Oz Dating

Hugh Hefner has long been criticized for his hedonistic lifestyle and antiquated attitudes to women. The latest story about him will only confirm his image as utterly shallow, self indulgent and sexist.

One of his harem has described how she had a very perfunctory relationship with him, and even had to sneak out of the Playboy Mansion to satisfy her sexual urges.

By her account the pretty blondes involved with Hefner have a very limited and frustrating life. Not surprisingly, he benefits heavily from the very unequal relationships he maintains. Look at the photo of him in the story. The 82 year old looks like he has discovered the fountain of youth!

The Aussie pop princess Kylie Minogue, who is now forty years old, has found a Spanish toy boy a whole decade younger than she is.

A female star finding a lover so much younger than herself might have seemed a little unusual a few years ago. But nowadays, it seems that just about every celebrity - female and male - is doing it.

Still on the subject of relationships where there is a significant age difference: I thought that couples like this might be fairly rare - particularly in the celebrity set.

But there are actually quite a few of them, as these two lists illustrate.

Just as Madonna likes to shock people by choosing a much younger lover, it seems that singer Lily Allen is doing the same thing by finding a much older man.

And he's not just a lot older. He's also a good friend of her dad's!

She's obviously got some demons to deal with since she has been hitting the bottle very hard for quite some time. Maybe she's got "father issues" and this is her way of getting back at him?

Madonna loves to get attention, shocking and offending people if possible. And she's certainly managed that with her latest choice of toy boy. He's a young guy, a whole 30 years her junior. His name is Jesus and he's starred in a porn movie, apparently.

And I suspect a big part of her motivation in choosing this lover was her anger over her divorce from Guy Ritchie. It's as if she's saying to him, "I've still got it. You may call me a granny, but I can still get a hunky guy decades younger than I am. And I can get get just as much, or more, media attention without you!"

Here's another story in which the gulf between urban and rural lifestyles features heavily:

A former Sydney-sider called David Glasheen, who lives on his own on an idyllic tropical island off the Queensland coast, is advertising for a "Girl Friday" on the popular Aussie dating site RSVP.

Somehow, I don't think he'll have much luck. I think that women, particularly those using the site, are too fond of their urban comforts and social lives to make such a huge change.  

The reality dating show The Farmer wants a Wife has an interesting premise: Get eligible bachelors from the Australian countryside and pair them up with young women from the city.

While it's a neat idea that makes for good television, the relationships that ensue are up against it. The rural life is not something that you could easily take to if you've been brought up in the big smoke, after all. Eventually, something's gotta give.

This appears to have happened to at least one of the couplings that resulted from the show. The woman in question seems to have tired of the country life and headed back to Sydney.

Another pairing seems to be going strong, though. But that seems to be because the man is spending a lot of time in Melbourne with his wife-to-be. Will be interesting to see if this union lasts.

Many people using social networking and dating sites are justifiably concerned about people using fake identities on these sites. Some of the major sites have beefed up security considerably as a result, but one called Meezoog seems have taken things a bit further. They have created "Trust Dating", which the writer of this article says "sounds an awful lot like your friends setting you up, with your family getting their two cents in".

It's probably a very thorough and useful application. Somehow I don't think it will take off. I suspect that generally single people would resent having so much involvement from friends and family in their efforts to meet others for romance.

One thing that has always amused me is just how many different kinds of coaches there are now. You can hire a financial coach, a life coach, and now a dating coach.

I would have thought that "be yourself" is the best advice in trying to start up a relationship of any sort. But no, there are lots of tried and true techniques that you can learn. 

It all seems a bit calculating for me. Still, this approach does work, apparently.

Read an interesting article recently about how more and more people who were childhood sweethearts are using the internet to reconnect decades later (only in print, so I can't link to it, unfortunately). The success rate for these relationships is very high, apparently. 

Here's an article from a decade ago which tells much the same story.