Dating Features

Here at Yahoo!7 Dating we know the amount of time and effort required to find your perfect partner... but we also know lots of tricks to help turn the odds in your favour. In this section of the site we'll be bringing you all the biggest features and indepth articles on the dating world that we can lay our hands from Marie Claire latest relationship advice to expert info dating docs around the world. To kick things off in style, we asked Nova star and certified singles expert Amanda Lee to share some uncoventional ideas on how to battle the Aussie man drought.

The new dating trend: Dating that ‘not so hot’ guy

Good news ladies – no longer do we have to search for the Brad Pitts of the world to be our ideal partners. That’s right – put those criteria away because the new trend in dating is hooking up with the ‘not so hot’ guy! Okay so it’s not a new phenomena but it does seem that personality is everything in this day and age.

Just ask Sienna Miller – she’s dated the likes of Jude Law, Jamie Burke and she was rumored to have had a fling with Orlando Bloom. Now though she’s getting cozy with Notting Hill star, Rhys Ifans – yep, the tall lanky guy who ran around in his grey y fonts. Yikes I know, but hey, maybe Sienna prefers the humorous type?

Kate Moss has also joined the ‘Not So Hot’ boyfriend Club ditching the ever troubled Pete Doughty for fiancé, Jaime Hince from Punk band The Kills. So, he’s no oil painting but beauty is in the eye of the beholder, right?

It’s not just the celebrity world taking on this new trend, many Australian woman are doing the same. We’ve been so caught up in the whole drama of the man drought that we’re rethinking our good old ‘what we look for’ lists and in most cases throwing them in the bin.

A couple of my friends and I wrote out lists in our early 20s about what we look for in our ideal partners and if potential men did not meet this list, then we would not date them. Ridiculous I know – so much so that one of my points was that I wouldn’t date a man who wasn’t on TV or was a footballer... Oh what I know now!

However in your early 20s, the world’s your oyster so you do aim for the sky and have high standards. What my friends and I have found though as we’ve grown older and that little more wiser, is that we’re starting to be a little more flexible with our lists. With the lack of men in Australia and the fact the we are part of Gen Y who are incredibly time poor and don’t have time to date, we’ve had to start lowering our standards.

Depressing I know – or is it? Having a checklist of what we want in a man often limits the kind of guys we meet. How do you know the dorky looking guy in the bar doesn’t make you laugh until you’re in tears or owns a multi million dollar mine (not that money means anything right?).

If we are so worried about the man drought and not meeting a man, it’s time ladies to start giving every man we meet a chance. So what, he’s no Brad Pitt but he could be a really fun, intelligent and generous guy who will treat you like a princess and make you happy.

I’m following Sienna and Kate’s lead, the list is gone and I’m going to go for that guy who makes me happy – and you know what, he will be hot… hot to me anyway!