RNDP 27: Looking, Listening and Frequency

Here is the latest roundup of research towards the revolutionary new dating paradigm.

Rating attractiveness: Study finds consensus among men, not women

From a press release about an article in the June issue of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology:

Men's judgments of women's attractiveness were based primarily around physical features and they rated highly those who looked thin and seductive. Most of the men in the study also rated photographs of women who looked confident as more attractive.

As a group, the women rating men showed some preference for thin, muscular subjects, but disagreed on how attractive many men in the study were. Some women gave high attractiveness ratings to the men other women said were not attractive at all.

The age of the participants also played a role in attractiveness ratings. Older participants were more likely to find people attractive if they were smiling.

But an abstract for the same paper says:

Participants of both genders showed substantial consensus in judgments of whom they found attractive and unattractive, although men showed higher consensus than women.

What does this mean for the RNDP: If you're a man and a male friend tells you should meet someone because they are hot, you should. If you are a woman and a female friend tells you to meet someone because they are hot, probably you should. But maybe not.

Talk to the Right Ear

In 3 different studies, researchers from the University "Gabriele d'Annunzio" in Chieti, Italy determined a marked preference to listen with the right ear by young people in noisy nightclubs. Perhaps their most significant finding:

...the researchers intentionally addressed 176 clubbers in either their right or their left ear when asking for a cigarette. They obtained significantly more cigarettes when they spoke to the clubbers' right ear compared with their left.

What does this mean for the RNDP:

1. If you want to make a pass, sit or walk to the right of your object of affection or walk. If you're following the man-on-the-street-side-of-the-sidewalk rule, this may affect the route you take home.
   
2. Since this tip will soon be widely known, pay attention to whether your object of affection is trying to keep you on the left. It might not mean they don't want to be manipulated. Maybe they want to make the first move. Do what you can to make it easier for them if the latter.

Single women gaze longer

A study by Indiana University neuroscientist Heather Rupp found that a woman's partner status influenced her interest in the opposite sex.

...women both with and without sexual partners showed little difference in their subjective ratings of photos of men when considering such measures as masculinity and attractiveness. However, the women who did not have sexual partners spent more time evaluating photos of men, demonstrating a greater interest in the photos. No such difference was found between men who had sexual partners and those who did not.

What does this mean for the RNDP: Guys: the length of time a woman spends looking at you might tell you that she is available, but not necessarily available to you. She might only be taking the time to decide what she thinks about you. Gals: you're still stuck with no useful way to tell if that guy looking at you is married or not.

Daily sex helps to reduce sperm DNA damage and improve fertility

New research suggests that in couples trying to have babies, in order to improve sperm quality, men should not hold off until ovulation day, but should ejaculate at least daily for the prior week. Dr David Greening, an obstetrician and gynaecologist in Wollongong, Australia, says:

The optimal number of days of ejaculation might be more or less than seven days, but a week appears manageable and favourable. It seems safe to conclude that couples with relatively normal semen parameters should have sex daily for up to a week before the ovulation date. In the context of assisted reproduction, this simple treatment may assist in improving sperm quality and ultimately achieving a pregnancy.

What does this mean for the RNDP: Okay, this isn't about dating. But it does illustrate that the research community has scientists conducting research and reporting findings that may not please everyone, but will make the world a better place.

RNDP 26: Still on the path to happiness

I was beginning to to think that the quest for a revolutionary new dating paradigm (RNDP) should be shelved because other pursuits, like wealth or fame, are more important. But three researchers from the University of Rochester have just confirmed that the pursuits of wealth and fame do not lead to happiness.

Edward Deci, professor of psychology and the Gowen Professor in the Social Sciences at the University says:

Even though our culture puts a strong emphasis on attaining wealth and fame, pursuing these goals does not contribute to having a satisfying life. The things that make your life happy are growing as an individual, having loving relationships, and contributing to your community. [Press Release 14-May-2009]

And so I am spurred to contribute to the community and help you folks find loving relationships. Because I got too worn out at the garage sale yesterday, I am going to give you more bulletins on recent research instead of doing the hard work of syncretising everything we've learned already in the quest for an RNDP.

Sick of the same old thing? U of Minnesota Researchers finds satiation solution

Joseph Redden, professor of marketing at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, recently conducted a study on satiation, the process of consuming products and experiences to the point where they are less enjoyable, as it applies to music.

In one of the three studies conducted for this research, Redden and his co-authors asked participants to listen to the chorus of a favorite song 20 times in a row. Then they were asked to rate the clip. Not surprisingly, after 20 repetitions their enjoyment of the song dropped a great deal. Three weeks later, the participants came back and half were asked to recall any television shows they'd seen since the study, while the other half listed all of the musicians they'd listened to since the first session. The group that listed the TV shows was still just as satiated – they didn't like the song. However, those recalling variety in the music category almost totally recovered. "The participants' comments were the most revealing," said Redden. "Those who recalled the TV shows were actually angry to have a song they like 'ruined,' but the ones who recalled musicians enjoyed taking a study with music, etc. If something seems like 'more of the same,' people are just less interested." [Press Release: 19-May-2009]

Redden thinks this method can also work for things like beverages: "... next time you get sick of healthy smoothies and think about grabbing a burger instead, try to recall all of the other drinks you have had since your last smoothie. Our findings suggest this will make your smoothie taste just a little bit better."

