The truth is, most women do. I think horny is a permanent condition with most men so I’m not sure about their standards.

This was the topic of conversation with a few of my friends while we were waiting for a meeting to start last week. One woman, we’ll call her Cheryl because she’d kill me if I wrote her real name here, said that since her divorce she hadn’t been dating much and she was really craving a bit of intimacy. We all gave her some advice and then Barb spoke up.

“Lower your standards, honey, get a little and you’ll be just fine,” she said.

The rest of us blinked and said, “lower your standards? ewwww.”

“She’s not going to KEEP him, she only wants to borrow him for a little while and well, he doesn’t have to be a brain surgeon like her ex in order to be loving and passionate in the sack,” Barb replied.

You know, there’s probably something to that. One night stands have never been for me. Maybe it’s my upbringing or my genetic makeup but for me, if a guy is worth sleeping with, he’s worth more than one night. That’s why I had difficulty with Barb’s suggestion to Cheryl. I realize that it’s MY perceptions and what’s right for ME that’s coloring my opinion.

Would you drop your standards if you really needed an intimate cuddle?

According to Cosmopolitan magazine, there are six things that every man notices within six seconds when he meets a woman for the first time. Surprisingly I thought #3 would have been in position #1 but that shows I’d be wrong.

1. He Notices Your Smile
Does it seem genuine? Does it seem forced or insincere? Do you have spinach on your front teeth?

2. He Notices Your Hair
Men don’t really care if you have the latest style or look like you’ve just stepped off the pages of a hair salon style book. What’s important to a man is does it look soft, does it appear touchable and does he think if he got his nose close enough that it would smell divine. So don’t wear yourself out tweaking and spraying into funky styles because he really wants to touch it and doesn’t want to hear, “You’ll mess my hair!”

3. He Notices Your Cleavage
Or maybe he notices your lack of cleavage but #3 is where the action is. Men like to look at women’s boobs. They’ve always liked to look at them. Cosmo says we should take it in stride and make the best of our assets but don’t go overboard. Regardless the size of your boobage, guys want to look at them anyway.

4. He notices Your Makeup
Don’t wear so much makeup that it will look to him as if you’ve painted on a new face over the old one because it was too icky for public viewing. Men want to see the real you. Enhance it with a bit of tweaking here and there but if you show up looking like Tammy Faye, chances are he’ll do a runner.

5. He Notices Your Skin
He looks there because one of his goals is to touch your skin. He wants to know if you’re touchable and will it feel good as his fingers slowly trace the lines of your body. Don’t freak if you have a zit or you’ve got freckles or anything else as long as your skin feels good when you touch it. Don’t spend hours in a tanning salon either — you’ll only be setting yourself up for wrinkly old skin when you hit 55 if you do.

6. He Notices Your Handbag
Are you carrying a bag that goes well with your outfit or do you look like you’re carrying supplies to sustain you through wars, flood and famine? Men worry that we might be high maintenance if we need to have heaps of “stuff” with us at all time. I know that most of us have a pack with one stick of gum, 3 grocery store receipts, the receipt from the raffle we bought 2 weeks ago, a pen, a wallet, hand lotion, hand sanitizer, tampons, glasses, sunglasses, mini umbrella, Tylenol, personal diary, mobile phone… you get the idea. We don’t need most of that crap on a date so ditch the handbag the size of a Volkswagen and carry something appropriate for the outfit you’re wearing.

Finding the right person online isn’t as tricky as some people think it is. We’ve all read about the horror stories of the guy who didn’t think it was important to mention he’d been badly burnt in a car accident and his date freaked out. Not because of his disfigurement – that didn’t bother her at all but that he had sent her photos of what he looked like before the accident. Then we’ve heard about the women who think it’s appropriate to send photos of themselves when they finished high school or college but now they’re 55 and their bodies have changed a wee bit.

So what’s the trick to meeting the right one?

Don’t “settle” for less than you deserve. I don’t mean that as a putdown to anyone because it’s not. It has nothing to do with education, financial security or looks – it has to do with how another person treats you. Don’t settle for less than someone who treats you like the special person you are. If he comes across as a bully or she comes across as a gold digger – keep looking. You should never be desperate enough to choose someone that your head says is wrong for you.

