Meet Cute on company’s intranet allows employees to advertise family and acquaintances to colleagues
TikTok has an internal matchmaking service for employees to introduce their colleagues to friends and family members, it has been revealed.
The channel, called Meet Cute, sits on the workplace tool used by thousands of TikTok employees around the world for document hosting, video conferencing. It also helps people find a potential romantic partner from among their colleagues.
Continue reading...Experts say restrictions on socialising during Covid crisis may have led more women to seek to preserve fertility
There has been a dramatic rise in the number of women freezing their eggs in the UK, while more single people are opting for IVF, figures show.
A report from the Human Fertilisation and Embryology Authority (HEFA) found that more people than ever are undergoing procedures, with egg- and embryo-freezing the fastest-growing fertility treatments in Britain.
Continue reading...Love Better campaign includes a video that encourages teenagers to delete their exes on social media
“OK, I’m doing it. I’m officially deleting my ex from all my socials,” a young woman says, looking determinedly into her phone screen. She leans closer and whispers: “I’m moving on.”
The footage appears in a New Zealand government video which affirms the universal truth that “breakups suck”, as part of an unusual new campaign to support young people through their experience of being dumped and suggest healthy ways to process their feelings.
Continue reading...Geoffroy de Lagasnerie says focus on friendships over relationships or family is radical act in today’s society
Building your life around close friendships rather than family or romance is a joyous and necessary act of rebellion, and governments should put in place “friendship ministries” to radically rethink the way society is organised, a key French philosopher has argued.
Geoffroy de Lagasnerie this week publishes a manifesto for friendship, 3 Une Aspiration au Dehors, detailing his close friendship with two other writers, Didier Eribon and Édouard Louis. The three friends eat together in the evening, speak many times daily, wish each other goodnight and good morning every day and synch their schedules to make sure they prioritise friendship moments, namely meeting up for long chats. He described the friendship as the centre of their lives, “one long discussion that never ends”.
Continue reading...Academics may face dismissal if relations involving romance, sex or financial dependency are not reported
Universities in England could face sanctions if intimate relationships between staff and the students they have academic responsibilities for are not disclosed, under plans by the higher education watchdog.
Academics who refuse to report relationships with their students that involve sexual activity, romantic intimacy or financial dependency, should be dismissed, the Office for Students (OfS) has proposed.
Continue reading...Exclusive: National survey of young people also finds fewer than half used a condom during their latest sexual experience
More young Australians are sexually active than in previous years and, while many of them report positive experiences, a national survey of high school students found condom use is falling and there are still high rates of unwanted sex.
The seventh federally funded national survey of Australian secondary students and sexual health on Thursday published findings of its survey of 6,841 students from years 9 to 12 in government, Catholic and independent schools throughout 2021.
Continue reading...Rights groups say amended criminal code underscores shift towards fundamentalism
Indonesia’s parliament has overhauled the country’s criminal code to outlaw sex outside marriage and curtail free speech, in a dramatic setback to freedoms in the world’s third-largest democracy.
Passed with support from all political parties, the draconian legislation has shocked not only rights activists but also the country’s booming tourism sector, which relies on a stream of visitors to its tropical islands.
Continue reading...Sam, 29, lawyer, meets Jenn, 30, HR manager
Sam on Jenn
What were you hoping for?
Good food, decent chat, to avoid being embarrassed in a national newspaper.
Emmy was on en route to Athens to try artificial insemination when she started chatting to Andy. Now they have a child together
After turning 30 in 2018, Emmy made the life-changing decision to have a baby alone. “I had always really wanted children,” she says. “But when I did a fertility MOT, I discovered I had low egg reserves.” Single, and reluctant to wait for a suitable partner to come along, she began the process of IVF. “I naively thought it would work, but I had a couple of miscarriages in the early stages.”