If it works for songs and smoothies, maybe it'll also work for that person you've seen a bunch of times who is beginning to seem a little dull. Just think of all other people you've encountered since the last date or all the people you've been involved with before.

New contraceptive device is designed to prevent sexual transmission of HIV

Remember those free-wheeling days before AIDS?

Researchers from Weill Cornell Medical College have published results showing that a new contraceptive device may also effectively block the transmission of the HIV virus. [Press Release: 19-May-2009]

Dominance in domestic dogs – useful construct or bad habit?

Researchers at Bristol's Department of Clinical Veterinary Sciences say that using "dominance" to explain dog behaviour and to train dogs is misguided and potentially dangerous.

Dr Rachel Casey, Senior Lecturer in Companion Animal Behaviour and Welfare at Bristol University, says:

The blanket assumption that every dog is motivated by some innate desire to control people and other dogs is frankly ridiculous. It hugely underestimates the complex communicative and learning abilities of dogs. It also leads to the use of coercive training techniques, which compromise welfare, and actually cause problem behaviours. [Press Release: 21-May-2009]

I know some of you women out there are using dog training methods on your men. If you've been using "dominance" methods, you may want to rethink your strategy. Or not. After all, this research was on dogs. Not men.

Another study confirms that opposite histocompatibility attracts

Scientists at the Immunogenetics and Histocompatibility Laboratory at the University of Parana, Brazil studied major histocompatibility complex (MHC) data from 90 married couples, and compared them with 152 randomly-generated control couples and found that people with diverse MHCs were more likely to choose each other as mates than those whose MHCs were similar.

"Although it may be tempting to think that humans choose their partners because of their similarities", says Professor Bicalho, "our research has shown clearly that it is differences that make for successful reproduction, and that the subconscious drive to have healthy children is important when choosing a mate." [Press Release: 24-May-2009]

Warriors do not always get the girl

Can it be that nice guys may not finish last?

Aggressive, vengeful behavior of individuals in some South American groups has been considered the means for men to obtain more wives and more children, but an international team of anthropologists working in Ecuador among the Waorani show that sometimes the macho guy does not do better.

"In 1988, Napoleon Chagnon published evidence that among the famously warlike Yanomamo of Venezuela, men who had participated in a homicide had significantly more wives and children than their less warlike brethren," said Stephen Beckerman, associate professor of anthropology, Penn State. "Our research among the Waorani indicates that more aggressive warriors have lower indices of reproductive success than less warlike men."

...

The researchers found that more aggressive men do not acquire more wives than milder men. They do not have more children and their wives and children do not survive longer. In fact, warlike men have fewer children who survive to reproductive age. [Press Release: 11-May-2009]

RNDP 25: More Dating Developments from those Hardworking Scientists

"Intranasal Oxytocin Increases Positive Communication and Reduces Cortisol Levels During Couple Conflict"

Swiss researchers Beate Ditzen, Marcel Schaer, Barbara Gabriel, Guy Bodenmann, Ulrike Ehlert, and Markus Heinrichs report that a nasal spray of oxytocin helped couples discussing stressful topics have more positive communication. "Oxytocin increased positive communication behavior in relation to negative behavior and reduced salivary cortisol, i.e., their stress levels, compared to placebo." [EurekAlert]

The researchers say they're a long way from using oxytocin spray in a treatment context, so I doubt they've turned their mind to its use in the dating context. Still, if you've been dating a while and you hear the words "we need to talk" a quick sniff on an oxytoxin nozzle might be a great idea.

Can Evolutionary Theory bring us a new Paradigm?

A survey of more than 10,000 individuals in 18 "human populations" has concluded that the stereotype of men being more promiscuous than women may be wrong. Dr Gillian Brown, of the University of St Andrews, said: "The study shows that women are just as likely to seek out just as many partners as men." [EurekAlert; Telegraph; PhysOrg]

This is interesting news for anyone involved in the dating game, but Dr Brown and her team are ready to take their research much further than these initial findings and apply evolutionary theory to understanding human mating strategies.

Recent advances in evolutionary theory suggest that factors such as sex-biased mortality, sex-ratio, population density and variation in mate quality, are likely to impact mating behaviour in humans...

Taking a new perspective on what evolutionary theory predicts about mating strategies will have important implications for how we think about male and female sex roles. We're entering an exciting new era in which evolutionary theory can help us to understand the diversity of human mating strategies.

It could be that further analysis of this data will let us build a data model where we plug in Ottawa's figures for sex-biased mortality, sex-ratio, population density and variation in mate quality and as output we'll get an optimal mating strategy - a critical component of a Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm!

RNDP 24: The Never-Ending Story?

Q: What's the difference between the Never-Ending Story and my quest for a Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm (RNDP)?

A: The Never-Ending Story actually ended.

New Research Results relevant to daters:

"Dating culture is dead - instead, young New Zealand women are regularly getting drunk and cruising around in packs looking for men to have sex with. " [4D: This must be true because it was on TV.]

