Steven Ward

Author: Steven Ward

March 31, 2016

Which Dating Apps Are Women Harassed More On?

Women don’t usually need to rely on scientists to confirm information that they already know. The truth is, we experience more harassmentphone online than men—this is a fact, not fiction. But in case you weren’t already aware of this, a recent study from Consumers’ Research concluded, after polling one hundred people, that the majority of women using dating apps experience some type of harassment.

The interesting part came when the researchers determined which apps attract the most unwarranted attention. (Approximately 69 percent of the people that participated in this survey were between the ages of 18 and 22.) Tinder and OkCupid ranked at the top with 39 percent and 38 percent of users, respectively, reporting harassment once, twice, or multiple times. Women experienced less harassment on websites like Match (21 percent) and eHarmony (17 percent).

While lower statistics are promising, all of the sites should be at zero percent. Harassment is not and never will be okay, and users that engage in this behavior should be penalized (and fined). It is unfortunate when women should go out of their way and avoid tools that are designed to make aspects of their lives easier.

This article original appear on Nylon.com

May 7, 2015

Get Your Verified Link to Your Love Life

If you haven’t learned by now, Love Lab is not just another dating app. Its meant to complement every single dating site, service, app and avenue of meeting someone there is. Now everyone on Love Lab has a link to their love life that can be shared with anyone, anywhere so you can prove you are who you say you are. Mine is http://lovelab.com/LOVELAB. Not only can you see my verified name and age, but you can also see a watermarked photo that was verified against an instant selfie I took for likeness. Unfortunately, I am not a level 5. Want to know why? If we met in person I’d be glad to show you my background check. If you fail the check we store the results in the app for your eyes only. What can I say? In my younger days I was hell on wheels. Only people with squeaky clean backgrounds earn the highest level of trust.

On your personalized profile page we give instructions for how to request contact with you on the app. When you, or someone else enters a valid Contact Code the corresponding profile is presented. When the person entering the code pluses the profile, a match request is sent to the profile owner, who can accept or reject the request. If accepted, the match is created. Then, not only can you text you can share instant photos and videos taken with the camera in the app that will disappear after they’ve been viewed once.

You can also match with other verified users already on the app when you plus a profile in the Discovery area that interests you. We rank every user from highest to lowest trust level and within each trust level based on their likability, (i.e. the highest proportion of pluses to minuses). So if you want to be more prominent to others its in your best interest to reach the highest level of trust possible. We’ve found that likability is directly correlated to how complete a profile is in terms of photos, details and trust level. More trusted users are liked much more.

So why bother with first date surprises or disappointment ever again? Use Love Lab to create trust and chemistry before you date. If you want any help with your love life, meet me on the app and I’d be happy to share my thoughts. My Contact Code is Love Lab. Download the app today!

April 3, 2015

Love Lab’s Video Feature

Since Love Lab’s inception, we’ve been talking about one of the universal problems with dating apps – that you don’t know if the person you’re texting with actually looks like their picture. This is why Love Lab not only includes facial recognition software, but also a disappearing video message feature, like Snapchat, so you can actually speak back and forth with someone you’re interested in without giving any personally identifiable information like phone number or Skype contact. But the video feature offers much more than just verification of what someone looks like.

There were a couple of studies conducted in the late 60’s that determined way back then that 93% of communication is nonverbal. Whether you believe this statistic or not, it points to a truth – interpersonal interaction involves more than just words. If you’ve ever gotten a text and had to ask a friend to help decipher its meaning, then you understand this. When someone speaks to you, you hear more than just what they say. You also naturally interpret things like inflection and tone that offer layers of meaning. Add a live visual component on top of this and you get an even fuller picture.

What does this person look like right now (even relatively recent photos can be unintentionally deceptive)? Are they scruffy and alternative or clean cut? How are they dressed and how do they present themselves? Is the place they live in messy and cluttered or well kept? Are they energetic and bubbly or more mild tempered and subdued? All of these are essential questions for figuring out compatibility, and you can’t answer any of them accurately with anything short of a video.

