Virtual Foreplay: Making Your Online Relationship a Real-Life Success [Paperback]

Eve Eschner Hogan (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 9, 2001

Entering the world of online dating can be daunting and even dangerous. Virtual Foreplay addresses the need for a guidebook to this still largely unexplored area, but the author takes an unusual approach. Using real-life examples, she helps readers find their self, soul, and passion in a way that makes presenting themselves online an honest and satisfying experience. Chapters like “Fifty Ways to Delete Your Lover” and “Don’t Talk to Strangers — Except on the Internet!” keep the discussion lively as well as informative.

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

As the web becomes more accessible, once-timid nontechnical types are using it to shop for everything including love. Hogan, a relationships adviser for AmericanSingles.com, stresses the importance of learning about ourselves from the ways we interact and describe ourselves online. Through a series of questions in each chapter, readers perform a self-assessment, which will, according to the author, help them understand what qualities are important to them in a potential mate. Unlike some recently published Internet dating manuals, this book does not offer a list of hot spots and things to say the first time you "meet." Instead, Hogan addresses the concerns of individuals seeking mature, long-term relationships. This book is not for beginners, as the author does not adequately explain Internet terminology or the various means of Internet courting. Likewise, veterans may feel put off by the commonsensical advice and the concentration on professional dating services. Nevertheless, this title does offer some useful guidance and can be considered for libraries with Internet-savvy patrons. Jeanne Larkins, New York
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From the Author

Online dating provides us with an amazing way to make introductions to hundreds, if not thousands, of potential partners. The challenge is that unless we have the interpersonal skills (and often fortitude!) to turn that introduction into a lasting face-to-face relationship, an introduction will only take us just so far.

Let’s face it, the rules of dating have significantly changed! Online dating is exactly backwards of the way we have dated traditionally and guidelines for using the internet to build relationships are few and far between. As technology allows us to present ourselves instantly to the world, searching for true love or titillation, new questions face us: How can we keep our "virtual" selves real? Can we be honest and still be intriguing? How do we protect ourselves from flakes and predators? Does sex online "count" as sex? We've all grappled with the morality issue of sex before marriage, but what about sex before meeting!?

Virtual Foreplay describes how to make meaningful contact online and then successfully shift that love offline. Topics include choosing online dating services, handling online rejection, "fifty ways to delete your lover" and the emotional and safety concerns of the first real-life encounter. Virtual Foreplay is much more than just a "how to date online" book!

You’ll also learn how to make your email more romantic and appealing, while at the same time, discovering how online dating can raise your self-esteem, help you establish clearer boundaries, and enhance critical interpersonal skills that will positively and powerfully impact your ability to create lasting and joyful love—online and off!

Virtual Foreplay works hand-in-hand with Intellectual Foreplay: Questions for Lovers and Lovers-to-be!

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Hunter House (June 9, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0897933303
• ISBN-13: 978-0897933308
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.6 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (7 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #655,347 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars For the Internet clueless primarily, September 2, 2002

By 

TammyJo Eckhart "TammyJo Eckhart" (Bloomington, Indiana United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Virtual Foreplay: Making Your Online Relationship a Real-Life Success (Paperback)

Hogan's previous book with her spouse, Intellectual Foreplay, is reference in this book often. In fact, I suspect that readers would get the most from this book if they read the previous one. Virtual Foreplay is a very simple guidebook to the Internet and the various resources available to find a partner. Hogan clearly believes that face-to-face encounters are superior to online ones so if you were looking for a guide to getting cyberlaid this won't do the job. A word of caution: anything about the Internet or the Web can get outdated quickly in terms of addresses and sites so don't be surprised if you can't find the same sites she does. Overall the advice is very sound but the book is really for those with questions about dating, finding a partner, and learning the Internet. For anyone else, its not very useful.

11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Would You Date You?, August 16, 2001

By 

Sue G. (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Virtual Foreplay: Making Your Online Relationship a Real-Life Success (Paperback)

I've always considered myself a bit on the cutting edge of trying new things. The one area I've not really embraced until now was meeting a love match on line. Then I discovered Eve Hogan's terrific on-line weekly dating suggestions at a site called WZ. That's where I also learned of her latest release, Virtual Foreplay. Great real world tips, and thought provoking insight on how to turn my on-line fantasy in to off-line reality was the bottom line I walked away with. I bought the book for obvious reasons as most people would from the title. However, the bonus came in what I learned about myself. Would I date me? Virtual Foreplay has given me a proactive way of communicating to others exactly who I am and what I really find emportant in a relationship. With these new skills, I'll no longer shy away from being me on line. I know I'll attract that love match in real time. More importantly, when I do connect to that right person, they will really get to know me, not just another cyber name. It also occured to me that this would make a great gift for people from teens to seniors. It literally covered valuable advise for all ages. Never thought I would be considering the same holiday gift for my teenage son, newly single mother, as well as enjoying a copy myself. I guess this will be an entirely new conversation around the holiday dinner table this year.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Internet Dating 101 in 224 Pages!!!!, July 23, 2001

By A Customer

This review is from: Virtual Foreplay: Making Your Online Relationship a Real-Life Success (Paperback)

I had to read this book! Someone told me about it and since I'm single and have extensively dated online, thought that one can never know too much about anything. What I liked most was that Eve didn't just give an online dating blueprint, but took it to another level and gave me something to think about as far as my part in a relationship. It was kind of like getting a 2nd book free. Whenever the online dating subject comes up in conversation I recommend they check out Virtual Foreplay. I'm known by my friends to be a great resource and am quite critical, so they listen. So before you take the online internet leap...check it out, you won't be sorry...if you don't pick it up... you may be sorry you didn't!!!!!!!!!