New reality tv show “Married at First Sight” takes arranged marriages to extreme

How real is reality tv?  FYI network is pushing the limits as to what people accept as “believable tv” with their new reality tv show, “Married at First Sight”.  It is apparently based on a Danish program of the same name.  They describe it as an “extreme social experiment”.  It follows three Tri-State Area couples who have never met before, who know nothing of the other – no photo, no name, no personality info, no job info – before saying “I do”.  The set up is not arranged by their parents, but by four relationship “experts”: a sexologist, a spiritualist, a psychologist, and a sociologist.  

The four matchmakers narrow down a casting pool of 625 candidates to 50 eligible bachelors and bachelorettes, and then finally to these three couples.  At the end of five weeks of living together, the couples decide if they would like to continue to stay married or get a divorce.  Yes, a prenup was signed, and it is apparently a “real” marriage, or perhaps better termed “legal” marriage.  Perhaps an annulment could also apply.  The usual wedding ceremony kiss on the lips was replaced by kisses on the cheeks for two of the three couples, accompanied with awkwardness on each touch.

The three couples are (pictured below from left to right): Jason Carrion (27 years old, EMT from Brooklyn) and Cortney Hendrix (26 years old North Carolina native, makeup artist who performs in a burlesque troupe); Monet Bell (33 years old, fashion product development manager) and Vaughn Copeland (30 years old, field service technician); and, Jamie Otis (27 years old, nurse from Harlem) and Doug Hehner (31 years old, commercial sales rep and lifeguard).

"Married at First Sight" couplesNow you know more about them than they did before getting married.

If Jamie Otis looks familiar, it’s probably because she was on Season 16 of “The Bachelor” and the spin-off show “Bachelor Pad”.  Otis competed for Ben Flajnik’s red roses and love connection, sharing an awkward kiss with him before Flajnik took her out of the running for his love match.  Her reality tv wedding day was even more awkward, as she describes it: “Walking down the aisle, I am so scared. This is the worst feeling,” and “I just happened to be not attracted to the guy”.  The experts knew Hehner was not the typical guy she was attracted to, but opted to go with him based on personality.  Can they find love after weeks of playing house “for real”?  Here is a clip from their wedding:

Otis tweeted this last week in response to a tv viewer:

@youmazzin529: @jamienotis@FYI r u still married?? ” I can’t tell you that. But I can tell you that I’m very happy! ?

Happy because she is happy to be single, or happy as a newlywed?  What do you think?

You can watch “Married at First Sight” on FYI, Tuesday nights at 9ET/8c and 10PT.  It aired on the cable channel last week, but you can catch up on episodes from their website here.

What do you think of this extreme version of arranged marriages?  Post your comments below!

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Mila Kunis & Ashton Kutcher – a.k.a Jackie & Kelso – are Engaged!

They played the on-again, off-again boyfriend and girlfriend, Micheal Kelso and Jackie Burkhart, for about a decade on the hit TV show “That 70’s Show”, dated in real life for about 2 years, and now according to several reports – no formal announcement from the couple yet – Mila Kunis and Ashton Kutcher are engaged.  Doesn’t seem like it is another Jimmy Kimmel prank or Kutcher Punk’d!

Mila-Kunis-Ashton-Kutcher-Lakers
Credit: Noel Vasquez/Getty Images

Kunis was spotted wearing an engagement-type diamond ring on her ring finger on Thursday, and sources tell E! News that the two are indeed in love and tying the knot.  According to US Magazine sources, Kunis and Kutcher took their long friendship to the next level in spring of 2011.  Right timing for both.  Kutcher (36) and his ex-wife Demi Moore split in Fall 2010 following his fling with Sara Leal in San Diego, and Kunis (30) ended her eight-year relationship with Macauley Culkin around the same time.

Pals close to the former That ’70s Show costars have been waiting for Kutcher, 36, to propose. “They talk about getting married and having kids,” one friend told Us late last year. “An engagement is imminent.” …

…though they’ve been resolutely private, are “inseparable,” another pal told Us.

…”Ashton and Mila cook together,” a Kutcher pal says. “He knows he ended up with the right girl.”
(via US Magazine)

Cooking in more ways than one.

