The Pros and Cons of Online Dating

I‘m often asked if my clients should continue with online dating when they start their Linx memberships. If yes, what I feel is the biggest drawback to trying to find love on the Internet?

The biggest challenges are twofold – (1) the labor and time involved sifting through thousands of profiles; and (2) unverified information.

At the end of the day it is exhausting to have to sort through all of these profiles and to deal with the long, drawn out communication process of winks, emails, nudges, pokes, etc. But I think the bigger challenge is the fabrication of information on the site – you might be entering the online market with honest intentions of wanting to couple up and reach monogamy for the long term but you have no idea who is really on the other side.

It can be extremely disappointing not having the data and true insights into the person with whom you are communicating online and potentially to then meet in person. Is he/she as commitment minded as you or is he/she on the site to just “hook up” and be “super causal” where “sex is so easy” to get?

Online has helped create awareness for an offline, old world business like Linx but, on the other hand, it has caused people a lot of stress from the labor involved, fabrication of user profiles, no authenticating “who is who”, and often feeling online chemistry but offline when you meet is a whole other story.

At Linx, I personally get to know every new client and sit down with each member really delving deep so I can best help him/her…..at this stage in the game I’ve met thousands of people.

This week alone I have interviewed fascinating men and women (a venerable Silicon Valley techie, CEOs, and many other hard working dynamic types- in fact I am hoping to do a new blog entry about the SV legend asap). Something online cannot necessarily predict is chemistry. I understand human behavior and what makes two people mesh. Clients who have been doing a lot of high volume driven matchmaking online find the Linx approach and methodology particularly appealing and extremely personalized. This is after all about SLOWING DOWN and focusing on one extremely solid match at a time. I emphasize slowing down!

With the obvious perils into the world of online, I WOULD encourage you to keep your profiles up BUT the absolute key is to evaluate IF you have been getting the traction you desire. Are the “right” types for you landing in your inbox and if not, you should strongly consider doing a massive profile rewire to reboot yourself towards success.

We offer a lot of assistant as one of our many auxiliary services for clients at Linx to provide powerful insights into online dating. What will attract the man of your dreams and how do you hook them? What is a turn-off to women and a turn-on with profiles? Once you discover lots of emails in your inbox, what next? How to bridge online into real-life dating?

Amy Webb did a hilarious Ted Talk about hacking OK Cupid. The takeaway from her TED talk is that there is an algorithm for love, in fact it is something you write yourself. All you really have to do is figure out your ‘own’ framework and play by your own rules. Enjoy her talk below…insightful, funny, and provocative.

Announcing New Search | 27-Year Old Attractive Female in Palo Alto

Our client is a beautiful, funny, and sweet 27 year old who is Caucasian, 5’9″, athletic and feminine. She is a true California girl with bright blond hair, blue eyes, a fair, clear complexion, long legs, and is busty.

She is stylish, very feminine, and active- sharing with us that 2014 is her year to get serious with her yoga practice. She enjoys walks, the occasion hike, spin class, and cardio to keep active and healthy.

Our client moved from San Francisco to Palo Alto to be near her work in high-tech investments. She works for a top-tier firm in the Silicon Valley and finds great fulfillment in her work. She is well educated, hard working, responsible, and very smart.

Although she is only 27 years old, she is ready to get serious when it comes to finding love. She’s had a couple of serious relationships although has never been married and would consider herself to be marriage minded. She’s excellent with children and would embrace the opportunity to have a family of her own one day! In fact, she is pretty traditional and would like to raise a family adhering to more traditional gender roles.

She is down-to-earth, loyal, balanced, sensitive (yet strong-willed), an independent thinker, compassionate, and loving. Her hobbies outside of the scope of work are: her close friendships, family (who are local to the Bay Area), cooking (she’s a skilled cook), volunteering, snowboarding, and travel. She has continued her education through various classes Stanford University and would love to learn calligraphy this year.

Her best suited match is hands down a guy who will make her laugh! He is between the ages of 28-40 years old. He is Caucasian or Asian American (yet tall). Height is important to make this match work. You are between the range of 5’10”-sky is the limit. Personality is key. Did we mention you are funny (maybe with a humorous yet slightly cynical view of the world)?

You are social, masculine, intelligent, family centric (ideally you have a great relationship with your family), responsible, and full of integrity. In terms of career- you’re a professional who is ambitious and well-liked by your colleagues.

If you are eligible or know anyone who might make a great match for this young client of ours, please email Amy at: amy@linxdating.com

There are NO FEES with this opportunity to potentially find the love of your life.

This week at Linx and Out-N-About

Another busy week here at Linx. We are gearing up for a huge week next week with a zillion fab candidates meetings seeing if they have what is takes to meet some of our clients. As we only have 20 minutes or so with each candidate, we need to come up with some super targeted questions to quickly capture if they have that secret sauce that makes up our next sort of Linx member.

