Archives
Congrats to Anne and Paul from New Jersey for finding love on Zoosk!
Today we’d like to share an adorable success story from the Garden State! Congrats Anne and Paul. Anne made the first move on Paul, and after that, well, you can read the evidence right here. It’s a heartwarming story.
My name is Annie; I’m from New Jersey. My Zoosk screen name is redvixen. I am writing to let you know that I met my someone special on your site. His name is Paul; his screen name is fungemini. I want to share our romantic story.
I was going through a divorce from a cheating husband; we’d been separated for over a year. I had tried online dating off and on when Zoosk popped up when I was on Facebook one night. On a whim, I joined. Very shortly I began getting winks, and sending some, too. I came across fungemini, liked his profile, and “Favorited” him.
A week or so later, he winked at me. We began emailing one another in November 2009; we met in person in December, early in the month. I was not looking for a serious relationship as I was still leery from my split. On the other hand, Paul was looking for a relationship — but he was willing to start as friends and see where it went.
Well, it didn’t take long before I discovered that I didn’t want to date anyone else. And Paul still felt the same. January 2nd, the day after New Year’s, we decided to become exclusive. And here we are! I feel so lucky. Paul is unlike anyone I’ve ever met. We have so much in common! I really enjoy spending time with him, whether we’re doing something or just hanging out together.
I still think I’m dreaming!
Thanks again, Zoosk!
-Anne from New Jersey
Congrats Anne and Paul! If you have your own Zoosk success story to share, send it to us with a photo of you and your loved one to success [at] zoosk [dot] com and if we showcase your story we’ll send you an online gift card as a token of our congratulations. Happy Zoosking!
Vote for Zoosk in the Final Round of the 2009 Crunchies Awards
In Bertrand Russell’s celebrated essay, “In Praise of Idleness,” the distinguished analytic philosopher and Nobel Laureate contends, quite rationally, “I think that there is far too much work done in the world, that immense harm is caused by the belief that work is virtuous. I hope that, after reading the following pages, the leaders of the YMCA will start a campaign to induce good young men to do nothing.” And, just for dramatic effect, he adds, “If so, I shall not have lived in vain.”
In response this glorious display of intellect, Zoosk responds most enthusiastically, “Hear hear!”
It appears that the folks at TechCrunch might also believe, as Russell himself did, that “Leisure is essential to civilization.” Could there be a truer truism? Purveyors of romantic leisure that we are, Zoosk is rightfully honored to have made it to the final round of voting at this year’s 2009 TechCrunch Crunchies Awards in a category we are proud to be recognized in: Best Time Sink Application.
But we also adhere to the belief that the pursuit of love is an activity that, albeit leisurely, is absolutely necessary. Plus, leisure is useful too. Sure, you can’t expense a date on the company card or charge it to your place of work as a billable hour, but the time you spend looking for love is fully compensated, at the end of the road, when you find it. So while some time may sink during the quest, that time will be worth it when you get to your final destination. Think of it as a potentially long flight that just happens to take off and land at the exact same local time, just in different time zones.
So remember, everyone, vote for Zoosk! “Each person is invited to vote once per category per day through Wednesday, January 6th at midnight PST. Once you cast a vote in a category, you are able to share your vote through Twitter and Facebook.” Put a little bit of work in for Zoosk by voting every day until January 6th, and we’ll ensure you get the best time sink application the web has to offer for as long as your heart desires. XO.
Another reason to chat on our community boards
By Juliet O
Using Zoosk’s Community boards is a great way to get noticed.
Of course, Zoosk’s mission is to introduce you to singles in your local area and hook you up with potential dates, but that doesn’t mean you can’t make friends or join our Community discussions while you’re at it. During moments of downtime during your maelstrom of flirting, check out our Community boards for relevant dating tips, fun conversation, and online dating success stories from our users.
The Community is also a fun way to get to know people from all over the world. If you’re not opposed to a long distance relationship, you can even meet people on the Community boards. We’ve had it happen before! All you have to do to go to a person’s profile from the Community pages is click on their photo. The right hand side of a Community post also shows if a Zoosker is currently online, how many posts they’ve made, and how long they’ve been on Zoosk. To message a person from the Community boards, all you need to do is click the little envelope icon below their photo. See below. 🙂
Whenever you make a community post, it goes on your status feed as well, as Zoosk’s status feed that gets shown to Zooskers within your search criteria. Yet another way to get noticed — not a bad deal! We also host contests on our Community for coins and other prizes. Who doesn’t love prizes? I hope you’re convinced now that Community participation is fun! Of course, it’s totally up to you, but we’d like to to know that it’s an option, and a good one at that. 🙂
Please nominate Zoosk for a Crunchie Award!
As the year winds down, Zoosk looks at the work we’ve done through 2009 with feelings of accomplishment. We’ve become the fastest growing online dating site in the world, and we’ve released some amazing new products like Zoosk Desktop, Zoosk Mobile, Zoosk Coins, and our new product, Boost Views. We’ve also brought people together from all over the world and helped so many of our users find love. We sincerely hope you’ve had as much fun with Zoosk this year as we’ve had, working for you. If that’s been the case, please vote for Zoosk for a 2009 TechCrunch Crunchies Award, and nominate us for Best Social Networking Application.
Nominations just opened, but you can vote each day until the ballots close two weeks from now. Each vote counts, so please remember to bookmark the site and vote for Zoosk every day from now until December 4 so that we can make it to the next round of voting!
