How to Use Your Free Calling Card
I wrote earlier about how to set up a private phone number and get a free calling card to use for your dating and social life. Here’s how to use it:
1. If you are in a social situation where someone asks for your phone number and you either want to protect your privacy and/or don’t want the person to be able to get to you directly, give them your card with its limited amount of information: Your first name, a blind email address and equally blind private phone number.
2. If you wish someone would ask you for your number and they haven’t, ask them if they have a business/personal card that you can have. Likely, with that opportunity, they will ask for yours, too. Or you can offer it then.
3. I’m always looking for interesting potential party guests. That can make a great cover for singles too. You can say: “I regularly throw great parties and am always looking for interesting guests. Would you like to be on my invitation list?” If they say “Yes!” then ask for their contact info, and give them yours.
BTW, I have a book coming out soon on making yourself the center of a social scene by entertaining: “Looking for Action? The Find-a-Sweetheart Party Planner.”
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
New-Fashioned Calling Cards FREE!
Here’s a great solution to the “Can I have your phone number?” problem: Get yourself a calling card with your first name, a “blind email” box at Hotmail or AND a private phone number—with voicemail and FREE!—at PrivatePhone.com.
You can even get free cards! VistaPrint.com has a terrific offer of 250 business cards for the cost of postage ($5.25 for the slow way). That’s ALL it will cost you unless you say “yes” to any of the upsells they offer (and you’ll get offered about 10). Just keep saying no. What does VistaPrint get out of the deal? They print on the back a line of advertising in pale gray. Non-offensve. That’s it.
The cards should come in about 3 weeks. They’ll come faster if you pay more for the postage.
This is all quite a deal. With just a little work for you (setting up the email account, the private phone number, and the VistaPrint template. Who can beat free?
It’s such a deal that I tried it out. It took me about 5 minutes at VistaPrint to select a card design (a long stemmed red rose—chic!) and figure out what to say on it. The biggest problem was that VistaPrint allows you to put LOTS of information on a card. All I want there was my first name, the private phone number, and my blind Yahoo! address. I solved the design problem by putting a short message at the top (where the company name usually goes) that said “Give me a call! I’d love to hear from you!”, and then left the bottom of the card blank so that I could write messages there by hand if I wanted to.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Scam Resources
Did you know that the Secret Service handles Nigerian scamming cases? The following information comes from www.Crimes-of-Persuasion.com
UNITED STATES ( and most other countries )
United States Secret Service,
Financial Crimes Division,
419 Task Force
950 H Street, NW,
Washington, DC
or telephone fax: ,
You can report this crime online to the U.S. Treasury Department Secret Service ( Nigerian Frauds ) e-mail .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
<>
A list of local Field Offices for the Secret Service.
Materials sent in should still be labeled No Financial Loss - For Your Database if that is the case and Loss - and whether or not there is a US Connection - if there was a loss. If you are from outside the US, you should also note the country you are from.
If you receive such a letter in the mail, do not respond. Send it to:
Inspection Service Operations Support Group
Two Gateway Center, 9th Floor
Newark, NJ
For more about Nigerian scams, see:
http://home.rica.net/alphae/419coal/
http://www.snopes.com/crime/fraud/nigeria.asp
http://www.crimes-of-persuasion.com/Crimes/Business/nigerian.htm
I’ve written many times about scamming for money from singels, particularly the notorious Nigerian scammers. Read more of what I have written here.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Boy oh boy, I just love ingenuity. Whenever someone figures out a problem, a solution is not far behind.
Going from email to the phone is a natural step for singles meeting online. I usually suggest using email to get to know each other before moving too fast to the reality of voice and/or face-to-face meeting. But while caller ID has for the most part been a real boon to our privacy (see my blog piece on obscene phone calls), when we want to protect ourselves when making calls (ie we don’t want our real names connected to a phone number and geographical address), it’s gotten harder.
While I never use caller ID blocking (I guess I don’t care who knows I am calling), apparently it’s about universal now (in the USA anyway) that you can block your phone number from appearing on your recipient’s caller ID by punching in *67 before dialing your call. Great, except you need to remember to do it.