Fidelity is all about chemistry? "Males in some species of pair-bonding mammals have their lifelong attachment triggered by vasopressin release, and studies of men in monogamous relationships find a correlation between low vasopressin levels and high levels of marital strife." [4D: Only on the radio. Best to take this with a grain of salt-peter.]

New Resources for Daters:

Cosmopolitan's Experts say you can learn 55 things about a man in 10 minutes. The only hitch is that it will be a very busy 10 minutes. To learn the 55 things, along with observing his speaking patterns and hair style, you'll have to:

• Learn his favourite sports and TV shows;
• Find out how long he's been hanging with his friends,
• See what he does when it's time to pay,
• Find out if he drinks, smokes or gambles;
• Learn his online communication preferences;
• See how he behaves at a party;
• Observe his driving style;
• Determine when and how often he likes to have sex and what his pattern is on who initiates it;
• See what he orders in a restaurant;
• Learn whether he is tidy or messy;
• See his underwear; and
  
• Have sex with him several times.

Red Flag Deals provides a useful grid to help you choose a dating site.

A Dinosaur Shows the Way?

It might not be what I've been looking for, but T-Rex has an honest-to-goodness new dating paradigm that may well be revolutionary.

p.s. A big shout-out to JE. Thanks for the support!

RNDP 23: More on Online

The Globe and Mail says people's financial troubles make online dating more appealing. Interestingly, back before the financial troubles, online dating was more appealing because hardworking people didn't have time for real life dating. What does this mean? It means that every time a journalist puts a profile on a dating site we can expect to get a story about how these services are growing.

SomeCards.com has line of e-cards tailored to online dating and ready for you to send to people you can't be bothered to buy a postage stamp for.

Two researchers from Indiana University have concluded that "eligible women express themselves better" than eligible men by studying text messages on Italy's real-time interactive music television channel Allmusic. The say, "it is the women who push their messages closest to the character-count limit, who use more abbreviations and insertions, and who implement more emoticons".

Their findings must be legitimate because they were expecting to find the opposite result.

RNDP: Phoning It In

I'm just too tired for a proper post this week. I've got most of the cleaning up done from yesterday's shit shower but still some to go. Yes, if you've gone through something challenging, you call it a shitstorm, but if you've actually been sprayed by raw sewage, no need to exaggerate.

So here's a picture of Elgin Street. Police cars and ambulance down near whatever they're calling the Penguin Café these days, just after midnight on Saturday. Nothing to do with my troubles. Just a picture.

While I'm about as out of it as the little boy who went to the dentist and so can't help those of you looking for a revolutionary new dating paradigm, there are still plenty of others with creativity, energy and insights to help you along the way. Here is a roundup of this week's scholarship in the field:

• XKCD has created a brilliant graphic that explains the baseball code.
• Researchers in Indiana have confirmed that it is damned hard to tell if a gal likes a guy she's on a first date with. If you think they are mistaken, you can prove them wrong by participating in the online version of their study.
• Snopes busted the urban legend that most Americans marry their high school sweethearts.
• Laura at NoGoodForMe.com has developed a set of outfits women going on dates with 6 different types of men. She suggests she'll be making "For a Date With" a regular feature.

p.s. Word is the Emergency Meeting might take place before the end of the month. Any agenda items?

RNDP 22: Could Television be the Answer?

Pearl Jam fan, Raino, blogged a list of pick-up lines this week. The lines do not yet appear to have been field-tested, but they show promise. Here are several:

5) Is there a mirror in yer pants? cuz I can see myself in em.

6) If you was a tree & I was a Squirrel, I'd store my nuts in yer hole.

7) You might not be the best lookin girl here, but beauty's only a light switch away.

8) I know I'm not no Fred Flintstone, but I bet I can make yer bed-rock.

Like I said, they show promise. But, at more than 2 years old, they're not new, and no matter how effective, potentially offensive pickup lines are not revolutionary. So while they could be a component of the Revolutionary New Dating Paradigm (RNDP), they're not going to be the foundation.

This may not be the case for the recommendations coming from two young university researchers, Magpie and Jake. While they probably consider themselves to be more scholars of hooking up than of dating, I believe they have stumbled on something significant. As Magpie reports, the secret is: Television.

In What to Take to University (to Get Laid at University), Jake tells students going off to live in a university residence, "All you need is downloaded TV, a heavy duvet and a mattress topper."

It is of course assumed that all university students have laptops that will play the downloaded TV shows. The mattress topper makes the standard dormitory bed soft and comfortable, the duvet makes for a cozy bed that a person wouldn't want to leave.

In What to Take to University (to Get Laid at University) II, Jake suggests an Ikea mood-setting lamp, but I suspect that's just icing on the cake.

I don't believe Magpie and Jake are even on the same continent, but Magpie is completely on board with the television paradigm. In How to Get Laid (an Introduction), she takes Jake's work further and advises on what to expect from a man based on the show he invites his prospects to see.

Battlestar Galactica Guy: If he likes BSG, he's a keeper. I can't imagine hooking up to BSG (okay, I've done it) because it's just so fuckingintenseandgoodzomfg!!!!! that I'd get distracted. But I supposed a guy who likes BSG is Godly, so do him, do him fast.

