Thursday’s New York Metro featured a piece by Kristy Korcz about apps designed to get you away from an obnoxious, creepy, hygienically challenged, or plain old boring date immediately.

My first instinct was to dismiss these tools as just another way to be mean to people. Face it, we’ve all known women who’ve given a man a fake number or, worse, the digits to a pre-recorded reject line (with a message to the stinging effect of, “The person who gave you this number does not want to go out with you and never wants you to contact them again!”).

And I’ve known a man or two who’d collect as many numbers from women as possible, only to tear them up into little bits at the end of the night (yeah, it is pretty sick; you wouldn’t want to date those guys, anyway).

These people will definitely abuse the get-out-of-there-like-a-bat-out-of-hell apps. Such a woman will spy the guy she met on Match.com from a restaurant window and decide on the basis of the shape of his nose that he’s not what she had in mind. With the help of an app like Fake ‘Em Out, she can rig an emergency call or text message with an excuse to make a quick exit.

Thing is, she who lives by the sword dies by the sword. If a woman uses a break-a-date app before giving a guy a decent chance, she should be open to the possibility that a guy will do the same thing to her. (It all gets down to that ‘treat others as you would have them treat you’ thing, which makes living on this planet so much more enjoyable. If that doesn’t inspire anybody, the late Ann Landers insisted that ”Time wounds all heels.”).

After giving it some thought, though, I remembered a good friend telling me about having dinner with a first date who went into technicolor detail about his favorite sex positions. And then kept making “So what you think?’ gestures with his eyebrows. If you ever find yourself in a similar situation, you have my blessing to get away from such a clueless and pathetic individual by any means available.

In the meantime, check out Geek Sugar, where the motto is ‘geek is chic,’  for up-to-the minute tips on technology and gadgets.

BY Skyecandy
(with commentary by SWR’s Keysha Whitaker)

Forget blind dates, noisy bars and ‘traditional’ online dating, a new style of dating has hit singles in time for Valentine’s Day. Skyecandy announces a worldwide dating event this Valentine’s Day to celebrate the official launch of Skyecandy video speed dating via Skype.

Okay, they have a point.  The dating game can be a pain in the patootie.  Though I’ve had some success with that free dating fish website most of the time I just don’t feel like being bothered. If you are going to make the effort to meet someone new, why not make it as low impact as possible? 

Eddie and Dan, two hopeless romantics, will kick off the launch with a livestream event beginning which will simultaneously stream on Skyecandy, Facebook and Livestream.

FOR EASTERN TIME in the US it begins at 5:30 PM on Saturday, Feb. 13. 

Skyecandy matches members for 5 minute video speed dates with real people from all over the world. It offers users the security to interact face-to-face and meet potential partners or make new friends using Skype, without having to exchange any personal information. And you can enjoy this from the comfort of your own home.

Woo-hoo pajamas! 

Skyecandy is designed with women in mind. “If you’re a woman on the dating scene, it can be such a minefield,” says Skyecandy founder Melonie Ryan, a thirty something Sydney-based entrepreneur. “Video dating promises to be a popular alternative to lengthy profiles searching, misleading profiles and the delayed chat and email-based communication of traditional online dating services. Now with instant face to face dating, in a matter of minutes, you can establish a mutual attraction.”

Now I don’t know about the misleading stuff. I’ve seen myself on video and dammit I don’t think I look like that.  But the plus side is, he can’t put a video of himself when he was the captain of the college football team.  A face-to-face meeting without the in-person face is a safer alternative than texting his profile name and email address to your girls before you go.  Though I’m not sure videos can capture that in-person chemistry that we all use for the final yay or nay.

Speed Date sessions run every six minutes. Each date runs for five minutes with a minute in between that enables you to give a simple answer, YES or NO. If you both vote YES, you can continue to communicate for free using Skype, in your own time, at your own pace. You can also record your thoughts with Reminder Notes about the date and send a little Post Speed Date Notes (PS note) to someone you liked.

At the livestream event on Valentine’s Day, Eddie and Dan will give friends and singles a closer look at Skyecandy and some of these world-first features that make this dating experience like no other. A surprise special guest will share the stage with Dan and Eddie who will kick off the worldwide dating event, inviting single men and women everywhere to find their Valentine on Skyecandy this Valentine’s Day. The livestream event will be archived at Skyecandy’s Facebook Page and Livestream channel. 

