Jonah Lehrer recently blogged about an interesting biological trick. Not only do arousal and attraction cause sweaty plams and a raised heart-rate, but anything that causes those symptoms increases arousal. Its a neat explanation for why scary movies are great date movies and rollercoasters lead to necking.

From an online dating perspective it’s a challenge. How can you make a profile exciting enough to raise the hairs on the back of someone’s neck. A really great story can do it, and there are clips on YouTube that move people to tears. Can it be done in a paragraph or two?

It may be a better tactic for responses. If you could write to someone and raise their state of arousal enough to increase the chances of them writing back you’d have a powerful tool. Fear isn’t going to work, you’d come across like a psychopath. What would you have to say in order to create that much excitement with words alone?

Seth Godin posted a list of tips and observations for taking social-networking photos today. Though his site isn’t dating related, the advice is perfectly relevant. A lesson in itself, how you behave on a dating site shouldn’t be any different than how you behave elsewhere.

1. Have a professional or a dedicated amateur take your picture.
2. Use a white background, or at least a neutral one. No trees! No snowstorms!
3. The idea of having your significant other in the picture is a good one, at least in terms of maintaining peace in the presence of a jealous or nervous spouse. But the thing is, I’m not friending your girlfriend, I’m friending you. I’d vote for the picture to be solo.
4. If you are wearing a hat, you better have both a good reason and a good hat.
5. I totally understand that you are shy, modest and self-effacing. But sabotaging your photo is not a good way to communicate that. We just assume you’re a dork.
6. Conceptual photos (your foot, a monkey wearing glasses) may give us insight into the real you, but perhaps you could save that insight for the second impression.
7. How beautiful you are is a distant second to how happy you are. In my experience, photos that communicate openness and enthusiasm are far more appealing than photos that make you look like a supermodel.
8. Cropping is so important. I should have put this one first. A well cropped photo sends a huge, subliminal message to other people. If you don’t know how to do this, browse through the work of professionals and see how they do it. It matters.
9. Some people have started adding words or signs to their images. If your goal is to communicate that you are the website or you are the company, then this is very smart. If not, then remember the cocktail party rule: if you wouldn’t wear it there, don’t wear it here.
10. If, after reading this list, you don’t like your picture, go change it. No reason not to.

I have been watching a lot of romantic movies recently and it’s clear that no-one ever sets out to make a ‘chick flick’. Some of the best movies ever made have a romantic theme but only chick-flicks tie that to lame comedy, ridiculous serendipity and binary morality. By definition, a chick-flick is sub-par.

Which is why I was so jarred by eHarmony’s list of “20 Chick Flicks Guys Love“. Do they really think women want to watch ‘chick flicks’ and the guys – who I resume read Tom Clancy and drink Axe body spray – have to be corralled into enjoying them?

It’s the kind of view of male/female attitudes that was out of date in the 1980’s and seems most at home in a sitcom. Even the toughest guys dream of playing Peter Gabriel mixtapes to the women they love on rock-boxes they’re holding above their heads, and most women I know dig Ironman.

eHarmony – you sound like my Dad.

Female Kiwis, the most sexually active women in the world, with an average 20 sexual partners – three times the global average, have given up on foreplay altogether.

According to the Sunday Star Times (and this isn’t an April Fool) they now cruise around in drunken packs looking for men to rut with. 29% of fragile New Zealand men feel they’ve been pressured in sex unwillingly.

Tragic.

The latest issue of Wired highlights the new term locosexual, used to describe someone who considers the environmental impact of any travelling they do in order to support their romantic life.

Locasexual n. An environmentalist who applies locavore logic to affection and, on principle, will date only locally. Refusing long-distance attachments and coolly calculating “sex miles,” this carbon-conscious canoodler makes love as romantic as a spreadsheet.

Ironically, the greenest dating you can do is online where one of the key advantages is the opportunity to meet people outside your local area. I have a friend from Germany who married a Canadian he met online and I’d bet they burned less carbon over the web, and a couple of vacations, than most Angelenos do getting across the city for $14 cocktail hook-ups.

It’s an interesting idea though. There’s definately the potential for dating sites to allow users to have strict control over how widely their profile can be seen, guaranteeing they’ll only hear from – or see – people within a couple of miles of home. Does anyone think that’s brilliant?