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  

April 10th was the night of our big debut at the “Geek Goes Chic” party we co-hosted with TechCrunch and PopSugar, at the Vanguard in Hollywood. But we weren’t just there to be social butterflies, dear readers!

We were on a mission to introduce the world to the new Engage. Plus, we hoped to help some genial geeks connect with the chic social mavens of their dreams. And vice-versa. (Turns out hotties dream about geeks as great relationship material. Our recent Romancing the Geek survey showed that 82% of women and 72% of men were into geeks — and would even choose silicon valley entrepreneurs over hollywood stars as potential mates!)

Whether you considered yourself a Geek, part of the Chic, or just aren’t into labels, there was something for everyone at this gathering. And Engage staffers were on the loose to Play Matchmaker™ with members of the crowd, bringing people together in the real world the way we do online. 

Here’s a clip of TechCrunch blogger Michael Arrington interviewing our very own VP of Love Trish McDermott and our CEO Suneet Wadhwa. Don’t they look glam in white?

You can also check out our flickr stream for photos from the event. See if you can spot the Engage staffers as they demo Engage and fix up people in the crowd.

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

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