Kudoes to both of these young scholars. They are out there researching these important topics and doing their own fieldwork. Magpie has even developed a set of instructions for women who would like to watch television shows with a man without sex taking place. ("1. Do NOT go under the blankets.")

Here is Jake's summary:

So to recap, have a comfy bed, and invite people over to watch TV/movies. At the very least how she behaves, whether she agrees to get under the covers/lie next to you etc, is a litmus test for what chances there are of anything else happening, and at the luckiest the spooning will lead to much more and you'll end up having to wash those sheets even sooner than you expected!

RNDP 21: This Week's Developments

Game theorists at University College London, University of Warwick and the London School of Economics and Political Science have found an explanation for why dating can take so long. Their conclusion? "Courtship enables a male to signal his suitability to a female and enables the female to screen out the male if he is unsuitable as a mate."

These researchers raise an interesting question. Why do humans spend as long as they do choosing mates?

One partner - often the male - may pay the greater part of the financial cost, but to both sexes there is a significant cost of time which could be spent on other productive activities. Why don't people and other animals speed things up to reduce these costs?

- Mathematician Robert Seymour

How did they answer this question? They built a mathematical model based on a number of assumptions that include:

• Women are trying to avoid mating with "bad" mates, but can't tell who is "good" from surface characteristics;
• Men whether good or bad, will mate with any women; and
  
• A "good" man will not give up on a courtship as early as a "bad" man will.

From a female's point of view, males are not all equal. A female would like to mate with a good male, but cannot tell a male's type from his appearance alone. The strategic problem the female faces is how to screen out bad males, and this is where long courtship comes into play. A male is assumed to always want to mate with a female, but a good male is more willing to pay the cost of a long courtship in order to claim the prize of mating. This leads to an outcome in which the female is not willing to mate immediately, but instead requires the male to wait for an indeterminate time before she agrees to mate with him. During this time, the male may give up on courting the female.

- Dr Peter Sozou

This is one of those studies that makes me want to play with the software and modify the assumptions. For example, if "bad" men knew that giving up signaled they were bad, and "good" men knew they were hot properties and could get action elsewhere, and maybe also cared whether they were with a "good" or "bad" partner, could we still wind up with long courtships? Even though it meant that the women were likely to wind up with bad partners?

In other news, social neurobiologist Dr Larry Young at the Yerkes National Primate Center reports that there is still no workable love potion.

6-month Review: Bring on the Cats and the Housing Talk

In amongst all my other important blogging activity, I've taken some time to look at our Google Analytics reports.

First up is the line graph of hits. Our top day in the past six months was November 26th. That is the day I.O. posted a pleasant photo of an Italian athlete. However, it's more likely that the spike came from the previous day's Tanktop Tuesday featuring our good friend Duncan the DogCat.

Obvious lesson: We need more cats on the blog.

Next I looked at what search phrases brought people to us. First is our name. Second? It's Ottawa Housing Market. People come here for this even though we are only on Google's first page of hits if the user has set their preferences to 100 hits per page.

Bring it on, Irregulars.

RNDP 20: Closer to a Unified Theory - Prestige

Dating scholars continue to expand our knowledge of the dynamics involved in two humans hooking up. This week, Jeffrey K. Snyder, Lee A. Kirkpatrick, and H. Clark Barrett learned that young women at two universities expressed preferences for men described as prestigious over men described as acting in a dominating way off a sports field.

Women prefer prestige over dominance in mates

Dominance preferred only among male-male competitions

Los Angeles, CA – December 17, 2008 – A new study in the journal Personal Relationships reveals that women prefer mates who are recognized by their peers for their skills, abilities, and achievements, while not preferring men who use coercive tactics to subordinate their rivals. Indeed, women found dominance strategies of the latter type to be attractive primarily when men used them in the context of male-male athletic competitions.

Jeffrey K. Snyder, Lee A. Kirkpatrick, and H. Clark Barrett conducted three studies with college women at two U.S. universities. Participants evaluated hypothetical potential mates described in written vignettes. The studies were designed to examine the respective effects of men's dominance and prestige on women's assessments of men.

Women are sensitive to the context in which men display domineering behaviors when they evaluate men as potential mates. For example, the traits and behaviors that women found attractive in athletic competitions were unattractive to women when men displayed the same traits and behaviors in interpersonal contexts. Notably, when considering prospective partners for long-term relationships, women's preferences for dominance decrease, and their preferences for prestige increase.

"These findings directly contradict the dating advice of some pop psychologists who advise men to be aggressive in their social interactions. Women most likely avoid dominant men as long-term romantic partners because a dominant man may also be domineering in the household." the authors conclude. [EurekAlert]

I expect Snyder, Kirkpatrick and Barrett have requested further funding to find out who the women actually go out with. Unless they plan to first investigate whether women express a preference for prestigious men over funny guys.

Familiar Bedfellows

With all this talk of strange bedfellows this past week, I've been reminded of the problem some of you have with not knowing what to call the person that you live with and to whom you are not legally married.

I'm told "boyfriend" and "girlfriend" aren't suitable because they sound juvenile and don't reveal there is a shared domicile and commitment to the future.

