Take Your Hands Off Me

A while back, I found myself all on my own again, when my husband, and father of my 2 children, left us. For the next while, after finding a job, I had to work every day and look after my kids as best possible. Needless to say, my social life was non-existent. I had two good friends in similar circumstances who helped me through this period. We often visited each other and talked about various things. One favourite topic of conversation was our dream man. Of course we didn't really expect to meet our “Mr Perfect” anytime soon.

An acquaintance of mine suggested one day that I try out a new dating site that she had just heard about. I'll call it, “MEN-R-US” to avoid any liability issues so I went online to give it a go. I met this moron, I mean male the first night on the site, he was quite comical, seemed like he had a head on his shoulders, and had a decent vocabulary. As we chatted with each other over a few weeks, I let him know that I had not been with a man in quite a while, and needed to take things slow. I let him know upfront that I had two children because I wanted to be honest with him from the start, he informed me that he also had a child so it was no problem because he loved children. He said that he loved kids and that being with his son was the biggest joy in his life. With everything looking positive and no negatives from what I could see, I decided that it it would be okay to go out on a date with him.

Well on the evening of our date I ran around like headless chicken picking out clothes, picking up one of my friends who was going to babysit, getting my hair done (you know the whole nine yards thing) just to look my best for this hunk, at least that’s how he looked in his profile photo. My friend told me to calm down before I hyperventilated, she told me to try not to look too needy or I would scare him off.  “Oh my god if only that had been true!” In any event, I finally calmed down by going outside to wait for him. Finally there he was! I eagerly rushed forward to set my eyes on the incredible body, great hair, and green eyes. When I bent down to say hello and open the car door I realized I had made a mistake, it wasn’t him! I thought, “please god tell me its not him!” But unfortunately to my horror it was. I was so stunned that I just stood there like a dumb mute. Not knowing what else to do, I silently got into the car.

Well, at least it was not all bad. The rug on his head looked like it was skinned from the hind end of a labrador retriever, and I like labrador retrievers. He must have posted a picture of someone else. He did not even begin to look like his online picture.  He didn't have any hair!  He was waring some kind of toupee and I think it was on backwards or inside out or something. He did not have green eyes like his picture. They were bloodshot, dark, and somewhat shifty. He did not have the well toned muscles either. He looked like he had not seen the inside of a gym since high school (if he got that far) and about the only exercise he had gotten in the last five years hoisting drinks in a bar He told me he was taking me to a top notch restaurant. As we pulled up to the “Pig And Trough”.  I prayed that no one I knew would see me with this dork, not just for my own sake but because I did not think my children could ever live it down.

We were placed in a corner table.. Actually it didn't look too bad on the inside. We ordered our meal of fish and sweet potato fries. He kept trying to cop a feel of just about every part of my body within reach. I gradually inched my chair back away from the table in self defence. He made a comment about how he liked women like me because we had not been with a real man in so long that we were desperate for sex. I politely told him if I wanted to be with a real man I would not be here with him. I have to give the guy points for persistence. After slapping his had off of me a few more times he asked be to dance. Always the gracious lady, I said yes. What was I thinking? Once again, I had to keep removing his hands from various parts of my anatomy. I guess to show me what a great catch he was he decided to show off his dancing prowess. He spun me around so fast that my hand slipped out of his and I went flying into the bar and hurt myself. Well that was about all I could take. I stormed out of the restaurant and caught a cab outside to the hospital. I was lucky that my broken nose set almost straight. In any event it is a constant reminder that I need to be more careful.

That was the last time I took dating advice from anybody. I decided that I was going to spend more time making sure that any sites that I used were legitimate before joining them.


During my site research, I found the following link, and it made it easy for me to select sites that were the best for me.:

Personals Online

Toilet Wars – Century Three

You will not be very long into a relationship before you have to confront one of the biggest conundrums since the invention of the flush toilet. Seat Up, or Seat Down!  Now before the invention of the flush toilet, people used to have only two ways of handling nature call. The outhouse (or privy), and the chamber pot. Usage of the outhouse was generally restricted to daylight hours. The chamber pot was used at night so that you did not have to brave the outside weather just to relieve yourself. One good thing about chamber pots was that no thinking person ever left the lid off. Those things reeked! Outhouses ruled the landscapes of North America for about four hundred years.  The modern outhouse that you see on construction sites is called the port-a-pottie. Please do not confuse these with the traditional outhouse. Port-a-Potties have all of the issues that modern toilets have with respect to the seat up / seat down issue. I digress.