In another Skyecandy first, the livestream event will be captured using Logitech HD webcams. Logitech comes onboard as a promotional partner for Skyecandy and is providing HD webcams for the launch as well as prizes for Skyecandy’s video contest.

Skyecandy is a Skype Extra third party application. All you need is a PC, Internet access and a webcam. You download Skyecandy directly from Skype’s Tools Menu, Extras, Get Extras in the Community section and register as a user.

At SWR we say PHOOEY to feeling like you HAVE to find a “Valentine”.  We want you to revel in life’s magic and feel truly fulfilled, whether the knight in shining (or newly refurbished) armor ever arrives.  If you are dating, make sure it’s because you’re reveling, not wallowing. 

Salon interviewed Lori Gottlieb, the author of Marry Him: The Case for Settling for Mr. Good Enough.

According to the article by Sarah Hepola:

As in the 2008 Atlantic essay that started it all, Gottlieb’s depiction of single womanhood can be practically monstrous, a misery parade of boring happy hours and appointments with the bikini waxer, nights staring at a phone that won’t ring. She uses her life as a cautionary tale: Make the right choices, little missy, or you could end up like me. As she explains in the book, “I’m trying to help. It’s kind of like those graphic anti-drunk driving public service announcements that show people crashing into poles and getting killed … It’s not until you see people ending up brain-dead, lying in a coma in the hospital and surrounded by beeping monitors, that the message has an impact.”

But Gottlieb, who readily admits she really wants a husband and understands some women just don’t, tells Hepola that her book is less about settling and more about not insisting that a man be perfect. (Note to all humans: Nobody is perfect. Not even me.)

And I can wrap my head around that, for sure. Unfortunately, I’ve met many women (and many men, for that matter) who did settle for a partner who had a loosey-goosey grip on the truth, resisted the idea of fidelity, spent too much time passing gas in front of the TV, and so on.

So I’m not buying into ‘get ‘em while the going’s good.’ Sure, the decent guy you dated in college may be happily married with three kids now, but, if you’re a realistic person, you probably didn’t marry him for a reason. Old boyfriends usually look better in hindsight. Chances are, if you caught up with him for a cup of coffee, you’d remember the quirks that made you doubt you’d ever live happily ever after together.

Take a look at the article and let us know what you think. And if you’ve read the book (we haven’t), we’d love to get your take on it, too.

Teen pregnancy rates in the United States are up for the first time in years. The New York Times attributed this sad finding to a study by the Guttmacher Institute, a nonpartisan nonprofit research group:

While teenage pregnancy rates for whites remain far lower than for blacks and Hispanics, the pregnancy rates increased for all three groups.

As previously reported, births to young women ages 15 to 19 — a statistic that is available more quickly than pregnancy and abortion data — rose from 2005 to 2006, and again from 2006 to 2007.

Since the teenage pregnancy rate is made up of births, abortions and miscarriages, it is likely that the teenage pregnancy rate rose from 2006 to 2007, as well.

The Guttmacher Institute blames abstinence-only programs for this scary trend. Teens are less likely to use contraception now that over a billion dollars has been spent on telling them not to have sex. Teen abortions are up by one percent.

On Tuesday’s The View, Elisabeth Hasselbeck, missing the point, proclaimed that we can reverse the pregnancy rate by telling girls to say no. Once a girl has had sex, she said, the girl perceives herself as “a girl who has sex,” but she should know that she still has the right to say no.

But, Elisabeth and other promoters of the GIRLS MUST SAY NO solution to teen pregnancy don’t take into account that girls, like boys, are highly sexual beings. It’s hard enough for a girl to deny her own inclinations, yet we expect her to do that and take responsibility for her boyfriend’s, as well.

So, here’s an idea: Why don’t we teach our sons to say no? Teach them from a very early age that sex is special and meant to be shared with only another very special person? In other words, what would happen if we raised our sons to “respect themselves” and “not give their bodies away,” the way we raise our daughters?

What if we raise our daughters to view boys who sleep around as “cheap” and “not the kind of fellow you bring home to mother,” instead of playboys, playas, and ladies’ men?

Girls are subject to the same temptations as boys. Sex is not a boy’s thing that a girl gives into because she wants to be loved, or because she suffers from low-self-esteem. Sometimes she needs someone to stop her before things get out of hand. Let’s lose the ‘boys will be boys’ mentality and help a girl out.