I‘ve helped some clients out who are in tough situations this week. One in particular where her Linx beau is under a lot of stress. His stress is causing their relationship a lot of friction and it is definitely putting significant tension on it. We discussed how to remedy this in an effective manner. They’ve been together a long time now and are a beautiful match that is absolutely meant to be. I feel this “test” of the relationship will only make them so much stronger in a marriage. No relationship is perfect. Everyone experiences crap. It is how you deal with it, talk openly and honestly about it, and manage to get past it as a couple. Don’t bottle things up. At some point you are bound to “boil over.”

We screened a great candidate yesterday and are conducting interviews today. One guy and one female. Just found out about another super successful Linx match. Both relate to one another as they each have children. The children and commonality of shared background are the necessarily pillars that cement this sort of potential relationship. Some people who have kids feel very unsure of how or when to bring up such an important part of their lives in the dating game, especially if their match doesn’t have kid(s). This sort of makes this extraordinarily easy from the start. They both “get” it and “understand” one another. The trials, joys, happiness, frustrations, and responsibilities that make up being a parent.  

We love how clients transform at Linx. Today we interviewed a young software engineer who is quirky, intelligent and came to Linx to help him progress with his dating life. When he initially came into the office for his screening, we felt he needed some date coaching and he agreed. 

Fresh gorgeous flowers this week at Linx. 

When we first met him he could hardly even calm his nerves being in female company. He was struggling noticeably trying to focus on our meeting.  Since then we have really helped our new client on several other occasions for date coaching. His transformation has just been amazing. What we admire so much about him is his commitment to self-improvement. He wants to find the right girl and wants to fall in love. After date coaching we decided the next natural step was to become a client.

Seeing him today was like meeting an entirely different person! He was so relaxed, at ease and just so excited to get out there and start dating! I can’t say enough how excited I am for him and so proud of his willingness to take these steps in learning more about himself and being prepared to date. The only thing left is a little wardrobe consultation we’ve set up for him next week and then he’s all set! Way to go!

We continue to get a boat load of girls submitting information to meet VIPs. Just tonight alone, my inbox is flooding. Men of Silicon Valley and beyond do you hear that? To the single gentlemen out there, email us! Linx is a hotbed of incredible, high caliber members.

Random topic. So tonight after work, I ran to Staples in Menlo Park off of El Camino. I make mental notes of crappy customer service in life and those folks who really “go the extra mile” when shopping. I’d like to give a shout out to the hard working guys at Staples. Thank you for helping me tonight! I brought in a paper shredder (yep we are big into shredding documents at Linx as you can imagine!) that failed on me today and started making terrible noises and then went kaputt on me. I rushed over there to exchange it and one of the operations managers at Staples took time to repair it on site for me. He plugged it in, he somehow managed to pull the stuck papers out of it like the incredible hulk and then cleaned it out. Who does that…especially when he could of pressured me to just buy a new one for $59.99?!

Another manager raced around the store looking for these special clear folders that we are obsessive about in the office. These folders store Linx client information neatly and after many attempts, I simply couldn’t find them. I asked for help and this manager came to the rescue. He couldn’t find the ones I needed but did manage to find a style that was a close runner up. Only caveat is the packet was rainbow colored and I needed all clear. When I expressed my disdain to this runner up being multi-colored, he literally took it upon himself to open many multi-color packets in order to remove the one clear folder in each 6 pack. Who does that? Thanks Staples for being so helpful!

It reminds me of the times when there is absolutely no customer service. There’s one women’s clothing boutique on Chestnut Street in MP that gave me the utter heebie jeebies with hands down poor service. I had never been in there and a best friend of mine always raves about it. Randomly a few weeks ago I walked in and I was the only one in the little high-end ladies boutique. Not a single customer but me. The lady at the cash register looked me up, looked me down (yeah ok… ok, I was in my workout gear and hadn’t planned to shop) and she didn’t say a peep. I looked at the price tag on some of the items, 1K fur bolero, 2K this, 4K purse. I was thinking, child, in this economy AND with online shopping so totally efficient, you best be friendly to those who enter your store. I have no time or interest in thus I will not return there. Or the one time….(no no, not at band camp) in Palo Alto 4 (yep 4) of the sales girls were TRYING ON CLOTHES and parading around admiring themselves in the mirror. Really? Eeek. Not good. So I like to acknowledge those special folks like my new friends at Staples who stand out from the crowd!

Marshall….the Linx mascot…can this boy be any cuter? Marshall is going to be passing out special puppy Valentines to his best guy and girlfriends at the puppy park soon and mommy is making his friends pumpkin and peanut butter homemade biscuits as Valentine gifts. Yeah I know, I’m totally obsessed!