for checking out another girl to see what you do’ test. 3) The horrible and dreaded 'canceling a date at the last moment for no reason' test. 4) The worst one of all, 'getting you really turned on while making out and then saying no to see if you really respect me' test.
[I really don’t like this one.] There are many, many more tests but this is enough for the purpose of this article. Now let’s look at ways to RESPOND to these nasty little tests as opposed to REACTING.
1) The old 'outrageously flirting with another man in front of you' test. a. This one was really tough to take with a woman I was in love with for a long time. I thought she would grow out of it. But she didn’t. What I learnt to do however was to ignore her when it happened and enjoy my evening by chatting to other women or friends of hers. The best thing you can do is to NOT make a mention of it or big deal of it. If possible strike up a conversation with either her good looking friends or other women at the venue you are in. This will cool her off and if it doesn’t, you may have an unsuitable partner who will flirt every time you go out. You can only change yourself and your emotions so it’s unlikely she will change this habit. If she flirts, ignore it and enjoy your night. If she is always a flirt, you need to move on from her, she is trouble.
2) The old 'yelling at you for checking out another girl’s arse to see what you do’ test. a. To start with, try to avoid checking out other girls in her presence. This gives you integrity and a style above others. If she does lose it without reason for doing so, she is likely insecure and looking for drama. Don’t yell back at her and calmly tell her to settle down. Smiling, tell her you are going to spank her when you get home if she doesn’t behave. This should defuse it, by getting a laugh and she may just want you to spank her! :-]
3) The horrible and dreaded 'canceling a date at the last moment for no reason' test. a. This is really disappointing isn’t it? You are about to walk out the door and she sends a sms Canceling. The most effective way to avoid this is to mention that one of the worst things women can do is to not show up and cancel dates. If you state this when you arrange for a meeting, it does help
prevent it from happening. We are all busy and need to plan ahead to be effective. However be careful not to write her off as she may have a legit reason for it happening. If it happens twice in a row, she’s gone…don’t put up with it!
4) The worst one of all, 'getting you really turned on while making out but then saying no to see if you really respect me' test.
The toughest one of all. Best to back off a little and be calm about it. Don’t sulk or push it. Just relax and have a bit of fun somehow. If you are cool about it and she can see that you aren’t stressed, she’ll likely relax and you have passed the test. Then just gently start making out again.
Chances are you have proven that you respect her by remaining calm and playful. There you have it. You will be tested, that’s life, How we respond to it is the key… http://www.howtomeetwomenontheinternet.com Mick has cut his teeth on the front line of the online dating battlefields. After many wounds and scars, he now has consistent success! You can too, to sign up to his free newsletter, subscribe box is on our home page at http://www.howtomeetwomenontheinternet.com
How Women Feel About Dating a Bald Man
There's one thing about baldness, it's neat". Don Herold
Although I can't speak for all women, I can unequivocally state that I find bald men very attractive. Chronologically, I am past middle age, although inside, I'm young at heart. Most of the men in my age group are naturally bald. It looks fine, it's quite acceptable.
In fact, when I see a man over fifty with a full head of hair, it's a definite red flag. Either he's wearing a toupee, which signifies a vain personality, or he's been blessed by inheriting a anti-baldness gene from his ancestors. Because of this happy circumstance, he's likely convinced himself that he's the handsomest fellow in the group, and that all the women in the room are most anxious to make his acquaintance.
After all, what's the use of being devastatingly attractive to the opposite sex, if you can't enjoy your popularity? Ladies, believe me, you don't need the aggravation this character will give you, especially during or after middle age!
A vain man around retirement age can be a headache to any woman unfortunate enough to be married to him. Now, he'll have lots of time to spend on hobbies, such as improving his appearance even more. Have you checked the price of good toupees lately? Out of sight!
Not only that, but he'll be anxious to buy high quality leisure wear to complement his fine head of hair, in his new more carefree and relaxed lifestyle.
With all the new clothes, he won't be anxious to stay home. You'll be off on a mad whirl of social activities. Unless you're a kindred spirit who enjoys the social merry-go-round too, in a month or so, you'll be wishing you could go back to work to get a rest.
However, if you're like me, and looked forward to retirement as a time to lounge around in your scrubbies, read, write, sleep in, and play wish the grand kids, what you need is a nice, comfortable, bald mate. I hope you had the foresight to look ahead, during your courting days..
Actually, I can understand that younger women might not be anxious to date a man who is prematurely bald. This condition is due to inherited genetic factors, and the man has no more control over it than he has over his eye color. There are treatments available for baldness, but they are likely to be expensive, painful, and of dubious effectiveness.
I would only advise young ladies in this situation to look beneath the surface. See the personality of the man underneath. Is he loving, gentle, and kind? Is he intelligent with a good sense of humor? Will he be a good father? These are the qualities that last.
These are the attributes that will make you happy throughout your working life, into retirement and beyond. If you're smart you'll grab him before someone else does.
After reading this piece, you'll probably guess that my husband is bald. He is. I was one of the lucky ones.
I tell him that he is so intelligent, that all the grey matter pushed those hair follicles right out of his head. As I stated before, I find bald men very attractive.
"Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur." Matthew Arnold
Although I can't speak for all women, I can unequivocally state that I find bald men very attractive. Chronologically, I am past middle age, although inside, I'm young at heart. Most of the men in my age group are naturally bald. It looks fine, it's quite acceptable.
In fact, when I see a man over fifty with a full head of hair, it's a definite red flag. Either he's wearing a toupee, which signifies a vain personality, or he's been blessed by inheriting a anti-baldness gene from his ancestors. Because of this happy circumstance, he's likely convinced himself that he's the handsomest fellow in the group, and that all the women in the room are most anxious to make his acquaintance.
After all, what's the use of being devastatingly attractive to the opposite sex, if you can't enjoy your popularity? Ladies, believe me, you don't need the aggravation this character will give you, especially during or after middle age!
A vain man around retirement age can be a headache to any woman unfortunate enough to be married to him. Now, he'll have lots of time to spend on hobbies, such as improving his appearance even more. Have you checked the price of good toupees lately? Out of sight!
Not only that, but he'll be anxious to buy high quality leisure wear to complement his fine head of hair, in his new more carefree and relaxed lifestyle.
With all the new clothes, he won't be anxious to stay home. You'll be off on a mad whirl of social activities. Unless you're a kindred spirit who enjoys the social merry-go-round too, in a month or so, you'll be wishing you could go back to work to get a rest.
However, if you're like me, and looked forward to retirement as a time to lounge around in your scrubbies, read, write, sleep in, and play wish the grand kids, what you need is a nice, comfortable, bald mate. I hope you had the foresight to look ahead, during your courting days..
Actually, I can understand that younger women might not be anxious to date a man who is prematurely bald. This condition is due to inherited genetic factors, and the man has no more control over it than he has over his eye color. There are treatments available for baldness, but they are likely to be expensive, painful, and of dubious effectiveness.
I would only advise young ladies in this situation to look beneath the surface. See the personality of the man underneath. Is he loving, gentle, and kind? Is he intelligent with a good sense of humor? Will he be a good father? These are the qualities that last.
These are the attributes that will make you happy throughout your working life, into retirement and beyond. If you're smart you'll grab him before someone else does.
After reading this piece, you'll probably guess that my husband is bald. He is. I was one of the lucky ones.
I tell him that he is so intelligent, that all the grey matter pushed those hair follicles right out of his head. As I stated before, I find bald men very attractive.
"Bald as the bare mountain tops are bald, with a baldness full of grandeur." Matthew Arnold
When Should I Have Sex with My New Boyfriend or Girlfriend? Five Love Tips For New Lovers
Deciding to have or not to have sex together is a very personal and important decision in a new relationship. Do what you like, but here is what I know- fools rush in! Many people feel social pressures of "Sex in the City" types of relationships. That's TV.
This is your life! First, you must decide if you are looking for a long-term relationship, or a short-term fling. That can guide your sexual decisions and actions. In the meantime, here are five love tips for you to review. I hope they will help you.
Love Tip 1: Men don't respect women who are too sexually available too soon. Women don't like men who are too pushy.
No matter what your date might say, men are taught to think poorly of women who have sex with them too soon. Women do not like to be pressured, and most men don't either.
Love Tip 2: Take your time and enjoy the ride!
There are so many fun things you can do- kissing, fooling around with your clothes on, etc. Enjoy the buildup! Dating is a process of getting to know each other.
Ask yourself if the chemistry is there, if you enjoy one another's company, if this is a person that you enjoy on many levels. The more compatible you are, the better the sex is likely to be. After all, anticipation is half the fun!
Love Tip 3: Be safe, be sure and be healthy!
It is important that you and your partner get health tested for STDs first. This protects you and them more. Still use condoms and precautions because you never know.
If you feel too embarrassed to talk about STDs or safer sex, then maybe it's too soon to be naked with the other person sharing the most intimate moments. Muster up the courage to have an open conversation about safer sex and testing. Safe sex gives you peace of mind and body.
Love Tip 4: I would say never have sex on the first date. This is a bad idea because of love tip #1. Ideally, I recommend waiting at least a month or two before having intercourse.
Some may not like this or think it's stupid, but think about it- when you have sex with someone it can be so powerful. Do you want to fall in love with Mr. or Ms. Right or Wrong? You need to consider if you are emotionally ready to take that next step.
Love Tip 5: If all you are looking for is a one night stand, then go for the sex right away. Just be careful and have the safest sex you can. Have fun- there's no judgment here!
If the person that you are looking for is any good for you, they will respect you enough to wait for you to be ready physically and emotionally.
There is an emotional component to sexuality and sensuality that can either bring us so close together in bliss or leave us heartbroken.
Since there are no hard and fast rules about sex, you will need to create your own. Stick to them and you will be glad that you did!
This is your life! First, you must decide if you are looking for a long-term relationship, or a short-term fling. That can guide your sexual decisions and actions. In the meantime, here are five love tips for you to review. I hope they will help you.
Love Tip 1: Men don't respect women who are too sexually available too soon. Women don't like men who are too pushy.
No matter what your date might say, men are taught to think poorly of women who have sex with them too soon. Women do not like to be pressured, and most men don't either.
Love Tip 2: Take your time and enjoy the ride!
There are so many fun things you can do- kissing, fooling around with your clothes on, etc. Enjoy the buildup! Dating is a process of getting to know each other.
Ask yourself if the chemistry is there, if you enjoy one another's company, if this is a person that you enjoy on many levels. The more compatible you are, the better the sex is likely to be. After all, anticipation is half the fun!
Love Tip 3: Be safe, be sure and be healthy!
It is important that you and your partner get health tested for STDs first. This protects you and them more. Still use condoms and precautions because you never know.
If you feel too embarrassed to talk about STDs or safer sex, then maybe it's too soon to be naked with the other person sharing the most intimate moments. Muster up the courage to have an open conversation about safer sex and testing. Safe sex gives you peace of mind and body.
Love Tip 4: I would say never have sex on the first date. This is a bad idea because of love tip #1. Ideally, I recommend waiting at least a month or two before having intercourse.
Some may not like this or think it's stupid, but think about it- when you have sex with someone it can be so powerful. Do you want to fall in love with Mr. or Ms. Right or Wrong? You need to consider if you are emotionally ready to take that next step.
Love Tip 5: If all you are looking for is a one night stand, then go for the sex right away. Just be careful and have the safest sex you can. Have fun- there's no judgment here!
If the person that you are looking for is any good for you, they will respect you enough to wait for you to be ready physically and emotionally.
There is an emotional component to sexuality and sensuality that can either bring us so close together in bliss or leave us heartbroken.
Since there are no hard and fast rules about sex, you will need to create your own. Stick to them and you will be glad that you did!
Courtship Tips For Women
Courtshipping is different to dating. Courting is more like being friends without the emotional or sexual involvement. If this sounds like something you would be interested in then read on for some great courtship tips.
"To court" actually prepares people for a healthy relationship/marriage, while dating subconsciously prepares people for a relationship/marriage without respect and commitment. Why is that? Let's find out.
Get To Know Him Based On Respect
The word "courting" can be labeled as dating by society, but we cannot compare apples with oranges they are two different things. Sex is almost always a given in a dating relationship.
In a dating relationship you may not really know the man you are with. He may seem evasive and not like to talk about himself. That is a red flag of dating. You may never meet his parents before the relationship crumbles? He may not care to meet your parents.
All you know about him is what he has told you. He probably has dated and had sex with several other women before you. Who knows if he has a venereal disease, AIDS, HIV - who knows.
Courtshipping is getting to know each other through respect of each other. Sex is never an issue and should never be. It is regarding yourself with respect and regarding him with respect.
The minute you become trapped in the sexual schemes of dating you have lost the battle with self-respect and you will get hurt. This is what dating is. Love them and dump them syndrome. But usually with dating there is really no love involved.
Who is this guy who suddenly shows up in your life? Is he considerate of your feelings or does he seem selfish and egotistical - only out for one thing? A man who genuinely likes you will behave respectful. He will respect you for who you are, not for what you can do for him or what he can receive from you.
Let Him Get To Know You Based On Respect
Be honest about who you are, right from the start. Don't beat around the bush, letting him think you will have sex with him. Let him know right off the bat that no sex is one of your boundaries and you will not give in.
If he walks away, great. If he decides to stay for the ride, that's great too, but certainly doesn't mean he is a good guy. Tread lightly by only being friends.
It's ok to talk about yourself and your likes and dislikes. Talk about what you feel comfortable about divulging, but do not play on his ego and give him any private information that will involve the two of you emotionally.
Don't let him be the savior / hero who comes into to rescue you from something going on in your life. Don't get personal with him about your problems or family until you can see that he can be trusted. Some things are left unsaid until the relationship evolves from just friends to trusted friends.
Don't Give In Sexually
If a man really, really cares for you and is serious about you as a possible marriage prospect he will respect your boundaries and not ask you for sex. So don't ever put yourself in a situation where either one of you will become tempted and give in because that could ruin the relationship.
This means that you should probably never go out alone together but always bring a sister, brother, mother, or another friend or couple to come a long with you. This is preferable and practical in a courting relationship.
Temptation can be hard to overcome, especially if we tell ourselves there is really nothing wrong with having sex with someone we have known for months. If you break the courtship rules and have sex it will change the relationship immensely.
It will change your attitude towards one another it will begin to cause numerous problems within the purity of the relationship that could harm it considerably. Jealousy, suspicion, control, resentment, and all kinds of negative emotions begin to play out because now you are just dating. That's what dating is.
Don't Get Emotionally Involved
The minute you allow your emotions to rule a relationship you're now dating. Dating is a negative sexual agenda that almost always ends negatively, even if you happen to get married.
Couples who have dated many partners before marriage aren't prepared for marriage because they really do not understand the difference between dating and marriage.
Courtshipping is about respect and commitment, and getting to know someone better for the prospect of a possible marriage partner. It is not to see what you can get from a relationship, but rather what the relationship can become.
"To court" actually prepares people for a healthy relationship/marriage, while dating subconsciously prepares people for a relationship/marriage without respect and commitment. Why is that? Let's find out.
Get To Know Him Based On Respect
The word "courting" can be labeled as dating by society, but we cannot compare apples with oranges they are two different things. Sex is almost always a given in a dating relationship.
In a dating relationship you may not really know the man you are with. He may seem evasive and not like to talk about himself. That is a red flag of dating. You may never meet his parents before the relationship crumbles? He may not care to meet your parents.
All you know about him is what he has told you. He probably has dated and had sex with several other women before you. Who knows if he has a venereal disease, AIDS, HIV - who knows.
Courtshipping is getting to know each other through respect of each other. Sex is never an issue and should never be. It is regarding yourself with respect and regarding him with respect.
The minute you become trapped in the sexual schemes of dating you have lost the battle with self-respect and you will get hurt. This is what dating is. Love them and dump them syndrome. But usually with dating there is really no love involved.
Who is this guy who suddenly shows up in your life? Is he considerate of your feelings or does he seem selfish and egotistical - only out for one thing? A man who genuinely likes you will behave respectful. He will respect you for who you are, not for what you can do for him or what he can receive from you.
Let Him Get To Know You Based On Respect
Be honest about who you are, right from the start. Don't beat around the bush, letting him think you will have sex with him. Let him know right off the bat that no sex is one of your boundaries and you will not give in.
If he walks away, great. If he decides to stay for the ride, that's great too, but certainly doesn't mean he is a good guy. Tread lightly by only being friends.
