A friend of mine is tipping her toe into the online dating pool and has been asking me for advice on navigating the waters. So, in honor of her, and some of our very own Frisky staff who have been doing the same toe-tipping themselves, as well as anyone else out there who has wondered how to best maximize the opportunity, I present the Dos and Don’ts of Online Dating after the jump.

An update on the Doodler. I do no like, nor do I accept, guys sending mixed messages. According to He’s Just not That Into You, I’m supposed to read the signs and accept, without a guy actually saying so, that he’s not interested. But the Doodler left me confused. He seemed interested! We hooked up! He’s roommates with one of my friends! Besides, we had fun, didn’t we? Why wouldn’t we go out again? I emailed the Doodler on Friday evening, suggesting we go out this week. I haven’t gotten a response. Rude much?

As for Chicken Parm, things have been rather nice between us the last few weeks. Friday evening, Chicken Parm came over, not to spend the night, or go to dinner, or even to screw. No, he came over to nap. And cuddle, too. Then, he left. Last week, he told me, “I wish we lived in the same building but had separate apartments, so I could do work in mine, but sleep in yours.” It was oddly romantic. I think I may have even said, “Aww.”

There’s a new online dating site for those women who think size definitely matters. 7OrBetter.com only accepts men who are packing at least seven inches of artillery. The site was conceived under the premise that women want to know what their date is working with before investing too much wasted time. But they can’t exactly ask for that info on the first or second date—so now they can know upfront. But don’t expect any sleazy talk or nudity—because the members are supposed to be “quality” people looking for a “quality” relationship. So, I’m guessing it’s like an eHarmony for above-average men? The one plus is that the site is free. The biggest negative? There are probably about 10 guys for every 1,000 women. There’s no explanation as to how the site guarantees the men’s size, but let’s hope girth is measured, as well as length, because pencils are about as much fun as a stubby crayon.

For the last few months I’ve been seeing someone – Chicken Parm, as he’s been referred to a few times already—that I met on the online dating site OK Cupid. I signed up for the site on a whim on New Years Day, as I was recovering from my hangover. New Years Eve was the last in a series of breakup milestones, as it would have been my fifth anniversary with my ex, and the first anniversary of our engagement.

I signed up for online dating because I felt officially ready to date again and what better place to find likeminded men than on an online dating site?! Chicken Parm sent me a message and his profile instantly intrigued me. Of the three adjectives he used to describe himself, one of them was “hungry.” I had wanted to describe myself as hungry too, but balked out of fear that it would imply I was hiding a huge ass beneath my head shot. His taste in music was a mix of artists I loved and stuff I’d never heard of, and a lot of hip-hop, which I adore. He was cute and he tanned well. Reply!

The guy I lost my virginity to found me on Facebook a few months ago. I opened my inbox to read, “Is this Teri? If so, hit me back.” It was an absurdly casual message, as if he had no idea I associated him with puking from anesthesia in the parking lot of an abortion clinic. The shock I felt when I saw the name Jeffery* in my inbox is a testament to how successful I had been at forgetting everything that happened between us.

On a daily basis, the average American is cutting back on expenses BIG time, especially when it comes to their social lives. Dinners at restaurants have been replaced by cooking at home, seeing movies in the theaters, at a whopping $12 a ticket seems excessive when you can wait until the film in on DVD, and traveling? For fun? Not in this economy!

But one social activity that’s NOT seeing a dip in participation is online dating. According to The New York Times, Match.com had its strongest fourth quarter in the last seven years. An easy explanation is that though times may be tough, loneliness is loneliness, no matter how much money you have in your bank account. Rich or poor, employed or recently laid off, everyone wants to have love. With that in mind, here are four reasons why online dating is recession proof.

Banks are foreclosing on houses. Jobs are being outsourced. Popular retail stores are shutting down. Magazines like Domino are folding. Despite the economy being pretty much in the crapper, romance is on the rise. Popular online dating sites like Match.com and eHarmony are seeing a spike in the number of people signing up looking for love; Match.com saw its biggest membership growth in seven years in November, and eHarmony.com registrations increased 20 percent in 2008.  Yes, it seems people are dumping their change jars into Coinstar machines and flocking to online dating sites. But why would you pay for a gamble on love when the gas and electric people are sending you death threats? It boils down to one simple word…

It’s that magical time of year when, disgusted by the post-holiday bloat effect, we make all kinds of unrealistic promises to ourselves (A.K.A. “resolutions”): We’ll stop eating Skittles every day at 4 p.m., totally start exercising again, nix the Marlboros and get our hair looking really awesome once and for all. And of course, the single and looking folks out there feel a twinge of hopeful new optimism that maybe this year, “I’ll meet The One,”—or at least find a temporary substitute in the form of a f**k buddy or two—and go about procuring the goods. One thing that is way easier to change than say, the cellulite you inherited from Aunt Geena, is the ad you post on Myspaz or Nerve or whatever illustrious forum you choose to advertise your flesh wares in.