(BTW, in the same spirit of protecting your identity and privacy with online dating, always use dating sites that route your emails through their site and strip of electronic identifiers. Most sites, especially the big ones, offer this service, but be sure to check. Also, if you regularly use a signature box in your emails [at the bottom of your emails that automaticly gets added with your name and contact information], you need to be VERY CAREFUL that that info does NOT get included in your early communications with possible dates.)
So here are (via mySanAntonio.com) two Internet businesses that are coming up with solutions to the privacy and caller ID problem: PrivatePhone.com (operational now) and Jangl.com (up for business around the first of 2007).
I went ahead and joined PrivatePhone and tested it out. Here’s the best part: FREE! They must start charging at some point, but I sure do like free. I’ll bet you do too.
1. Go to PrivatePhone.com and click on the “dating” tab at the bottom. Then just identify your state, area code and city, and you will be issued your own private phone number.
2. Easy sign up—just your email address, then pick a sign-in name and password.
3. Then you get instructions for setting up your voice mail account.
Callers to your private number get sent right to your voice mail message. You get notified by email that a call has come in. You can check your voice mail online or on the phone.
Now, apparently, this solves the problem of the phone number you give out to others. But it does not solve the problem of you placing calls. Guess you’ll still have to remember to dial *67 if you want to block your number from showing up.
Jangl.com is not up and running yet, but it looks worth following. I can’t quite tell from the website what the service will be specifically, but it looks like it will enable you to give out private phone numbers, screen calls, and then arrange another number that both parties call to connect.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Letting Go
Dear Kathryn,
I am 42 years old. Fell in love with a man a year ago. We dated for nine months. I gave him an ultimatum for exclusivity. I haven’t spoken with him since January. I can’t get him out of my mind and my heart. I want to move on, but can’t. Do you have any suggestions for moving on? Jenna
Dear Jenna—
How about some emotional house cleaning? You could get together everything that reminds you of him and burn them in a ceremony. Or completely clean your bedroom top to bottom and buy all new sheets and bedding, new nightgowns and lingerie for you. Start making changes in your daily routine—any time you find yourself obsession (like driving to work), make a change. Change your route, the radio station, or get yourself some books on tape to listen to. Do not allow yourself obsessing time. It’s like picking a scab—deliciously painful and sure to bleed. Notice your patterns and then make plans to do that time differently.
How does that sound?
BTW, did you know that I offer a free first romance coaching session? Getting back in the dating race will help too.
Best, Kathryn
Kathryn Lord, Romance Coach / Helping Singles Find A Sweetheart!
eBk: “Find A Sweetheart Soon! Your Love Trip Planner for Women” Purchase ebook at: http://www.YourLoveTripPlanner.com
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Forbes and Dating Stats
Forbes magazine has come out with its “Best Cities for Singles” list for 2006. Interestingly, they are including the best cities for online dating, using figures provided by Match.com. The Match.com figures reflect the number of active members per capita in each metropolitan area. Here are the winners, listed in “Bean Town Wired for Love”:
1. Boston (No. 2 overall)
2. Denver- Boulder (No. 1 overall)
3. Seattle (No. 7 overall)
4. Washington, D.C.-Baltimore (No. 9 overall)
5. Raleigh-Durham (No. 6 overall)
6. Orlando (No. 24 overall)
7. Tampa (No. 35 overall)
8. Minneapolis/St. Paul (No. 14 overall)
9. San Francisco-Oakland (No. 4 overall)
10. Las Vegas (No. 21 overall)
Interestingly, the Forbes online articles also included a survey on where the best places to meet singles are. “Friend’s house” is tops at 14%, followed by “Parties” (13%), “Bars” (11%), and “Church” at 9% before we get to “Online dating” at 7%. Since around 12% of newly married and engaged couples report meeting online, those figures might be slightly skewed.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
IMBRA and Mail Order Brides
I’ve written before about the dangers of looking for mates through sites offering women from Russia, Nigeria, or other economically distressed countries. Not only are American men easy targets for scams, the women are easily manipulated by men who are not the kind of wholesome mate material that they’d like us to think.