It's ok to talk about yourself and your likes and dislikes. Talk about what you feel comfortable about divulging, but do not play on his ego and give him any private information that will involve the two of you emotionally.
Don't let him be the savior / hero who comes into to rescue you from something going on in your life. Don't get personal with him about your problems or family until you can see that he can be trusted. Some things are left unsaid until the relationship evolves from just friends to trusted friends.
Don't Give In Sexually
If a man really, really cares for you and is serious about you as a possible marriage prospect he will respect your boundaries and not ask you for sex. So don't ever put yourself in a situation where either one of you will become tempted and give in because that could ruin the relationship.
This means that you should probably never go out alone together but always bring a sister, brother, mother, or another friend or couple to come a long with you. This is preferable and practical in a courting relationship.
Temptation can be hard to overcome, especially if we tell ourselves there is really nothing wrong with having sex with someone we have known for months. If you break the courtship rules and have sex it will change the relationship immensely.
It will change your attitude towards one another it will begin to cause numerous problems within the purity of the relationship that could harm it considerably. Jealousy, suspicion, control, resentment, and all kinds of negative emotions begin to play out because now you are just dating. That's what dating is.
Don't Get Emotionally Involved
The minute you allow your emotions to rule a relationship you're now dating. Dating is a negative sexual agenda that almost always ends negatively, even if you happen to get married.
Couples who have dated many partners before marriage aren't prepared for marriage because they really do not understand the difference between dating and marriage.
Courtshipping is about respect and commitment, and getting to know someone better for the prospect of a possible marriage partner. It is not to see what you can get from a relationship, but rather what the relationship can become.
Tips For a More Exciting Relationship
Most relationships are very exciting in the beginning but if you have been in your current relationship for awhile already you may have noticed that the initial excitement you experienced is starting to waiver and you and your partner may be settling into a dull routine.
As a relationship progresses one or both partners may be guilty of settling into complacency and may not strive to keep the element of excitement in their relationship. The following are a few tips for ensuring that your relationship stays as exciting as it was in the beginning.
Sometimes hypnotherapy is the perfect tool for empowerment. This means that your first task will be to develop a very positive relationship with yourself. Once you are feeling comfortable and happy with yourself. others will start to feel very comfortable with you.
Never underestimate the value of spontaneity in a relationship. Too often relationships lose their excitement because the mates fall into a routine that becomes boring as time goes by. Don’t be afraid to suggest new activities in your relationship or to try new things on a whim.
Being spontaneous doesn’t have to involve big decisions it can be as simple as picking up something new at the grocery store and trying a new recipe for dinner. Whatever you do, just let your instincts take over for a minute instead of relying on rationality.
Anything you do that is spontaneous may not work out as well as if you had planned out every last detail but just go with the flow and you’ll find your relationship taking a turn for the better.
Exploring a new location together is another way to bring the excitement back into your relationship. Whether you plan an elaborate trip to an exotic location or just take the bus to a nearby city that you have never visited your adventure together will help spice up your romance.
Take your time exploring the new location and enjoy the foods and atmosphere that the new place has to offer. Exploring new cities can help bring the thrill back to your relationship.
Still another way to spice up a waning relationship is to sign up for an instructional class together such as a cooking, dancing or pottery class. Working together to learn a new skill will draw the two of you closer as you strive to accomplish a goal together. A class will enable you and your partner to interact in a new way. This new interaction will help to pull you out of a rut.
Spending a night at a hotel is another way to restore the excitement in your relationship. Intimacy is very important in a relationship and if you and your partner have found that this aspect of your relationship has lost it’s spice, it’s time to shake things up a bit.
Choose a romantic hotel, preferably one with a cozy restaurant. Begin by having a wonderful candlelight dinner in the restaurant and then proceed to the room that you have reserved. Setting the mood with candles and dim lighting is also suggested. A night in a different location such as a romantic hotel will go a long way towards rekindling your intimate relationship.
Another way to bring the excitement back into your relationship is to set up a date night. While you may see each other daily and even go out to dinner every Friday night, setting up a date night outside of your usual schedule will enhance your relationship.
Don’t just schedule a night to go out to dinner but treat each of these date nights as if they were first dates. Go all out getting yourself dressed up and take special care in your appearance.
Prepare for your date night as if you were really trying to make a good first impression. Going out of your way to have at least one night of fun and romance a week will help add a little zing to your relationship.
Giving your mate gifts for no reason at all is another way to get your relationship back on track. You may have lavished gifts on your partner early in the relationship but as the relationship progressed you may not have done so as frequently.
Small, meaningful gifts given just to make your partner happy will let them know that they are still always on your mind just as they were in the beginning of the relationship.
The simple act of holding hands can also add excitement back into a relationship. This intimate gesture conveys a sense of security but it also lets your partner know that you want to be close to them at all times.
Many couples hold hands everywhere they go early in a relationship but don’t do so later on. Try grabbing your partners hand as you are out running errands together. They will be touched by the sentiment and will be happy to be sharing a sense of closeness with you again.
A kiss is still another way to bring the excitement back into your relationship. You may have gotten into the habit of giving your mate a kiss on the cheek or a quick peck on the lips when you see them after a long day of work.
Trying kissing them with passion the next time you see them to catch them by surprise and really let you know not only how much you love them but how attractive you find them as well.
Having a common interest can also promote excitement in a relationship. If there is an activity that you both enjoy doing, make it something that the two of you do together often.
For example if you both enjoy hiking make plans to go hiking every Saturday morning and each time you go out make it a little different by exploring a new location or setting new goals for yourselves.
This will give the two of you a chance to reconnect while enjoying each other’s company. Having a ritualistic activity that you and your partner enjoy together creates closeness and intimacy that can help put the excitement back into your relationship.
Offering your partner a massage when they are worn out and tired can also bring the excitement back to your relationship. A massage can be a very sensual and intimate experience.
Additionally offering a massage lets your partner know that you can see that they are stressed out and exhausted. They will appreciate your putting them first in the relationship and this will help bring back the excitement in your relationship.
Over time a relationship may lose some of the excitement that it had in the very beginning. While this may be troublesome it is also completely normal and also reversible.
Noticing the lack of excitement in your relationship is the first step to restoring that excitement. It may take a little work but with a few simple actions you can be on your way to an exciting relationship.
As a relationship progresses one or both partners may be guilty of settling into complacency and may not strive to keep the element of excitement in their relationship. The following are a few tips for ensuring that your relationship stays as exciting as it was in the beginning.
Sometimes hypnotherapy is the perfect tool for empowerment. This means that your first task will be to develop a very positive relationship with yourself. Once you are feeling comfortable and happy with yourself. others will start to feel very comfortable with you.
Never underestimate the value of spontaneity in a relationship. Too often relationships lose their excitement because the mates fall into a routine that becomes boring as time goes by. Don’t be afraid to suggest new activities in your relationship or to try new things on a whim.
Being spontaneous doesn’t have to involve big decisions it can be as simple as picking up something new at the grocery store and trying a new recipe for dinner. Whatever you do, just let your instincts take over for a minute instead of relying on rationality.
Anything you do that is spontaneous may not work out as well as if you had planned out every last detail but just go with the flow and you’ll find your relationship taking a turn for the better.
Exploring a new location together is another way to bring the excitement back into your relationship. Whether you plan an elaborate trip to an exotic location or just take the bus to a nearby city that you have never visited your adventure together will help spice up your romance.
Take your time exploring the new location and enjoy the foods and atmosphere that the new place has to offer. Exploring new cities can help bring the thrill back to your relationship.
Still another way to spice up a waning relationship is to sign up for an instructional class together such as a cooking, dancing or pottery class. Working together to learn a new skill will draw the two of you closer as you strive to accomplish a goal together. A class will enable you and your partner to interact in a new way. This new interaction will help to pull you out of a rut.
Spending a night at a hotel is another way to restore the excitement in your relationship. Intimacy is very important in a relationship and if you and your partner have found that this aspect of your relationship has lost it’s spice, it’s time to shake things up a bit.
Choose a romantic hotel, preferably one with a cozy restaurant. Begin by having a wonderful candlelight dinner in the restaurant and then proceed to the room that you have reserved. Setting the mood with candles and dim lighting is also suggested. A night in a different location such as a romantic hotel will go a long way towards rekindling your intimate relationship.
Another way to bring the excitement back into your relationship is to set up a date night. While you may see each other daily and even go out to dinner every Friday night, setting up a date night outside of your usual schedule will enhance your relationship.
Don’t just schedule a night to go out to dinner but treat each of these date nights as if they were first dates. Go all out getting yourself dressed up and take special care in your appearance.
Prepare for your date night as if you were really trying to make a good first impression. Going out of your way to have at least one night of fun and romance a week will help add a little zing to your relationship.
Giving your mate gifts for no reason at all is another way to get your relationship back on track. You may have lavished gifts on your partner early in the relationship but as the relationship progressed you may not have done so as frequently.
Small, meaningful gifts given just to make your partner happy will let them know that they are still always on your mind just as they were in the beginning of the relationship.
The simple act of holding hands can also add excitement back into a relationship. This intimate gesture conveys a sense of security but it also lets your partner know that you want to be close to them at all times.
Many couples hold hands everywhere they go early in a relationship but don’t do so later on. Try grabbing your partners hand as you are out running errands together. They will be touched by the sentiment and will be happy to be sharing a sense of closeness with you again.
A kiss is still another way to bring the excitement back into your relationship. You may have gotten into the habit of giving your mate a kiss on the cheek or a quick peck on the lips when you see them after a long day of work.
Trying kissing them with passion the next time you see them to catch them by surprise and really let you know not only how much you love them but how attractive you find them as well.
Having a common interest can also promote excitement in a relationship. If there is an activity that you both enjoy doing, make it something that the two of you do together often.
For example if you both enjoy hiking make plans to go hiking every Saturday morning and each time you go out make it a little different by exploring a new location or setting new goals for yourselves.
This will give the two of you a chance to reconnect while enjoying each other’s company. Having a ritualistic activity that you and your partner enjoy together creates closeness and intimacy that can help put the excitement back into your relationship.
Offering your partner a massage when they are worn out and tired can also bring the excitement back to your relationship. A massage can be a very sensual and intimate experience.
Additionally offering a massage lets your partner know that you can see that they are stressed out and exhausted. They will appreciate your putting them first in the relationship and this will help bring back the excitement in your relationship.
Over time a relationship may lose some of the excitement that it had in the very beginning. While this may be troublesome it is also completely normal and also reversible.
Noticing the lack of excitement in your relationship is the first step to restoring that excitement. It may take a little work but with a few simple actions you can be on your way to an exciting relationship.
Overcome Shyness Around Girls – Tips to Overcome Shyness When Dating With Women
If you’re a guy who can’t seem to overcome shyness around girls (or with any people for that matter), then you might have social phobia; but this shouldn’t be an obstacle for you to get a date and have a great time.
All it takes is for you to overcome shyness around girls – then you just might score that first date.
A few questions to test if you have social phobia:
1. Are you having trouble walking up or do you feel utterly stupid whenever you approach the girl you’ve always wanted to date?
2. Do you stumble and stutter at every sentence, yet anyone else seems to know all the right words to melt the ladies’ hearts?
If you need to know the details about your failure to communicate with the other sex… then you must overcome your shyness around girls.
Here are some great tips to help you conquer your dating shyness and have a great time. You do realize you should learn all this by heart, right?
1. Girls are not all crazy about muscles and that Tom Cruise smile. What you say counts. Yes, your thought content, your witty remarks…even a lopsided grin or that awkward stance, can attract girls – believe it or not.
Some girls like boys with substance, so if you’re shy because you’re not that confident about your looks, you can still be a girl magnet!
2. Humor gets you everywhere! If you feel uncomfortable approaching a girl or starting a conversation, use a funny remark to ease off the tension.
A female friend of mine said it could be “quite cute watching a guy squirm in his seat while he thinks of the right things to say."
3. Accept who you are. If you don’t like yourself that much, why would women find reasons to like you? Don’t overdo it though.
You might end up overcoming your shyness around girls but you might also end up being a complete big-head!
4. Be a gentleman. See? This doesn’t require you to be a great entertainer or a darn good conversationalist.
Open the door, pull the chair…these simple things does score you points…even if you haven’t said a word yet.
Follow these tips to overcome your shyness around girls and you will find that dating can be as easy as taking candy from a baby. Happy dating!
Michael Lee teaches powerful free tips to overcome shyness and other success strategies to dramatically transform your life at http://www.20daypersuasion.com/articlelist.html
All it takes is for you to overcome shyness around girls – then you just might score that first date.
A few questions to test if you have social phobia:
1. Are you having trouble walking up or do you feel utterly stupid whenever you approach the girl you’ve always wanted to date?
2. Do you stumble and stutter at every sentence, yet anyone else seems to know all the right words to melt the ladies’ hearts?
If you need to know the details about your failure to communicate with the other sex… then you must overcome your shyness around girls.
Here are some great tips to help you conquer your dating shyness and have a great time. You do realize you should learn all this by heart, right?
1. Girls are not all crazy about muscles and that Tom Cruise smile. What you say counts. Yes, your thought content, your witty remarks…even a lopsided grin or that awkward stance, can attract girls – believe it or not.
Some girls like boys with substance, so if you’re shy because you’re not that confident about your looks, you can still be a girl magnet!
2. Humor gets you everywhere! If you feel uncomfortable approaching a girl or starting a conversation, use a funny remark to ease off the tension.
A female friend of mine said it could be “quite cute watching a guy squirm in his seat while he thinks of the right things to say."
3. Accept who you are. If you don’t like yourself that much, why would women find reasons to like you? Don’t overdo it though.
You might end up overcoming your shyness around girls but you might also end up being a complete big-head!
4. Be a gentleman. See? This doesn’t require you to be a great entertainer or a darn good conversationalist.
Open the door, pull the chair…these simple things does score you points…even if you haven’t said a word yet.
Follow these tips to overcome your shyness around girls and you will find that dating can be as easy as taking candy from a baby. Happy dating!
Michael Lee teaches powerful free tips to overcome shyness and other success strategies to dramatically transform your life at http://www.20daypersuasion.com/articlelist.html
Tips for Getting a Date
"The best way to find your perfect match is to meet love halfway." Anonymous
Whether for the first time or the twenty-first, you find yourself alone, footloose and fancy-free.
You begin to feel a longing for a significant-other, a friend and confidant, perhaps even a soul mate to share your life and love for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. Once a liaison starts, you can never tell how it will progress or where it will end.
You very much wish to have a date, but you're realistic enough to realize you won't find one by wishing. Here are some practical suggestions to help you achieve your goal.
* Advertise. Tell family, friends and colleagues at work that you're ready to start dating. Ask them to keep an eye out for a suitable candidate. Give a general idea of the type of person you're looking for: age parameters. interests, religion and any other qualifications you consider important.
* Check your personal hygiene and appearance. Get a haircut, shower frequently, dress neatly, use cologne sparingly so that you always smell good, but not overwhelmingly so.
* Listen to the news, read the papers, and watch the most popular TV shows and movies so you will have interesting conversational tidbits at hand for discussion.
* Go to places where the person you'd like to meet is likely to be: the library, sporting events, the theatre, or church services. An early-morning visit to the neighborhood coffee shop will often reveal many business people taking short caffeine breaks on their way to work.
* You might try an Internet dating site, but be very cautious. There is no guarantee that the person to whom you may be talking is telling the truth, or even that they're the same sex or age that they're pretending to be.
* Find a single friend of the same sex and go places together: singles' dances, groups for single parents (if you have children), community events, anywhere where people gather to relax and have fun. Your one-and-only is out there somewhere, but you have to be visible and alert in order to make contact.
* Get a pet and take it for walks in your neighborhood and nearby parks. A cute puppy or kitten in a harness is a real magnet for animal lovers, if that's what you'd like.
* If you're a single parent, visiting favorite children's parks, MacDonald's, fireworks displays, parades and other places popular with the younger set, will result in meeting other single parents as the kids start to interact. Children have fewer inhibitions than their elders.
* When you spot someone who looks interesting, approach with a smile and an appropriate, non-threatening comment. It doesn't matter if you're male or female; this is the twenty-first century, and women's lib is the order of the day.
* Be confident, friendly, and comfortable in your skin. Don't rush into anything, converse for a while, using proper grammar, with no crudeness or swearing. If both of you seem to enjoy the interlude, ask if s/he would like to talk again, perhaps later this week or next, at the same place.