"Partner" is no good because people assume you are gay if you are straight or they think you are talking about someone who you're in business with.

By turning to the web, I have found a plethora of words and phrases you can use instead of "spouse equivalent", "significant other" or "person of the opposite sex sharing living quarters". First, here are some I found checking various reference sources:

• My conjugal relation [As opposed to your brother who would be your fraternal relation]
• My conjugate [Mathematical: the person who rationalizes the denominators of your fractions, is the root of your polynomial function, and who can be joined to you by a 1-parameter family of geodesics.]
• Mon conjoint; ma conjointe [Means legally married in French, but if spoken with a heavy Franco-Ontarien accent won't give anyone the impression there is anything legal about what goes on between the two of you.]
• The person who is developing an equitable right to my property [Legal #1, problematic because in addition to not being romantic, I'm told it could also apply to someone who is doing extensive renovations on your property with an unwritten promise of having an ownership share.]
• The person through whom I am eligible for dental benefits and an extended-health plan [This is at least unambiguous if you're over 25; on the other hand, you should be calling someone like this "my treasure of incalculable worth".]
• My intimate companion [Cloying unless you're a pair of entirely platonic friends from the early 1800s].
• The person with whom I am in a relationship of some permanence [Legal #2 - see Ontario's Family Law Act, Part 3].

Of course, some of our favourite bloggers (or ex-bloggers) have terms they like to use. Harmony used to use the saucy "my lovah", Hella Stella talks about her "BH", and J spells it out and calls A her "better half" from time to time.

Unfortunately for my research, most local bloggers seem to be either living without conjugal partners or purport to be actually married. Nevertheless, it was by going through blogs of people who are living with another person without the sanction of church or state that I found the word that I think should be claimed by the unwed.

I had been calling up archive pages and doing a ctrl-F for "my " to find possible alternative terms, but on the blog of J's better half A, The Adventures of your Mom, I found a term I think is perfect just by reading the second most recent posting:

So homeslice Paul and I went to pickup (sic) his new 49 burger capacity BBQ. Of course no mojor (sic) purchase goes without issue at Crappy Tire[.] (sic)

I had been reading so many blogs at this point that I forgot whose blog I was reading. The title made me think I was reading a mommy blog and I figured Paul must be the mommy's conjugal relation. "Homeslice," I thought, "what a great word!"

Imagine my disappointment when I realized that this was not some suburban mom talking about her bbq loving man, but instead tough guy A referring to his completely het pal. Then I went to the Urban Dictionary and confirmed that "homeslice" is a synonym for "homeboy" or "homie" that is favoured by caucasian youths.

But my disappointment doesn't have to last and you can help. I've submitted a new definition of "homeslice" to the Urban Dictionary. If the editors accept it, it will show up soon. Probably on page 4. If enough of you click the thumbs-up, it will move up, maybe even to #1.

RNDP 12a: More Romantic Gestures that Score with Audrey

It looks like Audrey's beau is raising the bar ever higher for the rest of us fellows. She wrote this weekend to say:

My boyfriend and I met up with some of my friends for dinner at a trendy restaurant in Toronto on Saturday night. When I introduced my beau to one friend, I said, “and this is my boyfriend {Redacted} – I’m madly in love with him!” My friend was startled and said, “How wonderful that you can say that out loud and he doesn’t mind!” I looked over at my beau and he nodded and smiled.

My boyfriend really is the most romantic man I’ve ever met.

Audrey’s top-ten list of romantic gestures – continued

11. Show up at her home in time to kiss her and then walk her to work.
12. Clean out a drawer in your bedroom for her clothes.

13. Stock the bathroom at your home with her favourite toiletries.
14. Take her to see live theatre. (My sweetie took me to see Cirque du Soleil.)
15. Eat a huge piece of her cheesecake.
16. Celebrate her birthday for a week!
17. Go to her family reunion with her and pose happily for photos with her.
18. Go on a romantic vacation with her.
19. Send her romantic e-mails.
20. Tell her she was made for you.

Previously: RNDP 12: Romantic Gestures that Score with Audrey

RNDP 17: Relevant Research

Some of you singles who have been following the ongoing quest for an RNDP might be trying to decide whether to attend one of the upcoming Speed Dating soirees at the Mooney's Bay Bistro.

I don't want to tell you one way or the other, but I will share with you information I've received through the internet tubes that may help you make up your mind.

The Mooney's Bay Bistro is practically in Nepean. However, you can get there on the #87. I suspect eating is discouraged during the actual speed dating, but the Bistro has good reviews for their food, including compliments on the coffee. [Reviews 1, 2] However, these reviewers may be the type of people who line up for Tim Horton's most mornings. (In other words, conditioned to accept mediocrity.) If you do go early and order food, skip the Caesar salad. Not just because it got a bad review.

Histocompatibility and how they smell: Unless you're on the birth control pill, you need to smell your dates and they need to smell you. The Bistro won't be as overpowering as an Indian Restaurant, but you'll be sitting across a table from them and there will be plenty of Italian food aromas in the air. This means you're going to have find a reason to lean towards them so you can smell them and they can smell you. The obvious way to do this would be to whisper one of your questions or answers. "What are your hobbies?" might not be a good question to do this with. But "what do you think of speed dating?" might be a good one.