There is obviously no substitute for meeting someone in person, but Love Lab gives you all the tools you need to decide if that’s a step you want to take.

March 23, 2015

Tinder at SXSW

No wonder people keep giving Tinder poor ratings in the app store. At this year’s SXSW festival which wrapped up this weekend, users were encountering a major disappointment. An article in Adweek outlining what happened begins – “Well, this is sneaky – and for some a little heartbreaking.” I’d like to point out that “sneaky” and “heartbreaking” are probably the two top characteristics you don’t want associated with a potential date, or with dating in general, online or otherwise.

The article goes on to explain exactly what happened. “Tinder users at the SXSW festival on Saturday were encountering an attractive 25-year-old woman named Ava on the dating app.” Ava (pictured above) then pointed people to her Instagram, where “it became clear something was amiss. There was one photo and one video, both promoting Ex Machina,” a sci-fi film that premiered at the conference. The woman in the photo was actually an actress from the movie.

While this may have been a somewhat clever advertising prank, it speaks to a larger issue with Tinder and many other online dating platforms. You simply can’t be sure who you’re talking to. It is very possible that people you are in contact with are misrepresenting themselves, if they are even real people to begin with. Someone can laugh at this article because people were just being mislead for a marketing ploy, but it shows that someone with more nefarious intentions may have the means to mislead vulnerable men and women into something much worse.

Correcting this problem is the main purpose of Love Lab. With features including verification of age, likeness to profile picture, and even criminal background, people at next year’s SXSW can make sure Ava is Ava, and not the face of some scheme cooked up by the marketing department of a movie studio.

March 9, 2015

Chemistry and Trust

Should chemistry be based on trust initially in a relationship? I was asked this question recently and the answer is obvious. Not only should it be, it needs to be. Without trust, and the feelings of comfort and safety that come with it, chemistry is stifled from the very beginning because people have their guard up. You can never truly get to know someone that way.

Some people misuse the word “chemistry”. They confuse it for volatility. They see two people who fight constantly, exhibit jealousy, and yet can’t keep their hands off each other and think this is chemistry. I disagree with this definition of the term. I would call this misguided emotion and uncontrolled passion. While some people may call self destructive relationships like this “exciting”, they are actually made to implode. They turn out to be the very opposite of exciting because the arguments and combativeness soon become repetitive and draining.

I’m reminded of the comedy routine by Chris Rock about marriage and relationships in which he says, “All good relationships are boring. The only exciting relationships are bad ones. You never know what’s going to happen tomorrow when you’re in a bad relationship.” While the last part of this comment is definitely true, I think the idea that the only exciting relationships are bad ones is a complete misconception. Stable relationships, from the very beginning when you get to know this new person who you care about to the later stages when you explore further interests together, are exciting. Someone with whom you can go through the experiment of life with – that is chemistry. Someone with whom you experience nothing but frustration and anger and only the sex is good – this is not chemistry. It’s biology at best.

January 28, 2015

TV Characters Need Love Lab

It’s definitely part of the collective conscious today: How can you trust someone you meet online? How do you know the person you’re exchanging messages with is really who they say they are? How do you know you will be safe when you meet this person face to face? The truth is that you don’t, which is why Love Lab is such an essential product in the current dating environment.

The potential dangers of online dating are so well known now, that they are starting to leak into the pop culture Zeitgeist. Right now there are several shows on TV with plots centered around this concept, and it makes sense why – it is a real fear people have so it resonates with audiences.

Eye Candy, a new show on MTV starring Victoria Justice, is a perfect example. This is the summary from the MTV website: “Eye Candy centers on tech genius Lindy, who is persuaded by her roommate to begin online dating and begins to suspect that one of her mysterious suitors might be a deadly cyber stalker.” This may sound a bit melodramatic, and maybe it is, but if you don’t think that it is based in reality then pick up a newspaper and read about any one of the hundreds of dating nightmares being reported.

On the slightly more comical side of things, MTV also has a show called Catfish, about people who date someone online, only to find out that they are not who they said they are. The beautiful Swedish model in the pictures, for example, turns out to be some guy who lives in his parents’ basement. While this may sound somewhat amusing, keep in mind that for the person who is being misled, who has invested time and emotion into another person, it definitely isn’t funny.

