When you start dating, following a few rules of thumb will help you be more successful. It's tempting to avoid restating the basics, but the truth is, we all forget them from time to time. Dating is about two people coming together to get to know one another and find out whether they are compatible, then enjoying each other's company and eventually forming a close bond. During this process, there are some important guidelines you should remember:
Dating should always be fun, and it's as much your responsibility as it is your partner's to ensure that it is. When you're dating, make sure you do everything you can to make the time you spend together enjoyable.
Eye contact is crucial, and it's good etiquette to give your date as much of your attention as possible. They should feel like they are the only person in the room. Do not use a date as an excuse for general partying.

Does Mr. Right exist? Is he out there somewhere? Will I find him?

Mr. Right is a key subject for many women and an inspiration of hope on a daily basis. Yes, probably exists Yes, he is probably your match. Yes, you WILL find him! Of course in all our lives we have goals, aims, ambitions and desires small and large. It is these landmarks and goalposts that keep us positive and busy. It is what makes us human. In recent years the terms Mr. Right and Miss Right have become over used and clichéd. It is almost as if we have a chart on our wall, an extensive check list or a resume of specifics that the person in question must submit to get his foot through the door of the "potentials" interview.

Most of us would deny we are pushing away Mr. Right as we hope that chance will take a hand in bringing Mr. Right to us. Many of us accept that we have a small but insignificant "list" and yes, we accept that there are some requirements on it which are nonnegotiable, but they are fairly minor. Or are they? The fact of the matter is that as the decades have passed by, we have become far more sophisticated, as humans, as individuals, as lovers and mates. We are adults, we have a good salary and a nice home and are well educated in the ways of the world. Therefore it is only fair that we seek someone to match, to fit in, to adapt, to accompany, to facilitate, right? Therein lays the issue.

Online dating is generally extremely safe because it is distance dating and lets you get to know your potential matches anonymously before you meet in person. This makes most people feel more comfortable and also allows you to pace yourself and be selective (which you should be).

However, there are still some basic safety rules for online dating you should observe before giving out personal contact information to a relative strangers or arranging to meet them. Even though everything is online, it's still easy to get carried away, so take things slow. These tips may seem obvious, but following them will ensure your safety and make sure you have only good online dating experiences. And you never know: Mr. or Miss Right might be just around the corner!

The guy that you have fancied for ages has asked you out on a date, and you've spent all day getting ready. Then when he turns up, he looks like he's been dragged through a hedge backwards, and that's just his hair! He's wearing a tatty t-shirt and an old pair of jeans, while you are all made up. It's too late to get changed, so you leave with him anyway. Where does he take you? Yes you've got it - to your local pub or bar, where he spends have the night talking to his buddies, and the other half talking about them. Then to top it off, he takes you for Macdonalds. The whole date was a complete disaster. He is not the guy you thought he was, and you don't know why you ever fancied him in the first place.

So what do you do when it is time to say good night? How do you avoid the end of the date kiss? And how do you let him down gently without being to harsh?

It is obvious you have no intention of seeing him again, so don't beat about the bush. Just get straight to the point. Sometimes being nice just doesn't work. Being too nice to a guy that you have no interest in, can lead to mixed signals, giving them the wrong idea and sometimes unwanted advances.

I have a problem with Valentine's day, not a big problem but a questioning one. February 14 is of course the day when large sections of the globe celebrate all things love and romance. They plunder stores and boutiques in search of generally overpriced trinkets and flowers for their special others to say I love you. That's fantastic and I wouldn't have anything to say about that. My problem lays in four separate things that go along with it though.

First is the fact that Valentine's day is a purely commercial venture, it is not based on any patron saint, feast day, religious or pagan festival or other lunar calendar event. No, it is perpetuated simply to fill the gap between Christmas and Easter. Let us be honest, with out it, card manufacturers and red rose sellers may be in serious trouble. That is not to say it is not a worthy day but bear in mind some ruthless organizations want you to spend lots of your money for their own benefit. Today is in fact Valentines day and I have just performed a check, a dozen red roses in my local florist has gone up from $15 to $75. Tomorrow they will be $15 again.

