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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to Browse the pains and pitfalls She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled.

Still, no reply.

It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it wasn't hers either.

Apparently, as I found out later, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal plan." The meal program, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when women go on dates with men just to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she certainly 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 until that point: all 37 dates to be exact.

Of course at first I was outraged.

How could women take advantage of me like that?

As I matured in my online dating, however, I realized that this was actually a reaction for what men do to women.

There are three major levers in our lives which, if we pull them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation.

I learned this firsthand 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 more than 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend that I believed I was going to marry.

All of a sudden I was a career and dating novice. I was depressed. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene triggered and a small voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you're 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 predicted,"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, starting meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates.

We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so that you can't just get dates, but possibly find the love of your life (with minimal stress).

Now, before I get into it, I should preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process may need to be different than the below. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment.

If you approach it with the mindset of,"I will go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be more likely to enjoy the procedure. And, if you are diligent, you might end up finding that special person.

UPDATE: As of 2019 I've been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 decades and we have moved in

together. So maybe these strategies are not all that crazy, but maybe they are, I'll leave it for you to judge.

Listen to the Modern Dating Show Podcast for more tips, tricks, and embarrassingly real stories.

Notice: You can also hear the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a lot of these strategies as we navigate the current struggles and embarrassments of his own dating journey (and answer listener questions).

STEP 1 -- Decide what you're looking for The absolute most frequent error I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is they don't define their target clearly. Deep down inside, the majority of us know whether we're looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun.

The more common scenario I've discovered is that both men and women who are searching for a meaningful relationship are maximizing their relationship 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 is an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' really beautiful, a real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she'd need my help.

In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem.

Basically, in order to maximize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photos.

Now I would like to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" pictures online. The issue, in the case of dating, is the format of a relationship and what you contribute with.

Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual clues much faster than written clues. In actuality, 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 hide most information aside from the profile photo until a user clicks, leading with provocative photographs sets a bad first impression.

So, while it's totally fine to have sexy photos up in your instagram, leading with them on your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to possess intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind.

Internet Dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was attempting to locate a relationship, her photographs were sending signals that she is searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys filling up her inbox.

For men, we tend to have the opposite problem.

Every man who has done online dating will testify to the struggle of getting a woman to swipe right in their profile, let alone to get them to engage in a conversation.

Guys, this is entirely your own fault.

I've seen guys spend hours talking about the numbers of their favourite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, and even how financial reports will influence the team's chances.

But, when it comes to online dating, men have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans till their palms develop calluses.

Guys, stop.

Before you start creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you are trying to attain.

Are you trying to date a lot 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 appeal to no one."

The techniques I'll outline below work for desired outcome, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate.

By way of instance, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled.

I only realized months later that, while it is good to go on a great deal of dates and get practice dating (recall I was off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to be sure I was dating the perfect people.

Luckily I realized this before I was the victim of some more"meal plans."

STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures 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 whether we like the person in less than one second.

The single biggest flaw in online dating is the first impression you make is based solely on your profile picture.

They do not get to hear you talk. They do not get to shake your hand. They do not 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

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 these said that my first image wasn't my best.

It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't sure how I could test multiple pictures considering I could only put one as the default.

The response: testing across apps.

I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr.

I retained my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I set up another profile picture on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles before I could find a large enough sample size and make sure that the platform wasn't effecting results.

Four of my actual dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least matches.

Interestingly enough, a picture I didn't read into, pic B, was really 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 actually good friends of mine, so that I never would have made that connection.

Sometimes your photos can be your greatest blind spot.

To completely test out this idea, I really enrolled a few friends (both men and women) to the experiment and had them change their profile pictures.

This is a super simple optimization that can look like a pain today, but it is going to save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches.

This is the 20% of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them often.

Top Tip: If you would like to speed this process up, you can actually ask your games exactly what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to at least get some"user comments" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photos she believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I wasn't getting jobs.)

Descriptions are negotiable In highschool I had a history teacher, Mr. Hernandez, who gave me the worst piece of advice I've ever received:"just be yourself."

Now, part of this error may be my fault, because I took his advice quite literally. I started to speak my mind, 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 thought behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way.

Now that I have matured a bit, I have come to realize that there's a difference between being your overall self and being yourself.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we're never our complete selves except when we are by ourselves.

Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we actively choose which signals to give to other people. A man wearing a button up shirt, as an instance, is not always wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the signal that he's wealthy.

Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she doesn't wish to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is indicating that he's okay with subsequent convention.