* At the next meeting, you might agree to going for coffee sometime to get to know each other better. If the idea is met with acceptance, suggest a specific time and place.
* After the coffee date, if all goes well, phone numbers may be exchanged and the relationship, if it is meant to be, will proceed from there.
It seldom happens that you find your one-and-only on the first try. However, with every experience you learn and grow. You find out more about yourself, specifically what qualities in another really appeal to you.
You learn how to relate to others in a dating situation, how and what to share and when, and what qualities and characteristics in another person you cannot tolerate. All this is is valuable information as you continue to seek for Miss or Mr. Right.
So get on with the quest and enjoy it. While dating is an important and a serious activity as you search for your lifetime partner, you'll probably discover that it can also be a heck of a lot fun!
Whether for the first time or the twenty-first, you find yourself alone, footloose and fancy-free.
You begin to feel a longing for a significant-other, a friend and confidant, perhaps even a soul mate to share your life and love for the foreseeable future and perhaps beyond. Once a liaison starts, you can never tell how it will progress or where it will end.
You very much wish to have a date, but you're realistic enough to realize you won't find one by wishing. Here are some practical suggestions to help you achieve your goal.
* Advertise. Tell family, friends and colleagues at work that you're ready to start dating. Ask them to keep an eye out for a suitable candidate. Give a general idea of the type of person you're looking for: age parameters. interests, religion and any other qualifications you consider important.
* Check your personal hygiene and appearance. Get a haircut, shower frequently, dress neatly, use cologne sparingly so that you always smell good, but not overwhelmingly so.
* Listen to the news, read the papers, and watch the most popular TV shows and movies so you will have interesting conversational tidbits at hand for discussion.
* Go to places where the person you'd like to meet is likely to be: the library, sporting events, the theatre, or church services. An early-morning visit to the neighborhood coffee shop will often reveal many business people taking short caffeine breaks on their way to work.
* You might try an Internet dating site, but be very cautious. There is no guarantee that the person to whom you may be talking is telling the truth, or even that they're the same sex or age that they're pretending to be.
* Find a single friend of the same sex and go places together: singles' dances, groups for single parents (if you have children), community events, anywhere where people gather to relax and have fun. Your one-and-only is out there somewhere, but you have to be visible and alert in order to make contact.
* Get a pet and take it for walks in your neighborhood and nearby parks. A cute puppy or kitten in a harness is a real magnet for animal lovers, if that's what you'd like.
* If you're a single parent, visiting favorite children's parks, MacDonald's, fireworks displays, parades and other places popular with the younger set, will result in meeting other single parents as the kids start to interact. Children have fewer inhibitions than their elders.
* When you spot someone who looks interesting, approach with a smile and an appropriate, non-threatening comment. It doesn't matter if you're male or female; this is the twenty-first century, and women's lib is the order of the day.
* Be confident, friendly, and comfortable in your skin. Don't rush into anything, converse for a while, using proper grammar, with no crudeness or swearing. If both of you seem to enjoy the interlude, ask if s/he would like to talk again, perhaps later this week or next, at the same place.
* At the next meeting, you might agree to going for coffee sometime to get to know each other better. If the idea is met with acceptance, suggest a specific time and place.
* After the coffee date, if all goes well, phone numbers may be exchanged and the relationship, if it is meant to be, will proceed from there.
It seldom happens that you find your one-and-only on the first try. However, with every experience you learn and grow. You find out more about yourself, specifically what qualities in another really appeal to you.
You learn how to relate to others in a dating situation, how and what to share and when, and what qualities and characteristics in another person you cannot tolerate. All this is is valuable information as you continue to seek for Miss or Mr. Right.
So get on with the quest and enjoy it. While dating is an important and a serious activity as you search for your lifetime partner, you'll probably discover that it can also be a heck of a lot fun!
DATING VIOLENCE: Tips for Parents-Teens, Part 1
Is your teen one in three who will become a victim of dating violence?
Here are Ten Tips for Parents to talk with their teen about - you can empower your teen and here are some of the tools to help you.
Before I give you the first ten tips, there are some things you and your teen need to remember:
* You have the right to a healthy relationship.
* You deserve better. Do not put up with abuse.
* You are not alone. Teens from all backgrounds are in, have been in, or know someone in an abusive relationship.
* you have done nothing wrong. It is not your fault that your partner abuses you.
* The longer you stay in an abusive relationship, the more intense the violence will become. It does not get better over time.
* Being drunk or high is not an excuse for abuse.
* No one is justified in attacking you just because he or she is angry.
TIPS ON DATING VIOLENCE:
1. Abuse in a dating relationship can be confusing and frightening at any age. But for teenagers, who are just beginning to date and develop romantic relationships, this abuse is especially difficult.
2. Surveys show dating violence is not uncommon among teens. When the abuse is physical or sexual, it can be easy to identify. Emotional abuse is much harder to recognize, but no less damaging.
3. Dating violence can be tough to talk about honestly. It can be uncomfortable to bring up and embarrassing to acknowledge. But with dating violence a fact of life for many teen couples, we've got to break the silence.
4. Sometimes it's easier to explore thoughts and feelings using this kind of example than it is to talk about our own experiences.
A Typical Dating Violence Sceniro
Brenda is 15 and has never had a boyfriend before. She recently started dating Frank. She thinks he is so cute. Her friends all tell her how lucky she is because she has a boyfriend.
At first, Brenda thought it was sweet that Frank began calling her all the time. He always wants to know whom she is with, where she is, and when she'll be home. He has told her that she was meant to be with him and him only, forever.
Recently, Frank has started belittling her in front of his friends, insulting her, and telling her she is fat. He doesn't want her to spend time with certain of her friends - he thinks they are a bad influence.
He threatens to break up with her if she won't do what he says, and that no one else will ever want her. Brenda wants to make Frank happy. In fact, she'll do anything to keep her boyfriend. She things this is what being in a relationship is all about.
5. Relationship violence often starts as emotional or verbal abuse and can quickly escalate into physical or sexual violence. And although many teens know of at least one student who has been a victim of relationship violvence, most parents either don't know it exists or don't know it is an issue.
6. Relationship Violence is a pattern of behavior used by someone to maintain control over his or her partner.
7. Relationship violence can take the form of verbal, physcial, emotional, or even sexual abuse.
8. Relationship Violence is not about getting angry or having a disagreement.
9. In an abusive relationship one partner is afraid of and intimidated by the other.
10. How often does it happen?
24% of female homicide victims are between 15 and 24 years old.
70% of severe injuries and deaths occuse when the victim is tryng to leave or has already left the relationship.
Relationhsip violence is the number one cause of injury to women between the ages of 15-44.
63% of boys ages 11-20 arrested for murder were arrested for murdering the man who was assualting their mother.
38% of date rape victims are young women between the ages of 14 and 17.
70% of pregnant teenagers are abused by their partners.
Be Safe & Empower Your Teen to Be Safe!
Linda "Eagle" Culbreth
Here are Ten Tips for Parents to talk with their teen about - you can empower your teen and here are some of the tools to help you.
Before I give you the first ten tips, there are some things you and your teen need to remember:
* You have the right to a healthy relationship.
* You deserve better. Do not put up with abuse.
* You are not alone. Teens from all backgrounds are in, have been in, or know someone in an abusive relationship.
* you have done nothing wrong. It is not your fault that your partner abuses you.
* The longer you stay in an abusive relationship, the more intense the violence will become. It does not get better over time.
* Being drunk or high is not an excuse for abuse.
* No one is justified in attacking you just because he or she is angry.
TIPS ON DATING VIOLENCE:
1. Abuse in a dating relationship can be confusing and frightening at any age. But for teenagers, who are just beginning to date and develop romantic relationships, this abuse is especially difficult.
2. Surveys show dating violence is not uncommon among teens. When the abuse is physical or sexual, it can be easy to identify. Emotional abuse is much harder to recognize, but no less damaging.
3. Dating violence can be tough to talk about honestly. It can be uncomfortable to bring up and embarrassing to acknowledge. But with dating violence a fact of life for many teen couples, we've got to break the silence.
4. Sometimes it's easier to explore thoughts and feelings using this kind of example than it is to talk about our own experiences.
A Typical Dating Violence Sceniro
Brenda is 15 and has never had a boyfriend before. She recently started dating Frank. She thinks he is so cute. Her friends all tell her how lucky she is because she has a boyfriend.
At first, Brenda thought it was sweet that Frank began calling her all the time. He always wants to know whom she is with, where she is, and when she'll be home. He has told her that she was meant to be with him and him only, forever.
Recently, Frank has started belittling her in front of his friends, insulting her, and telling her she is fat. He doesn't want her to spend time with certain of her friends - he thinks they are a bad influence.
He threatens to break up with her if she won't do what he says, and that no one else will ever want her. Brenda wants to make Frank happy. In fact, she'll do anything to keep her boyfriend. She things this is what being in a relationship is all about.
5. Relationship violence often starts as emotional or verbal abuse and can quickly escalate into physical or sexual violence. And although many teens know of at least one student who has been a victim of relationship violvence, most parents either don't know it exists or don't know it is an issue.
6. Relationship Violence is a pattern of behavior used by someone to maintain control over his or her partner.
7. Relationship violence can take the form of verbal, physcial, emotional, or even sexual abuse.
8. Relationship Violence is not about getting angry or having a disagreement.
9. In an abusive relationship one partner is afraid of and intimidated by the other.
10. How often does it happen?
24% of female homicide victims are between 15 and 24 years old.
70% of severe injuries and deaths occuse when the victim is tryng to leave or has already left the relationship.
Relationhsip violence is the number one cause of injury to women between the ages of 15-44.
63% of boys ages 11-20 arrested for murder were arrested for murdering the man who was assualting their mother.
38% of date rape victims are young women between the ages of 14 and 17.
70% of pregnant teenagers are abused by their partners.
Be Safe & Empower Your Teen to Be Safe!
Linda "Eagle" Culbreth
Dating in the new Millennium: A guide to technology and dating in 2006
Well, adult dating has certainly entered the new millennium. Whether it’s services like Dating on Demand, soon to be launched by Comcast Cable, Match.com or a chat room, lonely lookers are no longer limited to barroom banter while searching for their soul mate.
If alcohol is your forte’, grapedates.com can match you up with another wine enthusiast to smell the bouquet with video chats, video emails, and video blogs.
Heck, you can even send video flirts to someone’s cell phone! Those daters looking for a little something extra (or married dating) even have websites like AshleyMadison.com, which boasts “When Monogamy Becomes Monotony" and “For Women Seeking Romantic Affairs-and the men who want to fulfill them", to fill those few remaining waking hours.
On the flipside, SoulMatch.com and Christiansigles.com offer Christian dating, Mixedrace.com and Saltandpeppersingles.com offer interracial dating, and Gaymatchmaker.com and Bgay.com offer dating for same sex relationships. Dating services have come a long way since the early 90s, and it seems as if the sky’s the limit.
There are some free online dating websites out there, but most charge a fee if you want to have any kind of contact with other members. In fact, online dating accounted for more revenue on the internet in 2004-over $450 million in revenue-than any other form of pay for entertainment web services, excluding internet porn and internet gambling (Thompson, Technology Review, 108:8, 2004). Hmm, just where is all of this online dating headed?
In the future, will we simply wear our dating glasses (fashionable dating glasses, of course)-conveniently linked to our online dating profile-that tell us whose profile fits our own as we walk the beaches, malls, and clubs? The bigger question is, what do we truly want in a mate, and can someone know this when they are filling out an online dating service profile? I think technology has the potential to cut out diversity in relationships, and that could have some pretty serious consequences to the gene pool.
Sure, there are some basic human nature issues that should be the same in any relationship (like social versus antisocial, religious versus atheist), but I would hate to live with someone just like myself. Maybe a better profile would simply ask everything you know you cannot stand about other people or activities, and leave the rest of life negotiable.
Whether you are looking for teen dating or senior dating, you should always be open for new experiences and different avenues of thought. Thank goodness, we don’t all think, look, and act the same…how boring would that be? Leave your life open for some adventure and diverse thought and then fill out that dating ad.
Another issue that technology dating will have to address for individuals like myself is that of smell and hygiene. Am I just weird, or does this play a role for most people? If a person does not smell good or brush their teeth a few times a day, I could care less whether or not they like to walk the beach or candle lit dinners.
I know this may be shallow, but could I have a smell-o-phone please? The point is that as of 2005, dating and technology have yet to address all of the senses that face to face dating addresses, but who knows what the future may hold. Maybe one day we will enter our DNA readout into the singles dating profile and this will match us with our perfect mate.
That could be an interesting prospect, especially if this perfect mate doesn’t encompass the characteristics our socialization tells us to look for.
So…daters start your engines…or ready those computers, cell phones, and ipods because the future of dating will definitely encompass technology. I have just a few dating tips or dating advice to remember.
Be Cautious about personal information (I cannot stress this enough). Use good judgment and listen to your instincts (if something isn’t right in Denmark…end it now).
Take your time getting to know this person-don’t accelerate the process because you are lonely. If you decide to meet, make sure it is in public-preferably in familiar surroundings with friends around for backup (Listen to your friends’ impression of the person as well, because sometimes they will notice things you miss).
Most of all, do not sell yourself short for the need for companionship-a good dog is better than a bad relationship!
Danielle Peck is the partner and article writer for www.canfibre.com, a website that provides information and resources on personals, dating, and singles.
If alcohol is your forte’, grapedates.com can match you up with another wine enthusiast to smell the bouquet with video chats, video emails, and video blogs.
Heck, you can even send video flirts to someone’s cell phone! Those daters looking for a little something extra (or married dating) even have websites like AshleyMadison.com, which boasts “When Monogamy Becomes Monotony" and “For Women Seeking Romantic Affairs-and the men who want to fulfill them", to fill those few remaining waking hours.
On the flipside, SoulMatch.com and Christiansigles.com offer Christian dating, Mixedrace.com and Saltandpeppersingles.com offer interracial dating, and Gaymatchmaker.com and Bgay.com offer dating for same sex relationships. Dating services have come a long way since the early 90s, and it seems as if the sky’s the limit.
There are some free online dating websites out there, but most charge a fee if you want to have any kind of contact with other members. In fact, online dating accounted for more revenue on the internet in 2004-over $450 million in revenue-than any other form of pay for entertainment web services, excluding internet porn and internet gambling (Thompson, Technology Review, 108:8, 2004). Hmm, just where is all of this online dating headed?
In the future, will we simply wear our dating glasses (fashionable dating glasses, of course)-conveniently linked to our online dating profile-that tell us whose profile fits our own as we walk the beaches, malls, and clubs? The bigger question is, what do we truly want in a mate, and can someone know this when they are filling out an online dating service profile? I think technology has the potential to cut out diversity in relationships, and that could have some pretty serious consequences to the gene pool.
Sure, there are some basic human nature issues that should be the same in any relationship (like social versus antisocial, religious versus atheist), but I would hate to live with someone just like myself. Maybe a better profile would simply ask everything you know you cannot stand about other people or activities, and leave the rest of life negotiable.
Whether you are looking for teen dating or senior dating, you should always be open for new experiences and different avenues of thought. Thank goodness, we don’t all think, look, and act the same…how boring would that be? Leave your life open for some adventure and diverse thought and then fill out that dating ad.
Another issue that technology dating will have to address for individuals like myself is that of smell and hygiene. Am I just weird, or does this play a role for most people? If a person does not smell good or brush their teeth a few times a day, I could care less whether or not they like to walk the beach or candle lit dinners.
I know this may be shallow, but could I have a smell-o-phone please? The point is that as of 2005, dating and technology have yet to address all of the senses that face to face dating addresses, but who knows what the future may hold. Maybe one day we will enter our DNA readout into the singles dating profile and this will match us with our perfect mate.
That could be an interesting prospect, especially if this perfect mate doesn’t encompass the characteristics our socialization tells us to look for.
So…daters start your engines…or ready those computers, cell phones, and ipods because the future of dating will definitely encompass technology. I have just a few dating tips or dating advice to remember.
Be Cautious about personal information (I cannot stress this enough). Use good judgment and listen to your instincts (if something isn’t right in Denmark…end it now).
Take your time getting to know this person-don’t accelerate the process because you are lonely. If you decide to meet, make sure it is in public-preferably in familiar surroundings with friends around for backup (Listen to your friends’ impression of the person as well, because sometimes they will notice things you miss).
Most of all, do not sell yourself short for the need for companionship-a good dog is better than a bad relationship!