Photo: Equality Now

An article in Salon about girls suffering genital mutilation set my hair on fire. (Genital mutilation is a euphemism for several grisly procedures, often performed with unsterile instruments and without anesthesia.) Turns out, female genital mutilation  — or FGM –doesn’t just happen in other countries. It’s happening here. In the United States.

The Salon piece, written by Lynn Harris, offers this sobering information:

“Yes, FGM is practiced — or at least planned — on U.S. soil, on girls in immigrant families who were born and/or raised here. Perhaps even among people you know: Not long ago, a concerned mother posted on my Brooklyn-area parenting list-serv that she believed an eight-year-old friend of her daughter’s had undergone some form of the procedure in her home country in the Middle East (and appeared to be markedly traumatized). Archana Pyati, an asylum attorney for Sanctuary for Families in New York, has encountered dozens of FGM cases just in the past six months. ‘The majority of our African clients have been through it, and most often, they are fighting to protect their daughters,’ she says. (Older relatives with ’seniority’ often push for the procedure.) ‘It is our hope that by recognizing that FGM may be occurring under our noses we will become better able to respond to it, just as we would any other form of violence against children,’ she says.”

Check out the rest of the piece here. Violence, oppression, and being sold into sexual slavery are just some of the commonplace horrors women all over the world face, and we can help stop it. We can donate money to Equality Now. Even better, we can take part in one of their letter writing campaigns  to help females who don’t have it as good as we do.

Haitian immigrants come to the United States to make a better life for themselves and their children. Now their children - who have not forgotten home - are giving back to countless numbers of Haitians affected by the massive earthquake on January 12.

Michael Esposito, a board member of Forgotten Children of Haiti, a non-profit organization founded by his Haitian mother and Italian father in 1993, met Haitian-born artist Guy Stanley Philoche at a January 13 meeting of New York City professionals who wanted to help send relief to Haiti.

Artist Guy Stanley Philoche

“It was a meeting of young Haitians who wanted to find a way to help and go through grassroots organizations. We were lucky enough to be there,” said Esposito. “We are a non-profit volunteer-only organization. No one is on the books; every person is a volunteer. The money doesn’t go to fund anything but Haiti.”

FCH had donation centers in Queens and Long Island but not in Manhattan. Philoche recognized their need and after vetting the organization, on January 14 he rented a UHAUL and parked it in front of his studio on the Upper East Side to accept donations on behalf of Forgotten Children of Haiti.

“Guy came in like a whirlwind,” said Esposito. “He feels our organization helps Haiti the way he would like to see Haiti helped.”

Philoche said, “A lot of people want to donate to bigger charities, and that’s good, but the Forgotten Children of Haiti, they are not one of those charities that send money and then that’s it.”

Most of FCH’s funding supports schools and orphanages. Prior to the earthquake, there were almost 400,000 orphans in Haiti. One school that FCH has supported since its inception, Le’cole Bel-Air in Port-au-Prince, collapsed in the earthquake. Esposito’s mother and aunt graduated from Le’cole Bel-Air which housed over 750 girls and 11 nuns. All of the nuns perished and it is unconfirmed how many students died.

“Ironically, at the time, my mom had received a package of letters and pictures of the girls saying how well they were doing and thanking us for everything that we had done for them,” said Esposito during an emotional pause. “We had been supporting the school for years. The meals the students receive at the school are sometimes the only meals they receive all day. Bel-Air is kind of like our school, if we didn’t give them money every year, they didn’t run.”

Students at a Haitian school funded by Forgotten Children of Haiti eat what might have been their only warm meals of the day. The school collapsed in the earthquake and the students locations are unconfirmed.

In addition to raising funds for schools and orphanages that service the children of Haiti, FCH has flown two children to New York, for physical therapy and heart surgery at North Shore Hospital, according to the website. Esposito’s uncle is Dr. Thierry Duchatellier, the chief cardiologist at Mercy Hospital in Long Island. Also an FCH Board Member, Duchatellier flew to the Dominican Republic this morning to make his way to Haiti to provide medical help.

Forgotten Children of Haiti also sponsors an Adopt-A-Drum Campaign. The organization ships 55-gallon drums of supplies to Haiti. A drum costs $35 to pack but $100 to ship, and FCH solicits donations to sponsor a complete drum for $135. On their last drop, FCH shipped 15 drums to Haiti. Once in Haiti, the drums are received by local affiliates to ensure the safe transport to the schools and orphanages. Read more »

It scares the hell out of me. The “Christian” Right has embraced Psalm 109:8 with regard to our president, Barack Obama. In case you’re wondering, Psalm 109:8 declares:

May his days be few;
may another take his place of leadership.”