With the New Year just around the corner and winter in full swing, the desire for another warm body next to us grows every day. We don’t necessarily want someone to bring home to embarrassing family dinners so much as we want someone to drink hot-toddies with as the night grows colder and inhibitions smaller. It’s hard to feel attractive under layers of fuzzy sweaters and fuzzier legs, which makes going out to to clubs to find our mate as appealing as brussels sprout pie. More and more people are turning to on-line personals to help them find that special person to ring in the new year with, even if it’s just for one night or a few months. 

I’ve rounded up the most popular personals dating sites and narrowed down the best and worst of what the sites have to offer – everything from short term hook-up potential to the skeeviness factor (the amount of men you’d try to avoid while walking down the street).

Your passive-aggressive aunt bought you a Match.com subscription for Christmas. While your first impulse was to hit her with a brick, you’ve always been curious about online dating. “What the heck?” you figure. “I’ll write an ad and take a look around.” But when you’re on your own in virtual reality, the search for computer-generated love can be daunting. Here are the top online dating types to avoid.

Online dating has a pretty unfair stigma attached to it. After all, most of us probably spend at least half our day in front of a computer, so it stands to reason that we might as well multitask and meet someone there while we’re at it! Whether you’ve tried it before and been burned, had mixed results or are an online dating virgin (probably the only time you’ll ever be able to use that word again), there’s never been a better time to try it than now. There are the traditional sites like Match.com and eHarmony (which has finally gotten with the program by offering same-sex matching), as well as niche sites like Millionaire Match for wealthy individuals, FarmersOnly for rural dwellers, and TrekPassions for sci-fi fans. Who knows? You might just find the perfect New Year’s Eve date… and didn’t you say you wanted 2009 to be a year of new experiences? If you’re still mouse-shy, try a few tips from dating expert Alison Roth, who has consulted for numerous sites, including JDate, Match.com, and Yahoo! Personals, and helps people write profiles that get real results.

Cheating is a tricky business. As it should be, considering it is morally reprehensible. However, I’m not here to judge anyone about their extra-marital affairs, I’m just here to give the facts. And the fact is AshleyMadison.com is supposedly the world’s number one “dating” service, with over 2.5 million members. I decided to do a little undercover work and signed on to the site to find out exactly what members are entitled to. This site began in 2001—with the motto “Life is Short.  Have an Affair.”—but has just not started to garner attention since it’s been featured on “The Tyra Show,” “20/20,” “The Ellen DeGeneres Show,” “Dr. Phil,” and “Larry King Live.”  One woman told Tyra that within the last six months of being on AshleyMadison.com, she’d slept with about 150 people.

In case you haven’t noticed, the stock market took a nosedive this week. The rest of us are left worried about investments, bank stability, and mortgages. But what about the men of Wall Street, who are getting screwed over by their employers: How are they looking to handle this mess? They’re looking to get screwed on Craigslist. Instead of looking for their next jobs, they’re trolling for the hand and blow kind of jobs online. Who can blame them? Life’s too short not to take a half-naked photo of yourself and boast about your Ivy league education on a free internet message board. Some guys are looking to wine and dine a new girlfriend, and some guys are looking to host orgies with posts titled: “Was Laid Off from Lehman Brothers—Sex Party Time!” 

Animals in captivity don’t get out much, and it’s hard for them to find a partner who they’d like to mate with when they’re confined to their cages. To help their animals reproduce when they’re ready, more than 200 zoos in the U.S. and other countries are entering information into an online computerized matchmaking database that keeps track of sex, age, weight, and personality traits in an effort to find pairs that would be a fit for making cubs, calves, pups, kits, or chicks. The Riverbanks Zoo in Columbia, S.C., is hoping the online studbook will help their koala, Killarney, find a guy she doesn’t hit or ignore—she’s a difficult lady, but there must some guy who can handle her, right? [CBS News]