Danielle Peck is the partner and article writer for www.canfibre.com, a website that provides information and resources on personals, dating, and singles.
Dating Rules for Men – Hot Dating Tips to Win Her Heart
There are dating rules for men every red-blooded male ought to live by. Not only will these dating rules for men ensure your lady friend has an enjoyable evening, but they will also save you the embarrassment of committing dating faux pas later on. So before you thrust yourself head-on into the exciting and unpredictable world of dating, read on.
Dress to kill. Okay, maybe not quite, but do dress to impress. Throw on something decent and suitable for the occasion. A tux on a first date seems hardly appropriate, while too rugged a look may be off-putting.
Play it safe and go neutral. Smart casual is a good choice. Then work your way from there should the two of you decide to keep dating and are more comfortable with each other’s personal tastes.
Be hygienic. Sort out your tangled hair and get a decent haircut if time allows it. Go to good quality shops for decent cologne and a grooming kit. It can be time-consuming; but men are always criticized if they smell bad, so try to get into a regular shower routine so you can smell wonderful afterwards. A woman appreciates that.
Strive to improve at work as well. A man with ambition is appealing to women. Try to get some direction in your life. Get yourself on track with career opportunities. Women will question you about prospects at your work so you cannot pretend it is not important.
Try to be more mature. Getting your brain well fed is a plus. Humor is appreciated, but a woman prefers maturity. Do not let your love for sports be more of a priority than your lady.
Millions of women love sports, but ramming your love for it down her throat is not advisable. Many women are not interested about current gaming consoles, they may be more interested in traveling and how you think about the outside world.
Limit yourself if you drink too much booze. Being a drunken party-boy will never leave a positive impression with your date. If you happen to be a smoker, reduce the times you smoke; or better yet, quit smoking altogether.
Do not be aggressive on the first date. This is a horrible way to think. Being patient will lead you to the girl of your dreams. Learn to wait and try to find other ways where you can make a connection with your date. This is probably the most important dating rule for men.
A woman loves a man with brains. Having basic manners, chivalry and courtesy attracts women. They love to be treated with respect. Avoid bad language, laziness and rudeness.
Know how to be a gentleman who knows how to act properly with manners. Holding a door open for her is simple, yet women know it takes effort on your part. Be sensitive. Showing her a lot of respect is a great step forward.
Listen more; talk less. If it seems like you are ignoring her, her ego might get hurt. Try to listen to her when she speaks, women appreciate it if they know you are paying attention.
Here’s a unique dating rule for men: learn how to dance. Many women love to dance, so even if you have no dancing talent, at least give your best effort. Think of dancing as a romantic and sexy activity.
It does not matter if you dance badly - at least she is dancing with you rather than with someone else.
Learn these dating rules for men by heart and you’ll win hers before the night is over.
Dress to kill. Okay, maybe not quite, but do dress to impress. Throw on something decent and suitable for the occasion. A tux on a first date seems hardly appropriate, while too rugged a look may be off-putting.
Play it safe and go neutral. Smart casual is a good choice. Then work your way from there should the two of you decide to keep dating and are more comfortable with each other’s personal tastes.
Be hygienic. Sort out your tangled hair and get a decent haircut if time allows it. Go to good quality shops for decent cologne and a grooming kit. It can be time-consuming; but men are always criticized if they smell bad, so try to get into a regular shower routine so you can smell wonderful afterwards. A woman appreciates that.
Strive to improve at work as well. A man with ambition is appealing to women. Try to get some direction in your life. Get yourself on track with career opportunities. Women will question you about prospects at your work so you cannot pretend it is not important.
Try to be more mature. Getting your brain well fed is a plus. Humor is appreciated, but a woman prefers maturity. Do not let your love for sports be more of a priority than your lady.
Millions of women love sports, but ramming your love for it down her throat is not advisable. Many women are not interested about current gaming consoles, they may be more interested in traveling and how you think about the outside world.
Limit yourself if you drink too much booze. Being a drunken party-boy will never leave a positive impression with your date. If you happen to be a smoker, reduce the times you smoke; or better yet, quit smoking altogether.
Do not be aggressive on the first date. This is a horrible way to think. Being patient will lead you to the girl of your dreams. Learn to wait and try to find other ways where you can make a connection with your date. This is probably the most important dating rule for men.
A woman loves a man with brains. Having basic manners, chivalry and courtesy attracts women. They love to be treated with respect. Avoid bad language, laziness and rudeness.
Know how to be a gentleman who knows how to act properly with manners. Holding a door open for her is simple, yet women know it takes effort on your part. Be sensitive. Showing her a lot of respect is a great step forward.
Listen more; talk less. If it seems like you are ignoring her, her ego might get hurt. Try to listen to her when she speaks, women appreciate it if they know you are paying attention.
Here’s a unique dating rule for men: learn how to dance. Many women love to dance, so even if you have no dancing talent, at least give your best effort. Think of dancing as a romantic and sexy activity.
It does not matter if you dance badly - at least she is dancing with you rather than with someone else.
Learn these dating rules for men by heart and you’ll win hers before the night is over.
Dating Tips :: How To Ask A Girl Out On A Date
Probably the most common questions guys have about dating is. "How do I ask a girl out on a date?"
It can feel like complete torture to most men. Some guys would rather cut off their arm then go up to an attractive women, and see if they would like to go out sometime.
I have a solution to this problem for you guys. It will completely shock you with its simplicity. You ready?
Stop asking women out! (at least the way you have been)
When you ask a women out. She immediately gets into "date mode." She starts thinking about, the commitment, the awkward conversation, does she have time for a person in her life right now.
You might think, a women won't think about all that when the question arises. One thing you need to remember is, women think with their feelings, not their words.
There are a couple reasons you don't want to ask a women on a date.
When asking a girl out on a date, she will automatically see if she's attracted to you or not. She has to figure out her interest level in you in less then a minute.
What is it you need to know? A woman doesn't want to lead a guy on. But she also isn't sure if she is interested in you at that very moment. So when you see someone on the street and you ask for her number.
She will tend to say No. It doesn't necessarily mean you weren't her type. But you made her decide "On the Spot" if she wanted to give you her personal information.
Most women are not attracted to you immediately. Unless its on looks alone. If you rely on pure sex appeal, your really relying on "luck."
Here's the better approach.
Don't move so fast. Be patient.
What is the most relaxed environment for a date?
Going out to dinner. Where you both will have to be on your best behavior. Where the romantic setting will not allow you both to feel more at ease and casual.
Or, a fun environment such as an amusement park or sporting event. Somewhere where you both can let your guard down and have a little fun. So that you can really be yourself.
Keep this in your mind. The dinner might have more of an edge you were hoping for. But you need to keep HER needs in mind. It's about forgetting what you want. Long enough, that she can believe you will give her what SHE wants.
What you need to do is start low. If you meet a women on the street. Ask her if she has a few minutes for coffee or tea. Take the opportunity to get to know her. If she doesn't have time for a drink.
Then ask for her phone number and/or email address. Since she may not want to accept at this moment with such a casual invitiation for coffee/tea. She's more likely to agree to give out her contact information. Most likely, writing it down for you.
The main key is to come off as confident but fun. Even a little innocent teasing can be helpful so she doesn't feel too weirded out by giving you her personal information
It can feel like complete torture to most men. Some guys would rather cut off their arm then go up to an attractive women, and see if they would like to go out sometime.
I have a solution to this problem for you guys. It will completely shock you with its simplicity. You ready?
Stop asking women out! (at least the way you have been)
When you ask a women out. She immediately gets into "date mode." She starts thinking about, the commitment, the awkward conversation, does she have time for a person in her life right now.
You might think, a women won't think about all that when the question arises. One thing you need to remember is, women think with their feelings, not their words.
There are a couple reasons you don't want to ask a women on a date.
When asking a girl out on a date, she will automatically see if she's attracted to you or not. She has to figure out her interest level in you in less then a minute.
What is it you need to know? A woman doesn't want to lead a guy on. But she also isn't sure if she is interested in you at that very moment. So when you see someone on the street and you ask for her number.
She will tend to say No. It doesn't necessarily mean you weren't her type. But you made her decide "On the Spot" if she wanted to give you her personal information.
Most women are not attracted to you immediately. Unless its on looks alone. If you rely on pure sex appeal, your really relying on "luck."
Here's the better approach.
Don't move so fast. Be patient.
What is the most relaxed environment for a date?
Going out to dinner. Where you both will have to be on your best behavior. Where the romantic setting will not allow you both to feel more at ease and casual.
Or, a fun environment such as an amusement park or sporting event. Somewhere where you both can let your guard down and have a little fun. So that you can really be yourself.
Keep this in your mind. The dinner might have more of an edge you were hoping for. But you need to keep HER needs in mind. It's about forgetting what you want. Long enough, that she can believe you will give her what SHE wants.
What you need to do is start low. If you meet a women on the street. Ask her if she has a few minutes for coffee or tea. Take the opportunity to get to know her. If she doesn't have time for a drink.
Then ask for her phone number and/or email address. Since she may not want to accept at this moment with such a casual invitiation for coffee/tea. She's more likely to agree to give out her contact information. Most likely, writing it down for you.
The main key is to come off as confident but fun. Even a little innocent teasing can be helpful so she doesn't feel too weirded out by giving you her personal information
First Date Tips and Tricks
The first date: what to wear, where to go, what to say, what to do and what not to do. All this pressure to make a good first impression can be daunting. After all, you know practically nothing about each other and the whole point of a first date is to judge (as much as we don’t like to admit it) whether or not we think we’d like to get to know each other better.
But first dates don’t have to be elaborate or fancy in order for you to secure that coveted second or third date. There are some things you will want to do and others you will want to avoid on a first date to ensure its success and the possibility of future dates as well.
When it comes to dating, it seems everyone thinks they’re the expert to turn to for advice. Whether it’s your friends or your lovable aunts who constantly inquire about your love life, everyone has a dating tip for you.
But we all know what to do on a date, don’t we? Always have a smile, listen attentively, be yourself, have fun, and the list goes on. So, if everyone knows the tips for successful dating, then why do we go through so much trouble and anxiety about first dates? Maybe it’s because there is no set standard of rules anymore.
Once upon a time, chivalry was the norm. Nowadays, some women get offended when the door is held open or their seat is pulled out for them. Consequently, many single people are at a loss when it comes to knowing what to do and when to do it. And while there may not be an ultimate list of shoulds and should nots, there are still some common dating tips that everyone can agree on.
* It is important to be attentive to your date and this includes listening to what they are saying (and maybe throwing in a question or two) and maintaining eye contact when in a conversation.
* There is nothing worse than meeting your date and not knowing what you’re going to do. If you have something planned ahead of time, it shows you put some thought into it.
* If you go out for dinner, why not split the bill? Sure, you were invited out and your date is expected to pay but offer anyway. And if your date picks up the tab, offer to pay the next time.
* By all means, call your date if you say you’re going to call! If you didn’t have a good time then be courteous, and don’t promise to get in touch when you really have no intention of doing so.
* Be polite turn off your cell phone and stop the wandering eyes. There is nothing ruder than taking a casual call from a friend or ogling the waitress at the next table while your date is attempting to hold your attention.
* While talking about past relationships almost always comes up in conversation, don’t start telling your date every last detail they are not your therapist!
* And believe me, chivalry is not dead women do appreciate it, just don’t overdo it boys.
In this world of women’s independence, many are taking it upon themselves to ask the man out. And why not?! It shows confidence and is a turn-on for many men. Keep in mind though, confidence is sexy, arrogance is a turn off.
Many people will have a different answer when you ask them their opinion on whether or not a kiss is acceptable on the first date. Maybe all you want to do is hold hands or snuggle and save the kiss for another date.
It all depends on the chemistry between you and whether or not it feels right. And if it does, then go for it. Of course, if the date isn’t going well, feel free to end the date early with everyone’s favorite backup “emergency" phone call from a friend. Chances are if you’re not having a good time, neither is your date!
Hopefully, this has broadened your outlook on the world of “first dates". The whole point of a first date is to figure out if you want to get to know the person better. Remember, when it comes to dating and tips, just follow your instinct and no matter the outcome, have fun, enjoy yourself, and relax.
About the Author - Marisa Pellegrino is freelance journalist and a writer for a Montreal radio show called Passion, a program about dating, relationships, and sex. She is also the writer/webmaster for Dating Ideas (www.dating-idea.com) a website with advice about dating and relationships.
But first dates don’t have to be elaborate or fancy in order for you to secure that coveted second or third date. There are some things you will want to do and others you will want to avoid on a first date to ensure its success and the possibility of future dates as well.
When it comes to dating, it seems everyone thinks they’re the expert to turn to for advice. Whether it’s your friends or your lovable aunts who constantly inquire about your love life, everyone has a dating tip for you.
But we all know what to do on a date, don’t we? Always have a smile, listen attentively, be yourself, have fun, and the list goes on. So, if everyone knows the tips for successful dating, then why do we go through so much trouble and anxiety about first dates? Maybe it’s because there is no set standard of rules anymore.
Once upon a time, chivalry was the norm. Nowadays, some women get offended when the door is held open or their seat is pulled out for them. Consequently, many single people are at a loss when it comes to knowing what to do and when to do it. And while there may not be an ultimate list of shoulds and should nots, there are still some common dating tips that everyone can agree on.
* It is important to be attentive to your date and this includes listening to what they are saying (and maybe throwing in a question or two) and maintaining eye contact when in a conversation.
* There is nothing worse than meeting your date and not knowing what you’re going to do. If you have something planned ahead of time, it shows you put some thought into it.
* If you go out for dinner, why not split the bill? Sure, you were invited out and your date is expected to pay but offer anyway. And if your date picks up the tab, offer to pay the next time.
* By all means, call your date if you say you’re going to call! If you didn’t have a good time then be courteous, and don’t promise to get in touch when you really have no intention of doing so.
* Be polite turn off your cell phone and stop the wandering eyes. There is nothing ruder than taking a casual call from a friend or ogling the waitress at the next table while your date is attempting to hold your attention.
* While talking about past relationships almost always comes up in conversation, don’t start telling your date every last detail they are not your therapist!
* And believe me, chivalry is not dead women do appreciate it, just don’t overdo it boys.
In this world of women’s independence, many are taking it upon themselves to ask the man out. And why not?! It shows confidence and is a turn-on for many men. Keep in mind though, confidence is sexy, arrogance is a turn off.
Many people will have a different answer when you ask them their opinion on whether or not a kiss is acceptable on the first date. Maybe all you want to do is hold hands or snuggle and save the kiss for another date.
It all depends on the chemistry between you and whether or not it feels right. And if it does, then go for it. Of course, if the date isn’t going well, feel free to end the date early with everyone’s favorite backup “emergency" phone call from a friend. Chances are if you’re not having a good time, neither is your date!
Hopefully, this has broadened your outlook on the world of “first dates". The whole point of a first date is to figure out if you want to get to know the person better. Remember, when it comes to dating and tips, just follow your instinct and no matter the outcome, have fun, enjoy yourself, and relax.
About the Author - Marisa Pellegrino is freelance journalist and a writer for a Montreal radio show called Passion, a program about dating, relationships, and sex. She is also the writer/webmaster for Dating Ideas (www.dating-idea.com) a website with advice about dating and relationships.
All True Dating Tips For Men & Women (But Mainly For Rocks)
Dating can be a difficult task, a daunting challenge for men and women the world over. It becomes especially difficult when what you're trying to date is extremely ancient.
I'm not talking about romantic dates with seniors though, I don't have many tips there I'm afraid, although good personal hygiene and being a good listener will probably count in your favour.
I'm talking mainly about the dating of rocks. This isn't as romantic as the other kind of dating, but with both kinds there's a chance you'll get your rocks off.
At first, geologists didn't really have much to go on when it came to dating rocks, other than direct visual observation of the rocks themselves. Previously, it was widely thought that rocks had simply "always been there", since the beginning of time.
The early geologists noted that the content of rocks was, most of the time, different as you dug deeper down.
They also saw that new rock was typically laid down on top of existing rock (e.g. When volcanic lava spews out over existing rock and then solidifies on top of it, or when sediments are deposited on riverbeds).
This gave them the general idea that "deeper" rocks must usually (but not always) be older than rocks nearer the surface. This concept was later formalised by Nicholas Steno in the 17 th century as "The Law of Superposition".
Through patient observation and measurement, they determined that there were distinct "layers" of rock, and the same pattern of layers was present in many places around the world, allowing for a little regional variation.
