Ilana Donna Arazie is a vlogger and blogger about love, technology and living your best life. Find her latest adventures at www.downtowndiary.com.

A girlfriend recently asked me to explain the concept of “poking” on Facebook. I told her that it meant that someone is flirting with her, of course. I mean, isn’t it obvious? Back in second grade, the boys would chase us around the room, grab, hit and poke us until we giggled so hard we had “accidents”. Or was that just me?

Either way, that was considered flirting back then and sadly, Facebook has given men online access to their old ways. However, recently a male of mine friend mentioned that his guy friend pokes him all the time, and that just killed that theory for me. Or did it?
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We have all heard about internet dating and finding true love via a social network. Well Karen over at Cordarouns.com is about it hit the streets of San Fransisco looking for her true love.

Karen has enlisted a myriad of social tools to help her on her quest ranging from Facebook and the video/picture/text streaming service Zannel. Karen is going to hit the streets in an 8 hour frenzy to find her man.

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I am a man. So by my very nature I hate all things related to Valentine’s Day. I am not dialed in to think that I should be extra romantic on one day versus any other. Needless to say my girlfriend is mad at me because I haven’t planned anything “special” for a this upcoming Thursday night.

When my life seems to be taking a turn for the worse I turn to the internet. When I need a job, internet. When I need a new house, internet. So if my girlfriend dumps me when she realizes I got her a crummy box of chocolates and a gift card to the Olive Garden for Valentine’s Day… Internet dating.

Not ready to make the completely sad jump to 100% internet dating I will turn to my old friend Facebook and ask it to ‘hook me up’ with someone. Facebook offers applications in everything from dating personality test, to dating games and actual dating services.

First Things First: What Kind of Woman Should I Date?

First I need to know what kind of date I really should be looking for. Never one to turn away from the stars I will seek my dating persona via What Sign Should You Date. If Mrs. Warwick can tell you the secrets of the stars so can this app that promises me that I will be able to find a date with the right sign.

If the stars aren’t the answer try the OkCupid Dating Test. It promises to classify me into one of 32 dating categories and assures me that I will know the best type of person to date.

Step Two: On to the Meat Market.

Once I have figured out the type of woman I need to date I need to find my love via Facebook. There are plenty of options for me to find a potential mate. Some of them include: Meet New People, Match.com’s Little Black Book, or I could just play the market with Hot or Not and hope my looks can carry me.

There are also much smaller networks based on things like religious preference, career paths and geographical location. If you want to meet someone from DC who likes to watch horror movies, while eating fudge, I am sure there is a Facebook network out there to help met and date her.

Step Three: Bragging to All My Friends

Not only will I be twittering and posting on my wall via my mobile while I am out on the date. The moment the date is over I will run home and lie tell all my friends about how I awkwardly kissed totally hooked up with this girl I met on the internet.

Always worried about my security I will only make small boast on my friend’s wall. I will use Dating Secret Confessions to tell the world how much of a stud I am with out fear of reprisal.

Step Four: Wash, Lather, Repeat.

After all of this, when my date realizes I made up terrible stories about what the inside of her apartment looks like, I will have to start this all over again. Good thing my friends will always be for me there on Facebook. Guys? Come on guys this isn’t funny anymore.

So you decide to take the risk and join an online dating site. You upload your photos take a profile and of course link to your Facebook profile. Well, all of those activities are typical sans the Facebook link. Match.com has announced the launch of the Little Black Book application that will enable Facebook users to find other Match.com users within Facebook. In theory there is nothing different then other dating applications on Facebook except that this one links to your Match.com profile.

Isn’t the only reason for using Match.com or any other dating site is to keep your dating separate from your general social life and avoid visibility from your friends and family? I guess there is also the component of the unique matching algorithms provided by each dating site but let’s be honest. Users of this application will “receive potential matches among Facebook users and non-Facebook users who are signed up with Match.com.” Pretty much it is just an extension of Match.com.

Want to meet any of the users that are on Match.com? Go signup and create your own profile on their site. While not a bad marketing concept in theory, I don’t thing this will be very successful. There are already plenty of highly successful dating applications on Facebook such as the Are You Interested? application. If you plan on using the new Match.com application you will have to hold on until Thursday unfortunately (not sure why they sent out their press release two days early).

There are a number of no-nos on Facebook and this has to be one of them. Sandra Soroka, a New York videoblogger, posted a status update to Facebook that was her breaking up with her boyfriend (see photo below). That was a horrible decision by Sandra. Sandra ended up on the front page of Digg and began receiving an onslaught of harrasments. As Jenna Wortham points out, a series of sketchy events followed her status update and ultimately it has resulted in her pictures and social network profiles being removed.

