Online dating doesn't have to be awkward.

I met my husband on eHarmony.

I signed up for an on-line dating three separate times in my late twenties. Once for three months with eHarmony, one month through Match, and then a final one-month sprint on eHarmony that led to the final match with my husband. These facts don’t make me an expert on the topic. I went on dates with three different people and obviously married one of those three.

That being said – I’ve had multiple friends ask for advice when it comes to online dating. There are important things to consider before meeting a total stranger, but I think there are also some really important things to consider on the day you sign-up for an account.

Here’s my list of important reminders!

 

On-Line Dating Pros:

1.  1 in 8 marriages now start out as online dating relationship. We were hesitant to talk about it at first, but now it’s just a part of our story. I feel like every time we tell our story we hear about more and more people who are really finding success through the medium.I have no problem giving a shout-out to the matchmaking skills of a website… and more importantly to the matchmaking skills of a Heavenly Father who can use ANYTHING to accomplish His purposes.

2.  Online dating provides a "place" to meet people that you don't already have reason to meet. Very helpful in our situation… we lived almost an hour away from each other.

3.  Online dating websites are super user friendly. You get to find a service that embodies your values - which already helps you narrow the field dramatically. (So helpful.)

TIPS FOR FILLING OUT AN PROFILE:

1. Make the main thing the main thing. I set up some “must haves” for myself when I started the journey. I was personally looking for something more than someone who just went to church. I wanted someone who was following after Jesus. I was careful to use that type of language in my profile so no one would have to guess where I stood. Put out there whatever is most important to you – active vs. sedentary lifestyle, willing to attend sporting events, wanting to have kids, faith… etc. It will save everyone a lot of time.

2. Have someone who knows you well read through your profile. My girlfriend who did that for me actually changed a few things. She said that even though what I had was good, it wasn’t an accurate and full picture of me… it was too serious. She helped refine the descriptive words about me and checked for grammar and spelling. (Speaking of grammar – that’s something I looked for in every profile I came across. If you can’t take the time to proofread I’m probably done reading your profile.) She also helped me pick out a variety of pictures. A lot of guys and gals choose to put up one in a bathing suit to show off tats and what-not… but that’s not my M.O. and frankly that’s not the guy I was looking for. (In fact, a shirtless pic as the main pic was a turn off for me. I’m not dating/marrying someone’s abs or nipple ring.)

3. Fill out that “What’s one thing my friends know about me?” question. I rolled my eyes at the number of guys who answered, “Guess you will have to wait to find that out.” Not clever. Everyone answers that way. Be unique!

4. Don’t make your search too small. Again – keep the main things firm (for me strong faith, not smoking, and wanting a family were most important) – but be ready to make the rest of the search broader. Had my friend not encouraged me to change the height and age range of my search I would have missed meeting my guy! Keep your options open unless you keep getting too much of one age. Feel free to change those ranges of distance etc. on a weekly basis to see what kind of different matches you get. If you only get one a day, chances are you need to make the distance or age broader.

5. I wouldn’t jump to “fast track” open communication. Take your time and don’t get discouraged if people don’t respond as quickly as you might want. Some people only get on once a day, or even once a week – it just depends how long they’ve been on e-harmony. At the beginning I was checking 2xs a day… not so much in the weeks that followed, especially after D and I moved to e-mail.

We went through the E-harmony steps, then moved to personal e-mail, then to texting and talking on the phone before we had our first date. When we moved to open communication D asked how I thought things should progress. He asked about the timeline of each progression so that I would be comfortable… and I didn’t give him my last name until we moved to personal e-mail addresses.

6. Give a piece of info on your profile that makes you stand out. Most people say they like sports, hanging with friends, their families and “God.” Great. But what makes you “you”?

What caught our attention?

David listed my favorite book, A Severe Mercy, as the last book he had read. Major bonus points. 

D said that aside from pics and a general pleasant profile, my “one thing you should know about me” fact snagged his attention: “I have mad board game skills.” – it was comical but also something he enjoys.

GENERAL ONLINE DATING TIPS

• Ask LOTS of questions before you meet.
• GOOGLE and research. (Be smart!)
• Let friends and family know where you are going to be and when. (You might even have someone within walking distance of your first date.)
• Drive separately until you feel like you know this person.
• Involve your community in your relationship. (We didn’t want our marriage to exist on an island separated from the input of other relationships – so we made spending time with each other’s community a top priority. We double-dated with friends, watched LOST with his crew, and made sure to stay connected to both of our faith communities.)
• Pray it up. 

This is not an all-inclusive list by any means – any of the tips. So feel free to add everything I’ve forgotten today.