It's about the looks: You might feel you need to establish whether they are smart, funny, well-paid and share your views on a variety of critical issues. You might also be fooling yourself and you just need to look at them.

They Don't Need to Know About You: While more frequent exposure to a person may cause others to like that person more, knowing more about the person may reduce the affection. In your questioning, you could use this principle to compensate for your natural biases. If you find you like too many people, learn as much as you can about your dates. If you rarely like your dates, either do more of the talking, or get them to whisper to you about what they've learned about the others they've met that evening. This will reinforce for them the things they've learned that have turned them off, and then you can share the information with your subsequent dates, for example: "I understand #6 worked in a mortuary as a teenager".

You don't know what you want: It seems we humans are terrible at predicting what will make us happy. This means that your quest for a partner who is trained in massage therapy, wants a terrier, voraciously reads mystery novels, and wants to take tango lessons could be misguided. It also means that you are likely to be influenced by the mood you've brought to the speed dating. If you are tense, embarrassed and fearing rejection, you may be completely unable to predict finding happy times with any of your dates.

Maybe it really is about the sex: It seems sexual cues can influence a person’s relationship behaviors. It might be that in messing around with another person, you'll not only find out if you have a chance at a good sex life if you stay together, but you might improve the chance of a relationship happening because the sex might lead to love. It's probably difficult to mess around at the Mooney's Bay Bistro, but even subliminally bringing up sex could help you get somewhere.

In Conclusion: We're not saying speed dating is the answer. If you try it, or if you have tried it, we'd love to hear about it.

RNDP 14: Back to the Future

In Single Parent Rantings on Making Lemonade (the single parents' network), dating coach Jodi Seidler writes about a "new dating paradigm". Unfortunately, it is not a revolutionary new paradigm, it is a dating paradigm that the newly single get "lost in":

...especially ... ex-husbands and men who have been out of the dating market for a while. Sometimes you guys are the most romantic daters - old fashioned and sweet...just looking for a recipient who can appreciate and acknowledge your uniqueness. But alas, in a perfect world that would be so and I wish we could get back to the times when daters courted more frequently. Please don't ever tell me that is a lost or forsaken art form that our children will one day read about in history books.

Ms Seidler gives us no more explanation on either the new or the old dating paradigms, saying she'll leave the topic of how to be romantic to another time. Instead, she advocates that the newly single move slowly and cautiously. She has a rule that she won't "date anyone just out of a relationship or out of a marriage for under a year" and she recommends writing lists of what you're looking for in another person and identifying the lessons you've learned from your failed relationships.

4D Analysis: It appears that Ms Seidler prefers the "courting" model of dating with lots of dates and men acting sweetly.

Given that it has been 3 years since she said she would leave writing about how to be creative in romanticsim to another time, I suspect she broke her rule about only dating someone who'd been single for at least a year and fell into a relationship that gives her reasons to write about something else.

RNDP 13: Avatars

This week's adventure in the quest for an RNDP takes us to Omnidate.com, where an enterprising Toronto couple have created a virtual world where people looking for love can send their avatars on virtual dates. Vidya Rao of Columbia News Service explains how it works:

Through OmniDate, users choose avatars, or animated images, that will represent them on their dates. They are given the option to choose from six male or six female avatars, with each wearing a different outfit and hairstyle. For both genders, the avatars have one option each that clearly represents a person of color.

Virtual dates can include touring a museum gallery, going to a bar, listening to the user's choice of music in a lounge or even going to the beach. The avatars can interact with each other to express emotion. Type in “LOL,” for example, and users can make their avatars giggle. They can also direct them to blow kisses, hold hands, yawn and even roll their eyes to let the person on the other side of the screen know exactly how much they are or aren’t enjoying the date. [Full Article]

Omnidate's blogger tells us "an average virtual date lasts over half an hour" and predicts that in a couple of years, "dating sites without a virtual dating component will be considered lame and will experience a major decline."

4D Analysis: In Omnidate's world, you can "blow kisses", but you can't try out your moves. Major drawback. On the other hand, you'll be able to tell how fast the other person can type and that may tell you something about their manual dexterity. Possibly important to you.

Although new, and maybe even paradigmatic, I'm not going to think about endorsing it as a new dating paradigm until they incorporate smell effects technology.

We've yet to have any of our fieldworkers report back on an Omnidate virtual date, but you can click on the image below to watch to see how a date that lasts less than half an hour might go.

Wading in to the chocolate morass

As Zoom has noted, these are the dog days of blogging. Oh, hey: I'm a dog. A dog about to risk life and limb by weighing in on the Great Chocolate Controversy.

Our Audrey is a singularity, a force of nature, an iconoclast who sashays to the beat of an entirely different drummer. It's why we of the Irregulars love her. So, while we may not agree with her contention that milk chocolate is the preferred option for romance, we respect it utterly. Ummm, possibly while eating dark chocolate.

Still, it got me thinking. Chocolate, when not served up as an adjunct to love, has - more than occasionally - been mentioned as an outright substitute. Is one better than the other? Obviously, the ESIs needed to research the great milk/dark divide further. Exotic locales are always good for research scams fact-finding missions, and if chocolate be the food of love and Paris la grande ville de l'amour, where better to investigate that love/gestalt/thingy...? Surely, they'd have things to say about it. After all, they speak a romance language...