In February 2020, she travelled to Athens to try artificial insemination by a donor. “I’ve lived and worked in Greece and loved it. It was cheaper and I had friends to stay with,” she says. Before she landed, she matched on a dating app with a man from Liverpool called Andy, and they began to chat. “I’d been single for about four years and was quite happy in my own world,” he says. “But I was open to meeting someone and I found Emmy really engaging.”
Continue reading...She thinks butter belongs in the fridge; he thinks it’s fine sitting out. We air both sides of a domestic disagreement – and ask you to deliver a verdict
• If you have a disagreement you’d like settled, or want to be part of our jury, click here
My boyfriend insists on keeping butter in the ‘pantry’. To me it’s strange and unhygienic
Continue reading...Nick met Tess in Bordeaux while watching Wales in the Euros. But it was only when she made a dash to their airport to see him off that they shared their first kiss
In January 2016, Nick’s mother died. He had only been living in Bristol for six months when it happened. “It was difficult because I didn’t know many people,” he says. A week later, his girlfriend dumped him by text. “It was a really bad time. I’d relocated from my home town of Wrexham to be a theatre operations manager, but I was lonely,” he says.
He decided to cheer himself up with a trip to France to watch Euro 2016, so, that summer, he travelled to Bordeaux with a friend. “We weren’t able to get tickets, but the city had set up massive fan zones with huge screens for watching the games,” he says. “We were supporting Wales in their game against Slovakia.” All around, there were promotional stands giving out free merchandise. That’s when Nick spotted Tess, a French student who was working as a host at the event.
Continue reading...Given enough time, even the most loving couple can get sick of each other. Roll back the years with this Valentine’s Day refresher
“At what point do you think a relationship becomes a long-term relationship?” I ask my boyfriend, while sitting on the toilet having a post-dinner wee. He is in front of the mirror, trimming the single thick black hair that grows out from a mole on his cheek. Our son is in the bath next to us, squirting water from one stainless steel mixing bowl into the other using a Calpol syringe.
“About here,” he says, gesturing towards the room, past my naked thighs, with a pair of nail scissors.
Continue reading...For increasing numbers of people finding ‘the one’ is no longer the ideal, and there are different, equally valid, ways to connect
I have spent much of the past decade talking to people about love. I make it clear that any type of love is a welcome topic but when I ask what love is, my interviewees often shoot straight to romantic love. This is partly down to the inadequacy of our language: that small word has to do a lot of heavy lifting. But it is also because of the multibillion-pound industry that has convinced us the search for “the one” is the be-all and end-all. Mention love and that’s where we immediately go.
But does this obsession with romantic love still reflect the lives we lead? In my new book, Why We Love: The New Science Behind our Closest Relationships, I have spoken to people from different backgrounds who have made me rethink our acceptance of romantic love as the dominant narrative. For some it is not a priority, for others it is a restrictive stereotype, while for others it can be a source of risk. As Valentine’s Day comes round again maybe it’s time for a different perspective.
Continue reading...The question My partner has suffered from depression for decades, but only saw the doctor once, stopped taking the medication after a few months, and refuses to go on it again. They won’t talk to anyone or seek help professionally or from family – not even me.
In the last two years, Covid has had a major impact on their mental health, and their behaviour on top of this is now affecting me massively. In the past, I’ve been told I’m very positive and happy. I’m certainly not that now. But I don’t want to go on medication myself.
Continue reading...After that initial attraction, what keeps a couple together? And as we change and grow over the years, how do we make sure we move in the same direction? Philippa Perry and five other relationship experts on how to keep that loving feeling
Him: “What are you doing?”
Me: “I’ve got to write 500 words on ‘keeping love alive’, before I go out.”
Him: “What? In case it all changes, when you go?”
The movement championed the right to enjoy sex and was supposed to free women from guilt or being shamed. But now many are questioning whether it has left them more vulnerable
Lala likes to think of herself as pretty unshockable. On her popular Instagram account @lalalaletmeexplain, she dishes out anonymous sex and dating advice on everything from orgasms to the etiquette of sending nude pictures. Nor is the 40-year-old sex educator and former social worker (Lala is a pseudonym) shy of sharing her own dating experiences as a single woman.