Worst-case scenario: You end up with some fabulously awkward tales to share at parties.

Best-case scenario: You meet someone who wants to play boardgames with you. (For always.)

Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend

Each week when I make the agenda for our office "web team," I put a different meme at the bottom of the page, just to keep the group educated. After all, it is the web team, so I feel like everyone should be up to date on things they should.... well, let's be honest: things they should already know. We've already been over rickrolling, double rainbow, the lying down game, and women laughing alone with salad.

//Sidenote: I forgot that not everyone even knows what a "meme" is. My favorite explanation is that it's "an internet inside joke." Or you could think of it as any funny/weird video/joke/picture/anything that has gone viral across the internet. \\

Since tomorrow is Friday, and as long as I'm teaching a lesson on memes, I'll let you in on a meme that is currently taking the internet by terribly-autotuned storm: Rebecca Black's Friday.

This is a REAL SONG that was written/created/produced by a REAL RECORD COMPANY. It's not a parody video or something that this girl just did with her friends.

Is it EXTREMELY RIDICULOUSLY terrible? No. Does it include the lyrics Gotta have my bowl / Gotta have cere-al and Tomorrow is Saturday / And Sunday comes after...wards ? YES. Yes it does.

Now the internet is rife with covers, remixes, parodies and everything else you could possibly imagine. This song is EVERYWHERE- even my brother purchased it on iTunes so he could prank call me at the office with this song playing loudly from his end- without a word from him.

My brother is just one of many people who bought this song- and helped it to the top 100 iTunes songs. The video currently has over 14 million views and counting (fast).

The kicker? This has all happened in six days.

It’s Friday, Friday
Gotta get down on Friday
Everybody’s lookin’ forward to the weekend, weekend
Friday, Friday

Class dismissed.

Fun With Linking!

First off, I want to apologize for the long hiatus! A delightful 4th of July holiday away in Galveston and a very busy week prevented a post from me. Sorry excuses I know, but what are you gonna do? Exactly.

So remember when I confessed to being afraid of the 1985 version of Alice in Wonderland? I am so totally not alone in this! Other people think it's terrifying as well! SEE? I knew I wasn't crazy.

If you're at all familiar with Rotten Tomatoes, you know how hard it is for a movie to get a decent rating. The score is based on how many good versus how many bad reviews a movie gets from critics. Wall-E, the highest rated movie of 2008 so far (and SOOOO cute! I love him!!!) has an impressive rating of 97%. The Dark Knight is at 100%. Granted it only has 12 reviews so far, but that's still really impressive!

Without a doubt this is one of the coolest news stories I have ever read. A designer remodeling a lavish New York apartment turned it into a puzzle and scavenger hunt for the family, complete with codes, clues, secret panels, and so much more. In fact, this whole concept is so intriguing that its rights have already been purchased for Lost mastermind JJ Abrams. An exerpt: Then one night four months later, Cavan Klinsky, who is now 11, had a friend over. The boy was lying on the floor in Cavan’s bedroom, staring at dozens of letters that had been cut into the radiator grille. They seemed random — FDYDQ, for example. But all of a sudden the friend leapt up with a shriek, Ms. Sherry said, having realized that they were actually a cipher (a Caesar Shift cipher, to be precise), and that Cavan’s name was the first word.

Amazing old photographs that have been made to look 3D. They jump around a lot to give you the 3D illusion so it might make you a little seasick, but it's worth it. I don't know how they do it or why it works like this, but it's awesome.

I'm getting especially anxious to see the trailer for Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince. We (we the awesome Harry Potter fans, of course) thought we'd get a trailer with Prince Caspian. No. Then it was going to come with Kung Fu Panda. No. Then it was supposed to be Get Smart. And Dark Knight. No. No. Still-- nothing! Currently we are hearing it will come either with The Mummy or with Clone Wars. But that's heading into August! And the movie comes out in November! We are seriously overdue. Anyway. All this so say, at least they threw some pictures at us to keep us happy (for now)!

Now I'm not usually interested in medical articles, but this is fascinating. It starts out about itching- why we itch, chronic itching, itching that's all in our minds- but later delves into the very intriguing topic of phantom limbs and their mirror therapy. I know I'm not making it sound that great, but it's completely captivating.

This is SO COOL. You'll like it, I just know you will:

***Update on The Mole! I really thought Kristen might be the Mole! I'm so off my game, I couldn't believe it when she got sent home. Now I am suspicious of Clay and Alex. It will be one of them, just you wait and see! I'm...pretty sure....***

Never again...ok, maybe once.