The more you show your support, the more people will know about Zoosk. That means our user base, YOUR dating pool, will get bigger and bigger. We know you want your dating pool to grow so that you raise the chances of finding that someone special, so remember to vote for Zoosk this year. Our hopes are that Zoosk will grow so we have a better chance of matching every single one of our users up with someone who works for them. We’d love to win a Crunchie so that this can happen. 🙂 Thanks Zooskers! Vote for Zoosk!
Promoting your online dating profile via social media tools
By Juliet O
You’ve put all that work in making a great Date Card, but you’re still not fully satisfied with the number of clicks you’re getting? You want to raise your page views, but don’t know what to do? It’s not you, don’t worry. But it’s not your Date Card, either. There are simple ways to get even more profile views and raise your chances of meeting the right person on Zoosk, by simply following some of our tips on promoting your online dating profile via social media tools.
Great online dating profiles shouldn’t just sit there waiting to be discovered. Take your online dating fate into your own ambitious, single-person hands! If you want love in this day and age, there is no shame on promoting yourself, within reason, to making finding it an easier process. There are definitely ways to raise your chances of having your profile fall across the path of the right person, on Zoosk and on the web. Here are our suggestions. Continue reading
Vote Zoosk for Best Facebook App in Mashable’s 3rd Annual OpenWeb Awards
Mashable’s 3rd Annual OpenWeb Awards are open for user submitted nominations and votes. Last year, Zoosk won an OpenWeb Award for Best Dating and Romance site. This year, Dating and Romance is no longer a category, so Zoosk is up for overall Best Facebook Application! We’re excited for the opportunity to win this category, so help us out with your nominations and we will love you forever (and ever and ever).
How do you nominate Zoosk for Best Facebook Application? Simply go to the Best Facebook Application nomination landing page. Make sure you are logged into Mashable via your Facebook username and password (to vote, you must log in via Facebook Connect). Once you’re on the nominations landing page, type “Zoosk” into the field for “Best Facebook App”. Then hit “Submit”. You’re done. Beautiful.
Nominate us, and then tell your friends to nominate us. We love you dearly. Please love us back? 🙂
Zooskers weigh in on jealousy and how to prevent it
By Juliet O
If you let it out of its cage, jealousy is the green-eyed monster that can and does cause irreparable damage to your relationship. A little bit of jealousy can be cute and even healthy. You should care if you see your partner flirting with someone else at a bar, but you shouldn’t get into a bar fight. But when it rages out of control, jealousy can damage your relationship with your partner, your friends, your family, and worst of all, yourself.
Fundamentally, jealousy is an insecurity: an inability to trust another person to be truthful to you. At its heart, jealousy stems from a lack of trust. Because jealous people don’t trust that their partners will act honestly, they attempt to coerce their partners with controlling, manipulative, and angry emotions. Nobody enjoys being manipulated or controlled, so often times, jealous behavior has the opposite effect than the one it intended: you end up pushing people away.
The importance of being earnest
By Juliet Ohai
The Merriam-Webster online dictionary defines the word earnest as: “a serious and intent mental state”. What does earnestness mean in connection to our personal relationships? We can view earnestness as our sincerity in relationships, our honest decision to really be ourselves. In a nutshell, our earnestness reflects our ability to open ourselves up in relationships and put ourselves out there — even if it means revealing our vulnerabilities. It is our conscious decision never to lie about ourselves or present ourselves falsely to those we love.
Part of the process of being in love means that we must let go out our fears and struggles. Love means baring your soul to another person. How do we do this? Naturally, it’s not always easy. The process takes time, trust, and commitment.
Perhaps we don’t open ourselves up right away. In fact, in the beginning, before we really grow to know another person and before we can trust our judgments when it comes to that person, perhaps it’s not so wise to bare our souls without hesitation. But once we decide that we are going to commit, that the leap into a serious relationship is one that we want to take, then we must also take the leap of faith and relinquish any fear we might have of being completely vulnerable.
Our Zooskers, on the meaning of love.
By Juliet O
You Zooskers are a romantic bunch. We recently posed the question on our community pages, “What is your definition of love?” The responses we received were varied and astute — and simultaneously romantic and accurate.
Love, by its very nature, is almost impossible to define. Even geniuses like Albert Einstein admit their bafflement when it comes to explaining this emotional phenomenon. Love appears to resist our ability to rationalize it, as well as our attempts to tie it down to any unified definition. “How on earth are you ever going to explain in terms of chemistry and physics so important a biological phenomenon as first love?” asked Einstein. We don’t know either, Einstein. However, in finding love within our own lives and in choosing to participate in the act of loving, we attempt to explain love by our behaviors that characterize this emotion — one that exists within the mysterious shrouds of subjectivity. We all express and experience love differently, and it was interesting hearing your individual perceptions, lovely Zooskers, of this singular, exquisite emotion.
10 things to avoid when choosing a date
By Juliet O
We all make mistakes, especially when it comes to love. Love can blind us to a person’s faults. In love’s darker moments, when confronted with warning signs that tell us blatantly that we shouldn’t be with this person we foolishly love, and that they are hurting us, we stubbornly choose to ignore them despite our better judgment.
Luckily, when we are faced with our own catastrophic mistakes, we can learn from them and avoid making the same mistakes in the future. Falling for the wrong person is one of the biggest — and most painful — mistakes you can make in the game of love. You shouldn’t feel too bad if you’ve ever loved someone who ripped your heart out of your chest to use like a soccer ball. We’ve all been there, seriously. But from a person who’s been in that situation, I hope it never happens again and that we all learn from our mistakes. So, seasoned daters — here are 10 types of daters you should avoid at all cost to prevent future heartache. Pay attention to these red flags!