The core design of an outhouse was essentially the same everywhere. The building was about the size of a modern powder room. Inside was an enclosed bench about thirty six inches high, with a hole perfectly sized to fit your butt. Often well sanded to eliminate splinters. Children usually used to have to use a stool to reach, so one was usually left inside for that purpose.

All privies had at least one mail order catalog inside.. It not only supplied reading material, but when you were finished it was the toilet paper of choice for most of North America .

Of course there was a couple of variations of the privy for the more well to do. These designs typically featured a longer bench with two holes cut in it, often called the two-holer for short. For younger families, the second hole was usually cut child sized, and there was a couple of steps in front of it. As the children grew up, the second hole was usually enlarged and the steps removed.. Men were usually relegated to the left hole, and women to the right as you entered the door. Nobody knows where this standard came from, it was just the way it was.

The brilliance of the standard outhouse design was often un-remarked. It was the fact that the bench top was about thirty six inches off the floor. This pretty much eliminated any splatter caused by men urinating. This more than offset the inconvenience of having to use a stool for children and when sitting. This inherent splatter free design would be a boon for modern bathrooms.

John Harrington (later knighted to Sir John Harrington) was the person who invented the first water closet as he called them. This forerunner of the modern flush toilet was installed in the royal palace for his god mother, Queen Elizabeth 1. The phrase 'going to the john' quickly found its way into the normal English culture. The original design of Sir John was used for about 75 years. In the middle of the 18 hundreds, a man named Thomas Crapper made several distinct improvements to the design. He managed to get quite wealthy, although never knighted. To this day his name is immortalized in the expression 'going to the crapper'. (Incidentally, there was never anyone named 'Sir John Crapper' which appears to be an Urban Myth caused by muddling the names of these two innovators together.)

It is unfortunate that the modern flush toilet is the instigator of so much strife in male-female relationships, because this very appliance was truly the most significant contributor to the wide spread improvements in health achieved in the last century or so. As more houses in North America and Europe converted to indoor plumbing, there was an equivalent rise in life expectancy. The biggest design flaw is the low height. The American standard toilet is thirty inches tall. Although this is an ideal height for most sitting operations, this is a much less than ideal height for most standing operations. Because of this poor choice of vertical dimension, they tried to solve the problem by making the bowl bigger around to minimize splatter issues caused by standers. Unfortunately, increasing the size of the bowl made it so big that you could literally fall into the john. Something had to be done!. So to solve this side effect of trying to solve the design adjustment of a bad height dimension, they designed the flip up toilet bowl seat. The idea was to put an outhouse sized hole on top of the bowl that flipped up for standers so that they would not pee all over the seat! Women all over North America and Great Britain took to the streets and cheered!!

The upshot of all these small design changes was the introduction to society of a controversy as to whether the seat should be left up or down when finished. This has turned into a male versus female battle royal that is unlikely to ever see a resolution any time soon, if ever. As you can plainly see, a poor choice of height in the initial design of the toilet has lead to a series of adjustments that are only fixing the symptom of the problem and not addressing the true cause.

From the guys perspective, lifting the less than sanitary toilet seat with your hand and then immediately touching your private parts is not the most sanitary thing to do. (Most women reading this do not believe for a minute that men actually think about such things, but lets try to take the high road here for a bit). Men have been conditioned to be more pragmatic. Whatever position the seat is in, they move it to the desireable position for what they have to do themselves.  When done, men will usually leave the seat in the last position that they used it. Because men will urinate about 4 times for every sitting operation, there is an 80% chance that the seat is in the correct position for the next man to use.  Men never complain about the seat being in the wrong position. They just accept the fact that a lot of the time it is in the right position, and sometimes it is not. One big difference between men and women is nighttime behavior. When a man gets up to use the toilet in the middle of the night, they turn on the light. It is an absolute necessity. Because they can now see what they are doing, there are never issues involving falling into the toilet.