Okay, that’s Verse 8. Hold on for Verse 9:

May his children be fatherless
and his wife a widow.”

Check out the above video from last night’s The Rachel Maddow Show; the bit about Psalm 109:8 comes up about a third of the way in. Rachel interviews Frank Schaeffer, author of Patience With God and a former leader of the Religious Right. He’s had it with the “journalists” who painted our president first as the Antichrist and now as an unjust ruler God must take down.

And pray for the safety of our president and his family.

MSNBc’s Dylan Ratigan and filmmaker Michael Moore have something to say about it.

What do you have to say about it? We want to know.

Last night, David Letterman revealed he was blackmailed by a CBS producer who knew he’d had sex with staffers from his show. My first reaction to the sex part was, “Big deal.” I mean, I’ve worked in places where even married coworkers had affairs. It wouldn’t be my thing, but I understand that some people do it.

But other people (and more than a few of them are men) feel that Letterman exploited the women who worked for him (Late Night With David Letterman is his show, of course, and he is the boss).

What’s your feeling? If you haven’t already seen the clip from last night’s show, it’s a bit — well, I’ll let you see for yourself. Check it out and let us know what you think.

Acccording to the Wall Street Journal’s Sarah E. Needleman, Twitter is more than just a means of being continually informed of Ashton Kutcher’s activities. The site is also emerging as a tool for companies with positions to fill.

Needleman writes:

With so many people looking for jobs now, some employers say they like that Twitter yields just enough job leads—but not too many. Job boards have ‘become saturated,’ says Mike Rickheim, vice president of global talent acquisition for Newell Rubbermaid Inc., a global manufacturer based in Atlanta.

‘With Twitter, we don’t have to go through that huge pile of résumés.’ Mr. Rickheim says the company uses Twitter to fill positions that tend to attract tons of applicants on job boards, such as administrative roles, as well as to share company news.”

Read the full article here.

A lot of people seem to think he will.

But in this interview, Jon Stewart combs through the proposed health care bill with Betsy McCaughey to find out for sure. (Incidentally, Jon Stewart should be given some kind of award for his work here; unlike others in the media, he offers information, not sound bites.)

Here’s Part One:

Here’s Part Two:

A few months ago, we shared some fellow bloggers who were tackling the single cyberworld.  Here’s part two of Sisters . . . and Brothers in the struggle!  You can find  them in our links, and we’ll be sharing their content right here on SingleWomenRule.com!

Singletude: A Positive Blog for Singles

Clever Elsie is a 30-something unmarried female in New York, plowing upstream with just one paddle. She started this blog to combat the treatment of singles as second-class citizens. Single-headed homes now tip the scales at 50.3% of the population, so she thinks it’s time we threw our weight around! Singletude isn’t about false positivity but about recognizing that a human life doesn’t need to be paired to have value. And that means when we DO couple up, we need to treat each other as valuable individuals, not disposable entertainment. What she writes here is an outgrowth of that philosophy…

Relationship Digest

"Relationships can really work - if we're willing to be honest about them." - http://relationship-digest.com/

Relationship Digest, as you may have already concluded from the name, is a blog about relationships. Romantic, Platonic, Family, Racial, Gay, group, Singles, self-any relationship at all. It’s a blog about questions just as much as it’s one of answers. All on topic comments are very much appreciated, and hopefully together, we can all understand relationships better! This is the whole point of Relationship-Digest.

I am not now, or ever have belonged to the relationship expert party (yes, I stole this from the McCarthy era). I am not a guru, matchmaker, relationship expert or coach of any kind. I have respect for those that are, but I’m just journeying through in hopes of understanding relationships better, and if I can pass on some information to be helpful, all the better.

So sit back and enjoy my ramblings, thoughts, concerns and information. However, it would make my life a little brighter and this blog a little more worth while if you give your input. If you do, thank you. If you don’t, then thanks for reading

First Person Singular: Notes from an unmarried life

FIRST PERSON SINGULAR is an online gathering place, resource guide (and yes, venting booth) for single women. In January, 2007 we officially tipped the scales, when our ranks swelled to more than half of all American women. Magazines are devoted to us, politicians court our votes, and realtors have made it easier for us to get home loans. That doesn’t mean a single life is always easy. It’s not. We’ve been envied, feared, vilified and pitied throughout history, and much of the time, misunderstood. Who are we, anyway? How did we get here? And what’s the best strategy to be happy ever after?

