Colorful lights. Tinsel and wrapping paper. Endless advertising showing happy couples sharing meaningful moments together. And of course, those sickeningly sweet, sappy, cheerful Christmas songs playing over and over and over again, everywhere you go. Yes, it’s Christmas once again, and for many singles it’s the most lonely time of the year.

If you find yourself feeling sad, lonely, or depressed during this “season of good cheer” the most important thing to remember is that you’re not alone. The picture-perfect holidays featuring close knit families and large circles of vivacious friends are not real, but rather a deliberate creation of those who want to sell you something.

Instead of watching and listening to this kind of stuff over and over, why not take a different approach to this holiday season? You might:

• Spend a day volunteering with Habitat for Humanity
• Turn off the TV and the radio, and spend an evening reading a good book
• Visit your local senior center or a nursing home to play cards, help with bingo, or simply listen to the wonderful stories most older folks love to share
• Choose things to do that you want to do, not what others expect you to do
• Take a walk outside to get some fresh air and get away from the holiday bustle

None of these ideas will get rid of loneliness completely, of course, but they are a great way to re-focus your mind onto activities and pursuits that get you away from the unrealistic expectations of Christmas. You just might find that once you turn your attention elsewhere, you start feeling a whole lot better!

News & Views Christmas, Family, Holidays, Lonely

One of the best things about modern technology is that it makes it so simple to outsource just about any and every part of your life. Don’t want to go to the grocery store? Go online and order your groceries to be delivered. Hate to spend time running those annoying errands to the cleaners, the pharmacy, the bank, and the like? No problem, just hire a virtual errand service to take care of all of those things for you.

Now you can even outsourced your dating activities. No, really, you can. Virtual Dating Assistants has been offering its services to men since the early part of 2009, and they have recently announced an expansion of services targeted at women. For just under $500 per month, anybody who is too busy to look for high quality dates via online dating sites can hire a set of professional virtual assistants to take care of this task for them.

No more spending hours writing the perfect custom messages to your potential matches, and no more worrying about whether your own profiles are up to date and well suited to attracting the kinds of singles you’re interested in meeting. With your own virtual dating assistants working on your behalf it’s easy to just sit back and let someone else do all of the work for you. The company even “guarantees” they’ll arrange at least 2 suitable dates per month for you.

It just goes to show that nearly everything can be outsourced, even your search for someone to date. What a wonderful world!

News & Views Agencies, Dating Coach, Dating Services

Sometimes I think the whole world is possessed with smartphones, mobile browsing, and building thousands upon thousands of applications to make it easier to stay connected to just about anything via your mobile phone. It should come as no surprise, then, that online dating has “gone mobile” enthusiastically and deliberately. Mobile applications are the hottest ticket around and online dating sites are not about to be left behind.

Any online dating site that wants to compete in the marketplace absolutely must have a mobile “app” available for its users, and just about every major online dating service does indeed have one. SpeedDate, Skout, Radaroo, DateCheck, and Zoosk are a few examples of these rapidly growing and expanding types of services. Even the more mainstream dating sites like Match.com are getting in on the act, putting out apps designed to enhance the experience of their members.

But don’t for a moment think that these companies are doing all of this just to be nice; no, there is a huge amount of money to be made from mobile online dating. In 2007 the mobile dating market was valued at about $330 million, while in 2008 that number jumped to a whopping $550 million; the projection for 2013 is for the value to increase to approximately $1.3 billion. It’s no wonder, then, that online dating services are jumping headfirst into the mobile marketplace.

What does this mean for you? In general, the explosive growth of mobile online dating options works in your favor because it allows you even greater choice and access when it comes to dating. Where you need to be careful, though, is in the added costs. Some sites offer their mobile services for free, while others charge a fee; additionally, depending on your service plan you may get hit with big overage charges for the extra data usage you’ll rack up using these kinds of apps.

The best approach is to read the fine print on the service you’re interested in, check with your mobile phone company regarding your data usage plan, and then start taking advantage of the flexibility and fun of using online mobile dating apps!

News & Views Cell Phone, Dating Applications, iPhone, Match.com, Mobile Phone, Zoosk