Jennifer Chowdhury, over at SheKnows, interviewed me last week for a piece about how Engage is borrowing from social networking practices to build a next-generation social dating community.    Check it out.  

Meanwhile, over at More, Sherry Amatenstein mentioned Engage in a piece looking at how children of single moms can get involved, or too involved depending on your perspective, in their mom’s dating lives.

Finally, at Reuters Blogs, Belinda Goldsmith posted about the Engage Sex and the City research.

Happy Reading!

Trish McDermott

VP of Love, Engage

We surveyed more than 250 single adults last week to understand more about how HBO’s Sex and the City influenced dating.  Here’s what we learned: 

77 percent of singles consider themselves a fan of Sex and the City.  51percent say they are a big fan.  Women were more likely than men to say they are a fan. 

52 percent of singles say Sex and the City influenced their dating life.  12 percent said it was a negative influence (men were more likely than women to say the influence was negative) and 40 percent said it was a positive influence (women were more likely than men to say the influence was positive). 

43 percent plan to see the movie.  37 percent will wait for the DVD. 20 percent won’t see.  Women were more than twice as likely as men to say they will go see the movie. 

80 percent of singles believe Sex and the City made it more acceptable for women to have fun dating and worry less about finding a committed relationship.  Women were more likely than men to believe this. 

43 percent of singles believe Sex and the City made it more acceptable for women to be unfaithful in their romantic relationships.  Men were more likely than women to believe this. 

59 percent say that Sex and the City reminded them how much they rely on their friends for dating advice and perspective.  Women were more likely than men to say this. 

50 percent believe that women who are big Sex and the City fans are more likely to have sex on a first date.  Men were more likely than women to believe this. 

51 percent agree with this statement made by Sex and the City character, Samantha Jones:  “Who we are in bed is who we are in life.  I’ve never met a man who was bad in bed who was good at life.”  Men were more likely than women to agree with this statement. 

Biggest complaints about the Sex and the City movie (note respondents were able to select all answers that apply):

• There was too much emphasis on being beautiful on the outside and not enough on being beautiful on the inside  (25%) (This was women’s biggest complaint)
• Single women became too much like single men (24%)
• Women no longer wanted to commit to the right man when he came along (23%)
• Men suddenly expected all single women to want to have sex without any commitment (22%)
• It promoted promiscuity (21%)
• It wasn’t realistic and didn’t speak to my dating experiences (20%)
• The emotional needs of single men were trivialized (20%) (This was men’s biggest complaint)

36 percent said they borrowed ideas from Sex and the City and used them in their dating life.  Women were more likely than men to say this. 

Single women most strongly identify with Sex and the City character Carrie Bradshaw, followed by Charlotte York and then Samantha Jones. Women were the least likely to say they identify with character Miranda Hobbes. 

55 percent of single women said Sex and the City influenced them to date more like men date. 

44 percent of single women wish they could be Carrie Bradshaw for one day.  35 percent wish they could be Samantha Jones for one day.  11percent wish they could be Miranda Hobbes for one day and 11 percent wish they could be Charlotte York for one day. 

86 percent of single women said they socialize with other women friends around sex, romance and dating issues, much like the Sex and the City characters did.  51 percent say they commonly do this. 

70 percent of single women say Sex and the City did not influence their shoe purchases.  14 percent say they purchased more shoes as a result of watching the HBO series, and 16 percent say they purchased more expensive or better quality shoes as a result. 

Some might say that it’s more likely that Carrie, Samantha, Charlotte and Miranda  will end up being each other’s “soulmates” in life than it is that any man will be their “soulmate.”  When women were asked about the role a “soulmate” will play in their own lives:

• 39 percent said they already had or would end up with one (or several) women friends as their “soulmate” in life instead of a man.

  When men were asked about their beliefs about Sex and the City (and allowed to select more than one answer):

• 29 percent enjoyed it
• 25 percent say they learned a thing or two about dating women by watching
• 24 percent said it didn’t reflect their lives, or the lives of women they dated
• 24 percent said it gave them an inside look at what women actually do when they get together—talk about men
• 19 percent said it made it a lot easier to get women to sleep with them
• 19 percent said it changed dating, as it gave women permission to play the field
• 17 percent said it made it a lot more challenged to find a single woman who was seeking a lasting, committed relationship

When HBO’s Sex and the City first aired, back when I was VP of Romance and resident dating expert for Match.com, two dating cultural shifts quickly emerged.