But even she was perturbed by a recent question, from a woman with a seven-year-old daughter who had caught her new partner watching “stepdaughter” porn involving teenage girls. Was that a red flag?
Continue reading...There has been a sharp drop in one-off encounters, researchers say, but more people are enjoying friends with benefits and getting experimental in bed
A one-night stand, people used to say, is like a short story: if it is any good, you want it to go on for longer; if it isn’t, you could have done with 15 minutes’ more sleep. To which the retort is: sure – but a lot of people really like short stories.
A lot of people, in the pre-pandemic days, used to really like one-night stands, too. The sex therapist Jenny Keane hosts a wide-ranging sex chat through her Instagram account. On it, one woman wrote appreciatively: “The sex is purely focused on pleasure. You’re not thinking about your relationship dynamics, them not doing the dishes. It’s about being served and cared for physically. It can be a very empowering and beautiful thing.”
Continue reading...Toni, 68, and Ron, 62, met after he went on a singles show in the 1980s – and she made a bet with a friend. They now live together in St Louis
In 1986, Toni was working as a clinical laboratory director in St Louis, Missouri. “I was single at the time and keen to meet someone,” she says. One Friday night, she and a friend were listening to the area’s flagship radio station KMOX, which hosted a show called Dateline. “The idea was that single people called in, shared a bit about themselves, and listeners could contact the radio station for their details afterwards,” says Toni. She made a bet with her friend that she would call one of the men from the show. “At the time, it wasn’t the thing to do,” she laughs. “Internet dating didn’t exist back then and a lot of strange people would call into that show. But we thought it would be a funny story to tell if I gave it a go.”
She had vetoed lots of callers before Ron came on the show at the end of the night. He had recently moved from North Carolina to a nearby town to work for a medical technology company, and was keen to meet new people. “My sister suggested I try going on the radio to find a date,” he says. “Now I’m used to public speaking, but at the time I was very scared. [The station] gave you guidelines on how to introduce yourself and I was on air for about a minute.”
Want to share your story? Tell us a little about yourself, your partner and how you got together by filling in the form here.
Continue reading...New to marriage and my job, an almighty row threatened both. But my colleagues’ stoic determination to ignore the cacophony was the silver lining
Having personal conversations at work, in the days before mobile phones existed, could be perilous. Usually, you had to duck into an unoccupied desk space or wait until everyone was at lunch. But I worked on a trading floor – each desk crammed next to another, with everyone eating lunch there, too. Perilous didn’t begin to cover it.
In addition, phones rang constantly, people shouted across the room or at each other, and market information was broadcast over the Tannoy while overhead TVs blared CNBC and Bloomberg News. Private conversations had to wait.
Continue reading...Emily and Cyril, both 27, met through their school choir. As Cyril’s family favoured arranged marriages, Emily didn’t think a relationship was possible. But they married in 2019
As a music lover, Emily was excited to join her high school choir on a trip to San Francisco from Riverside, California, in 2011. They attended a competition, which went well, but on the journey back she became fed up of sitting with her friends. “They were talking about boys and being a bit annoying,” she laughs. She spotted Cyril sitting on the coach alone and decided to join him. Although they knew each other through the choir, they had never spoken for very long. “He had taken over playing the piano from me and I’d noticed he was better at it, so there was a bit of rivalry,” she admits. “I did think he was cute, though.”
They spent the nine-hour return trip talking and bonding over their similar tastes in music. “I knew who Emily was before that, but she wasn’t much more than an acquaintance,” says Cyril. “The bus ride was really a turning point for us.” Emily agrees. “It sounds cheesy, but it feels like that is where we fell in love.”
Want to share your story? Tell us a little about yourself, your partner and how you got together by filling in the form here.
Continue reading...