Funnn New Updates to Dating Site

Updates and stuff!

I've been working really hard on the back-end of my web application. This is probably going to sound boring to you since it has nothing to do with dating or social dynamics, but it's pretty exciting for me. Also hugely challenging.

I've been building this website (www.realcompliments.com) for about a month now. I was rolling out updates slowly, but since Google seems to be a fan already and I have lots of repeat visitors, I decided that I wanted to have a really solid application before huge sums of traffic really start kicking in.

Tangent! If you really want  to help me, please link to funny compliments, sweet things to say to your boyfriend and sweet things to say to your girlfriend. Use that anchor text too! There are a surprising amount of people sharing the site already but it's the bread and butter of my traffic so I'll never complain about getting MOAR :)

Anyway, the new features I've added are as follows:

A user system where you can register and write compliments under your own name instead of as a stranger. You can also check out your score, because people voting for your compliments or comments will move you up and down score-wise, and there's a leaderboard where the people with the best compliments reside.

My favourite feature is a random compliment feature. It'll help me moderate new compliments when they come in because of how I coded it, and it'll also get more exposure to compliments that sadly slid off of the first page. This feature is really exciting for me!

They aren't online yet since I'm doing a huge rewrite of  the back-end and I have to re-theme a lot of the pages, but when they're up I'll put up some links.

Have a super fantastic day!

Chinese Girls and Bars in Shenzhen

I'm a Canadian dating coach working and travelling in China. This means I know quite a bit about Chinese Girls (let's keep this PG, don't think that way :P) and the night life of the places I've visited.

I happened to live in Shenzhen for about 2 months while I was sorting some stuff out work-wise and finding a more permanent living location. The picture above is of a mini-cruise ship (what do you call that?) that you'd think was floating in water but is actually ringed with concrete. Bars in Shenzhen really cater to foreigners, so if that seems strange it's because Chinese people think foreigners are strange ;)

That was one of the quickest traits I learned about Chinese girls, or at least the ones in Shenzhen. They had really weird ideas about foreigners. It's like we're magic butter that, if you rub up against, will turn you into a superstar overnight. This is both good and bad. Good, because you get a favourable first impression even if you're hideous, and bad because there's a lot to live up to after the star power wears off.

I never really took that super power foreigner-ness for granted - being socially aware is universally sexy - but I noticed a lot of foreigners feeling like they were in the lime-light despite heading for disaster.

In short, Chinese girls will give a foreigner 5 minutes of star power but after that you need to back it up with real social savvy.

Check Out A Sweet Thing to Say to Your Friend

My favourite style of compliment (http://www.realcompliments.com) is simple. I point out something I like about a person and then I say, "I really like that about you."

You're reading a blog about making other people feel good. I really like that about you.

But I also think of memories when complimenting my friends. This one time at band camp... I could keep the simple style of (positive characteristic) + (I like that), but my band camp memories show so much more about my friends.

Images from stories make compliments sweet; a stranger who never had the chance to meet you when you were poor doesn't understand you as well once you become rich. Stories show that you have really thought about your friend and decided that, yes, they're pretty cool.

...Read more at a sweet thing to say to your friend.

I'm Alive!

This is my first blogger blog! I'm pretty stoked. Anyway, we'll see where it goes from here :)

Wish me luck!