Single men, generally from urban dating markets, began to complain to me that single women had become not only like men in their attitudes about sex and commitment, but actually worse than men.  Men who hoped to form a lasting relationship with one special woman felt that almost overnight single women became a lot less interested in commitment, as social license to play the field and focus their dating energy on having fun in the here and now had suddenly been granted. 

SATC didn’t reflect most single women’s dating lives as much as it influenced them.   For better or worse, women began to liken themselves to SATC characters in their online dating profiles, describing themselves as “Carrie Bradshaw like” seeking their own Mr. Big, or in a “Samantha Jones period” in their current approach to dating.  Even a very young Lindsay Lohan suggested that the Sex girls had influenced her to play the field and play around.

SATC, along with the introduction of dating reality shows like ABC’s The Bachelor, also began to socialize dating.  Suddenly everyone was talking about the dating choices  others make and learning vicariously through them.  Was it OK to break up via post-it note?  How young of a man can a somewhat older woman get away with dating?  Who was really right for someone and by what criteria?  We hired Alex Michel, ABC’s original Bachelor, and took these sometimes heated conversations about dating on the road.  It was an eye-opening experience, as dating choices became mainstream conversations in the workplace, among family and neighbors, at parties and at every event I attended with Alex.  We were all dating voyeurs.

The SATC phenomenon ultimately led me to leave Match and help launch Engage.  We built a social dating community at Engage where singles invite friends to help them make romantic connections through  suggestions, voting on possible dates, setting up introductions and post-date debriefings, much as the Sex girls have done over all these years.  Even if most of us can’t afford a pair of Manolos, all of us can benefit from the dating advice and insight of our best friends. 

Aly Walansky wrote more about my SATC experience in her SheKnows blog.   Vote on whether or not you think SATC had a negative influence on women’s lives over at PopSugar. 

See you at the Sex and the City movie! 

Trish McDermott - VP of Love, Engage  

As a member of Princess Cruise’s Romance Department, today I helped crown father of four and minister Phil Roberts, of Lexington, KY as the “Greatest Romantic” contest winner. The Romance Department at Princess, also including intimacy expert, Dr. Ruth Westheimer; ABC’s original “Bachelor,” Alex Michel; actor Gavin MacLeod (he played Captain Stubing on “The Love Boat) and destination wedding expert Lisa Light, nominated the five most romantic videos from the more than one hundred videos submitted in the contest.  More than eight thousand members of the public then selected Mr. Roberts in a final vote.  

 Check out his winning video.  It’s a story, in the form of a poem recited by his three-year-old daughter, about an everyday man who understands how to sweep a woman off her feet in a lovingly spectacular manner.  While he certainly knows how to pull off a perfect wedding proposal, I nominated Roberts because his romantic nature has stood the test of both time and tragedy in his ten-year relationship. That’s the kind of romance that makes me swoon.

Most of our love lives are not the makings of a major motion pictures, nor are they fodder for a romance novel.  They are ordinary, sometimes difficult, often surprising and occasionally hilarious moments pieced lovingly together by acts of generosity, compassion, insight, kindness and inspiration.  While larger-than-life romantic extravaganzas are the memorable love stories many of us will one day pass on to our children, everyday romance is the glue that keeps a couple together. 

What is everyday romance?  Whatever you and your partner need it to be.  Sometimes romance is a smile to break through a relationship’s momentary challenges that might otherwise get us all hung up.  It’s an unexpected gift when there is no occasion.  It’s a public pledge of love, made to a group of people, as in: “This is the woman I love.” It’s an extra few moments in bed, a longer-than-usual kiss goodbye or a slightly seductive note slipped into his briefcase.

Whether you are dating or happily taken, small acts of romance should be part of your everyday life.  Check out Susan Mernit’s blog, Finding Acts of Love that Really Matter.  Along with romantic poems you can read to your love and funny DVD’s the two of you can enjoy together, she shares romantic ideas that can help make all of us great romantics, not just on Valentine’s Day, but every day.  

Even romance experts have to remember to practice romance in their own love lives, so I’m off to buy a gift for no particular reason.

Warm, romantic fuzzies to everyone,

Trish McDermott, VP of Love at Engage

Do you agree? Take our “Romancing the Geek” survey. Then read on…

Not a lot has changed in mate selection in the last forty thousand years. In the good old days of dating, accomplished hunters were hot prospects in the eyes of many a cave girl. Strength, speed and agility would have been attributes all Paleolithic women checked as desirable in a mate on their online dating profile. Those traits were necessary for Neanderthal bachelors to slay a mammoth or two and assure a future family’s survival.

