Which online dating forums are the best?

I think the best online dating forums are the ones that have themes unrelated to 'personal relationships'. I think there is little reason why you should be paying to advertise your profile on some blog when there are so many social networking web databases which allow you to set up free webpages. Strategies you should consider:
1. Identify your greatest passions
2. Look for the social networking sites that list interests pertinent to yours
3. Use specific aspects of your interest as a keyword and search for partners in your age group

If you dont find any interesting points of contact - dont despair - you can either broaden your criteria, try a different interest to keyword search, or try a different website. You dont need to approach people as if you want to start a relationship...just keep chatting until one person stops. If they dont respond, email them back, and ask them why.
I actually stopped contacting my current GF because I perceived her religious beliefs as an obstacle. Now I recognise that she has a healthy skepticism.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Is dating online safe?

I have dated alot of people online and I think its by far the best way to relate to people. When I take on a purpose (like dating), I tend to launch myself into it. Thats fine, but I would advice against engaging in dialogue with too many people as you will tend to treat them as a commodity. You will also convey the message that they are a 'commodity' because you will be mixing up people, calling them by the wrong name. They will of course think the worst. If they are an attractive 'prospect' you might blow an opportunity early. Thats not to say you cant turn the situation around, but people are very cynical at first. My choice is to talk to 4 until I have enough information to eliminate some. I will tend to meet the final candidate if they dont have any attributes that dont break my list.
People tend to think online dating is risky...seemingly because its anonymous. That might be true for children who cannot see the age of the counterparty, but for adults I think its easy to judge. Here are some tips:
1. Dont give out personal address info - where you work, live, etc
2. Meet in a public at first
3. Ask probing questions without being cynical or judgemental.
4. Chat in a combination of text and voice mode to gauge the authenticity of the counterparty. Its easier for a counterparty to contrive an artificial story if your correspondence is by email than if by other modes. Chat with Internet Messenger (Gmail, Yahoo, etc) is best because it saves a record of your conversations.
5. Read over your conversations with your counterparty with the intent of doing a sublte integrity check. Anyone that is not accountable for what they say likely has a vulnerability or insecurity that should be explored.
6. Remain engaged, by emapthetic and not to fast to judge.
7. Keep a positive and humoress tone to your dialogue.

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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Why search for partners online?

Online dating need not be a contrived event where you seek out a romantic partner. I met my partner online. I was looking for a partner, but I would have been just as happy looking for a friend. My counterpartner was looking for investment advice. There is no shame in either approach, though you will be perceived as 'needy' if your thinking is polarised by the goal to find a partner, because they will perceive you as filling a void. Is there anything wrong with that? That depends. If you are looking for a partner who embodies your deepest values - great! If you are looking indiscrimately for anyone, thats bad! No real value is achieved through indiscriminate action.
The great positives about online dating are:
1. Wide audience: You could never hope to reach a greater audience without even uttering a word. People that offer little information in their blog are really wasting time and its a significant opportunity cost. People will say that there is a risk in placing too much information online, but risk is managed, not avoided.
2. Wide choice: You are not a passive influence on the process. You can pick people as well. People will say that 'all guys I meet online are only interested in sex'. Yeh. I was won of them until I met a girl I respected. Be the type of person someone desires, and you stop being just a sexual object. When you earn respect you get treated differently. Go in judging without engaging in any meaningful dialogue and you remain an object.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

How to find a partner?

The best way to find a partner is to identify the values that are important to you. If you are not sure what values are are important, you can identify them by looking at your emotional response to events and people. You will see a pattern in the activities you pursue, the things you dislike. Generally the stronger the feeling, the more fundamental the value being expressed, appreciated or repudiated. But it also depends on the context, on the significance of the event or person to you.
There is no question that you will find more compatible partners if you know yourself, so invest time in understanding yourself more. The best way of learning more about yourself is to read the types of books that discuss personal development issues. It might be psychology, philosophy or self improvement books. More important than reading is reflecting on what one has read, to the point of critically appraising it. Ask yourslef is there another possibility that might explain the events in your life.
I believe we should never substitute our personal experience for others because people have a dreadful habit of making flaws. If you accept others interpretation of events, you are dropping the context, that is other pertinent information not conveyed that is important to rendering the judgement.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Finding friends

The opportunities to find friends have never been greater than now. Every day there seems to be a new social networking website to explore. But there is a world of difference between a 'internet friend' and a 'real world' friend. I am not saying there is no substance to an internet friendship, its just that they are not tested over the internet. There are several problems with internet friendships:
1. The counterparty can control the perception you have of them
2. You dont see the annoying habits of the counterparty
3. The confidence of the counterparty might be bouyed by their online popularity, but does it translate into real world friendships.

I dont wish to portay the internet as a 'superficial' medium for finding friends, but I suggest its utility depends on you and your counterparty. If you talk 'fluff' you are likely to attract 'fluff'. If you talk about inspirational, goal-orientated topics, you might meet that type of person. But you still need to consider - Are they travelling at the same speed as you, are they as capable as you, and thus can you ultimately respect them.

There are certain things that I ultimately want to do when I am trying to make friends:
1. I want to describe myself with the greatest possible detail, so they 'get me'. I will be candid to ensure I carry credibility. You can get ideas about the type of things you should say by looking at other people's profiles.
2. I want to connect with people on the basis of shared experience or interests
3. I want to connect with goal-orientated people. It not good enough that people want to describe themselves. What is the point if they have no interest in connecting. Alas, a great many people are not so aspirational. Its not just about having friends. Anyone can have friends, you just have to lower your standards. Its about tossing old friends when you acquire new ones. This is not a betrayal of old friends. It was never supposed to be a prison sentence. You are dropping them because you found more meaningful, more rewarding relationships. This usually occurs because one friend is growing at a faster rate than another. One person is challenging themselves to a greater extent than another.