This was the basis of lithologic stratigraphy the analysis of rock types and their positioning within layered strata, and how they came to be deposited in such a way.
The geologists began to recognise that the rock strata represented successive time periods. By looking at the position of rocks within the stratigraphic sequence, comparing their physical characteristics (colour, hardness, proportions of various minerals and crystal formations etc) and noting the types of fossils they contained, they were able to compare the ages of rocks from one place with rocks from another, and get a good idea of the ages of rocks relative to one another, wherever in the world they were found.
This also allowed them to estimate the relative age of rocks that had been knocked out of the conventional layered pattern (perhaps as a result of an Earthquake or by erosion and breaking off), by matching the characteristics (colour, hardness, mineral content etc) against nearby rock formations and "piecing together" the history.
Based on all these findings, the beginnings of a Geologic Time Scale started to emerge, and time-periods were given names. Some of them are shown on the diagram below.
While the position of a rock or fossil on the time scale (and thus its relative age compared to rocks and fossils from the other periods) could be confidently determined, the actual absolute ages could not.
The geologists could now sort rocks and fossils into date order, but they had no reliable way of knowing the actual age of any particular rock or fossil!
They could tell you that "Specimen A is older than B, and B is older than C" but they couldn't put an actual date on any of them, at least not with anything like reliable accuracy.
In the diagram above, they'd have been able to work out that the block on the right wasn't the same age as the rock immediately next to it.
By looking at its qualities (mineral content, hardness etc) and the fossils it contained, they could confidently deduce that it contained rock deposited in the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods and so was much younger than the Devonian, Silurian and Ordovician rock beside it.
They could also deduce, by the ordering of the layers, that it had flipped upside down as it fell.
They could, perhaps, have made a fairly confident bet that water had eroded the older rocks at the base of the cliff, leaving an overhang of Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic rock that then snapped, and turned upside down as it fell to the ground.
They could also have deduced that the water level must have been higher in the past.
But despite all that detective work giving them the history of events that lead to the scene depicted in the diagram, they couldn't be at all accurate on how many years ago any of the specific events occurred.
The reason for this was that the only ways they could estimate the absolute time-scales involved were all based on very variable phenomena erosion, weathering, sedimentation and lithification.
For example, they could measure the effects of erosion on contemporary rocks, and use that combined with the contemporary rates of sedimentation and lithification, to estimate the age of much older rocks, but to do that they had no choice but to assume a steady rate of erosion over time, which was not an assumption supported by the evidence even from measuring the erosion of contemporary rocks they could see that erosion did not always occur at a stead rate (and the same variability was found to occur when they measured the other phenomena as well).
Based on these variable phenomena, Arthur Holmes, in his 1913 book "The Age Of The Earth", estimated Earth to be "at least 1.6 billion years old".
He was right, but because of the variable nature of the factors he could measure, extrapolating them back in time gave a huge margin of error, so the best estimate he could arrive at was just a minimum age.
To get a good estimate of the actual age, you need to establish not just a minimum age, but also a maximum, and these need to be reasonably close together.
Let's look at an example on a more human time-scale:
If you only know someone's age as being "at least 5" that doesn't tell you a great deal about them. It let's rule out a few possible ages, but they could be a six-year old, or they could be ninety-six.
If you know someone's age as being "between 5 and 55" that's a little better we have an upper and lower boundary, so we know with confidence that their age falls in a certain range. However, this still leaves a wide range of possible ages, the largest being 11 times bigger than the smallest!
To get a useful understanding of something's age the upper and lower bounds need to be reasonably close together so that the window of possible ages isn't too wide to be useful.
But how can we establish an accurate age-window for something that could be millions, or even billions, of years old?
That is the tricky part, and for a long while we simply had no way to date rocks with any real accuracy, although geologists could confidently state most rocks had to be extremely old thousands or millions of years old at the very least.
What was needed was a reliable "clock", a clock that was started when the rock formed and which continued to "tick" steadily from that time all the way to the present.
That sounds like a tall order, but eventually it was discovered that natural processes had created exactly the kind of clock we needed to reliably date ancient rocks.
The "clock" is actually the decay of radioactive isotopes within the rock. Experimentation has shown us that radioactive decay occurs at predictable rates, which remain steady over the entire process of decay, and aren't changed by environmental factors.
There are a few exceptions to this with certain isotopes, but those aren't the ones used for radiometric dating and in any case the changes are only in the region of 1-2%.
Each particular radioactive isotope has its own specific "half life", which is the length of time it takes for half of the remaining radioactive isotope to have decayed into the decay product.
So if you had 1,000 units of the radioactive isotope and the half-life was 10 minutes, then you'd only have 500 units of it left 10 minutes later (and 500 units of the decay product*).
A further 10 minutes later you'd only have 250 units of it left (and 750 units of the decay product*), and so on.
* although if the decay product is also radioactive, that will begin to decay into its own decay product as well, but still at predictable rates so the dating can still be done, it just becomes more complicated to calculate as you need to take into account the ratios of all the decay products down the chain.
Obviously, something with a half-life of 10 minutes isn't going to be much use when it comes to dating rocks that are thousands, millions or billions of years old the quantity of the original radioactive isotope will have been halving every 10 minutes that whole time, so the amount left would be too tiny to measure (even if there were hundreds of tons of it when the rock formed just think: if you were given $1,000,000 but half of it was taken away every 10 minutes, after just 4 hours you'd have only 6 cents left!).
Fortunately there are lots of different radioactive isotopes present in rocks, and they each have different half-lives, so we can pick whichever one of those present gives us the most accurate result (they will all give compatible results, but some will have such large margins of error as to be virtually useless).
To get an accurate measurement, the half life has to be such that there will still be enough of the original radioactive isotope left (I.e not yet decayed) for us to measure accurately, and enough of the decay products produced so that we can measure their amount accurately too.
If there isn't sufficient quantity of original isotope AND decay product for us to measure accurately, we know we need to try again with a different isotope.
The more of the materials there are, the less significant the margin of error inherent in our measurement devices becomes (if you can measure to the nearest 10 particles for example, but your sample contains 44 particles, you would measure the number as 40, wrong by 10%. But if you had 4,004 particles, you'd measure the number as 4,000, wrong by only 0.1%).
The more accurately we can measure the amount of the original isotope remaining and the amount of the decay product present, the more accurately we can measure the ratio.
Once we know the ratio of original isotope to the decay product, we can calculate the age by working out how many "half lives" have occurred (it won't always be an integer) and multiplying this by the length of the half-life.
The actual equation used is D = D 0 + N(e t 1) , but I won't go into the mathematics here because logarithms hurt my brain.
Returning to the simplified example where we started with 1,000 units of the original isotope, and a half life of 10 minutes... if we measured our sample and found it had 125 units of the original isotope and 875 units of the decay product, we'd be able to calculate that it had halved 3 times, so three times the length of its half-life period must have passed since it was formed, which would be 30 minutes (in real-word examples it will almost never turn out to be an exact whole-number multiple of the half-life period like this).
The radioactive decay is the predictable, constant "tick" of the clock, but for us to be able to use that clock it needs to have been "zeroed" at the point the rock formed. Luckily that is exactly what happens. But how?
For each method of radiometric dating (two of the common ones for rocks are Potassium-Argon and Uranium-Lead, in each the first element decays into the second) there will be a specific closure temperature for each type of material they are in.
This means that above this temperature, when the rock is hot, the decay products of the radioactive isotope can diffuse out and escape. As the rock cools, the decay products are less able to diffuse out, and once the temperature has cooled to the closure temperature they are no longer able to diffuse out at all.
From that point on, any decay products produced are trapped in the rock rather than escaping out, zeroing the "clock" at that point (because all the decay products produced previously have been able to diffuse out, so we're starting with no decay).
This means we can measure the total amount of decay that has occurred since the rock cooled to the closure temperature from the ratio of the chosen radioactive isotope to its decay product left trapped in the rock and because we can calculate the precise length of time it takes for that amount of decay to occur, we can accurately determine the time that has passed since the rock hit the closure temperature, and hence its age.
But maybe the rates of radioactive decay have changed maybe they used to be a lot faster, which would make the rocks a lot younger than science says they are?
There's no evidence that the rates of radioactive decay have changed (either way - faster or slower), and our current models of physics indicate that they could not have changed noticeably over the time scale involved (even if we go with the older ages).
As there is no evidence to give us reason to speculate that the decay rates have changed, there is no reason to give that possibility much thought (although of course if new evidence became available then we'd have to re-evaluate things).
But here's a few reasons that support the evidence-based assumption that they have remained constant:
* the date estimates we get from radiometric dating are compatible with the date estimates from other, independent, dating methods (such as dendrochronology dating based on tree rings).
This means that if we wanted to contend that rates of radioactive decay had changed, we'd also have to assume that the unrelated factors used in other dating methods (such as the formation of tree rings) had also changed, and to the same degree, otherwise the different dating methods would not all produce the compatible estimates that they do. We'd have a very large number of co-incidences to explain!
* If physics had been so different in the past, we'd see evidence of this from astronomy, as looking into deep space is, quite literally, looking into the past.
This is due to the time it takes for light from distant objects to reach us when we look at an object 1,000 light years away, we are looking at it as it was 1,000 years ago! Astronomers have found no such evidence that might indicate the drastic changes to physical laws things look as they'd be expected to look if the physical laws had remained constant (at least over the time-scales involved with the various layers of rock).
As we get more and more pieces of the puzzle, we start to find that they fit together, but only in certain combinations.
When there is only one way they can all fit together (e.g. When several independent dating methods all point to the same approximate age), we can say with a good degree of confidence that we've put them together correctly, and we can be confident in what we see.
When we find certain pieces can't fit with certain others, we can deduce that at least one of them isn't right it isn't a piece of the jigsaw we're putting together (which is the jigsaw that shows how the world works).
When we look at the various forms of radiometric dating we find they will all give compatible results (that is, the age windows each form gives will overlap). When we compare radiometric dating with other, independent, forms of dating, we find the results each gives are compatible with each other.
When we have several independent methods all homing in on the same age (albeit each one giving different margins of error), we can be confident that age is a reliable estimate.
I'm not talking about romantic dates with seniors though, I don't have many tips there I'm afraid, although good personal hygiene and being a good listener will probably count in your favour.
I'm talking mainly about the dating of rocks. This isn't as romantic as the other kind of dating, but with both kinds there's a chance you'll get your rocks off.
At first, geologists didn't really have much to go on when it came to dating rocks, other than direct visual observation of the rocks themselves. Previously, it was widely thought that rocks had simply "always been there", since the beginning of time.
The early geologists noted that the content of rocks was, most of the time, different as you dug deeper down.
They also saw that new rock was typically laid down on top of existing rock (e.g. When volcanic lava spews out over existing rock and then solidifies on top of it, or when sediments are deposited on riverbeds).
This gave them the general idea that "deeper" rocks must usually (but not always) be older than rocks nearer the surface. This concept was later formalised by Nicholas Steno in the 17 th century as "The Law of Superposition".
Through patient observation and measurement, they determined that there were distinct "layers" of rock, and the same pattern of layers was present in many places around the world, allowing for a little regional variation.
This was the basis of lithologic stratigraphy the analysis of rock types and their positioning within layered strata, and how they came to be deposited in such a way.
The geologists began to recognise that the rock strata represented successive time periods. By looking at the position of rocks within the stratigraphic sequence, comparing their physical characteristics (colour, hardness, proportions of various minerals and crystal formations etc) and noting the types of fossils they contained, they were able to compare the ages of rocks from one place with rocks from another, and get a good idea of the ages of rocks relative to one another, wherever in the world they were found.
This also allowed them to estimate the relative age of rocks that had been knocked out of the conventional layered pattern (perhaps as a result of an Earthquake or by erosion and breaking off), by matching the characteristics (colour, hardness, mineral content etc) against nearby rock formations and "piecing together" the history.
Based on all these findings, the beginnings of a Geologic Time Scale started to emerge, and time-periods were given names. Some of them are shown on the diagram below.
While the position of a rock or fossil on the time scale (and thus its relative age compared to rocks and fossils from the other periods) could be confidently determined, the actual absolute ages could not.
The geologists could now sort rocks and fossils into date order, but they had no reliable way of knowing the actual age of any particular rock or fossil!
They could tell you that "Specimen A is older than B, and B is older than C" but they couldn't put an actual date on any of them, at least not with anything like reliable accuracy.
In the diagram above, they'd have been able to work out that the block on the right wasn't the same age as the rock immediately next to it.
By looking at its qualities (mineral content, hardness etc) and the fossils it contained, they could confidently deduce that it contained rock deposited in the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods and so was much younger than the Devonian, Silurian and Ordovician rock beside it.
They could also deduce, by the ordering of the layers, that it had flipped upside down as it fell.
They could, perhaps, have made a fairly confident bet that water had eroded the older rocks at the base of the cliff, leaving an overhang of Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic rock that then snapped, and turned upside down as it fell to the ground.
They could also have deduced that the water level must have been higher in the past.
But despite all that detective work giving them the history of events that lead to the scene depicted in the diagram, they couldn't be at all accurate on how many years ago any of the specific events occurred.
The reason for this was that the only ways they could estimate the absolute time-scales involved were all based on very variable phenomena erosion, weathering, sedimentation and lithification.
For example, they could measure the effects of erosion on contemporary rocks, and use that combined with the contemporary rates of sedimentation and lithification, to estimate the age of much older rocks, but to do that they had no choice but to assume a steady rate of erosion over time, which was not an assumption supported by the evidence even from measuring the erosion of contemporary rocks they could see that erosion did not always occur at a stead rate (and the same variability was found to occur when they measured the other phenomena as well).
Based on these variable phenomena, Arthur Holmes, in his 1913 book "The Age Of The Earth", estimated Earth to be "at least 1.6 billion years old".
He was right, but because of the variable nature of the factors he could measure, extrapolating them back in time gave a huge margin of error, so the best estimate he could arrive at was just a minimum age.
To get a good estimate of the actual age, you need to establish not just a minimum age, but also a maximum, and these need to be reasonably close together.
Let's look at an example on a more human time-scale:
If you only know someone's age as being "at least 5" that doesn't tell you a great deal about them. It let's rule out a few possible ages, but they could be a six-year old, or they could be ninety-six.
If you know someone's age as being "between 5 and 55" that's a little better we have an upper and lower boundary, so we know with confidence that their age falls in a certain range. However, this still leaves a wide range of possible ages, the largest being 11 times bigger than the smallest!
To get a useful understanding of something's age the upper and lower bounds need to be reasonably close together so that the window of possible ages isn't too wide to be useful.
But how can we establish an accurate age-window for something that could be millions, or even billions, of years old?
That is the tricky part, and for a long while we simply had no way to date rocks with any real accuracy, although geologists could confidently state most rocks had to be extremely old thousands or millions of years old at the very least.
What was needed was a reliable "clock", a clock that was started when the rock formed and which continued to "tick" steadily from that time all the way to the present.
That sounds like a tall order, but eventually it was discovered that natural processes had created exactly the kind of clock we needed to reliably date ancient rocks.
The "clock" is actually the decay of radioactive isotopes within the rock. Experimentation has shown us that radioactive decay occurs at predictable rates, which remain steady over the entire process of decay, and aren't changed by environmental factors.
There are a few exceptions to this with certain isotopes, but those aren't the ones used for radiometric dating and in any case the changes are only in the region of 1-2%.
Each particular radioactive isotope has its own specific "half life", which is the length of time it takes for half of the remaining radioactive isotope to have decayed into the decay product.
So if you had 1,000 units of the radioactive isotope and the half-life was 10 minutes, then you'd only have 500 units of it left 10 minutes later (and 500 units of the decay product*).
A further 10 minutes later you'd only have 250 units of it left (and 750 units of the decay product*), and so on.
* although if the decay product is also radioactive, that will begin to decay into its own decay product as well, but still at predictable rates so the dating can still be done, it just becomes more complicated to calculate as you need to take into account the ratios of all the decay products down the chain.
Obviously, something with a half-life of 10 minutes isn't going to be much use when it comes to dating rocks that are thousands, millions or billions of years old the quantity of the original radioactive isotope will have been halving every 10 minutes that whole time, so the amount left would be too tiny to measure (even if there were hundreds of tons of it when the rock formed just think: if you were given $1,000,000 but half of it was taken away every 10 minutes, after just 4 hours you'd have only 6 cents left!).