While some dating desires have evolved over the years, women today are still attracted to hunter-providers. It’s in our DNA. Even as we’ve become fully capable of slaying our own modern-day mammoths, we continue to seek affluent, tall, well educated, and professionally successful romantic partners because they can bring home the goods we’re hard-wired to need for happily-ever-after.

Are geeks the new hunter heroes?

If forty really is the new thirty and pink is the new black, then geeks may be the new hot, hunky mammoth hunters of single women’s dreams. Geeks tend to be well educated, hard working, successful, and often are involved in startups that may provide a better world for all of us.

Who brought us the clean-tech movement? Scientist geeks. Who reconnected us to online communities that help us thrive? Internet geeks.

Geeks aren’t necessarily tall. Many hunch over a laptop all day or generally keep their head down to avoid eye contact. Maybe if we uncurled them we’d find that geeks are actually taller than their less tech-savvy counterparts — a pleasantly sexy surprise. But even slumped over, many geeks are hot dating prospects today.

Geek Goes Chic

Engage goes to Hollywood on April 10th for the TechCrunch and PopSugar “Geek Goes Chic” party. We’ll demo new site features and play matchmaker for TechCrunch geeks and PopSugar style mavens hoping to get their romantic groove on. Whether you’re a geek yourself, or might date a geek someday, please take the Engage “Romancing the Geek” survey. We want you to weigh in on how hot, hunky, and romantic geeks really are.

If you’re a geek hoping to meet the woman of your dreams with us in Hollywood, or out there in the big world of dating, check out this DailyIdea video for a few tips on meeting girls.

See you in Hollywood!

Trish McDermott
VP of Love, Engage

They’re talking about arranged marriages and matchmaking over at the Huffington Post right now.  Wondering if everything old is new again.  If we’ve truly gone full cycle, does that mean we’ll see a revival of arranged marriages in our romantic futures?  Probably not.

Arranged marriages are a parental pastime in some cultures and often were a financial and familial necessity, especially when women had little or no earning power or financial holdings, not to mention choice.  Women today are ready, willing and we would like to thing reasonably able to make good dating choices without mom’s help.

Engage surveyed more than 800 single adults back in 2005 to learn more about the role matchmaking (and romantic meddling) played in their dating lives.  Singles mentioned friends, and then mothers, as the two people most likely to want to meddle in their love lives.  They resoundingly felt that friends make the best matchmakers and that mothers make the worst.  Moms have relationship and marriage agendas that often aren’t aligned with what their children are actually seeking.  That’s why every women in America over age 35 isn’t married to a doctor.

Internet “scientists,” convinced arranging marriages may in fact be a scalable enterprise, are peddling their magic compatibility elixirs to singles on leading dating sites today.  Singles are matched based on analysis of a personality questionnaire, but ultimately someone decides:  Can opposites attract?  Do they introduce you to the type of person you are seeking, or the type of person they believe is right for you?  What would your mother do? 

Look at happy couples you know.  How many had to pass a 200-question test to qualify to say “hello” to each other?  What you’re likely to find is what we found in our research–half of all marriages are the result of someone first introducing the couple, but that someone was almost never a scientist, compatibility expert or marriage arranger.

Your friends know sides of you your mother never sees and that no “compatibility expert” can cull from a questionnaire.  At Engage, you won’t find us behind the scenes arranging your love life.  We never presume to know who is right for you.  We simply trust that you, your friends and your community will have a lot of fun socializing on the site as you figure it all out.

Here’s hoping your friends find you a find and catch you a catch.

Trish McDermott

VP of Love, Engage

Fifty-seven men were arrested for dancing to pop music and flirting with women in front of a shopping mall in Saudi Arabia’s holy city of Mecca last Thursday, behavior that is apparently against Islamic law, as reported at msnbc.com. Meanwhile, presidential hopeful John McCain is in political recovery mode after the New York Times reported on speculation about a friendship with a female lobbyist that PresidentPicker blogger called:

…flirtatious but probably not scandalous.

Over in the United Kingdom The Telegraph, in a story titled, “How Facebook flirting could lead to divorce,” reported that:

Flirtatious emails and other saucy messages sent via the sites are expected to be used as evidence of “unreasonable behaviour”, legitimate grounds for divorce.