If you want to get the best possible friends I think you need to master the art of self-promotion. This is not about putting on airs of superiority, of pretending that your life is perfect. Its about being authentic, so people appreciate you for whom you are. They dont need to think you are perfect, they need to be able to relate to you because of shared experiences or values. The extent to which you are the same or complement each others goals is the extent to which you will find value in each others being.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Developing trust

Trust is a confidence in your capacity to judge your vulnerability in certain circumstances or in certain relationships. The argument is that people and circumstances can hurt us, so we should avoid them. I might be considered a child, but I have never really accepted that people can hurt me emotionally. I was always positive about myself, always trusted my judgement, always had a high regard for myself. So if there was any question of anyone being hurt, it was not going to be me. I was just so damn strong.
As it turns out though, being strong is not exactly the best source of defence. I have a very strong judgement. I could nail most people in a debate, and even more impressive is that, when I am wrong, I will willingly concede the point. This is a rare quality. Its so rare, and so important, that I think it was the fundamental reason for selecting my current girlfriend. The implication is that there is a respect for the facts of reality...that there is no value in faking your circumstances. Perceptions dont matter as much as respect for facts, and I'm not going to make myself vulnerable by engaging in delusions that are untrustworthy.

But I note that people do place their trust in others perceptions because they are supported by other people. Reality is secondary to other people's perceptions of them. For this reason, they think perceptions are king. And there is a certain practicality to this thinking, because the majority of people are distorted. Even people who see the distortion prefer to hang around with 'fakes' because they want to be practical. Its a dilemma for impractical people.

The practicality of faking reality is evident from:
1. Making and breaking friends
2. Buying and selling investments

For a great many years, people have been warning that the stock market is going to collapse. They were not wrong, its just that it took a few years before the distortion of people's reality did not hold water. The myth that inflation was beat, that growth could be sustained indefinitely by the Fed pulling a few levers was exposed as a fraud.

The same distortions can be evident in relationships if they are not founded on something that is real. Its only if its real can you trust it. Even if someone is real, but give way to temptations to be practical, I can still witness a change in values unfold, that I can see the slide in values, and if I am vigilent in my judgement, I can know when to refuse to make myself vulnerable. Thats the control we have. Though there is a tendency to loose perspective in a relationship, and accommodate the person. To see virtue in sacrifice, patience, tolerance. This is not helping your friend, its enabling them by giving them your tacit approval. The best way to deal with these issues is to remain engaged in the relationship, but to give it some space, so you are less vulnerable, and have improved perspective.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com

Negative stereotypes

Everyone has the capacity to engage in negative stereotyping. The idea that we can filter out assertions or relationships, or diminish the standing of a whole group, race or religion by virtue of their appearance, ethnicity, religion, or in fact any attribute we deem to be negative.

The reality is however is that the problem is not stereotyping, the problem is a lack of thinking. Stereoyping is in fact the interim step towards the creation of new knowledge. When we stereotype, we are actually trying to form new laws or principles to explain how the world is. This is a positive thing.

Unfortunately most of us receive no explicit instruction in how to think from our parents. Instead we develop wisdom passively. We accept 'recieved wisdom' because it comes from some authority, whether its the thinking of our president, or the popular wisdom of our social group. The most courageous thing a person can do is to express a personal opinion. More courageous is expressing one that alienates you form your social network. Fortunately with the internet we don't have to be so remote from people whom will accept us for whom we are - if we know how to promote yourself.

Its unfortunate that the negative impact of stereotyping has caused people to withdrawal from self expression, particularly critical thinking, as it is self-criticism that actually prevents people from acting settling with negative stereoptypes. By that I mean, a negative stereotype is one which is not open to revision, that exists as a dogma. The problem is not that a person thinks 'All black people are thieves', the problem is why he needs to believe that. Such a person accepts this premise because they place perceptions above reality, because they derive a false sense of pride by accepting a relativist notion that they are superior to black people because they have isolated a certain 'subjective' opinion (taken as fact) to support their view, whilst evading any facts or opinions which might contradict their view.
So the problem is not sterotyping, its that people think so little of reality, that they would evade or discount new knowledge that would alter their view. They do this because they lack self esteem. They lack self esteem because they dont trust their capacity to think. They dont trust their capacity to think because it was never a valued skill whilst they were developing their mind. In fact in the playground, the smart kids were beat up. People just wanted to get along.

When you understand that, you will understand that legislation to stop discrimination will not help, it will merely drive it underground, only to surface as a different set of rationalisations. Thats not to say that the public perception of blacks has diminished - it has. It has not because of the legislation, which might otherwise have been perceived as charity. Blacks have been standing in the US community because of the education - moral, scientific and statistical info that went with it.
Consider that the political process - which is fundamentally based on popular perceptions - can so little to help the plight of blacks or other minorities. Recent examples include Australia's previous Howard government, which subtly used 'immigrants overboard' as a 'vote catcher', creating fears of an immigration invasion. These fears were created with respect to the Mexicans as well. The idea that our borders are so porous, that these people present such a grave threat.
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Andrew Sheldon www.sheldonthinks.com