That's it. I'm finished. I've just spent the last 5 days lifting, cleaning, and sweating. I despise moving. I was lucky enough to have wonderful friends to help with the heavy lifting and some of the cleaning, but I just felt like the task was never ending. A majority of my things are now in storage while I am living in a fully furnished condo for a while. I've compiled a list of things for you to seriously consider the next time you are even THINKING about moving.

1. Do you HAVE to move?

2. Do you live in Arizona? If so, do not move in the month of June when it is 112 degrees outside.

3. Why do you own so much stuff?

4. Say you turn your keys in and then realize that you have left 3 items in a cabinet - just let them go. It's not worth going back there for one more trip.

5. Do you really need to move?

6. Maybe try giving monasticism a try. It's less stuff to move.

I think the high-light of this entire event was smashing my fingers in a drawer and then trying to get my keys off of the key ring to give to the apartment manager. I was putting all the effort I had into getting the keys off, and she just kept standing there. I was about to lose it. I was so tired, so sweaty, and the stupid keys were each on a ring. She finally offered to help after 5 minutes of smashing my fingers.

The new challenge about this move is that I do not have Internet in my new place...so I'm blogging at the library. Since I only have one hour on the clock it doesn't lend much time for creativity. I'm sure I will read this later and wonder what I'm talking about.

I'm now heading out to reward myself for not losing it with anyone over the past weekend in the moving process or at work (crying or shouting - although I have done plenty of that on my own.) I'm thinking my feet have been asking for a pedicure, I picked up a new book, and a stop at Sonic is in order for a Route 44 Diet Coke. (Also, I'm preparing to watch Deanna bring the number down from 3 J's to 2 tonight.) Let the NOT-MOVING commence.

Looting and Polluting is Not the Way

You know what's scary? The idea that, at any time, you can see what other people are searching for on the internet. And they can see what you're searching for. Yeah. Freaky.

However, I have now decided that this is more fun than scary. Because have you looked at what people are searching for lately?

What's interesting is that a large number of people seem to be searching for an actual web address. So instead of searching "Oprah Winfrey New Earth book" or something, several people seem to be searching www.oprah.com/newearth. I don't understand that. Don't you already have the address? So what are you searching for?? Someone did search for "oprah.com anewearth, though, so in that case... well, I guess they need all the help they can get!

Another popular search seems to be "leprechaun trap." I just don't have an answer or a reason for that one....

"Odd girl out." Tell me about it.

"Secret life of a soccer mom." If I didn't already know that was a new reality show, that search would be a whole heck of a lot more entertaining.

"US soldier throws puppy off cliff" is a popular search. Ginger, if we started writing about dead puppies, we might be able to increase traffic on our blog! You up first?

One of the searches was for "Sam Aiken." Sadly enough, my first thought really was: "So is that Clay Aiken's dad?" (Answer: No. It is not.)

.

"mlb 2k8 review." This is like a foreign language to me.

"Earth Liberation Front." Thought this sounded way cool, like some sort of real life Captain Planet organization! (Earth! Wind! Fire! Water! Heart!) But then I realized this was the group that torched like 5 houses today, so...yeah. Not quite as philanthropic as Captain Planet, then.

*Edit* Shortly after posting this entry, someone found this blog by searching "www.oprah.com/newearth." Hmm... Maybe this should be our strategy to reach new readers: just string together all the common phrases that are most often searched. Or, better yet-- just mention Oprah, and I'm sure we'll be golden!

The Trail That Led Them Here

One of the smartest things we ever did in creating this blog was to install a counter that collects information about who visits the site and how they get here. I find endless entertainment in reading what people searched for that led them to Saltwater Coke. Here are a few of my favorite keywords:

fisher and pickle magna doodle (Huh?)

little drummer boy orphan annie (How do these go together?)

why some people are always single (This one is depressing.)

side ponytail 90s (No. Not okay.)

turkey a la key recipe (Do they mean 'a la king?')

sara troll (Is this... someone's name?)

ginger for canker sores (Ginger, do you heal people's canker sores?)

small bathroom in closet (Huh?)

high school awful (Why would you search for this?)

jenna fischer horse scene (Not sure I even want to know)

coming up with names for wow (Actually i think "wow" is a very good name already)

what does little orphan annie look like today (Why would someone need to know this?)

stacy london overalls (I don't think Stacy London would appreciate being associated with overalls. At all)

how do you spell kaki? (The pants khaki, or my cousin Kaki?)

skim milk vs 2% expiration (No idea how they found our blog with this one)

she reminds me the accident (Again, how is this associated with us?)

apple head doll caveman (I just....what?)

Here's to hoping that people continue to Google odd/weird/trippy phrases, and most importantly, that they continue to be directed to our little blog.