Career coach, Cynthia Shapiro, gives this warning on office trysts over at collegerecruiter.com:

No Flirting. Dating a fellow employee is your private business and should not be obvious. Please resist the temptation to send ooglie, smoochy emails…

What’s wrong with ooglie, smoochy emails? Aren’t they one of the things–along with breathy, seductive voicemails, warm, fuzzy text messages and deliriously giddy Facebook references–that great romances are made of today?

While doing research for the Engage 2008 State of the Date report we learned that only 38 percent of singles reported using flirting last year as a way to advance their romantic objectives. Apparently 2007 was not a very ooglie, smoochy year. Five percent of singles said lack of flirting was their biggest complaint about the people they dated in 2007.

Fear of flirting is thwarting our national romantic progress. While 57 men sit in a cell in Saudi Arabia, accused of having a little fun expressing their romantic attraction, singles in the United States are prisoners in a social cell of their own making, afraid to break out, take a romantic risk, tease someone, smile, banter a bit or make just enough eye contact to say “Hey, I’m interested.”

Not all flirting is good flirting, as John McCain is probably now realizing. Lobbyists and divorce proceedings aside, it is still good to flirt. Good for you and your love life, and good for the world, which can always use a little more love and affection.

Winks for everyone.

Trish McDermott
VP of Love, Engage

Since single women named Barack Obama as the presidential candidate they would most like to see naked , are they also more likely to find a man in an Obama t-shirt sexier than a man sporting Clinton or McCain across his chest? Probably. Check out this PopSugar photo of Ryan Phillippe stepping out for his candidate Obama yesterday in LA. PopSugar is right when they say of Ryan:

“…showing off he’s a voter is always sexy.”

The Engage “Love, Politics and Romance” survey found that 83 percent of single women and 78 percent of single men report they are more likely to fall in love with a registered voter, rather than someone who hasn’t registered.

Single men, not surprisingly, think Hillary Clinton is the sexiest of the three candidates. So when Fran Drescher, seen here at PerezHilton in her Clinton gear, steps out for her candidate, single men are likely to notice. We are attracted to people with strong opinions and the guts to be public about their political choices…even when their t-shirt choice isn’t entirely flattering.

Want to increase your romantic chances this election year? Get engaged in the political process and show off your Clinton, McCain or Obama gear.

Trish McDermott
VP of Love, Engage

Valentine’s week is always a lot of fun, and occasionally full of surprises, when you work for a social dating site. Here’s a recap of the last few days at Engage.

We Rode the Love Train

I suppose we could have been in the office working on Valentine’s morning, but where is the love in that? Instead, we took a team of Engage staff and friends, grabbed a musician armed with a few hundred love songs and headed down to the Montgomery BART station to romance some unsuspecting commuters.

We gave away just under 3,000 roses in 90 minutes and shared a little love with a lot of San Franciscans. One of them was the rather handsome Michael Singer, from InformationWeek, who was apparently feeling so much love for us that he went right to the office and posted about his Engage Love Train encounter. Of course, not everyone was feeling all warm and fuzzy about the love train, especially not Andy Wright in his post at SFWeekly.com going to throw a lot of love his way this year, and we’ll see if he comes around for next February 14th.

Just about everyone in the BART station was smiling, and a few commuters were even singing along to their favorite love song. Watch the CBS news video and feel the love for yourself.

Engage Research Made the News

Valentine’s week is always a busy press time around here. Jen Saranow at the Wall Street Journal worked with us for her “The Cut-and-Paste Personality,” piece about singles plagiarizing each other’s dating profiles. Jennifer says that a recent search at that other dating site that I helped start and run for ten years:

…brought up more than 90 profiles with such lines as: “I want an opposite. A yin to my yang,” or “You know that woman who is the first person on the dance floor at every party? That’s me.” They weren’t even from real people. They were cribbed from sample profiles posted online at E-Cyrano.com (www.e-cyrano.com) by dating coach and profile writer Evan Marc Katz. “It just seems so short-sighted,” says Mr. Katz, of Los Angeles. “Everybody steals the same lines so they are not original anymore.”

Jennifer included this Engage research in her piece:

In a recent survey of more than 400 online daters commissioned by Engage.com, 9% of respondents said they copied from another person’s profile; 15% suspect their own words were stolen.

Isn’t stealing someone else’s profile text scraping the bottom of the barrel for insight into who we are, why someone might be attracted to us, and what we’re looking for in a partner? Apparently not everyone thinks so. Meanwhile, over at the Chicago Tribune, technology writer Wailin Wong looked at the growing confusion regarding how we should use technology and social networks in our romantic lives:

In simpler times, a high school ring was all it took to signal the start of a relationship. And when the breakup came, who would know or care if one tucked away a few mementos?