The Ellen Show fans got a sneak peak to Kunis & Kutcher being “inseparable” last year, right before Valentine’s Day, courtesy of Ellen’s interviewer skills:

Last time Kunis talked to Kutcher then: “Give or take a couple minutes”! lol!

People reported the same too:

The Kunis & Kutcher wedding will be a “That 70’s Show” reunion:

“It’s amazing,” Kurtwood Smith, who played Red on the series, said of their relationship in November 2012. “They’re both great people, so I’m happy for them.”

In fact, at the time, Smith joked, “Maybe they should get married. We’ll all go to the wedding and that could be the reunion. It’ll be a reality show.”
(via E! News)

Real wedding for the real Kelso and Jackie.  Who would have thought?  Gives more credence to the theory that when you’re with someone a lot, falling in love happens – but then also, you’re with someone more because you like them to begin with.

 

 

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Happy Valentine’s Day!

iloveyou
It’s all about love.

Any man who can drive safely while kissing a pretty girl is simply not giving the kiss the attention it deserves.
-Albert Einstein

Gravitation is not responsible for people falling in love.
-Albert Einstein

Where there is love there is life.
-Mahatma Gandhi

Let us always meet each other with smile, for the smile is the beginning of love.
-Mother Theresa

You know you’re in love when you can’t fall asleep because reality is finally better than your dreams.
– Dr. Seuss

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Zac Efron’s new movie, “That Awkward Moment” rated “sex comedy”, Super Bowl Weekend

Watch a romantic comedy on Saturday night with your girlfriend/boyfriend, Seattle Seahawks vs Denver Broncos Super Bowl XLVIII on Sunday.  Sounds like a plan.  But Zac Efron’s new movie, “That Awkward Moment” may not be the best flick choice to buy you points for Sunday, and probably especially not a good idea for a relatively new date, with it being closer to a “sex comedy” than a chick flick, Examiner reviews.

Zac Efron - That Awkward Moment

(via MTV)

Awkward.  Another date choice: ice skating.

Efron was on Ellen and Jimmy Kimmel Thursday promoting the release of his movie this Super Bowl weekend.  Efron says it is being described pretty accurately as “Sex in the City for guys”.  That toilet scene says it all – it’s got the toilet and sex in one.  Seems like that’s the trick Kimmel said he learned from the movie, though he didn’t want to reveal it to not ruin the scene.  Ellen on the other hand had no problems showing the picture. lol.

Zac Efron has clearly distanced himself from the Disney “High School Musical” days as a basketball star who likes to sing.  He is listed as one of the producers of this raunchy rated R movie, starring in it with up-and-coming actors Michael B. Jordan (“Fruitvale Station”) and Miles Teller (“The Spectacular Now”) .  The three buddies – Jason (Efron), Daniel (Teller), and Mike (Jordan) – make a pact to not get into any “relationship” as they conquer New York City dating life.  But the women in their life make it challenging to honor their commitment issues.

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Justin Bieber’s hot Valentine’s Day date this year in Miami

Justin Bieber’s sweet Valentine is scheduled to be with the South Florida court judge this February 14th, unless his lawyers are able to file his plea in writing.  The 19 year old pop singer was ordered to a Miami-Dade County court to be arraigned for resisting arrest, driving with an expired license, on top of the DUI.  Bieber was arrested last week in Miami Beach for illegal street drag racing with R&B singer Khalil Amir Sharieff, according to polioe. “The Biebs” admitted to drinking, smoking marijuana, and taking prescription pills. He was not charged with drag racing.

Justin Bieber: Valentines Day Court Date on DUI Charges | TIME.com

Good times with then girlfriend Selena Gomez, Disney star on “Wizards of Waverly Place”:

Selena Gomez and Justin Bieber

(via Hollywood Life)

to:

Justin Bieber Mugshot

(via US Weekly)

Find your way back Justin.  You can do it.

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Hi-tech self-opening love bra, good gift for Valentine’s Day?!