Keli Dailey in “I Wish They All Could Be Mail-Order Girls” writes about the newly enacted International Marriage Broker Regulation Act (IMBRA), which was passed as a rider to the Violence Against Women Act, all of which took effect this last March. While I had felt squeamish about the whole idea of men going abroad to find wives (often openly courted by the sites or marriage brokers with allusions that the women being offered were old-fashioned in their values and not like modern American women), this article tells some of the distasteful stories, along with the implications of IMBRA for men still looking abroad.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
A Most Unusual Love Story
Now, here’s a story that has a number of unusual twists:
Rita Manning lived in Fresno, CA. 48 Years old, in 1993 she weighed 594. Following surgery, she lost 232 which left her at a still hefty 362. Widowed, she was ready for something new. Rita signed on to BBWDatefinder.com, a dating site dedicated to “Big Beautiful Women and Their Admirers.”
Well, she found one. An admirer. David Richardson of Eudora, Kansas, emailed her. 49 years old, David had never been married.
Kansas is a long way from Fresno, but Rita was taking a long-distance trucking course and happened to be driving through Kansas as part of her training. The met for the first time at a convenience store parking lot of I-70.
Rita ended up moving to Eudora and the two married on June 30. Take a look at the story in the Lawrence Journal-World: there’s even a slide show!
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
PS I have heard other good reports from women who have joined the BBWDatefinder site. So if you are not the “slim and trim” that most guys seem to want, hop (or stroll) on over. BTW, what most guys want is not what they are going to get, since the average weight of white women at age 50 is 155 pounds, 175 for Black women.
Pounds Count. Sigh.
I get letters from visitors to my website and readers of my enewsletter all the time. When I think that the questions posed are of interest to more than the writer, I often alter the writer’s note to conceal identifying details, then publish the relevant content here or in my free *eMAIL to eMATE* enewsletter. (Not a subscriber? Sign up here!)
I got this note from a coaching friend recently. I am on the
round side myself, and understand the irritation women who are
not rail thin have when reading men’s wish lists in their
Internet dating profiles. When the average weights for white
American women are 149 for women 40-49 and 158 for women 50-59
(that means that half the women in each age group are above that
weight and half are below), and the average dress size a 14,
asking for “thin or slender” is cutting out lots of really good
women. Like probably 75%.
I joined a small Christian Internet dating site about a
year ago. I joined because I was bored, in a new town,
and needed to boost my social life even if it was just
virtual. At the time I joined I was about 50 pounds
heavier than I am now. I did not receive much interest.
Some, but not too much that interested me in return.
Often when I would initiate contact, I would receive a
message that their ideal match needed to be very thin.
I did connect with one person at that time. We scheduled
a meeting,,,at the beach no less, in a swimsuit. Upon
meeting me in person, he was not longer interested. He
was gracious, just bowed out. I was disappointed.
So, I finally got my act together and decided to find the
real me again which was indeed a size 6 or 8 hiding in
that size 12 to 14 body. I found a diet plan that worked
which eventually did involve the services of a bariatric
physician. What had worked for me in the past did not
work this time. I had to do something new.
I lost the 50 extra pounds through a combination of
controlled eating and exercise. Not rocket science, we
all really know what it takes, just have trouble with the
motivation. Now I needed new pictures. I took a self
portrait, a head shot in the mirror. Posted it with some
improvement. I finally got a friend to take some new
pictures with a digital camera. Two great shots
resulted. Posted them. Wow! What a difference. Now
when I log on, I can hardly tend to email for all the
chatting requests. And the volume of the mail has
greatly increased.
