THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to navigate the pains and pitfalls She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Still, no response. At that moment I imagined picking up the bill and slapping her across the face with it as hard as I could. It definitely was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I discovered later, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal program." The meal program, if you're not familiar with it, is when women go on dates with guys just to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she definitely fell into. When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all the dates I had gone on until that point: all 37 dates to be precise. Of course at first I was outraged. How could women take advantage of me like this? Especially since I was being so vulnerable by putting myself out there to ask them out in the first location. As I matured in my internet dating, however, I realized that this was actually a reaction for what men do to women. There are three major levers in our lives that, if we pull on them correctly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation. I learned this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I stopped the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend that I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship newcomer. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated and a small voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you are not. You are going to kick online dating's ass!" I began to channel my misery into anger, and my anger into determination. I started to approach online dating like one big experiment. I began creating what I called,"The Process." In this blog post I will take you through the whole process I chose to master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so that you can not just get dates, but maybe find the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I must preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might need to be different than the under. However, the important takeaway here is to pull back the feelings that come from dating and treat it like an experiment. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet interesting people and do interesting things," you'll
be more likely to enjoy the procedure. And, if you're diligent, you may end up finding that special person. UPDATE: As of 2019 I have been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 years and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that mad, but maybe they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Notice: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a lot of these approaches as we navigate the present struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship trip (and answer listener questions). The complete most frequent mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their target obviously. Deep down inside, the majority of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've found is that both men and women that are looking for a meaningful relationship are optimizing their dating for fun instead. I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with internet dating, she asked me to assist her with her OKCupid profile. She's a remarkably smart and capable woman and she's' really beautiful, a true 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she would need my help. The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating site. Basically, so as to maximize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" photos online. The problem, in the case of dating, is the format of a dating profile and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual clues much faster than written hints. In fact, they've found that men that are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by without even activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles conceal most information other than the profile photo until a user clicks, leading with provocative photos sets a poor first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have sexy photos up on your instagram, leading together in your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. There are also plenty of classy ways to have intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Online dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was trying to locate a relationship, her photos were sending signals that she's looking for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 For men, we tend to have the opposite issue. Every guy who has done online dating will testify to the struggle of getting a girl to swipe right in their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation. Guys, this is entirely your fault.
I've seen guys spend hours talking about the statistics of their favourite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, as well as how financial reports will influence the team's chances. But, when it comes to online dating, men tend to slap a few pictures in their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans till their palms develop calluses. Men, stop. Before you begin creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you're trying to attain. Are you trying to date a great deal of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will interest no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for either desired outcome, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of instance, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a great deal of dates (3-4 per week, every week), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months after that, while it is great to go on a great deal of dates and get practice relationship (recall I had been off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to be sure I had been dating the right folks. Fortunately I realized this before I was the victim of some more"meal plans" STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile images and descriptions First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it is projected that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make up our mind about if we like the person in less than 1 second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is that the first impression you make is based solely on your profile image. They do not get to hear you talk. They do not get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it's a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there's a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If a person is coming online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to test is your profile picture. I first started this process in a very unscientific way... I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my pictures. One hundred, and I mean 100% of them said that my first picture wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't certain how I could test numerous pictures considering I could only put
one as the default. The response: testing across programs. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr. I retained my profile description the same on each profile, but I put up a different profile picture on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles until I could get a large enough sample size and make sure that the platform was not effecting results. Four of my real dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least games. Interestingly enough, a picture I didn't read much into, pic B, was actually a huge turn off for pretty much 100 percent of women. I was shocked when I found this out, because the two women in that photo are really good friends of mineso that I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photos can be your biggest blind spot. To completely test this idea out, I really enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) into the experiment and had them change out their profile pictures. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super easy optimization that can look like a pain now, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20% of work which will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you would like to speed up this process, you can really ask your games exactly what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a game was not going well, I decided to at least get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she thought was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Descriptions are negotiable Now, a part of this error may be my fault, because I took his advice quite literally. I started to speak my thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and act how I wished to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. With no filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I've come to realize that there is a difference between being your total self and being yourself. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are never our complete selves except when we are by ourselves.
Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we knowingly choose which signals to give to other men and women. A guy wearing a button up shirt, for instance, isn't always wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he's wealthy. Much like someone who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is indicating she doesn't want to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is indicating that he's okay with subsequent convention. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my eye. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked very cute. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the whole party flirting and dancing. We made plans to have a lunch date at the college cafeteria after that week. I got to the cafeteria early and decided to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a girl walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed all in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace round her neck. Initially I didn't even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we began talking. I was that guy. I didn't really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized that we had practically nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a sign at the party didn't match her personality in any way. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Choosing your signals is great, but choosing false signals not so much. You do not want to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You need to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't want to let them know about the way you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You want to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not need to let them know about how you ran over your cat. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the most difficult and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There is absolutely no right answer, but there are definitely some wrong answers. The first step to getting a great dating profile description is having a clear structure. I break down a dating profile description into 3 components: Headline: A short sentence somebody can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that gives some colour to your interests and character. Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Internet dating is inherently awkward, so help the other person by letting them know something you two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you do not want men messaging you"hello" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating programs the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It could be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar
way. Due to this, I think the headline is perhaps the most important bit of your description and you need to try different variations until you find one that is right for you. After a lot of testing I discovered that this one worked best for me: "Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active." The objective of the headline is to provide a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and brief acts like a stop sign for the person who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their phone. It is likely that they'll laugh at the question. As any good content marketer knows, terrific content is all about respecting the medium that you're creating the content for. For example, if I went up to a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she will definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online relationship, however. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be sure that it is quintessentially you. Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This isn't the time to compose a novel about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your picture and headline being the first two. The intro paragraph provides a small amount of color and perhaps some talking points that you can discuss in chat (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to include if you want to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph that worked best for me was: "I love being outdoors as much as possible! Some of my favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I love learning about new and businesses ideas. I'm into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss. My perfect Saturday is playing volleyball at the beach with friends. My perfect Sunday is reading a fantastic book at Promenade cafe" This paragraph outlines a couple of basic activities and hobbies I like as well as some non-standard items like business, design, and Tim Ferriss that might peak curiosity. The most important thing to remember about this section is to prevent the generic actions that could apply to pretty much anyone. I can not tell you how many profiles I've seen that list things like: "I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I am positive that there are people on earth who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of those folks in your area enjoy those things too. As opposed to trying to fit in, attempt to stand out.
Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to find common ground, but also things that are uniquely you. For instance in my description above:
-- Many people like being outdoors and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about businesses or Tim Ferriss. The Call To Action This is optional, although it certainly helps. In advertising, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content. In dating, you basically want the person to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I've found that a whole lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they eventually become discouraged from making first contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have matched with a man who they really enjoy, but the guy never messages them. When I ask them why they do not message first, they say that they don't know what to say or they do not want to seem desperate. The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you. Butobviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have a single section that says: My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outdoors." Again, as with all this advice, when in doubt just check it out. Try using a call to action and see if your conversations improve. When they don't, simply delete it. The beauty of dating programs is that instead of having 1--5 opportunities to make a relationship, as you would if you went to a bar for example, you have thousands of chances and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact
The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" dating is when it comes to the conversation. Having to talk online as your first conversation is a massive limitation when you are trying to start a new relationship. For one thing, it's a really unnatural way of communicating, because it's been proven that we receive 55% of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communicating. It makes sense then that if you take countless people and set them in a supernatural communication environment you get some pretty unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online relationship, then it is a good idea to study your results a little bit. As I got better at optimizing my profile, I started matching with a growing number of people. This gave me the chance to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just would not have been able to see if I did not have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I will spare you some of the terrible ideas I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let us examine how well you can judge a good opener from a poor one. For bonus points, try to order them from most effective to least effective. A) "Hey! How's it going?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or some other variation of this type of question). D) "Hey! How did you like X book?" (according to a book they listed in their profile) I'll allow you to think about it for a second. (I'll add some space before the answer below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response
Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst answer.) In order of best to worst, the replies are D, B, A, C (D being best).