A Japanese lingerie company has put on the market the solution for the guys without the Charlie Harper magic fingers, a bra that self-opens for love – true love only, that is.  The bra measures the woman’s heart rate increases caused by love – vs exercise that they say apparently does not do the trick.  It sends the heart rate data to the smartphone via Bluetooth technology, the special app program analyzes it, and when it determines that there is true love going on, the bra busts open.

Love Bra

The bra cannot be opened manually.  Presumptuous gift while also kind of gentlemanly, lol.

Or not…

Love Bra

Or kind of like a chastity belt, for the chest that is.

(via Hi-Tech Bra Opens for Love, “The Mix” on ABC)

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“How I Met Your Mother”, “How Your Mother Met Me”

The CBS hit comedy “How I Met Your Mother” turned the tables on Monday night’s 200th episode, showing the parallel story of the mother this time, with Ted Mosby & friends so close by.  So many times that the hopeful romantic Ted and – we still don’t know her name! – almost “clicked” over these 8 years through friends or close encounters.  Let’s call her Teddy for now…  It’s a 30 minute episode with theme song “It’s a Small World After All”.  And side note: this is how and why Friends Match Me works – you probably haven’t met all of the single friends, acquaintances, and extended family of your friends, acquaintances, and extended family (a.k.a. Facebook friends), but who knows, maybe there’s a match there.  You already have something in common and get that nice familiar feeling, a sort of reassurance – you know like how you have just met someone and then find out you know some of the same people – that nice feeling.  Also somehow it seems like a lot of people who fall in love with each other already knew some of the same people before they met, whether they knew it at the time or not.  So, why not you?!

Now whether you believe that tv (art) imitates life, vice versa, or love to love love, here are the HIMYM close encounters love story, “How Your Mother Met Me”…  First there was MacLaren’s Pub on the West Side where a red head mistakenly went to instead of the one that is also apparently on the East side.  Ted and the gang were right there too, and it was actually the first night he met Robin, and the night Lily and Marshall got engaged.  The red head rushes to the West side, where Teddy was celebrating her 21st birthday party.   Same place, but different location.  Sad night for Teddy who loses her love Max.  St. Patrick’s Day 2 years later Teddy goes with her friend Kelly to the same club that Barney convinced Ted to go to.  Both Teddy and Ted kind of in a dating funk.  Kelly told her you don’t know who you’ll bump into and while she didn’t bump into Ted – that would be a much shorter ‘How I Met Your Mother’ story – she did bump into her old friend Mitch, who Ted and the gang know as The Naked Man.  Kelly was part of the 2 out of 3 in his get-sex-because-you’re-already-naked strategy, sharing this with Robin – actually sharing it with the same guy too.  Small world, huh?!

What Mitch gave to Teddy was some renewed umph to go after her dreams, namely to end poverty.  Teddy then decided to go back to school and get her degree in Economics, where she DOES actually meet Ted in class.  He mistakenly thought it was architecture class, states it in the class that it’s architecture class, which makes her fly out of the class thinking she was in the wrong class.  Then when outside, she realizes that she was in the right class, at which point Ted has realized that he was in the wrong class and in this whirlwind they actually physically bump into each other outside.  Rush, rush, rush.  While Teddy did laugh at his joke in class, and seemingly was the only one to think it was actually funny (I would have laughed too), Ted ends up dating Teddy’s roommate who she met on that first day of class, Cindy.  Again, ya, totally small world, right?! No sparks between Cindy and Ted though as he unintentionally picks out and loves all of the things in their apartment that belongs to Teddy, but still doesn’t get a chance to meet Teddy.  He has been using Teddy’s yellow umbrella all this time though, from when she left it at the club on St. Patrick’s day and he picked it up when it started raining.  Teddy is surprised to find it in her aparment now, left by Ted, and also even more surprised to find out that night of Cindy’s breakup that she has been dating the “architecture professor” from that first day of class – intrigued look on Teddy’s face, especially after Cindy tells her that Ted likes her without even having met her.  Kiss between Cindy and Teddy and Cindy realizes she might be gay.