I counted up my paltry collection of air mile points and found them (greatly) wanting, but it turned out, coincidentally, that the Amazon and 7th Heathen were going anyway. Hmmm. Not the junket I was hoping for, but at least it'd get quick results. Wringing grants outta the Canada Council can take eons, and the Amazon is admirably efficient and goal-oriented.

In the spirit of scientific inquiry and at great personal risk, the dauntless duo agreed to go to Maxim's (yes, that Maxim's...) They returned with the biscuit tin in the photo: "36 fine lace crêpes dipped in dark and milk chocolates". *

Yay! I clawed it open feverishly, alert for clues. Damn! With fine impartiality, and an eye to the tourist trade, those crafty Parisiennes had packed in 18 milk chocolate and 18 dark chocolate crêpes, individually wrapped. But wait! The dark chocolate ones were arrayed at the top of the tin. What can it all mean, Audrey...?

* I suspect I may owe a goodly number of these to Woodsy. Payback for scarfing the dark chocolate stash in her purse during a, ummm, legitimate emergency...

RNDP 12: Romantic Gestures that Score with Audrey

the picnic by Norma Desmond

Audrey, ESI's cultural ambassador, reports on recent fieldwork experiences and the results of listening to sage counsel:

Romantic gestures – Part 1

My boyfriends have typically been very reluctant to make romantic gestures. I always felt that it was not for me to tell a boyfriend to be more demonstrative. I reasoned that some men are just naturally more demonstrative than others. I decided that maybe the kind of men who were attracted to me were bold and sexy but not romantic.

A recent trip to Italy, though, caused me to question my theories. I had several dates with a bold and sexy Italian man. I was surprised to find that he was also a romantic. This man played romantic Latin music in the car; he took me for a cocktail at the stylish Café de Paris; he suggested a sunset stroll at the Piazzale Michelangelo and kissed me passionately at a particularly scenic spot; he shared his gelato with me; and he used flowery Italian phrases to tell me how much he desired me.

When I arrived back in Ottawa, I told my friends about my dates. Fourth Dwarf counselled me to choose an “attentive” man for a boyfriend, but to choose a man closer to home.

Well, I took his advice and my new boyfriend is the most romantic man I have ever met. He tells me frequently how much he loves being with me, and he makes many romantic gestures. I thought I would share some of these romantic gestures, in the hope that it will improve someone else’s search for true love.

Audrey’s top-ten list of romantic gestures

1. Buy her flowers – even carnations (my boyfriend gave me gerberas on our 4th date)
2. Buy her chocolate (esp. milk-chocolate) [4D: We're going to get letters about this one.]
3. Take her to the movies and only let her pay for the popcorn.
4. Have her over for a BBQ – just the two of you.
5. Meet her for lunch on a workday.
6. Take her for a romantic dinner (we went to Trattoria Caffe Italia on our 5th date).
7. Drive her home from work, even if you won’t be spending the evening together.
8. Visit her family with her and act like you are not anxious to leave after one hour.
9. Make her tea.
10. Tell her she is beautiful.
    

RNDP 11: Dating Design Patterns

Our next stop in the quest for an RNDP takes us to City Flirting: the Flirt Blog and a post from December 2005, about a year and a half before the blog went dormant. In You Had Me At: "Encapsulated Big Fat Opening", flirting scholar Dan, is told that his tendency to share his knowledge of astronomy is why he doesn't get dates. (Dan's mistake was trying to explain why Venus is both the morning star and the evening star but never the midnight star by explaining "...it's always within 45 degrees of the sun." I can attest that explaining the position of Venus in the sky and other astronomical phenomena by instead using salt and pepper shakers and beer coasters has a disarming effect on certain females even if they still don't understand.)

Dan tries to explain that he is not a true geek because if he was he would invent a robot companion to date or he would invent a new dating paradigm. (I believe this means that I am still in good standing to be considered a true geek because as you know, by the end of this series, we will have not only a new dating paradigm but a revolutionary new dating paradigm. I don't believe robots will have anything to do with the new paradigm.)

In the next sentence he says he doesn't have to invent a new dating paradigm because Solveig Haugland has and she has written a book about it.

Dating Design Patterns is modelled on Design Patterns, a manual for developers of object-oriented software. It is essentially a set of techniques for males to be more effective at courting females using the traditional North American dating paradigms of the late 20th and early 21st Century. It offers a number of possible schema for socially-awkward males to adopt. Dan identifies his favourites as:

Half Bad Boy Plus Protocol: Structuring one's appeal based on equal parts considerate gentlemanly attributes and "bad boy" behavior or facade.

Trojan Proxy: An extremely effective, low-risk, high-planning pattern for connecting through a third-party safe proxy. Strategies include children, pets, female friends and married male friends.

Unexpected Resource God: Maintain a large pool of resources women typically need, and create a connection through replying to requests or by broadcasting a list of resources. A large rucksack is recommended.