What is a successful date? Does it mean it leads on to relationship and romance? Well you that would be cool. But it doesn't have to mean that. A successful date can be one where you got on very well, had a great time and things ended on excellent terms. Not every date we go on will end this way, but they should if we plan our dating a little more carefully.

My main concern is that we often just accept dates from the next person who shows and interest and we hope that we get on okay. The problem here is that we are being passive in our dating game. We are receivers without a game plan. Our dating is bound to be far more successful if we are the ones going out and choosing who we would like to date from a selection of those who are compatible.

To do this successfully you first have to have an idea of who you are most likely to get on with and be truthful when you do it. If you insist on dating everyone, 50% of the people you meet won't be compatible straight away. In which case you will have half of all your dates as a complete waste of time. Stop doing that and start analyzing what kind of people you get on with. Okay I could say the following@

It's a fact of life for the modern woman, committing to someone other than themselves is scary stuff. Commitment means compromise.

I often hear women complaining that there are no eligible men anymore and that they struggle to find anyone who matches up to their most basic requirements as a mate. Think about this, you rarely hear a man saying that there are no eligible women anymore, though they may argue there are too many highly selective women. No, this lack of commitment used to be an accusation thrown at men wary of marriage, but these days you are more likely to find a woman with a good job who has taken over this role as the wary one.

I know lots of eligible men. They are young, unmarried, good looking, single, with good careers, lifestyles, are fit and healthy and looking for a serious relationship. In fact most men I know are serial monogamists! I asked one of my friends, Sean, 32, about whether he felt that the modern women he met were ready to commit and he said:

When dating successfully, getting your timing right is one of the single most important factors. Timing in respect to the best time to ask a girl out, with respect to what night to ask her out first and even with respect to when in your lives you actually meet at all.

Looking back on my life so far I realize that when relationships didn't work out, it wasn't because the girls I dated were wrong for me. Most often it was because we simply met at the wrong time in our lives. To meet a great girl who wants to get married to you when you are 22 years old may just be wrong timing. Meeting a fantastic lady when you are working abroad or on a short contract in a different location may be bad timing. And meeting someone who wants children when you are not yet ready is again bad timing. Sadly, many of these situations can't be helped, because that's how life goes. The people we would have grown old with best are often the ones we encountered to early or at the wrong moment in time. One cannot go back and one cannot rekindle something lost in time, so we have to accept that bad timing does happen with all of us.

The biggest problem in our dating world are jealous and possessive men. While they are desperate to find a woman they can love and adore, once they have found her possessive men most often do not believe they can keep hold of her due to a lack of self-confidence, self-respect and self-belief. They don't truly believe they deserve the girl so they try and subjugate her to rely on them and increase the woman's sense of dependency. It is all too common these days as more and more men feel uneasy about who they truly are and lack self-esteem.

The first hurdle a woman faces is in not being able to spot a jealous and possessive man in advance. He is charming and good-looking, he has the world at his feet so it appears and you have absolutely no reason to think he isn't prince charming. And maybe he is Mr. nice-guy at this stage. But if you know then what you later discover things would be much easier.

The end of a date can be awkward or it can be exhilarating. Should you lean in for a kiss? Will she give you her phone number? What will he think if you invite him in? If your date has gone poorly or if you’ve definitely decided you are not interested in seeing this person again, is the end of the date an appropriate time to bring this up, or should you just avoid their phone calls and pretend to have fallen off the face of the Earth? TopDatingTips.com has the answers in our top 10 list of tips for the end of a date:

1. If you really didn't have a great time, you can always end the date early by telling a white lie about having an urgent meeting, phone call, appointment to attend to. Your date will surely not be a fool and will understand what you are trying to say, and probably will appreciate you sparing their feelings. Better still, simply be kind but truthful and point out that you don't think you will be an ideal match, that you have had a lovely evening, but there is no chemistry/connection/whatever the issue is.