Then there is also the time that Teddy goes to do a gig at MacLaren’s – Ted’s MacLaren’s – and meets a nice guy named Louis who helps her haul her heavy band equipment into their van, after meanie band member Darren, who she invited into her band Superfreakonomics, just laughed at her while flirting with a string of girls.   There’s no Ted there – he would have for sure helped her carry her stuff to the car.  But his being a part of this pub is reverberated when Louis says he thought the place was called “Puzzles” – the name that Ted and Barney gave it during their one night in charge.  And also reverberated on Darren’s face, fast forward to last time’s episode where Ted punches him for bumping into him and making him drop the third bottle of $600 Glen McKenna scotch during Robin and Barney’s wedding weekend.  Interestingly, Teddy then asks the bartender to give the “groom’s best man” a double of the finest scotch  which turns out to be the very drink that Ted and the gang have been raving about throughout this wedding weekend.  And he notices.  Anybody else thinking of that saying, ‘The way to a guy’s heart is through his stomach’?!

Back to this episode, Teddy’s breakup with her longtime boyfriend Louis ends with her not accepting his marriage proposal even after asking for and feeling Max’s blessing to move on through a gust of wind, because Louis is not the one.   She leaves Louis’s beach house and books a room at the Farhampton Inn, the same hotel as Robin and Barney’s wedding…the room right next to Ted.

how-i-met-your-mother
(
via Entertainment Weekly)

Playing into his heart with the mini ukulele that her Max gave her for her 21st birthday, singing “La Vie En Rose“, translated as “Life in Rosy Hues” or “Life Through Rose-Colored Glasses”, or literally “Life in Pink”.  Love at first sight in a different sense.

This episode of HIMYM had the biggest demographics since last February (the day after the Super Bowl) and its largest audience since 2011 – 10.7 million viewers and a 3.8 rating among adults 18-49.  It wasn’t a secret that we were going to get the parallel story of “How I Met Your Mother”, and apparently there seems to be a lot of hopeless – or as I like to call it – hopeful romantics.  Awww!!

 

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Universal Love takes the stage at the Grammys 2014

This Sunday night at the 56th Grammy Awards,  rappers Macklemore & Ryan Lewis performed “Same Love” with Madonna and Mary Lambert, and Queen Latifah married 33 couples, varying in age, race, and orientation in a surprise and emotional tv wedding celebrating universal love.  Congratulations!

grammys2014
(
via NY Daily News)

Watch the video here:


…Love is Universal.

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Who knows your match better than you?!

You enter your match preferences on friendsmatchme.com, save and search.  You tell friendsmatchme.com who you are looking for, and you get the results of people who match.  You can also search for who’s searching for you…well, it’s good to go both ways, right?!  It is interesting for sure.  But some dating sites do the math for you and even limit the matches they show you, leading some “hacking” to do their own math.  Also involved: lots of fake dating profiles.

mckinlay-wang

Chris McKinlay & Christine Tien Wang

UCLA Ph.D student Chris McKinlay created fake profiles on OkCupid because he was tired of low match percentages:

Specifically, the numbers whiz created several fake profiles in order to collect data on women across the country and then created a special algorithm to hack the system. He suddenly found himself matched with thousands of women between the ages of 25 and 42 in Los Angeles, all with 90 percent and above compatibility. His system had worked.

After 88 first dates he finally found the one: a 28-year-old artist who lived near UCLA named Christine Tien Wang.
(via Math Genius Hacked OkCupid In Quest To Find ‘The One’)

Similarly, journalist and digital strategist Amy Webb created several fake men profiles on the dating site she was using in her quest to find her prince charming.  You might be wondering, why would she create fake men profiles to attract women if she’s looking for a husband?!  Answer: She wanted to find out which women were attracted to the kind of men she was looking for, to adjust her profile accordingly.  (We recommend following dating tips instead:)  Webb’s dating tips summarized: it is not a good idea to copy/paste from your resume to your dating profile (lol!) to save time or because you don’t like answering the questions.  Good to post attractive photos, be yourself but show yourself in a good light, be positive, don’t write a term paper. Making the updates to her profile, Webb says she got her profile ranked “most popular”.  She did add that she wouldn’t send out any messages to get her “research”, just receive them (so not total catfishing).