Men have similar resentments about height specifications from
women. Many women would LIKE a man over 6 feet tall, but only
15% of men would qualify. Average height for American men around
age 50 is 5’ 8”. I encourage my women clients to really expand
their height specifications. at least to their own height and
above. Character is more important than height. I would suggest
that it is also more important than weight.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Potpourri of Facts
A study by a German Internet dating site (www.single.de) found that older singles did better with online dating than younger folks. The figures quoted in a posting on IOL Technology are a bit confusing, but interesting. The site (which has more than 2.4 million visitors monthly) found that 15% of people age 40 to 50 said they had found a lasting partner on the Internet, while the figure was 11% for those 31 to 40 and only 10% for those 21 to 30.
Buried in an article in Forbes were these figures from Jupiter Research: Online dating is a $494 million industry, expected to reach $642 by 2008. The big three dating sites (Match.com, Yahoo! Personals and eHarmony) account from between 2/3’s and 3/4’s of the total online dating traffic.
Also quoted in the Forbes article was the results of a February 2005 survey by WeddingChannel.com that 12% of engaged or recently married couples met online.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
My Current Favorite Niche Dating Site
I always recommend the Big Guys for online dating: Match.com where I met my husband Drew in 1998 and Yahoo! Personals (Did you know that I write for Yahoo! Personals’ online magazine? Here are two of my recent publications: and )
But sometimes it can be fun - and useful - to also list on a second, smaller site related to a special interest or fact about you. I just saw a new site for coooking enthusiasts and food lovers—that’s me! www.Pairings.us looks like it could be great for foodies, and is offering a lifetime membership for $29.95 cheap. However, like on any of the niche sites, I wouldn’t look to spectacular results. Usually the numbers are just too small. But who knows?
If you have an unusual interest, google “dating sites”+ “your interest” and see what comes up.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Interested in just sex rather than a real relationship? Skip the big sites like Match.com and Yahoo! Personals and go right to the booty: AdultFriendFinder is the most flagrant, largest, and just plain dirty match up service that I know about. And OnlineBootyCall is coming up fast (excuse the sexy reference).
One of the funniest articles I have seen in a long time popped out this week on The Inquirer. In the piece, Moses Brown, OnlineBootyCall’s CEO, announces that the site has produced only one marriage out of its million members. “If we were less superficial, we would probably have more marriages and we certainly don’t want that,” Brown said. OnlineBootyCall is not quite as dirty as AdultFriendFinder, where members regularly post photos of themselves and multiple others having sex, as well as pic after pic of sexual parts, but BootyCall’s photos make clear what is being offered.
Is anyone still reading this, or have you all clicked over to AdultFriendFinder and OnlineBootyCall to look around?
While I virtually never suggest such sites to my clients (who are virtually always looking for long term relationships), these sites provide a real service that I wish more people knew about. One of the biggest complaints and fears is married men (to a far less of an extent, married women) posing as single on sites like Match and Yahoo! OnlineBootyCall is where those folks need to go. Or AdultFriendFinder. Leave the cleaner sites for people with cleaner motives.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Comment from eHarmony User
This came in my email box a few days ago from Kitty:
Genreal comment about eHarmony: I tried it 7 days got my refund after really no responses from anyone. When I inquired to eharmony about this, they said they may not be paying members that I am matched with. hmmph. And I asked eharmony point blank about the divorce rate for all of their success story marriages. They said they don’t have those statistics. Imagine that.
This is not an unusual story. eHarmony also turns away a about 20% of applicants as unmatchable. Now, that may provide some solice for those who pass muster and get matched by eHarmony, but I think it is pretty arrogant for a dating site to declare someone unmatchable. See my other eHarmony related blog entries here.
Eharmony has done the most complete results study about couples who met there and married: 16,500 in the hear ending August 2005. See this blog entry.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
Nigerian Dating Scams-Again!
On July 18th, two different TV stations covered Nigerian scam stories involving three separate female victims. Read about their experiences here via and and here from KUSA
I’ve written a lot about scams and bad advice. Take a look here. In a nutshell (accurate word, nutshell), never, never, never give money to someone you met online. Not for a long, long while anyway. And then think aobut it more than twice.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
About.com Takes on Online Dating for Seniors
Here’s a great Q & A on About.com about online dating and seniors, so good that I posted a comment. Here are my words below:
This link to “Is Online Dating Right for You?” gives a great positive overview of the wonderful resource that Internet dating has provided for singles of all ages, but for seniors in particular. Where are all the nice older men (and women)? Online and looking!