Wendy Braitman created FIRST PERSON SINGULAR after she unwittingly became an expert. WENDY BRAITMAN is a twenty-year media veteran, who began her career in San Francisco as an on-air journalist and producer in radio and television.

This post appeared on SWR LA Founder Vanessa Torres' blog, Thathappenedtome.com

Wow.  What a week it turned out to be.

Last week started out as a run-of-the-mill busy week of professional obligations for me, but turned into a bizarre series of news “events,” stories of death, divorce and revolution.  At first, I felt merely like a witness to a string of unrelated events, but then I noticed a theme emerging, rather more than one, that struck me as particularly poignant.

Iran, upside down with political unrest, had citizen protesters gunned down indiscriminately by unnamed “security forces” after a questionable election process.  Emerging from the otherwise sad story of yet another oppressive dictatorship, was the story of the Women of Iran, for the first time being recognized as a powerful group of resilient members of that society, no longer willing to let their husbands and sons die in silence.  Suffering for years at the hands of their own government, they are refusing to be shuffled off quietly now, despite horrific political and religious constraints.  The murder of Neda Agha-Soltani at the hands of her own government has resonated with the world, who is treating the 26 year old student as a martyr, even dubbing her a modern day Joan of Arc.  CNN has aired several interviews with other women in and around the area of Tehran begging for global assistance as they fight for what we consider basic human and civil rights.

On a completely different note, came the Monday announcement that celebreality couple Jon & Kate Gosselin have officially filed for divorce.  Not exactly a surprise to anyone who owns a television set, but it still felt like the final nail in the coffin after the slow death of what was once an ordinary marriage between a young and promising couple.

Kate Gosselin issued this statement: “Over the course of this weekend, Jon’s activities have left me no choice but to file legal procedures in order to protect myself and our children.”  Her husband Jon remained characteristically mum, glibly commenting that he’s sorry if his actions have hurt his family, but that he remains dedicated to the health, happiness and well-being of his children. Read more »

Photo credit: Mary Ann Chastain - AP

I disagree with Dana.

While I can think of many reasons why more women should be elected to office, a reluctance to
cheat isn’t one of them. I’ve read plenty of studies that show women are as just as likely to fall prey to extramarital temptation as men, especially since we started making our own money.

But forget studies. Here are some real life examples: I learned from a friend yesterday that her good friend, a woman, recently left her marriage because monogamy just doesn’t agree with her. A male acquaintance filed for divorce after coming home to find his wife in bed with another man. A good male friend broke off a 15-year relationship after he found out his girlfriend had been chronically unfaithful (he was faithful and has since married a woman who shares his commitment to fidelity). Two other friends, a married couple, had their world rocked when they learned that close friends were divorcing because the wife had been cheating.

So, while the media continually depict woman as victims of infidelity, men get hurt, too. Which makes me wonder: Why are we depicted as victims?

I should probably clarify that I don’t think infidelity is okay, whether it’s committed by a man or a woman. If it’s beyond you to be faithful, stay single. Single is good.

And I’m thrilled that Jenny Sanford, the most recent “victim” of a philandering elected official, bucked tradition and refused the hold her husband’s hand during a press conference in which he apologized for his affair with an Argentinian woman.

Topping another's misery is not conducive to happiness.

You say, “I got two hours’ sleep last night.”

And your friend says, “I only got one hour, and I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

According to The Wall Street Journal, the game’s called Misery Poker, and it’s more popular than ever.

Instead of sharing our misery, we seem to be using it as a competitive weapon. To score points, co-workers brag about their workloads. And couples brandish their stress to negotiate who will make dinner or give the kids a bath. Friends, too, sometimes complain just to get attention. And then there are those who use stress as a measure of success.”

The piece, by Elizabeth Bernstein, goes on to say that people who play Misery Poker aren’t doing themselves any favors. Instead of supporting one another, we’re alienating ourselves.

Between Blackberries and the economy, we’re all under stress. It’s time to play a better game than Misery Poker. It’s definitely time to be a better friend.

Read the full article on Misery Poker here.