If a woman follows a woman into the bathroom, the seat is always in the correct position because women only ever use a seat down. If a woman follows a man into a bathroom, way more often than not, the seat is in the wrong position. If a woman wakes up in the middle of the night with an urge to urinate, they will often use the bathroom with the light off so they do not have to become fully awake. Because of this they are a lot more prone to falling into toilets with raised seats touring the wee-wee hours of the night. Since men always have the light on, there are seldom any traumatic incidents with them.

Up to this point, we have covered the root cause of the problem, and why it is that men and women feel so strongly about their opposing positions.

Now you are wondering why it is that nobody is doing anything about fixing the toilets. Well people have tried everything from self cleaning toilet seats that cannot be flipped up, to toilet seats that automatically lower with each flush. None of these have ever been widely adopted, mainly because of the expense. But a major contributing factor to the failure was that these were only dealing with the symptom of the problem, and not actually fixing the fundamental source of the problem. Most women are sneaky about how they deal with this. They paint the guest powder room shocking pink, and then force the men of the household to use that exclusively.

To my way of thinking, the best answer to the answer is 'When in Rome, do as the Roman's do'. When you are a guy and at her place, just be sure to put the seat down. If you are a woman at his place, then just take it on the chin. Whether the seat is up or down, just put it in the down position and be done with it. When you finish, walk out and leave the seat down. Unlike women, real men never complain about the position that they find the seat in. They just deal with it, do their thing, and move on. Men only complain when faced with complaints directed at them.

So the long and short of it is, to quit carping!
Relationships should be built on love, not crap!




For more male relationship advice:
http://www.top100datingpersonals.com/advice_for_men.php


For more advice on female relationships http//www.top100datingpersonals.com/advice_for_women.php

Why Online Dating Sites are So Popular

If there's one thing the Internet has introduced us to that we love, it's online dating. When you reflect on the entire concept of meeting someone on an Online Dating Site, you just have to admire how much it totally simplifies the entire process of meeting people. We can browse pictures before we even talk to them, centre on the cuties and ignore the rest. No struggling for an opening gambit, no long silences when you struggle to come up with an answer to their comments dissing something that you feel strongly in favour of – none of that crap. No more worries about that creepy guy in the corner approaching you just before last call. Even better is the fact that if you have a bad reaction to them you do not have to take pains to hide your feelings from showing on your face.

One thing that baffles me about online dating, unlike dating, is how brash and open the profiles are. Honesty is good in any relationship, but many people in online dating sites give you their life history in their profiles. They are likely doing themselves a disservice in this regard. Maybe it's just me. Maybe those are the sorts of things you want to know about before hand so you can dodge the proverbial bullet, so to speak. It's hard to say. I'm on the fence about these sorts of things, myself. On one hand, I like to know what I'm getting in to, on the other, sometimes there's such thing as too much information.

Something else to consider is your comfort level in meeting someone that you have interacted with online for the first time. This is not unlike a situation where you have interacted with someone professionally by email or over the phone. When it comes to your first face-to-face meeting though, there is always some trepidation, especially if something important is riding on it. When meeting someone from a dating site in person for the first time, the stakes are high. After all, your whole personal future may be riding on it. Anxiety is bound to be high.  A good tip for those of you who want to go ahead with online dating, but are worried about that: tell a friend of yours where you'll be, who you'll be with and keep your cellphone on. Just pretend you are your parents and you are going out for your first date. What kinds of things did they expect you to do? Just take similar precautions and you should be okay. To be doubly sure, stay away from totally free dating sites like OKcupid or Plentyoffish. Not that they are bad in themselves, but if you stick to sites where people have to pay to join, there is less chance of running into a molester. Paying just leaves an easy financial footprint for police to follow, so predators tend to avoid paid sites

Other than that, I can only say good things about meeting people online. If you take the right precautions, you can have a great time. Meeting people in person for the first time is always a bit of a rush. I mean, you think you know them pretty good by this point, but you can always be surprised. I met someone once with a distinctive body odour that I could not get past. Not hold your nose BO, but rather some subtle scent that may have been genetic or something that they ate regularly. Either way, it was a turn off for me even though I liked them? I am also nervous too. After all, this could be the love of my life that I am meeting, so I tend to get into a bit of a nervous sweat. Other than that, like I said, I have nothing but good things to say about it.