Whether or not Sandra deleted her Flickr photos or had her account hacked, the breakup is definitely not a hoax. The lesson learned here is that breaking up with your significant other via a social network for all of your friends to see is not a socially acceptable practice. If you choose to do so and are a highly visible individual, don’t be surprised if a backlash ensues.

It’s pretty amazing that so many people are interested in the relationship status of this girl. Perhaps it’s because many have been waiting on her to become single again. Whatever the case is, Sandra has definitely learned her lesson and I’m confident that she won’t be making the same mistake again.

This weekend I was emailed about a pretty slick application for dating and flirting. After playing around with the application for a few hours I still don’t completely understand it. That’s not a bad thing though because the fact remains that I continued playing with the application for a few hours which is pretty impressive for an app. The “Human Pets” applications functions similarly to the increasingly popular ImInLikeWithYou.com. You gain points by being active on the application. Those points can then be used to bid on individuals that can eventually become your “pet.” There are currently around 65,000 people using this application but I’m guessing it will only get more popular.

Human Pets provides users with a quirky way for flirting with each other. I also noticed that a large portion of the users spend a significant amount of time browsing and bidding within the application. Some “auctions” are bidding at extremely high amounts. I’m still a little confused about how to gain more points but this application is pretty entertaining. If you want to flirt with other people on Facebook, I highly recommend that you check out the Human Pets application.

While many have begun using Facebook as the center of their business networking, many more have been using Facebook to improve their social lives, specifically as it pertains to the opposite sex. There is a plethora of new dating applications that have been popping up at a fast pace. Some of these consist of the same features as most dating sites while others have a unique twist. I came across one application yesterday that I thought was particularly interesting. Created by David Galkowski and Zak Tanjeloff, Check My Radar puts a twist on dating. It may be a somewhat complicated twist but it definitely gets points for creativity.

The application consists of 3 types of users: you, confidants and people on your radar. The concept is that when you are sitting next to someone in class, pass them in the hallway or see them at a party and share a fleeting moment during which your interest was piqued, you go back and add them to your radar. After you add them, your confidants (friends that you have granted access to your radar) will be able to see who these people are. Your confidants can also make comments and recommend other people that should be on your radar. If at any point someone on your radar adds you to their radar, you both will receive a notification.

While potentially good in theory, I think this application may be a little too complex. Are your friends really going to spend a significant amount of time on Facebook giving you advice on the right people to date? Perhaps I don’t know the Facebook demographic well enough but I don’t think this application will have widespread adoption. Especially when applications such as the Hot or Not application help making matches easy. If you want to try out this new type of Facebook courting, go grab the Check My Radar application.

I always knew my friends were sexually depraved to a certain extent. I really had no idea how true this was until I installed the Socialmoth Facebook app just now. This app allows you and your friend to post anonymous confessions to a common message board. You can see what’s said, can “add a heart” if you like the comment, but you’ll never know who said what. Here are some of the more ‘interesting’ confessions in my network right now:

They said:

“I like orgies”

“I wish I was a lesbian so I’d stop getting screwed over by guys”

“I need really good sex in my life”

“I hate it when you kiss me because i know those lips have been on another girl”

“Everything that you think makes you unattractive…I adore.”

Seems to me that A) my friends are sexually frustrated and B) Socialmoth is pretty freaky C) There’s probably some way to connect friends anonymously who are looking for the same thing…eh hem…random hookups?

Regardless, Socialmoth is a really interesting application - it’s a keep in my book. If you want to make or read other’s anonymous confessions, go grab the SocialMoth application.

Hot or Not has expanded into Facebook territory. They have developed an application that has practically all of their existing feature sets but is tied directly into Facebook profiles. You can rate a person and then check out their profile. It is truly a slick application. While Hot or Not is nothing new, this is a huge play by Hot Or Not to hopefully expand their market share. The Facebook demographic is definitely a good one to target given that the average user is relatively young. I think this is one company that can truly benefit from a Facebook presence. If you want to go rate other Facebook users, then go grab the Hot or Not application.

Enjoy browsing Facebook for potential matches? Thanks to Aryeh Goldsmith who has been churning out new applications at a furious pace, you can now save any of your favorite profiles. Simply add the Bookmark application and save their profile to your bookmarks. You can also write a note to yourself to remember who the person is. When making your note I suggest phrases such as “Beautiful Eyes”, “Big heart”, “hopeless romantic”, and other variations. Aryeh Goldsmith seems to be bent on turning Facebook into the most effective dating social network. Aryeh got in touch with me an told me that he will be releasing an application in the coming days that is going to revolutionize Facebook. I can’t wait! So if you want to keep track of all those beautiful people that you stumble across on Facebook, go grab the Bookmark application.