I am a Romance Coach working mostly with singles over 50. Internet dating is THE best resource, and best of all, online, it is okay for women to make the first move. Men LIKE it.
I would also add that singles should be prepared to devote plenty of time to their search. We often wish that finding romance should be easy and “just happen,” but we should expect that the older and more certain of ourselves that we become, the fewer the “right” partners there will be.
Please visit my website at https://Find-a-Sweetheart.com and feel free to brouse the copious information there. And subscribe to my free email newsletter *eMAIL to eMATE*
Best, Kathryn Lord
Your Romance Coach
We Love Love Stories 8/25/06
This sweeth story actually showed up way back last may, but got lost in my files. It is so nice that you are going to get it anyway.
This is from a Letter to the Editor in the Valley Advocate on May 25, 2006:
Low Income and Dating Potential
I get letters from visitors to my website and readers of my enewsletter all the time. When I think that the questions posed are of interest to more than the writer, I often alter the writer’s note to conceal identifying details, then publish the relevant content here or in my free *eMAIL to eMATE* enewsletter. (Not a subscriber? Sign up here!)
Dear Kathryn,
I am a very proud. divorced Hispanic artist and have been told that am as handsome as a movie star. I have also been told that I am above average in intelligence, yet I keep being turned down for dates. Like most artists, I do not earn much money and I would like to know how I can convince some ladies that I am a good catch despite my lack of much money? Like most people, I hate rejection. Any suggestions?
Jose
Well, Jose, you pose a difficult question. I don’t know how old you are, but the older a man gets, the more women will look at financial accomplishments as part of a total package. Of course, men look at women’s finances too. Only smart on both parts. Pride and good looks lose their luster with age, when women start looking to other qualities.
Finding a partner can be compared to striking a bargain like buying a car. What do you have to offer in the deal? The more that you have to offer, the better deal that you can strike. I suggest that you look to increasing your worth as much as possible, and I don’t mean just money. Kindness, generosity, dependability, humility, good character all might be qualities for you to work on that would increase your appeal to women. You also might want to take a look at my two articles on rejection: and
Good luck to you. Kathryn
Dear Kathryn,
I read with interest your comment on my previous query. I am in my mid 50s but feel 20 years younger and have been trying to date women aged less than 40. I am puzzled about your explanation about money. I am not flat broke but will not own a car for personal reasons and I detest ostentatious displays of wealth. If money can buy love, how come so many poor people love each other? As for the other precious characteristics you mentioned, I possess them all but no one seems to be willing to give me a chance to show them. I interpret rejection as a signal that “you are not a nice person.” My response to this is “if you can judge me without knowing much about me, you are not a nice person.” Are there any nice girls left?
Dear Jose,
Now you include another clue for why you are getting rejected: If you are in your mid 50’s and approaching women under 40, your rejection level is going to be high. Why would a woman that age want a man in his 50’s who is not well established financially? Again, you need to get more realistic about what you have to offer and look for women who are more likely to accept what you have—women your age, for instance.
Best, Kathryn
SeniorFriendFinder Review
A healthy proportion of my clients are over 50, and they often ask me about SeniorFriendFinder.com I have had conflicting reports from folks who have tried it out. One woman loved the site, but more have at least mixed results, and several downright bad. Even the woman who loved the site said that there seemed to be many married men cruising around and looking for sex. She took sword in hand and put a sentence in her profile that told married men to keep moving. That helped.
I suspect that the problem with SeniorFriendFinder is that it is part of the family of the edgy FriendFinder dating sites, AdultFriendFinder.com the most notorious. If you want jaunt through pure raunch, go take a look, but be prepared for slime.
Here’s a largely positive review of SeniorFriendFinder.com, FYI. I almost always recommend the Big Two, Match.com and , regardless of the age of my clients. They consistently perform, and have less of the sexy intrusion of AdultFriendFinder and others.
From Your Romance Coach, Kathryn Lord
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