Fortunately there are lots of different radioactive isotopes present in rocks, and they each have different half-lives, so we can pick whichever one of those present gives us the most accurate result (they will all give compatible results, but some will have such large margins of error as to be virtually useless).
To get an accurate measurement, the half life has to be such that there will still be enough of the original radioactive isotope left (I.e not yet decayed) for us to measure accurately, and enough of the decay products produced so that we can measure their amount accurately too.
If there isn't sufficient quantity of original isotope AND decay product for us to measure accurately, we know we need to try again with a different isotope.
The more of the materials there are, the less significant the margin of error inherent in our measurement devices becomes (if you can measure to the nearest 10 particles for example, but your sample contains 44 particles, you would measure the number as 40, wrong by 10%. But if you had 4,004 particles, you'd measure the number as 4,000, wrong by only 0.1%).
The more accurately we can measure the amount of the original isotope remaining and the amount of the decay product present, the more accurately we can measure the ratio.
Once we know the ratio of original isotope to the decay product, we can calculate the age by working out how many "half lives" have occurred (it won't always be an integer) and multiplying this by the length of the half-life.
The actual equation used is D = D 0 + N(e t 1) , but I won't go into the mathematics here because logarithms hurt my brain.
Returning to the simplified example where we started with 1,000 units of the original isotope, and a half life of 10 minutes... if we measured our sample and found it had 125 units of the original isotope and 875 units of the decay product, we'd be able to calculate that it had halved 3 times, so three times the length of its half-life period must have passed since it was formed, which would be 30 minutes (in real-word examples it will almost never turn out to be an exact whole-number multiple of the half-life period like this).
The radioactive decay is the predictable, constant "tick" of the clock, but for us to be able to use that clock it needs to have been "zeroed" at the point the rock formed. Luckily that is exactly what happens. But how?
For each method of radiometric dating (two of the common ones for rocks are Potassium-Argon and Uranium-Lead, in each the first element decays into the second) there will be a specific closure temperature for each type of material they are in.
This means that above this temperature, when the rock is hot, the decay products of the radioactive isotope can diffuse out and escape. As the rock cools, the decay products are less able to diffuse out, and once the temperature has cooled to the closure temperature they are no longer able to diffuse out at all.
From that point on, any decay products produced are trapped in the rock rather than escaping out, zeroing the "clock" at that point (because all the decay products produced previously have been able to diffuse out, so we're starting with no decay).
This means we can measure the total amount of decay that has occurred since the rock cooled to the closure temperature from the ratio of the chosen radioactive isotope to its decay product left trapped in the rock and because we can calculate the precise length of time it takes for that amount of decay to occur, we can accurately determine the time that has passed since the rock hit the closure temperature, and hence its age.
But maybe the rates of radioactive decay have changed maybe they used to be a lot faster, which would make the rocks a lot younger than science says they are?
There's no evidence that the rates of radioactive decay have changed (either way - faster or slower), and our current models of physics indicate that they could not have changed noticeably over the time scale involved (even if we go with the older ages).
As there is no evidence to give us reason to speculate that the decay rates have changed, there is no reason to give that possibility much thought (although of course if new evidence became available then we'd have to re-evaluate things).
But here's a few reasons that support the evidence-based assumption that they have remained constant:
* the date estimates we get from radiometric dating are compatible with the date estimates from other, independent, dating methods (such as dendrochronology dating based on tree rings).
This means that if we wanted to contend that rates of radioactive decay had changed, we'd also have to assume that the unrelated factors used in other dating methods (such as the formation of tree rings) had also changed, and to the same degree, otherwise the different dating methods would not all produce the compatible estimates that they do. We'd have a very large number of co-incidences to explain!
* If physics had been so different in the past, we'd see evidence of this from astronomy, as looking into deep space is, quite literally, looking into the past.
This is due to the time it takes for light from distant objects to reach us when we look at an object 1,000 light years away, we are looking at it as it was 1,000 years ago! Astronomers have found no such evidence that might indicate the drastic changes to physical laws things look as they'd be expected to look if the physical laws had remained constant (at least over the time-scales involved with the various layers of rock).
As we get more and more pieces of the puzzle, we start to find that they fit together, but only in certain combinations.
When there is only one way they can all fit together (e.g. When several independent dating methods all point to the same approximate age), we can say with a good degree of confidence that we've put them together correctly, and we can be confident in what we see.
When we find certain pieces can't fit with certain others, we can deduce that at least one of them isn't right it isn't a piece of the jigsaw we're putting together (which is the jigsaw that shows how the world works).
When we look at the various forms of radiometric dating we find they will all give compatible results (that is, the age windows each form gives will overlap). When we compare radiometric dating with other, independent, forms of dating, we find the results each gives are compatible with each other.
When we have several independent methods all homing in on the same age (albeit each one giving different margins of error), we can be confident that age is a reliable estimate.
7 Free Online Dating Tips
Are you ready to delve into the world of online dating? Here are seven free online dating tips.
1. Find the right online dating site. You'll want to do plenty of research on a prospective online dating service before you ever fill out any personal information.
My advice? Stick to the large, established and reputable online dating services. Look for a detailed privacy policy as well as a service that allow you to chat with members without exposing your identifying details.
2. Be super careful with your identifying information. Don't give your address, phone number or any other contact information.
Use the dating site's anonymous chat function until you feel confident that it's safe to share more personal information.
When in doubt, don't share. And even when you feel like you are ready to give out some personal details, there are several ways that you can maintain a semi-anonymous persona.
Consider creating a second email account just for online dating. You can even set up a separate voicemail account and PO Box, as well.
3. When you make phone calls to prospective matches, use a public phone or a prepaid cell phone.
And don't make calls to your prospective match's toll-free number from your home phone because your phone number will probably show up on their phone bill at the end of the month.
4. Check out your prospective match in any way you can think of before you agree to meet.
Check social networking sites and search engines, for example.
5. Trust your instincts. If you are at all uncomfortable, don't hesitate to stop this new relationship before it even starts.
6. When you decide to meet, make sure to do so in a public place. Meet them someplace (instead of asking them to pick you up at your home) and tell a friend where you'll be.
7. Don't drink on the first date. You want to be fully aware of what's going on around you.
Lots of people meet via online dating services. While these seven tips might sound a bit paranoid, they are really just keys to help you to be aware.
On the Internet, it's very easy to pretend to be someone you are not, so you just need to take proper precautions. The online dating service you choose should have even more keys to online safety, as well as more free online dating tips.
Just remember this: Online dating can be a fun way to meet new friends and prospective matches as long as personal safety is your first priority.
Jamie Jefferson has compiled special offers for several top dating services including a special offer at Match.com.
1. Find the right online dating site. You'll want to do plenty of research on a prospective online dating service before you ever fill out any personal information.
My advice? Stick to the large, established and reputable online dating services. Look for a detailed privacy policy as well as a service that allow you to chat with members without exposing your identifying details.
2. Be super careful with your identifying information. Don't give your address, phone number or any other contact information.
Use the dating site's anonymous chat function until you feel confident that it's safe to share more personal information.
When in doubt, don't share. And even when you feel like you are ready to give out some personal details, there are several ways that you can maintain a semi-anonymous persona.
Consider creating a second email account just for online dating. You can even set up a separate voicemail account and PO Box, as well.
3. When you make phone calls to prospective matches, use a public phone or a prepaid cell phone.
And don't make calls to your prospective match's toll-free number from your home phone because your phone number will probably show up on their phone bill at the end of the month.
4. Check out your prospective match in any way you can think of before you agree to meet.
Check social networking sites and search engines, for example.
5. Trust your instincts. If you are at all uncomfortable, don't hesitate to stop this new relationship before it even starts.
6. When you decide to meet, make sure to do so in a public place. Meet them someplace (instead of asking them to pick you up at your home) and tell a friend where you'll be.
7. Don't drink on the first date. You want to be fully aware of what's going on around you.
Lots of people meet via online dating services. While these seven tips might sound a bit paranoid, they are really just keys to help you to be aware.
On the Internet, it's very easy to pretend to be someone you are not, so you just need to take proper precautions. The online dating service you choose should have even more keys to online safety, as well as more free online dating tips.
Just remember this: Online dating can be a fun way to meet new friends and prospective matches as long as personal safety is your first priority.
Jamie Jefferson has compiled special offers for several top dating services including a special offer at Match.com.
Tuesday, October 13, 2009
Dating Tips For Men - How to Attract More Women By Chris Tyler
A lot of single men will find themselves in a rut where they are just not experiencing the success with women that they desire. Because of this, many men will kind of give up on the dating scene altogether, or they will try to learn methods to attract and pick up women.
Now, there are some methods that do end up working out a little bit. But, for most men, they seem to be a little to gimmicky and a little too cheesy.
Here are some things that will help you out without all of the gimmicks and the stage routines
1. Knowing how to speak to a woman is important. The best approach is to get a conversation that seems more natural than anything else. Let me make something clear.
I enjoy dating beautiful women. And beautiful women are already used to the lines and the routines. She will shut you down in a minute if that's how you approach her.
A natural conversation that escalates to build attraction will work out much better and you don't have to go through the awkwardness of memorizing lines and routines to do this.
2. You have to demonstrate Value to a woman. Women judge more on social status than anything else, and this is not to say it's about money.
Have you ever noticed how men with power positions like a politician or even a cop will usually have no problem getting female attention. It's because of their perceived Value in a woman's eyes.
But as you see, while some politicians do make a lot money, a policeman works on an average salary. So, it's not about the money.
Do you want to learn more dating tips for men about how to attract women?
Get Your FREE Report that Details the 7 Most Important Concepts You Have to Know to Attract and Seduce Women. Learn how to get the girl and get Dating Tips For Men
Copyright © 2009 Chris Tyler All Rights Reserved.
You can re-publish this article ONLY if you keep the entire article and resource box intact with the Author name as well. You may NOT use this article as your own or submit it to any other article directory, In plain English, this is not your article.
All links in article and resource box MUST be kept active and usable.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Tyler
Now, there are some methods that do end up working out a little bit. But, for most men, they seem to be a little to gimmicky and a little too cheesy.
Here are some things that will help you out without all of the gimmicks and the stage routines
1. Knowing how to speak to a woman is important. The best approach is to get a conversation that seems more natural than anything else. Let me make something clear.
I enjoy dating beautiful women. And beautiful women are already used to the lines and the routines. She will shut you down in a minute if that's how you approach her.
A natural conversation that escalates to build attraction will work out much better and you don't have to go through the awkwardness of memorizing lines and routines to do this.
2. You have to demonstrate Value to a woman. Women judge more on social status than anything else, and this is not to say it's about money.
Have you ever noticed how men with power positions like a politician or even a cop will usually have no problem getting female attention. It's because of their perceived Value in a woman's eyes.
But as you see, while some politicians do make a lot money, a policeman works on an average salary. So, it's not about the money.
Do you want to learn more dating tips for men about how to attract women?
Get Your FREE Report that Details the 7 Most Important Concepts You Have to Know to Attract and Seduce Women. Learn how to get the girl and get Dating Tips For Men
Copyright © 2009 Chris Tyler All Rights Reserved.
You can re-publish this article ONLY if you keep the entire article and resource box intact with the Author name as well. You may NOT use this article as your own or submit it to any other article directory, In plain English, this is not your article.
All links in article and resource box MUST be kept active and usable.
Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Chris_Tyler
Dating Rules for Men – Hot Dating Tips to Win Her Heart
There are dating rules for men every red-blooded male ought to live by. Not only will these dating rules for men ensure your lady friend has an enjoyable
evening, but they will also save you the embarrassment of committing dating faux pas later on. So before you thrust yourself head-on into the exciting and unpredictable world of dating, read on.
Dress to kill. Okay, maybe not quite, but do dress to impress. Throw on something decent and suitable for the occasion. A tux on a first date seems hardly appropriate, while too rugged a look may be off-putting. Play it safe and go neutral.
Smart casual is a good choice. Then work your way from there should the two of you decide to keep dating and are more comfortable with each other’s personal tastes.
Be hygienic. Sort out your tangled hair and get a decent haircut if time allows it. Go to good quality shops for decent cologne and a grooming kit. It can be time-consuming; but men are always criticized if they smell bad, so try to get into a regular shower routine so you can smell wonderful afterwards. A woman appreciates that.
Strive to improve at work as well. A man with ambition is appealing to women. Try to get some direction in your life. Get yourself on track with career opportunities. Women will question you about prospects at your work so you cannot pretend it is not important.
Try to be more mature. Getting your brain well fed is a plus. Humor is appreciated, but a woman prefers maturity. Do not let your love for sports be more of a priority than your lady.
Millions of women love sports, but ramming your love for it down her throat is not advisable. Many women are not interested about current gaming consoles, they may be more interested in traveling and how you think about the outside world.
Limit yourself if you drink too much booze. Being a drunken party-boy will never leave a positive impression with your date. If you happen to be a smoker, reduce the times you smoke; or better yet, quit smoking altogether.
Do not be aggressive on the first date. This is a horrible way to think. Being patient will lead you to the girl of your dreams. Learn to wait and try to find other ways where you can make a connection with your date. This is probably the most important dating rule for men.
A woman loves a man with brains. Having basic manners, chivalry and courtesy attracts women. They love to be treated with respect. Avoid bad language, laziness and rudeness. Know how to be a gentleman who knows how to act properly with manners. Holding a door open for her is simple, yet women know it takes effort on your part. Be sensitive. Showing her a lot of respect is a great step forward.
Listen more; talk less. If it seems like you are ignoring her, her ego might get hurt. Try to listen to her when she speaks, women appreciate it if they know you are paying attention.
Here’s a unique dating rule for men: learn how to dance. Many women love to dance, so even if you have no dancing talent, at least give your best effort. Think of dancing as a romantic and sexy activity. It does not matter if you dance badly - at least she is dancing with you rather than with someone else.
Learn these dating rules for men by heart and you’ll win hers before the night is over.
evening, but they will also save you the embarrassment of committing dating faux pas later on. So before you thrust yourself head-on into the exciting and unpredictable world of dating, read on.
Dress to kill. Okay, maybe not quite, but do dress to impress. Throw on something decent and suitable for the occasion. A tux on a first date seems hardly appropriate, while too rugged a look may be off-putting. Play it safe and go neutral.
Smart casual is a good choice. Then work your way from there should the two of you decide to keep dating and are more comfortable with each other’s personal tastes.
Be hygienic. Sort out your tangled hair and get a decent haircut if time allows it. Go to good quality shops for decent cologne and a grooming kit. It can be time-consuming; but men are always criticized if they smell bad, so try to get into a regular shower routine so you can smell wonderful afterwards. A woman appreciates that.
Strive to improve at work as well. A man with ambition is appealing to women. Try to get some direction in your life. Get yourself on track with career opportunities. Women will question you about prospects at your work so you cannot pretend it is not important.
Try to be more mature. Getting your brain well fed is a plus. Humor is appreciated, but a woman prefers maturity. Do not let your love for sports be more of a priority than your lady.
Millions of women love sports, but ramming your love for it down her throat is not advisable. Many women are not interested about current gaming consoles, they may be more interested in traveling and how you think about the outside world.
Limit yourself if you drink too much booze. Being a drunken party-boy will never leave a positive impression with your date. If you happen to be a smoker, reduce the times you smoke; or better yet, quit smoking altogether.
Do not be aggressive on the first date. This is a horrible way to think. Being patient will lead you to the girl of your dreams. Learn to wait and try to find other ways where you can make a connection with your date. This is probably the most important dating rule for men.
A woman loves a man with brains. Having basic manners, chivalry and courtesy attracts women. They love to be treated with respect. Avoid bad language, laziness and rudeness. Know how to be a gentleman who knows how to act properly with manners. Holding a door open for her is simple, yet women know it takes effort on your part. Be sensitive. Showing her a lot of respect is a great step forward.
Listen more; talk less. If it seems like you are ignoring her, her ego might get hurt. Try to listen to her when she speaks, women appreciate it if they know you are paying attention.
Here’s a unique dating rule for men: learn how to dance. Many women love to dance, so even if you have no dancing talent, at least give your best effort. Think of dancing as a romantic and sexy activity. It does not matter if you dance badly - at least she is dancing with you rather than with someone else.
Learn these dating rules for men by heart and you’ll win hers before the night is over.
Safe Dating Tips 1 - Online and Phone Contact
The online dating world has millions of loving and honest people who are seriously looking for their next meaningful relationship. Unfortunately, the huge rise in popularity of online dating sites also brings an increased number of unethical people and scammers.