And Webb also came up with her own math to find her match, instead of relying on what the dating site told her is her match.  After getting stuck with a huge bill the size of one months rent by a runaway date at an expensive restaurant, Webb decided to rate the men who contacted her online by her own devised points system based on what is important to her, and to only go out with the ones who made the score.  In case you thought I was making all this up, here’s the video!!

And she scored.  All those numbers and charts… sounds a lot like Reuben Feffer on “Along Came Polly“, with Ben Stiller and Jennifer Aniston, right?!  Mazel tov!

You don’t have to create fake profiles (actually it’s against the TOS to do so) to find your matches on Friends Match Me.  We don’t limit the number of profiles you get to find – you tell friendsmatchme.com what you are looking for and it shows you who matches.  Wouldn’t it suck to find someone on a dating site that you really liked, only to find they were fake?!

You might think that perhaps paid dating sites have a lower chance of fake profiles – after all you have to pay to read/send messages then.  Webb created so many fake profiles and was receiving emails from other members with the fake profiles – if the website was a paid messaging dating site like match.com or jdate.com, that could be really expensive unless there was some sort of free period promotion.  But even paid dating sites have fake profiles.  For one thing, they are free to create.  We try to keep fake profiles to a minimum on Friends Match Me by 1) We don’t buy profiles, everyone on the dating site has actually logged in with Facebook, and 2) We require Facebook login for all accounts.  So for a user to create 10 fake profiles for “research” or whatever reason, they would also have to create 10 fake Facebook profiles.  Also, the good thing about Friends Match Me is that you get to find out if the other members share any mutual Facebook friends with you or have similar Facebook Likes.  Probably less of a chance that a profile is a scam if you have a mutual Facebook friend with them.  Jimmy Kimmel did say to choose your Facebook friends carefully.

 

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Chinese Romantic Comedy “Finding Mr. Right” Sends Romantics to Seattle

finding-mr-right

The romantic comedy “Finding Mr Right” is the Chinese version to the popular American movie “Sleepless in Seattle” with Meg Ryan and Tom Hanks.   It only got 2 stars from the Seattle Times, but that hasn’t stopped Chinese romantics from booking trips to Seattle since the movie debuted in China last March.

“The phones started ringing and it hasn’t stopped. We have been amazed at the response,” said Janet Christopher, vice president of tourism for Visit Seattle, told the ABC News station KOMO in Seattle. “This is bigger than ‘Sleepless in Seattle.'”

“What we have seen is a number of people want to come over and have a second wedding or a honeymoon-type vacation — couples that are getting married in China but they want to come to Seattle and recreate a wedding experience because of this movie,” Christopher told KOMO.
(via ABC News)

What is the movie about?  It’s not the same romantic setting as “Sleepless in Seattle”, but apparently has the same nice, romantic ending:

The movie is about Jiajia, a woman who travels from China’s mainland to Seattle to have her married boyfriend’s baby, win his love and spend his money. Determined to have the baby in the United States, the movie’s trailer shows her telling a customs officer she loves Nora Ephron’s “Sleepless in Seattle” (“I love that movie,” she says, closing her eyes and shaking her fists. “I love it!”).

Of course, everything doesn’t work out as planned. The boyfriend doesn’t leave his wife, and his money runs out. But the protagonist winds up falling for her driver, Frank.

Frank, the movie’s Mr. Right, turns out to be a former doctor who moved to Seattle for his daughter because his ex-wife’s job moved them there. And — spoiler alert — Frank and Jiajia somehow wind up at the Empire State Building in Manhattan at the end, just like the characters of “Sleepless in Seattle.”
(via ABC News)

This story was featured on ABC News with Diane Sawyer today.  The Seattle men interviewed were very happy to hear of the incoming single women travelers looking for love.  And the Chinese women interviewed said that they think Seattle is a good place to find your true love.  Maybe the next news story will be about a match made?!

Anyone single and looking for your Mr. or Miss Right – sign up for the 100% free dating app Friends Match Me – www.friendsmatchme.com !! To get started, just click on the top right “Connect with Facebook” button there.

 

 

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