There are pluses and minuses to any conversation starter. While I found that the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X novel," that obviously depends if they've put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of the profile, like a movie or a place in their pictures. The reason why I guess that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you really read their profile and b) it indicates that you read. If I can use the book opener to start a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? I'm currently reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (This is the way I opened the conversation with my now-long-term girlfriend). Pretty much every conversation I began with this opener felt much more natural and went beyond a few messages. The next best option,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works almost as well, but it is obviously confined to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). An alternative version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it is because it sounds too much like I'm going to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think about something interesting. The Do's & Don'ts of Online Conversation Now that you have made contact and another person has responded, it's time to have a dialogue. Every dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I'll put in here as suggestions.
First, some online dating tips for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the man is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation like you want a friend. DO attempt to talk about things she's interested in but also add your own thoughts. Among the most common complaints I have heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also discuss things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her body or appearance. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it'll be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You're..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a couple of online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I have tried to be friendly and nice, I have still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much guys pretend they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they usually don't have any clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you're tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then be certain to ask the man about things he is interested in also. It takes two to tango. DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to put a lot more thought in their text messages than guys do. If a guy says something that seems weird or odd, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't read too much into it, chances are he did not either. Now a proposal for both parties: Attempt to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a great tool to fulfill someone, but it is just that. It is a tool, it is not actual dating. My overall recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two short conversations. It should never take more than a week to establish a date. So, if you match with each other on a Monday, you should definitely have started talking about using a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the apps, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a lot more fun too if you know how to set up great dates... Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online portion of relationship, I soon realized that securing the date is just half the battle. The second half of this battle, how well the date goes, is largely determined before you've even set out from your house. As they say in real estate: location, location, location. In which you have your date decides about 50--70 percent of the results of the date. But a question...
Where's the worst place to have a date? As it happens, it is actually at the most frequently selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. At first I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But bear in mind, I was totally new to dating so I was only following what I had seen in movies. Most of them did not go well, but I wasn't certain why. After a dozen or so awkward (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I should experiment with several other locations. What happened next was absolutely mind blowing. It wasn't that I was doing anything differently or that I had been picking better women to go on dates with, it was simply a matter of context. Here's why I believe dinner dates do not work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a desk. You begin speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You are not ready to order because you've been talking. The waiter provides you"another moment." You look at the menu making remarks about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You continue talking. You talk and talk. You then run out of things to talk about. What should you do next? You have to keep talking. A dinner date provides no choices. It is a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost immediately. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most of us are getting worse at getting in-person discussions. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our inhouse communication abilities. Therefore, if we are getting worse at having in-person conversations, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact you will be able to have an amazing in-person conversation with a complete stranger? 3 Rules for Creating Great Dates I never thought that relationship could be a life-or-death action, but one day changed all that. I was holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet over the floor like a giant cat toy. "O well," I thought,"this is going to be a great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp jolt of the rope on my climbing harness. But there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity. As it turns out, my climbing partner had let go of the rope as I'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and did not grab the rope until I had fallen 15 feet to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally. "Okay this date may be a little too exciting," I thought.
My entire dating profession made a 180-degree turn once I started taking my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I would take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between. Some of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most crucial elements to a great date place could be distilled into three classes: Walkability -- Do we have to sit together or can we walk around? When you're walking, your landscape is changing so you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Action -- Can we do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men get this one pretty wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but be sure it is not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she is not scared of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! Let's go get dessert! No chemistry? No issue, how do we end the date sooner? With these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence that nearly doubled the amount of successful dates I went on. I know what you are thinking,"This man took women out to the same areas like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates interesting. This was merely a template that simplified my choices and decreased the cognitive load I was putting in my mind. So here is my ideal dating sequence: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks each Friday by the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food tastes. Then (if you are a guy) you have to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this because there are over 20 distinct types of (affordable) cuisine. It also allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. Feel like going all out? Date #2 -- Variable: This date could change based on interests but I had a couple of go-tos, specifically: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the shore. Why I like it: What these actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, grab cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between talking and activity. If we did a picnic on the beach, we could go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach. Date #3 -- Cal Academy Adult Night: An adult-only night in the Cal Academy of Sciences where you can grab drinks and look at exhibits. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a girl had made it to date #3, it meant I actually liked her. It also meant we might take the connection to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, plus it was a semi-formal occasion so we could both dress nicely for that special night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a woman didn't like science and facts it probably would not work out between us anyway.
Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are merely three examples of how to take online dating offline and create a reasonably successful dating sequence. Here are a few ideas on what to look for on each date as you attempt to create your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for great conversation. Make certain that you can reliably go to this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Make sure you can schedule the date for a weeknight (try to not book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You've broken the ice and you have both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you'll both like that is not too difficult. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence in which you alternate between doing something and talking. Going on a 10 mile run is fantastic for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Watching a movie at a movie theater has similar limitations. Date #3: You confirmed you enjoy each other, it's time to bring it to another level. Try to make this date a bit more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you both really are, and it should confirm whether or not you want to continue seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you choose gives new intimacy to the relationship. By way of example, if I didn't go to the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe among the most important pieces of the online dating mystery that I see guys screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the guy is the one forcing the relationship sequence (which is not necessarily the case) there are some questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you sleep together? Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most useful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your comfort your answers may vary. I'll share my experience (as a heterosexual male living in San Francisco) and you can make whatever adjustments you deem appropriate. The important thing is to actually consider timing, rather than leaving it up to"feeling." Going from Online to Offline It is quite easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message , she messages you, back and forth, back and forth. To be able to make certain that I don't waste all my time with internet conversations I found it was best to ask a woman to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or roughly 20 minutes of continuous conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of the digital world too long. It may feel like it's necessary, but it's very easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, functioning as"the new guy" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team. Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would utilize their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multimillion dollar balances. One thing that I noticed is that each and every time they were ending a call they would ask,"okay so what does your calendar look like for next week? Busy? Okay how about the week then? O that's no good also. Okay how
about the week then?" No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting into the calendar with the option of cancelling if desired. Once I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to a pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it has worked really well: Always ask for the next date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you are putting yourself out there. You're opening yourself up to strangers and in return you're getting a lot of uncertainty. No one likes uncertainty. No one likes to look at their phone every hour to see if you've texted them or not. Nobody likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals do not mind if you don't like them, they just want to know. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with the other person and on your own. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you don't. jak znalezc osobe na badoo (A gentle means to do this is by telling them you are not prepared to date right now. I had a woman tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and utilized it later myself too). I should pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get very excited by the person they have just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you chase them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the longer they pursue you." If you find someone who you would like to be with really badly, don't scare them away by being fanatical. If they like you as well, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously attempt to establish a date, but there's no reason to go on dates every single night of the week. Permit the relationship to have some breathing room. A good way to judge if a relationship is going well is if you end up missing the other person and vice versa. There's a lot of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there's even scientific proof for it as well. In a number of studies, anthropologists have found that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the people in that connection have been forced apart. What's interesting is that researchers in the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same holds true in humans. By data mining mobile phone records and comparing call patterns and length, the researchers at the university found that humans may also invest more effort into relationships when there is a risk of that relationship weakening. I tried applying this research to relationship in a relatively simple way and, to my surprise, it worked very well. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in between dates, ironically, makes the relationship
strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for relationship that I found worked pretty well was the following: Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- factor This arrangement meant that I would spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for enough time for the relationship to mature and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was especially helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, these dating approaches helped me tremendously, but based on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your procedure may need to be different than the one above. In fact, because relationship is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it is imperative to have a system set up that will assist you navigate the ups and downs. By engaging in online dating you are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply jump and continue. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less extreme rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more. Perhaps the single most important thing to keep in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we often discuss about the podcast, when you let go of expectations and only make your goal just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Similar to the help of world-class investors, you want to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A means of doing this is by going on dates which are not only sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your relationship partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something interesting. And, to decrease the risk, you should build both an outreach and relationship sequence so you decrease the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Find a few activities you like doing and then match the dates into those activities. This is also a wonderful way to filter out people that aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money in the long term. Naturally, regardless of how well I did all of the above items, I had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal plan being just one of many. Dating is a rollercoaster that will scare you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. But bear in mind, when you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You're never as bad as they say you are, you're also not as good as you think you are." Take every date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on your own, improving your conversations, your dates, and your connection with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. Until then,
strap in and enjoy the ride. If you enjoyed this post, I'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more people can find it. And, if you have any more questions about relationship, listen to our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.