For years, we encouraged people to do whatever they could to stay anonymous at the beginning of any online relationship by using the following tips:
Safe Dating Tip 1 - Never give out your home address or phone number.
Safe Dating Tip 2 - Use a separate internet address for all of your dating contacts.
Safe Dating Tip 3 - Use your cell phone and/or block your number when contacting someone by phone.
These will always be good advice. However, as a person who tracks down people for a living, I feel there are some facts you need to know in order to remain safe.
Fact #1 - If someone knows your first and last name, city and state, it is likely that there will only be 5-10 possible addresses that match that information. If they know your age, that list can drop to 3 or less.
Fact #2 - If you have an unusual first name or an unusual spelling, someone could get an exact match on your address without knowing your last name.
Fact #3 - The first names of your family and friends, or simple talk about your past residences, can help pinpoint your current address. For example, there may be 100 Mary Browns, but only one who lived with a James and Karen in Ohio.
Fact #4 - Your cell or unlisted phone number by itself could lead to an exact match on your address. No name or other information required. This most often happens in cases where you used your cell phone as the contact number for a utility bill or when applying for credit.
Fact #5 - If people get your current address, they can also quickly retrieve information on the value of any property you own and a list of your relatives and other associates. In some states, they can also get make, model, and plate number of the car you drive.
So what are we saying? Don't give your last name and don't talk about your past or your family and friends? Absolutely not!
When you first meet a person online we are most concerned about two things.
First, a new online acquaintance could make an unannounced visit. Some people may deem a lover's pursuit like that to be very romantic. We believe such visits are unacceptable in all cases and extremely dangerous after the pursuer has been rejected.
Second, the unethical person could use the information to target you and then play on your emotions to set you up for a scam. Such scams don't have to be elaborate.
It could just be that the person wants a quick relationship with the pretty girl he met online and uses this information to make her feel that they have many things in common.
The Solution - three MORE Safe Dating Tips to add to the ones above:
Safe Dating Tip 4 - Virtual Phone Number and Voicemail.
You should already have an email just for dating contacts. Now add a phone number and voicemail and, of course, block your number when you call them back.
You can normally get the whole package of a virtual phone number, email, and voicemail that is automatically sent as a file to your email box for a few dollars per month.
These and other Safe Dating Resources are at the InnerCircle website and blog links below.
Safe Dating Tip 5 - Make a List of What You Want to Share.
Do not get caught giving out personal information when you are caught up in an online or phone conversation with someone you have never met.
Make notes ahead of time on those things you are willing to talk about as well as those things you want to remain private. Also, take notes on what your online contacts know about you.
You should suspect you are being manipulated if they seem to know much more about you than you know about them. Comments like "You would be surprised what I know about you." should not be taken lightly.
Safe Dating Tip 6 - Never, Ever, Ever Give Money.
If someone asks for money in any form, stop communications and contact your online dating site. That means no plane ticket to see a dying relative, no rent so they won't get evicted and be homeless tomorrow, and no train ticket to come back early to see you this weekend.
We hope this helps you in your safe quest for meaningful relationships.
--------
Chris Skinner is President and Lead Investigator for InnerCircle Research Corporation and InnerCircle Blog. The company provides resources and investigations for safer online dating, background checks, child support enforcement and to locate people.
For years, we encouraged people to do whatever they could to stay anonymous at the beginning of any online relationship by using the following tips:
Safe Dating Tip 1 - Never give out your home address or phone number.
Safe Dating Tip 2 - Use a separate internet address for all of your dating contacts.
Safe Dating Tip 3 - Use your cell phone and/or block your number when contacting someone by phone.
These will always be good advice. However, as a person who tracks down people for a living, I feel there are some facts you need to know in order to remain safe.
Fact #1 - If someone knows your first and last name, city and state, it is likely that there will only be 5-10 possible addresses that match that information. If they know your age, that list can drop to 3 or less.
Fact #2 - If you have an unusual first name or an unusual spelling, someone could get an exact match on your address without knowing your last name.
Fact #3 - The first names of your family and friends, or simple talk about your past residences, can help pinpoint your current address. For example, there may be 100 Mary Browns, but only one who lived with a James and Karen in Ohio.
Fact #4 - Your cell or unlisted phone number by itself could lead to an exact match on your address. No name or other information required. This most often happens in cases where you used your cell phone as the contact number for a utility bill or when applying for credit.
Fact #5 - If people get your current address, they can also quickly retrieve information on the value of any property you own and a list of your relatives and other associates. In some states, they can also get make, model, and plate number of the car you drive.
So what are we saying? Don't give your last name and don't talk about your past or your family and friends? Absolutely not!
When you first meet a person online we are most concerned about two things.
First, a new online acquaintance could make an unannounced visit. Some people may deem a lover's pursuit like that to be very romantic. We believe such visits are unacceptable in all cases and extremely dangerous after the pursuer has been rejected.
Second, the unethical person could use the information to target you and then play on your emotions to set you up for a scam. Such scams don't have to be elaborate.
It could just be that the person wants a quick relationship with the pretty girl he met online and uses this information to make her feel that they have many things in common.
The Solution - three MORE Safe Dating Tips to add to the ones above:
Safe Dating Tip 4 - Virtual Phone Number and Voicemail.
You should already have an email just for dating contacts. Now add a phone number and voicemail and, of course, block your number when you call them back.
You can normally get the whole package of a virtual phone number, email, and voicemail that is automatically sent as a file to your email box for a few dollars per month.
These and other Safe Dating Resources are at the InnerCircle website and blog links below.
Safe Dating Tip 5 - Make a List of What You Want to Share.
Do not get caught giving out personal information when you are caught up in an online or phone conversation with someone you have never met.
Make notes ahead of time on those things you are willing to talk about as well as those things you want to remain private. Also, take notes on what your online contacts know about you.
You should suspect you are being manipulated if they seem to know much more about you than you know about them. Comments like "You would be surprised what I know about you." should not be taken lightly.
Safe Dating Tip 6 - Never, Ever, Ever Give Money.
If someone asks for money in any form, stop communications and contact your online dating site. That means no plane ticket to see a dying relative, no rent so they won't get evicted and be homeless tomorrow, and no train ticket to come back early to see you this weekend.
We hope this helps you in your safe quest for meaningful relationships.
--------
Chris Skinner is President and Lead Investigator for InnerCircle Research Corporation and InnerCircle Blog. The company provides resources and investigations for safer online dating, background checks, child support enforcement and to locate people.
Dating Tips :: How To Ask A Girl Out On A Date
Probably the most common questions guys have about dating is. "How do I ask a girl out on a date?"
It can feel like complete torture to most men. Some guys would rather cut off their arm then go up to an attractive women, and see if they would like to go out sometime.
I have a solution to this problem for you guys. It will completely shock you with its simplicity. You ready?
Stop asking women out! (at least the way you have been)
When you ask a women out. She immediately gets into "date mode." She starts thinking about, the commitment, the awkward conversation, does she have time for a person in her life right now.
You might think, a women won't think about all that when the question arises. One thing you need to remember is, women think with their feelings, not their words.
There are a couple reasons you don't want to ask a women on a date.
When asking a girl out on a date, she will automatically see if she's attracted to you or not. She has to figure out her interest level in you in less then a minute.
What is it you need to know? A woman doesn't want to lead a guy on. But she also isn't sure if she is interested in you at that very moment. So when you see someone on the street and you ask for her number.
She will tend to say No. It doesn't necessarily mean you weren't her type. But you made her decide "On the Spot" if she wanted to give you her personal information.
Most women are not attracted to you immediately. Unless its on looks alone. If you rely on pure sex appeal, your really relying on "luck."
Here's the better approach.
Don't move so fast. Be patient.
What is the most relaxed environment for a date?
Going out to dinner. Where you both will have to be on your best behavior. Where the romantic setting will not allow you both to feel more at ease and casual.
Or, a fun environment such as an amusement park or sporting event.
Somewhere where you both can let your guard down and have a little fun. So that you can really be yourself.
Keep this in your mind. The dinner might have more of an edge you were hoping for. But you need to keep HER needs in mind. It's about forgetting what you want. Long enough, that she can believe you will give her what SHE wants.
What you need to do is start low. If you meet a women on the street. Ask her if she has a few minutes for coffee or tea. Take the opportunity to get to know her. If she doesn't have time for a drink.
Then ask for her phone number and/or email address. Since she may not want to accept at this moment with such a casual invitiation for coffee/tea. She's more likely to agree to give out her contact information. Most likely, writing it down for you.
The main key is to come off as confident but fun. Even a little innocent teasing can be helpful so she doesn't feel too weirded out by giving you her personal information
It can feel like complete torture to most men. Some guys would rather cut off their arm then go up to an attractive women, and see if they would like to go out sometime.
I have a solution to this problem for you guys. It will completely shock you with its simplicity. You ready?
Stop asking women out! (at least the way you have been)
When you ask a women out. She immediately gets into "date mode." She starts thinking about, the commitment, the awkward conversation, does she have time for a person in her life right now.
You might think, a women won't think about all that when the question arises. One thing you need to remember is, women think with their feelings, not their words.
There are a couple reasons you don't want to ask a women on a date.
When asking a girl out on a date, she will automatically see if she's attracted to you or not. She has to figure out her interest level in you in less then a minute.
What is it you need to know? A woman doesn't want to lead a guy on. But she also isn't sure if she is interested in you at that very moment. So when you see someone on the street and you ask for her number.
She will tend to say No. It doesn't necessarily mean you weren't her type. But you made her decide "On the Spot" if she wanted to give you her personal information.
Most women are not attracted to you immediately. Unless its on looks alone. If you rely on pure sex appeal, your really relying on "luck."
Here's the better approach.
Don't move so fast. Be patient.
What is the most relaxed environment for a date?
Going out to dinner. Where you both will have to be on your best behavior. Where the romantic setting will not allow you both to feel more at ease and casual.
Or, a fun environment such as an amusement park or sporting event.
Somewhere where you both can let your guard down and have a little fun. So that you can really be yourself.
Keep this in your mind. The dinner might have more of an edge you were hoping for. But you need to keep HER needs in mind. It's about forgetting what you want. Long enough, that she can believe you will give her what SHE wants.
What you need to do is start low. If you meet a women on the street. Ask her if she has a few minutes for coffee or tea. Take the opportunity to get to know her. If she doesn't have time for a drink.
Then ask for her phone number and/or email address. Since she may not want to accept at this moment with such a casual invitiation for coffee/tea. She's more likely to agree to give out her contact information. Most likely, writing it down for you.
The main key is to come off as confident but fun. Even a little innocent teasing can be helpful so she doesn't feel too weirded out by giving you her personal information
Dating Tips For Men & Women (But Mainly For Rocks)
Dating can be a difficult task, a daunting challenge for men and women the world over. It becomes especially difficult when what you're trying to date is extremely ancient.
I'm not talking about romantic dates with seniors though, I don't have many tips there I'm afraid, although good personal hygiene and being a good listener will probably count in your favour.
I'm talking mainly about the dating of rocks. This isn't as romantic as the other kind of dating, but with both kinds there's a chance you'll get your rocks off.
At first, geologists didn't really have much to go on when it came to dating rocks, other than direct visual observation of the rocks themselves. Previously, it was widely thought that rocks had simply "always been there", since the beginning of time.
The early geologists noted that the content of rocks was, most of the time, different as you dug deeper down.
They also saw that new rock was typically laid down on top of existing rock (e.g. When volcanic lava spews out over existing rock and then solidifies on top of it, or when sediments are deposited on riverbeds).
This gave them the general idea that "deeper" rocks must usually (but not always) be older than rocks nearer the surface. This concept was later formalised by Nicholas Steno in the 17 th century as "The Law of Superposition".
Through patient observation and measurement, they determined that there were distinct "layers" of rock, and the same pattern of layers was present in many places around the world, allowing for a little regional variation.
This was the basis of lithologic stratigraphy the analysis of rock types and their positioning within layered strata, and how they came to be deposited in such a way.
The geologists began to recognise that the rock strata represented successive time periods. By looking at the position of rocks within the stratigraphic sequence, comparing their physical characteristics (colour, hardness, proportions of various minerals and crystal formations etc) and noting the types of fossils they contained, they were able to compare the ages of rocks from one place with rocks from another, and get a good idea of the ages of rocks relative to one another, wherever in the world they were found.
This also allowed them to estimate the relative age of rocks that had been knocked out of the conventional layered pattern (perhaps as a result of an Earthquake or by erosion and breaking off), by matching the characteristics (colour, hardness, mineral content etc) against nearby rock formations and "piecing together" the history.
Based on all these findings, the beginnings of a Geologic Time Scale started to emerge, and time-periods were given names. Some of them are shown on the diagram below.
While the position of a rock or fossil on the time scale (and thus its relative age compared to rocks and fossils from the other periods) could be confidently determined, the actual absolute ages could not.
The geologists could now sort rocks and fossils into date order, but they had no reliable way of knowing the actual age of any particular rock or fossil!
They could tell you that "Specimen A is older than B, and B is older than C" but they couldn't put an actual date on any of them, at least not with anything like reliable accuracy.
In the diagram above, they'd have been able to work out that the block on the right wasn't the same age as the rock immediately next to it.
By looking at its qualities (mineral content, hardness etc) and the fossils it contained, they could confidently deduce that it contained rock deposited in the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods and so was much younger than the Devonian, Silurian and Ordovician rock beside it. They could also deduce, by the ordering of the layers, that it had flipped upside down as it fell.
They could, perhaps, have made a fairly confident bet that water had eroded the older rocks at the base of the cliff, leaving an overhang of Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic rock that then snapped, and turned upside down as it fell to the ground. They could also have deduced that the water level must have been higher in the past.
But despite all that detective work giving them the history of events that lead to the scene depicted in the diagram, they couldn't be at all accurate on how many years ago any of the specific events occurred.
The reason for this was that the only ways they could estimate the absolute time-scales involved were all based on very variable phenomena erosion, weathering, sedimentation and lithification.
For example, they could measure the effects of erosion on contemporary rocks, and use that combined with the contemporary rates of sedimentation and lithification, to estimate the age of much older rocks, but to do that they had no choice but to assume a steady rate of erosion over time, which was not an assumption supported by the evidence even from measuring the erosion of contemporary rocks they could see that erosion did not always occur at a stead rate (and the same variability was found to occur when they measured the other phenomena as well).
Based on these variable phenomena, Arthur Holmes, in his 1913 book "The Age Of The Earth", estimated Earth to be "at least 1.6 billion years old".
He was right, but because of the variable nature of the factors he could measure, extrapolating them back in time gave a huge margin of error, so the best estimate he could arrive at was just a minimum age.
To get a good estimate of the actual age, you need to establish not just a minimum age, but also a maximum, and these need to be reasonably close together.
Let's look at an example on a more human time-scale:
If you only know someone's age as being "at least 5" that doesn't tell you a great deal about them. It let's rule out a few possible ages, but they could be a six-year old, or they could be ninety-six.
If you know someone's age as being "between 5 and 55" that's a little better we have an upper and lower boundary, so we know with confidence that their age falls in a certain range. However, this still leaves a wide range of possible ages, the largest being 11 times bigger than the smallest!
To get a useful understanding of something's age the upper and lower bounds need to be reasonably close together so that the window of possible ages isn't too wide to be useful.
But how can we establish an accurate age-window for something that could be millions, or even billions, of years old?
That is the tricky part, and for a long while we simply had no way to date rocks with any real accuracy, although geologists could confidently state most rocks had to be extremely old thousands or millions of years old at the very least.
What was needed was a reliable "clock", a clock that was started when the rock formed and which continued to "tick" steadily from that time all the way to the present.
That sounds like a tall order, but eventually it was discovered that natural processes had created exactly the kind of clock we needed to reliably date ancient rocks.
The "clock" is actually the decay of radioactive isotopes within the rock. Experimentation has shown us that radioactive decay occurs at predictable rates, which remain steady over the entire process of decay, and aren't changed by environmental factors.
There are a few exceptions to this with certain isotopes, but those aren't the ones used for radiometric dating and in any case the changes are only in the region of 1-2%.
Each particular radioactive isotope has its own specific "half life", which is the length of time it takes for half of the remaining radioactive isotope to have decayed into the decay product.
So if you had 1,000 units of the radioactive isotope and the half-life was 10 minutes, then you'd only have 500 units of it left 10 minutes later (and 500 units of the decay product*). A further 10 minutes later you'd only have 250 units of it left (and 750 units of the decay product*), and so on.