I’d just like to point out that the concepts for each these shows would completely fall apart if, instead of meeting someone through just another dating app, the people in them used Love Lab.

December 11, 2014

The Top 5 Reasons Why People Cheat

I have many clients emotionally scarred from relationships that ended with infidelity, an affair, unfaithfulness, cheating, adultery or whatever you want to call it. Most of the time they struggle to understand why it happened, how it happened and whether or not it could have been avoided. From the perspective of someone who has never cheated, it seems unthinkable. From the perspective of someone who has cheated, it may seem like anything but. Here are the top five reasons why men and women cheat.

5. They are insecure. There are few things in this world more gratifying than being desired by someone. The validation we get from this is hard to match. Often one strays from a relationship because they are anxious and restless in the situation they are in. They require stimulation and constant attention to calm their nerves. Even a terrific partner can be helpless in this situation.

4. They are unsatisfied. Even men and women with a healthy appetite for sex are frequently unsatisfied. Despite their best effort to stay focused and faithful to one person they find themselves wanting more than what they have. They feel deserving of a more-than-adequate sex life and will even stray with no intentions of jeopardizing their relationship just to get enough satisfaction that they need.

3. They are insatiable. Hypersexual people don’t always meet their match. Even when their partner performs more than they want to this individual is still hungry for sex. Their thirst for sexual gratification can never be quenched and they will be incapable of maintaining a healthy relationship until they are able to deal with their addiction.

2. They are sociopaths. By definition this person lacks a conscience. Even if they may seem capable of empathy, they are merely acting and are always looking out for their own best interests. Sociopaths are master manipulators because they are more deceiving than narcissists. A narcissist may be completely unaware of their inability to feel. They deny remorse or gratitude. Sociopaths can seem to feel bad and can pretend to be grateful or remorseful, but they most certainly are not.

And the number one reason why men or women cheat, is because…

1. They want out. Because cheating is the ultimate show of disrespect and one of the most difficult things to forgive someone for, it is by far the easiest way to end a relationship. What’s there to talk about? Could you have driven them away? Possibly, but what difference does it make? Clearly this person is insecure, unsatisfied, insatiable, or sociopathic. Isn’t it also clear that they whether they want to admit it or not, they want out of the relationship?

Ultimately I beg my clients not to blame themselves. Either you acknowledge that you trusted and respected someone you shouldn’t have, or you accept the fact that they were too insecure or too self-centered to be in a relationship with you or anyone else. What you should never do is blame yourself.

November 19, 2014

The Importance of Love Lab

So many people have set up a date with someone online, only to show up and find that the person they have agreed to go out with misrepresented themselves in their online profile. The person may look different, or they may have given information that is untrue. This is one of the chief problems that Love Lab was created to solve. But while entering into such a situation can be frustrating and discouraging, there are many other problems in the online dating world that Love Lab can help to iron out. Chief among these problems are issues surrounding your safety and well-being when you go out with a new person who you don’t know yet.

There was a disturbing article in the LA Times recently that discussed some of the darkest consequences of dating someone whose identity has not been verified. While this is an outlier case, and plenty of people have perfectly good experiences with online dating, it is important for people to be cognizant of the dangers, and to take the proper steps to protect themselves, even when meeting people on reputable, well-known dating websites.

This is a perfect example of what Love Lab can do to augment and enhance peoples’ online dating experiences. Since it uses both physiological and behavioral recognition to verify the authenticity of its users, it is the best product on the market for ensuring that users are who they say they are, and for establishing trust between people who connect through it on multiple levels.

By identifying a person’s background you do more than just protect yourself. You put yourself in a state of mind in which you can have fun, be yourself, and open up, all of which are so important when you are on a date. By putting your concerns behind you after responsibly addressing them, you can make your dating experiences and your entire dating life more enjoyable and more fruitful.

October 22, 2014

Welcome

Check back here for more information and press releases on Love Lab, the exciting new mobile dating application for singles.