Keep it honest. I can’t count the number of people who create an online personality that’s nowhere near who they are. If you want to meet someone really nice, don’t screw it up by lying about what you look like, where you live, your educational background or anything else that would matter to you if someone lied to you about it. In all the years we’ve been running SexyAds we’ve had about 12 people who have had to “virtually die” because they got really involved with someone after lying to them and then had to kill off that personality because they couldn’t admit that they’d lied. It puts us in a really awkward situation especially when the person was fairly well known and we could tell that they’d logged in after they “died.” I don’t care how many times you watch “The Secret” you’ll never be able to log in to a website after your death.

For goodness sake, be safe when you meet someone. We’ve never had an instance where a member got hurt after meeting someone but we know it’s just going to take one person who feels that they know someone really well online and they agree to meet in a private place and the other person isn’t who they expect them to be. Never give out your home address to someone you’ve met online until you’ve had a chance to meet them in a public location. This bears repeating. Never ever give out your home address to someone you’ve never met in person. You don’t have to lie about it, just be honest and say you want to keep that information until you’ve met. Anyone who isn’t comfortable with that doesn’t deserve you. Always meet in a public, neutral spot and agree ahead of time to make it a short meeting. That way if the other person is a total dud, you have only wasted 30-45 minutes. There will be plenty of time for a second date.

So many people lie about their age, especially on the net – I’m really surprised by the high incidence. I didn’t realize it until someone in the chatroom asked me my age the other night and I said 62. His reply? “So, it’s really 65 or 66? Come on, everyone online lies about their age”

I suppose I should have said, “it’s none of your business” or “look it up on my profile, stupid,” but I just blurted it out. I’m not ashamed of my age — it’s certainly made me the person I am today.

Over the years I can count heaps of people who have asked for advice after they’ve lied about their age. For instance, a guy lies about his age (honestly, liars are 50/50 in the gender mix) and ends up getting a reply to his ad. Things progress to a real life meeting and then what does he do? He writes to us for advice. There is no easy solution because no matter what happens, the other person knows you’re a liar. If you’ll lie about your age to get a date or get noticed or for whatever reason you justify lying, you’ll probably lie about more important issues as well.

I’ve seen a lot of successful people who are young at heart write something like — I’m 57 but I look and act 45. This tells the person reading the ad or bio that you don’t look your age, nor do you act or even feel that age. Then there’s nothing to cover up.

I remember one guy that lied was in England and his online sweetheart was American. She was late 30′s and he said he was 35. Turns out he was over 50. They had a hot, lusty email and chat affair and she was totally smitten with the guy. She got up her courage and said she was going to fly to England to meet him. What was he going to do?

He knew he’d really screwed things up so he did the only thing he could think of — he died. Not a real death, just a cyber death. The woman wrote to me and I could almost touch her pain. Turns out she found out because “his uncle had found her email address on his nephew’s computer and he wanted to let her know.” She wrote to me, she even asked for my phone number so she could talk with me.

As I said, I’m not a spring chicken and I had my doubts. When I asked if she was sure he died, she could have put needles in my eyes for sure. How could I treat her AND his memory like that? she wanted to know. Well, when you own the site, you have access to the login details and he’d logged in after he died, so either he was way more clever than other people who’ve died or he was doing a bit of fakey fakey.

Then, within a few days after his umm.. funeral, who should join our site but his uncle. Turns out his uncle is a bit over 50 and realizes how smart his nephew was to have found such a wonderful young woman. You can guess the rest. He wanted to meet the woman and thank her for being so kind and loving to his nephew. From the back end I could see that he was coming in from the same IP as his “nephew” and was logging in to both accounts.

When the woman told me she was going to send money to help pay for the funeral, I had to say something and told her the facts that I had. She confronted him over the phone and he admitted that he’d lied about his age and couldn’t tell her so he had to kill himself, internetically speaking.

So, if you’re thinking about lying about your age, remember this guy and spare yourself an early online death. You’ll be much happier and you’ll meet much better people who will appreciate your honesty and character.