Although Solveig's patterns are not a new paradigm, there are fellows who can use this advice. I have two specific tips for implementing the "Unexpected Resource God" pattern:

1. A wealthy man I know drove a Volvo station wagon. "Why don't you get a flashy car to attract the women," I asked him. "Are you kidding?" he replied. "With this station wagon they are always asking me to take them to Ikea!"
2. If you go to Spins'n'Needles, sit near an electric outlet, and plug in a $2.45 hot glue gun, you will have hotties coming over all night. (Next Ottawa event is July 25 at the Legion on Kent Street)
   

RNDP 10: Recycling and Rules

Moving away from Histocompatibility for now, the next Google hit to explore in the world of new dating paradigms shows up in a comment to a livejournal posting. 30-year-old featherynscale asked her readers:

If you are friends with someone, and they break it off with a person they are dating/sleeping with/married to/whatever, is it okay for you to pursue their ex?

She broke her question into sub-questions and created several polls that 32 of her readers responded to. She also invited her readers to leave comments expanding on their answers and to describe circumstances that would make it okay or not okay.

Her first commenter, saffronhare, replied:

This is one of those areas where it always depends on some other shading of relationships. If both people of the deceased relationship (dating or married) still travel in the same social circles, then one would perhaps want to maintain some amicability in any new dating paradigm. You know, and *talking* to the people involved. But I bet you already knew that. :)

4D Analysis: Saffronhare is using the phrase "new dating paradigm" to refer to a new dating situation that a person might be in, in this case, with a person who used to be involved with a friend, not to a whole new model for dating. You might assume that, because Saffronhare and Featherynscale are not endorsing this model as a new paradigm, I also wouldn't endorse it. But let's not sail away from this port before seeing all the sights.

2 out of a non-random sample of 32 people say it's not okay to date a friend's ex even if the friend is dead. I hope these two are in happy relationships that last until they die and if after their death their widows or widowers get involved with a friend, there really is no afterlife so they won't ever know about it.

A majority (20/32) say it can be okay in certain circumstances, but this also means they think it is not okay in other circumstances. I assume that they are all referring to it being morally not okay. Not to it being practically not okay.

Because let's face it, while dating a friend's ex may have pitfalls like possible fistfights, slashed tires, and late night hangup phone calls, it also has benefits like already knowing the person you're dating and knowing what you can do to compare favourably to the last paramour. And you can date a stranger and get the pitfalls anyway.

If you've got a screening list like Kirshenbaum, Coyote and Milan do, you might be tempted to add not a friend's ex to it, or if you're not a hardliner, not the ex of a friend who says it's not okay.

What I ask if you have a screening list is, do you actually want to date? Or are you trying to come up with reasons to justify not dating? Sure we don't want you getting involved with an ax-murderer or somebody you'll come to despise, but at the pre-dating stage, where you are trying to find somebody to go out with, a list of criteria that removes people from consideration may just keep you from getting involved with somebody wonderful.

RNDP 9: Inhale

Another reason to postpone a shower?While others are off on solo projects and secret projects with artists from other labels, it looks like I am once again carrying this blog. Fortunately, there is a mountain of material in the quest for an RNDP.

We learn of another new dating paradigm in Welcome to Do Land:

Gifted1: dumb! :-/ you've never heard of IWannaGetChemicalChemical.com? it's a pretty incredible new dating paradigm, they can match you up based on chemistry. they use science.

Karlito: i hear that it's a rip off. my cousin used it and he went on three dates with guys before he realized that he's not gay. n-e-wayz, that's not an issue for me anymore, i am pure mind. i am free of the entanglements of the corrupt fleshy matrix of the world.

4D Analysis: It looks like the folks behind IWannaGetChemicalChemical.com didn't get their venture capital funding. However, there is an outfit called ScientificMatch.com that seem to offer the same service and it seems there is real science behind it. Several studies on pheromones (the most famous of these being the smelly sweatshirt study) have led researchers to conclude that women (who are not taking the birth control pill) are more attracted to the scent of men who share low histocompatibility with them. Histocompatibility is highest when two people have exactly the same immune system genes in the major histocompatibility complex.

In other words, women are more attracted to men who are immune to a different set of diseases than they are. This makes evolutionary sense to the researchers because:

1. A child resulting from the match would have a broader protection to diseases; and
2. The more different the genes in the histocompatibility complex, the more likely that other genes are different, therefore the lower the chance of harmful recessives combining.
   

But what about women taking oral contraceptives? It seems they are more attracted to the scent of men with similar histocompatibility, and not attracted or even repulsed by the scent of men with different histocompatibility.

Maybe it is because the pill tricks the woman's body into believing she is pregnant. Perhaps women have evolved to prefer when they are pregnant having male relatives nearby who will protect the offspring because of their common genetic heritage.

Some eyebrow raising questions:

• Is this what is up with women who don't want sex when they go on the pill? Their men just don't smell right any more?
  
• Should women on the pill stay away from their cousins if they don't want to get into a family scandal?
  
• What about women who are on the pill when they meet a guy they like? Say they decide to have a child together and she goes off the pill. Is she going to find his smell no longer pleasant and attractive?

Next: We'll spend some more time on this smell issue. There is a lot of research to delve into. Some of it done here in Canada and even on our friend Megan.