I find that meeting people online is a lot easier, and from my perspective, better. Instead of it being all about looks, they see it as a way to talk to someone openly in a comfortable place. Most people will meet someone for the first time within a window of 2 to 6 weeks or so. Going to fast is dangerous, and waiting too long will likely result in never meeting them at all. Personally, I really like the conversations when you first start talking to someone online. There is just so much to learn about them and there is so much for them to learn about you. This is also a good time to look for inconsistencies in what they say, because that is a sure sign of someone to be wary of.

I have met a lot of people on dating sites that ended up just being friends. We had tons in common, but when we met in person, nothing clicked. Kinda like a sibling reaction. Love them to death, but not in a sexual way. No matter what you are looking for, you are sure to find someone who meets your laundry list on an online dating site, especially if you are like most people and join more than one.

Dating sites are just a natural offshoot of what it is that the Internet does best, and that is to connect people and keep people connected, even at a distance. The Internet is not going away any time soon, and as a consequence, neither are dating sites. Just go for it!

If you are interested in online dating sites, but are not sure where to start, then check out this link:
Online Dating

Look No Further Than Your Country When Dating Online

This is mostly of concern to people who are interacting with women from Russia, although many former eastern bloc European countries also fall into this category. Many of these situations apply to 'pen pal' type activities over snail-mail, but they still apply to the Internet.

Be very careful when seeking women or men for relationships or marriage on dating sites hosted in other country's or who's clientele is mainly from a country different than your own. Especially if the ad says seeking men or women in other country's for love and possible marriage. “HELLO”, if that doesn’t say looking for a sucker nothing does. Its been proven time and time again that a lot of these people use dating sites to get out of there native country, or as a vehicle to get into yours, because they would not normally qualify. For some reason or another they can't do it on their own and that's where you come in. I can't count all the stories I've heard or read of people who met someone online from another country brought them over, got them green cards or whatever they needed to stay in the country, then once they were there for enough time that they no longer had to fear being sent back, they were gone. Often leaving the original sponsoring person with a broken heart, big alimony payments and in some cases child support payments. In the mean time their former spouses were busily sponsoring  their real lover from their own country.

One example of this is a man I know who immigrated to Jamaica. He had opened a store there and was making a life for himself. He hired an single woman to work in his store who happened to have several children. After dating and marrying her she began to pester him about going back to his country and how it would be a better place for the kids to grow up. Do you smell a con job? I do. Instead of standing his ground and staying put he applied to take them back home to live, once there she became pregnant, he got a job, was buying a home for them and paying for a vehicle. And after having two children with him on top of the three she had originally she threw him out. She got the house, car and all the furniture on top of that he had to pay alimony and child support for five children, the last time I saw him he was actually riding a bike, living in housing and had lost his job because of his lack of focus brought on by the separation. A high price to pay wouldn't you say.

Another example is a women I'll call Betty who met a man from Europe, brought him over, and married him. After a while she began to notice that her bank account was being drained. Well it turned out he was dipping into it and sending the money back home to his parents. Soon after that he started demanding that she dress like people from his country and only associate with the same. He got her to sponsor his family into the country. It was at this point that she realized that she had been taken and quickly pulled her sponsorship of him, filed for an annulment, and had him deported.

I'm not saying everyone out there are set to use you, but many are, otherwise they would be looking for someone in their own country instead of yours. I mean I know a guy who had a women contact him on face book and tell him she was in love with him. How could she be in love with him when all she did was look at his photo.  One favourite con  is to tell you early on that they are in love with you, like those are magic words or something. Its impossible for anyone to fall in love that fast with someone they have never met in person. They cannot know enough about you! That is your  cue  to block them and stop all co North America is one of the most  beautiful places on earth and we have lots of good looking men and women looking for someone like you. There’s no need to look any further then you own back yard for someone special to share your life with. Just put yourself out there and get noticed. At least you will know they are not after a green card or sponsorship. The truth is that some of these dating sites don't care if you get conned as long as they make money. There are lots of dating and chat sites that you can join to meet men and women locally you don't need to get involved with over-seas sites.