* although if the decay product is also radioactive, that will begin to decay into its own decay product as well, but still at predictable rates so the dating can still be done, it just becomes more complicated to calculate as you need to take into account the ratios of all the decay products down the chain.
Obviously, something with a half-life of 10 minutes isn't going to be much use when it comes to dating rocks that are thousands, millions or billions of years old the quantity of the original radioactive isotope will have been halving every 10 minutes that whole time, so the amount left would be too tiny to measure (even if there were hundreds of tons of it when the rock formed just think: if you were given $1,000,000 but half of it was taken away every 10 minutes, after just 4 hours you'd have only 6 cents left!).
Fortunately there are lots of different radioactive isotopes present in rocks, and they each have different half-lives, so we can pick whichever one of those present gives us the most accurate result (they will all give compatible results, but some will have such large margins of error as to be virtually useless).
To get an accurate measurement, the half life has to be such that there will still be enough of the original radioactive isotope left (I.e not yet decayed) for us to measure accurately, and enough of the decay products produced so that we can measure their amount accurately too.
If there isn't sufficient quantity of original isotope AND decay product for us to measure accurately, we know we need to try again with a different isotope.
The more of the materials there are, the less significant the margin of error inherent in our measurement devices becomes (if you can measure to the nearest 10 particles for example, but your sample contains 44 particles, you would measure the number as 40, wrong by 10%. But if you had 4,004 particles, you'd measure the number as 4,000, wrong by only 0.1%).
The more accurately we can measure the amount of the original isotope remaining and the amount of the decay product present, the more accurately we can measure the ratio.
Once we know the ratio of original isotope to the decay product, we can calculate the age by working out how many "half lives" have occurred (it won't always be an integer) and multiplying this by the length of the half-life.
The actual equation used is D = D 0 + N(e t 1) , but I won't go into the mathematics here because logarithms hurt my brain.
Returning to the simplified example where we started with 1,000 units of the original isotope, and a half life of 10 minutes... if we measured our sample and found it had 125 units of the original isotope and 875 units of the decay product, we'd be able to calculate that it had halved 3 times, so three times the length of its half-life period must have passed since it was formed, which would be 30 minutes (in real-word examples it will almost never turn out to be an exact whole-number multiple of the half-life period like this).
The radioactive decay is the predictable, constant "tick" of the clock, but for us to be able to use that clock it needs to have been "zeroed" at the point the rock formed. Luckily that is exactly what happens. But how?
For each method of radiometric dating (two of the common ones for rocks are Potassium-Argon and Uranium-Lead, in each the first element decays into the second) there will be a specific closure temperature for each type of material they are in.
This means that above this temperature, when the rock is hot, the decay products of the radioactive isotope can diffuse out and escape. As the rock cools, the decay products are less able to diffuse out, and once the temperature has cooled to the closure temperature they are no longer able to diffuse out at all.
From that point on, any decay products produced are trapped in the rock rather than escaping out, zeroing the "clock" at that point (because all the decay products produced previously have been able to diffuse out, so we're starting with no decay).
This means we can measure the total amount of decay that has occurred since the rock cooled to the closure temperature from the ratio of the chosen radioactive isotope to its decay product left trapped in the rock and because we can calculate the precise length of time it takes for that amount of decay to occur, we can accurately determine the time that has passed since the rock hit the closure temperature, and hence its age.
But maybe the rates of radioactive decay have changed maybe they used to be a lot faster, which would make the rocks a lot younger than science says they are?
There's no evidence that the rates of radioactive decay have changed (either way - faster or slower), and our current models of physics indicate that they could not have changed noticeably over the time scale involved (even if we go with the older ages).
As there is no evidence to give us reason to speculate that the decay rates have changed, there is no reason to give that possibility much thought (although of course if new evidence became available then we'd have to re-evaluate things).
But here's a few reasons that support the evidence-based assumption that they have remained constant:
the date estimates we get from radiometric dating are compatible with the date estimates from other, independent, dating methods (such as dendrochronology dating based on tree rings).
This means that if we wanted to contend that rates of radioactive decay had changed, we'd also have to assume that the unrelated factors used in other dating methods (such as the formation of tree rings) had also changed, and to the same degree, otherwise the different dating methods would not all produce the compatible estimates that they do. We'd have a very large number of co-incidences to explain!
If physics had been so different in the past, we'd see evidence of this from astronomy, as looking into deep space is, quite literally, looking into the past.
This is due to the time it takes for light from distant objects to reach us when we look at an object 1,000 light years away, we are looking at it as it was 1,000 years ago! Astronomers have found no such evidence that might indicate the drastic changes to physical laws things look as they'd be expected to look if the physical laws had remained constant (at least over the time-scales involved with the various layers of rock).
As we get more and more pieces of the puzzle, we start to find that they fit together, but only in certain combinations.
When there is only one way they can all fit together (e.g. When several independent dating methods all point to the same approximate age), we can say with a good degree of confidence that we've put them together correctly, and we can be confident in what we see.
When we find certain pieces can't fit with certain others, we can deduce that at least one of them isn't right it isn't a piece of the jigsaw we're putting together (which is the jigsaw that shows how the world works).
When we look at the various forms of radiometric dating we find they will all give compatible results (that is, the age windows each form gives will overlap). When we compare radiometric dating with other, independent, forms of dating, we find the results each gives are compatible with each other.
When we have several independent methods all homing in on the same age (albeit each one giving different margins of error), we can be confident that age is a reliable estimate.
I'm not talking about romantic dates with seniors though, I don't have many tips there I'm afraid, although good personal hygiene and being a good listener will probably count in your favour.
I'm talking mainly about the dating of rocks. This isn't as romantic as the other kind of dating, but with both kinds there's a chance you'll get your rocks off.
At first, geologists didn't really have much to go on when it came to dating rocks, other than direct visual observation of the rocks themselves. Previously, it was widely thought that rocks had simply "always been there", since the beginning of time.
The early geologists noted that the content of rocks was, most of the time, different as you dug deeper down.
They also saw that new rock was typically laid down on top of existing rock (e.g. When volcanic lava spews out over existing rock and then solidifies on top of it, or when sediments are deposited on riverbeds).
This gave them the general idea that "deeper" rocks must usually (but not always) be older than rocks nearer the surface. This concept was later formalised by Nicholas Steno in the 17 th century as "The Law of Superposition".
Through patient observation and measurement, they determined that there were distinct "layers" of rock, and the same pattern of layers was present in many places around the world, allowing for a little regional variation.
This was the basis of lithologic stratigraphy the analysis of rock types and their positioning within layered strata, and how they came to be deposited in such a way.
The geologists began to recognise that the rock strata represented successive time periods. By looking at the position of rocks within the stratigraphic sequence, comparing their physical characteristics (colour, hardness, proportions of various minerals and crystal formations etc) and noting the types of fossils they contained, they were able to compare the ages of rocks from one place with rocks from another, and get a good idea of the ages of rocks relative to one another, wherever in the world they were found.
This also allowed them to estimate the relative age of rocks that had been knocked out of the conventional layered pattern (perhaps as a result of an Earthquake or by erosion and breaking off), by matching the characteristics (colour, hardness, mineral content etc) against nearby rock formations and "piecing together" the history.
Based on all these findings, the beginnings of a Geologic Time Scale started to emerge, and time-periods were given names. Some of them are shown on the diagram below.
While the position of a rock or fossil on the time scale (and thus its relative age compared to rocks and fossils from the other periods) could be confidently determined, the actual absolute ages could not.
The geologists could now sort rocks and fossils into date order, but they had no reliable way of knowing the actual age of any particular rock or fossil!
They could tell you that "Specimen A is older than B, and B is older than C" but they couldn't put an actual date on any of them, at least not with anything like reliable accuracy.
In the diagram above, they'd have been able to work out that the block on the right wasn't the same age as the rock immediately next to it.
By looking at its qualities (mineral content, hardness etc) and the fossils it contained, they could confidently deduce that it contained rock deposited in the Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic periods and so was much younger than the Devonian, Silurian and Ordovician rock beside it. They could also deduce, by the ordering of the layers, that it had flipped upside down as it fell.
They could, perhaps, have made a fairly confident bet that water had eroded the older rocks at the base of the cliff, leaving an overhang of Cretaceous, Jurassic and Triassic rock that then snapped, and turned upside down as it fell to the ground. They could also have deduced that the water level must have been higher in the past.
But despite all that detective work giving them the history of events that lead to the scene depicted in the diagram, they couldn't be at all accurate on how many years ago any of the specific events occurred.
The reason for this was that the only ways they could estimate the absolute time-scales involved were all based on very variable phenomena erosion, weathering, sedimentation and lithification.
For example, they could measure the effects of erosion on contemporary rocks, and use that combined with the contemporary rates of sedimentation and lithification, to estimate the age of much older rocks, but to do that they had no choice but to assume a steady rate of erosion over time, which was not an assumption supported by the evidence even from measuring the erosion of contemporary rocks they could see that erosion did not always occur at a stead rate (and the same variability was found to occur when they measured the other phenomena as well).
Based on these variable phenomena, Arthur Holmes, in his 1913 book "The Age Of The Earth", estimated Earth to be "at least 1.6 billion years old".
He was right, but because of the variable nature of the factors he could measure, extrapolating them back in time gave a huge margin of error, so the best estimate he could arrive at was just a minimum age.
To get a good estimate of the actual age, you need to establish not just a minimum age, but also a maximum, and these need to be reasonably close together.
Let's look at an example on a more human time-scale:
If you only know someone's age as being "at least 5" that doesn't tell you a great deal about them. It let's rule out a few possible ages, but they could be a six-year old, or they could be ninety-six.
If you know someone's age as being "between 5 and 55" that's a little better we have an upper and lower boundary, so we know with confidence that their age falls in a certain range. However, this still leaves a wide range of possible ages, the largest being 11 times bigger than the smallest!
To get a useful understanding of something's age the upper and lower bounds need to be reasonably close together so that the window of possible ages isn't too wide to be useful.
But how can we establish an accurate age-window for something that could be millions, or even billions, of years old?
That is the tricky part, and for a long while we simply had no way to date rocks with any real accuracy, although geologists could confidently state most rocks had to be extremely old thousands or millions of years old at the very least.
What was needed was a reliable "clock", a clock that was started when the rock formed and which continued to "tick" steadily from that time all the way to the present.
That sounds like a tall order, but eventually it was discovered that natural processes had created exactly the kind of clock we needed to reliably date ancient rocks.
The "clock" is actually the decay of radioactive isotopes within the rock. Experimentation has shown us that radioactive decay occurs at predictable rates, which remain steady over the entire process of decay, and aren't changed by environmental factors.
There are a few exceptions to this with certain isotopes, but those aren't the ones used for radiometric dating and in any case the changes are only in the region of 1-2%.
Each particular radioactive isotope has its own specific "half life", which is the length of time it takes for half of the remaining radioactive isotope to have decayed into the decay product.
So if you had 1,000 units of the radioactive isotope and the half-life was 10 minutes, then you'd only have 500 units of it left 10 minutes later (and 500 units of the decay product*). A further 10 minutes later you'd only have 250 units of it left (and 750 units of the decay product*), and so on.
* although if the decay product is also radioactive, that will begin to decay into its own decay product as well, but still at predictable rates so the dating can still be done, it just becomes more complicated to calculate as you need to take into account the ratios of all the decay products down the chain.
Obviously, something with a half-life of 10 minutes isn't going to be much use when it comes to dating rocks that are thousands, millions or billions of years old the quantity of the original radioactive isotope will have been halving every 10 minutes that whole time, so the amount left would be too tiny to measure (even if there were hundreds of tons of it when the rock formed just think: if you were given $1,000,000 but half of it was taken away every 10 minutes, after just 4 hours you'd have only 6 cents left!).
Fortunately there are lots of different radioactive isotopes present in rocks, and they each have different half-lives, so we can pick whichever one of those present gives us the most accurate result (they will all give compatible results, but some will have such large margins of error as to be virtually useless).
To get an accurate measurement, the half life has to be such that there will still be enough of the original radioactive isotope left (I.e not yet decayed) for us to measure accurately, and enough of the decay products produced so that we can measure their amount accurately too.
If there isn't sufficient quantity of original isotope AND decay product for us to measure accurately, we know we need to try again with a different isotope.
The more of the materials there are, the less significant the margin of error inherent in our measurement devices becomes (if you can measure to the nearest 10 particles for example, but your sample contains 44 particles, you would measure the number as 40, wrong by 10%. But if you had 4,004 particles, you'd measure the number as 4,000, wrong by only 0.1%).
The more accurately we can measure the amount of the original isotope remaining and the amount of the decay product present, the more accurately we can measure the ratio.
Once we know the ratio of original isotope to the decay product, we can calculate the age by working out how many "half lives" have occurred (it won't always be an integer) and multiplying this by the length of the half-life.
The actual equation used is D = D 0 + N(e t 1) , but I won't go into the mathematics here because logarithms hurt my brain.
Returning to the simplified example where we started with 1,000 units of the original isotope, and a half life of 10 minutes... if we measured our sample and found it had 125 units of the original isotope and 875 units of the decay product, we'd be able to calculate that it had halved 3 times, so three times the length of its half-life period must have passed since it was formed, which would be 30 minutes (in real-word examples it will almost never turn out to be an exact whole-number multiple of the half-life period like this).
The radioactive decay is the predictable, constant "tick" of the clock, but for us to be able to use that clock it needs to have been "zeroed" at the point the rock formed. Luckily that is exactly what happens. But how?
For each method of radiometric dating (two of the common ones for rocks are Potassium-Argon and Uranium-Lead, in each the first element decays into the second) there will be a specific closure temperature for each type of material they are in.
This means that above this temperature, when the rock is hot, the decay products of the radioactive isotope can diffuse out and escape. As the rock cools, the decay products are less able to diffuse out, and once the temperature has cooled to the closure temperature they are no longer able to diffuse out at all.
From that point on, any decay products produced are trapped in the rock rather than escaping out, zeroing the "clock" at that point (because all the decay products produced previously have been able to diffuse out, so we're starting with no decay).
This means we can measure the total amount of decay that has occurred since the rock cooled to the closure temperature from the ratio of the chosen radioactive isotope to its decay product left trapped in the rock and because we can calculate the precise length of time it takes for that amount of decay to occur, we can accurately determine the time that has passed since the rock hit the closure temperature, and hence its age.
But maybe the rates of radioactive decay have changed maybe they used to be a lot faster, which would make the rocks a lot younger than science says they are?
There's no evidence that the rates of radioactive decay have changed (either way - faster or slower), and our current models of physics indicate that they could not have changed noticeably over the time scale involved (even if we go with the older ages).
As there is no evidence to give us reason to speculate that the decay rates have changed, there is no reason to give that possibility much thought (although of course if new evidence became available then we'd have to re-evaluate things).
But here's a few reasons that support the evidence-based assumption that they have remained constant:
the date estimates we get from radiometric dating are compatible with the date estimates from other, independent, dating methods (such as dendrochronology dating based on tree rings).
This means that if we wanted to contend that rates of radioactive decay had changed, we'd also have to assume that the unrelated factors used in other dating methods (such as the formation of tree rings) had also changed, and to the same degree, otherwise the different dating methods would not all produce the compatible estimates that they do. We'd have a very large number of co-incidences to explain!
If physics had been so different in the past, we'd see evidence of this from astronomy, as looking into deep space is, quite literally, looking into the past.
This is due to the time it takes for light from distant objects to reach us when we look at an object 1,000 light years away, we are looking at it as it was 1,000 years ago! Astronomers have found no such evidence that might indicate the drastic changes to physical laws things look as they'd be expected to look if the physical laws had remained constant (at least over the time-scales involved with the various layers of rock).
As we get more and more pieces of the puzzle, we start to find that they fit together, but only in certain combinations.
When there is only one way they can all fit together (e.g. When several independent dating methods all point to the same approximate age), we can say with a good degree of confidence that we've put them together correctly, and we can be confident in what we see.
When we find certain pieces can't fit with certain others, we can deduce that at least one of them isn't right it isn't a piece of the jigsaw we're putting together (which is the jigsaw that shows how the world works).
When we look at the various forms of radiometric dating we find they will all give compatible results (that is, the age windows each form gives will overlap). When we compare radiometric dating with other, independent, forms of dating, we find the results each gives are compatible with each other.
When we have several independent methods all homing in on the same age (albeit each one giving different margins of error), we can be confident that age is a reliable estimate.
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