All that has changed in the digital era, in which millions of people chronicle the real-time, intimate details of their lives on social networking Web sites like Facebook.com. Dating may be no more or less complex than ever, but because gossip about who’s got a new boyfriend or girlfriend — and who just lost one — now travels instantaneously to a large network of contacts, a new relationship minefield has emerged.

Wailin used some new Engage research in her story “What’s Your Status? Relationships Revealed Online.”

McDermott’s advice is to remember that relationships involve people, not machines. Strange as that sounds, Engage.com conducted a survey of more than 600 single adults in the U.S. and found 21 percent said it was OK to say “I love you” for the first time in an e-mail or text message. Only 12 percent said it was acceptable to break up electronically.

Valentine’s Surprises

Over at About.com’s Weird News Buck Wolf reported that:

In Kansas, a woman carrying flowers and a box of candy walked into a bank and told the teller that the box contained a bomb. She demanded an undisclosed sum, and after she left, x-rays shows the chocolates contained nothing more dangerous than nougat.

Buck also mentioned that 8 million Americans probably sent themselves Valentine’s presents this year. If we had known, we would have given them a rose!

Hugs, kisses and warm romantic wishes this love week from all of us…
Trish McDermott
VP of Love, Engage

More than one billion Valentine’s Day cards are likely to be exchanged over the next few days. How many will be printed on recycled material? What quantity of fair trade chocolate or locally grown roses will change hands this week? Are lovers developing a social consciousness, right along with the rest of us?

Do you know where your Valentine’s candy comes from?

We think so. Sixty percent of 1,000 adults we recently surveyed said “going green” was the right thing to do this Valentine’s season. Sixty-five percent of the people surveyed who expect to receive a Valentine’s gift this year said they prefer to receive a socially-conscious or eco-friendly gift.

Women who plan to give a socially-conscious or eco-friendly gift were most likely to say they will give a card or other gift made with recycled materials. Other top gift-giving choices for women were fair trade chocolate and a gift to a nonprofit or charity made in their Valentine’s name. Men were most likely to say they would give their Valentines eco-friendly flowers, followed by fair trade chocolate, and then a card or gift made with recycled material.

Three percent of men said they were most likely to give their Valentine a hybrid car this year! Now that’s a thoughtful man. One percent of both men and women surveyed said they would give carbon credits to their love. Overall, women were more likely than men to believe going green was the right thing to do on February 14. Women were also more likely than men to say they prefer to receive a socially-conscious or eco-friendly gift.

Green and Socially Conscious Valentine’s Gift Guide
The Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations has some great ideas in their Valentine’s Gift Guide including one way to approach your February 14 meal: “Before you make romantic dinner reservations check out Local Harvest to see if there are any restaurants in your area that use locally grown food.” Local Harvest can also help you locate locally-grown flower shops in your area. According to A. Caleb Hartley at Environmentastic:

“Often, your flowers are delivered from halfway around the world. Flowers sent to people in the USA are grown in South America. This means that, even if the flowers are organic, that significant amounts of fossil fuels have been burned just to get them to you or your recipient. So buying local is very important as well.”

A pig, cow or goat can be an especially romantic gift, when given through Heifer International They believe giving impoverished families livestock as a sustainable source of food, and one that they can in turn pass on to other families via offspring, is a way to stop hunger and poverty.

Visit Money and Values to learn more about why you might want to buy fair trade chocolate, and other products, for your love on February 14, including that:

“Fair trade certification is about letting consumers know that the people who grow/harvest/make their products got a fair price and humane working conditions, which is a big step above the often horrible conditions (child labor, pesticide poisoning, intimidation and exploitation, etc) involved in producing non-certified versions.”

Valentine’s Day is an especially big deal for two fair trade products– chocolate and the newly available fair trade flowers– because it’s estimated that Valentine’s Day accounts for 12% of chocolate and 25% of flowers sold in the U.S.

Want to do something to keep a bit of red in Valentine’s day, while also saving three lives in the process? Take your love and arrange to give blood at an American Red Cross donation location in your area.

Finally, why not buy your love a “Love” t-shirt from Rosie O’Donnell’s shop? It’s a simple message, and exactly what the world needs more of right now!

All net profits go to Rosie’s For All Kids Foundation

Peace, Love, and Happy Green Valentine’s Day!

Trish McDermott
VP of Love, Engage