The following are specific examples that have been cited in other publications:

She tells you she can come on a student visa. She does not want you to visit her in her home country and insists on visiting you instead. She asks for money to buy an airline ticket.
She may have a valid reason to insist on coming instead of you going to see her instead, but this is highly suspicious behavior. Do not send her any money, offer to buy her a ticket instead. Make sure you get a refundable ticket. Even if she writes to you that an airline ticket would cost two or three times less in her country (which is questionable), do not send her the money! Buy the ticket yourself!

She tells you she can come on a student visa You are inviting a lady friend to visit you in your home country, and she tells you that she needs money to get an exit visa to leave Russia.
This is a classic scam that is usually packaged up with the “I need you to send me money for the airplane ticket scam. Most countries do not charge for an exit visa, certainly that is not the case in European countries (even Russians do not need any exit visas to leave Russia anymore. 
She tells you she can come on a student visa.
It may be entirely true, but first get more info on her visa and school and ensure the the school knows about her, and that your government actually has a record of such a visa.
She says that she can get a visa because she can claim to be your  fiancée
She cannot file for a fiancée visa if the two of you have never met before. One of the requirements for the fiancée visa is a personal meeting within the last two years. And YOU will have to file lots of paperwork before she can even fill out her application.
She claims that she can come because she has a work or business visa.
Improbable. Check the validity of the visa. Get her to send a scanned picture of the visa and then check with the issuing Embassy. Some women offer to come on a work visa and then to get a fiancée visa later. They will usually ask you to pay for travel. If you believe her to be honest then buy her the tickets instead of giving her the money.
She still has ads running on many dating sites even after she tells you that she likes you and wants to marry you.
This could be just sloppiness on her part by not taking down her old ads after you start your arrangement. Set up some new free email accounts and try contacting her on these other sites to see if she is still trolling.
She tells you that her Internet costs a lot, and she cannot afford to pay for it.
Using an Internet Cafe might be a very big expense for her. The average salary in Russia is only about $200.00 a month or so. If this is one of the first things mentioned however, you should be thinking SCAM!|She may be telling the truth. People in Russia seldom earn more than $300.00 a month. If it is the first thing asked for, then your scam-alert bells should be ringing|Even though it may be true because people in Russia do not earn that much money, if it happens early in your communications with her, then it is likely a scam.
She seldom if ever uses your real name, but usually just refers to you by pet names that could apply to any man she is speaking to.
There is a strong possibility it is a scam because she could just be sending out a form letter to 20 other guys saying the same things. If there are specific answers to specific questions that you have asked in your previous communications, then it could be legit.
She professes love for you after a few letters.
If it sounds too good to be true then it is. This is classic Scam activity!
You are a lot older than her and have had little luck attracting women of her age, but still she says she has strong feelings for you.
This could be true, because culturally it is more acceptable in Russia for older men to have younger wives, and women will usually target older men for marriage. This could also be scam, so coupled with other things this could be the nail on the coffin for your relationship with her.
She keeps mentioning that she has no money in every communication, but never actually comes out and asks you for any.
She may be trying to get you to offer money to her as a subtle scam, or she may just really be poor. So test her attachment to you by mentioning that you do not have that much money yourself.  You make just enough to get by. If she still continues communicating with you, then she is likely honest. If she stops, she is either a scammer or else a gold digger. Either way, you are better off without her
She just talks about the same topics over and over to the point where it looks like she is cutting and pasting stuff from previous emails into this one.
Almost guaranteed to be a cut and paste scammer. They will lose track of what they have already told you because they are sending the same boiler plate text to so many guys. Try sending her mail using a different name and address (like a post office box) and see if you get the same stuff there as well.
She says she doesn't have a phone and you cannot call her.
There is a strong chance that this is true because many homes in Russia do not have phones at all.


Useful Links and Trusted marriage agencies:
Russia: Internet Dating Schemes US Department of State

Better yet, seek your future wife in North America:
Here is a great place to find the best dating sites on the Internet.
 http://www.top100datingpersonals.com/top10datingpersonals.php