In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my eye. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked really cute. I approached her and we instantly hit off. We spent the whole party dancing and flirting.

We made plans to have a lunch date at the college cafeteria after that week.

I got to the cafeteria early and chose 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 started talking. After some awkward conversation, she explained that her friends were sick of her being single so they'd dressed her up to be"cuter" for the party to attract a guy.

I was that guy.

I did not 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'd used as a signal at the party did not match her personality in any way. We ended the date cordially and proceeded on.

Signals matter.

Choosing your signs is great, but choosing false signals not so much.

The same goes for your online dating profile description.

You do not need to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You want to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't want to let them know about how you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You want to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not want to let them know about how you ran over your cat.

First impressions matter.

Crafting a good description is perhaps the most difficult and personal opis na badoo dla faceta bit of enhancing your online dating profile. There's absolutely no ideal answer, but there are definitely some incorrect 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 brief sentence someone can read quickly.

Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that gives some color to your interests and character.

Call to Action: A desired action you want them to take. Internet dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something you two can talk about. Ladies this is especially true for you. If you do not want guys messaging you"hello" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to begin the conversation with.

Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating apps the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It might be, in fact, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar way.

Due to this, I think the headline is possibly the most important bit of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that works for you. After a lot of testing I discovered that this one worked best for me: The goal of the headline is to give a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and brief functions like a stop sign for the person who is scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their phone. Chances are they'll laugh at the question.

As any solid content marketer knows, great content is about respecting the medium that you're creating the content for. By way of instance, if I went into a woman in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she will definitely get up and leave.

The reverse is true for online dating, however.

You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and make sure that it is quintessentially you.

After that initial curiosity is peaked, you should begin paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more.

This is not the time to write a book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this individual, your headline and picture being the first two.

The intro paragraph gives a small amount of colour and possibly some talking points that you can talk about in conversation (again, ladies, this is extremely important to add if you want to have more meaningful conversations).

The intro paragraph that worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as you can! Some of my favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I am a creative at heart but I love learning about new and businesses ideas. I'm into photography, design, 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 activities that could apply to pretty much anyone.

"I like hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes."

While I'm sure that there are people in the world who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95 percent or more of those folks in your area enjoy both those things too.

As opposed to attempting to fit in, try to stand out.

Try to balance your description between things most people like, so you can discover common ground, but also things that are uniquely you.

For instance in my description above: -- Many people like being outdoors and photography.

-- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss.

This is optional, even though 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 relationship, you essentially want the person to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I have found that a lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they finally become discouraged from making first contact.

I have heard countless stories of women who have paired with a guy who they really enjoy, but the man never messages them. When I ask them why they do not message first, it is said that they don't know what to say or they don't want to appear desperate.

The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you.

But, obviously you don't want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific.

On OkCupid they have an individual section that states: 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, just delete it.

The beauty of dating programs is that rather than having 1--5 chances to make a connection, as you would if you went to a pub for example, you have thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with.

STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it has to do with the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship.

For starters, it is a really unnatural method of communicating, since 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 fairly unnatural conversations.

While it might be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online relationship, then it's a fantastic idea to research your results a little bit. This gave me the opportunity to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just would not have been able to determine if I did not have a high match rate.

Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I'll spare you some of the terrible thoughts I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let's examine how well you can judge a good opener from a poor one. What is it going?"

B) "Hey! How was your weekend?"

C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of this type of question). How did you like X book?" (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will let you think about it for a second.

(I'll add some space before the reply below. Scroll as soon as you're ready.)

Scroll for the response Scroll for the response

Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response And the answer is...

If you guessed D, you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst response.)

In order of best to worst, the replies are B, D, 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 clearly depends if they've put a book in their profile.

You can alter this to ask about some other part of the profile, like a movie or a location in their own pictures. The reason why I guess the book one works best though is because a) it shows you really read their profile and b) it shows that you read.

If I may use the book opener to initiate a conversation I usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? I'm now reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (This is how I opened the conversation with my now-long-term girlfriend).

Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt much more natural and went past a few messages.

The second best choice,"Hey! Works nearly as well, but it's obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be strange if you used this on a Friday). Have any fun plans for the weekend?" This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it is because it sounds too much like I am 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 is time to have a conversation. Every conversation varies, but there are a few guidelines that I will put in here as hints.

First, some online dating suggestions for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is I know that the man is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation just like you want a friend.

DO try to talk about things she's interested in but also add your own ideas. Among the most common complaints I've heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure.

DON'T make comments about her body or appearance. Irrespective of how well intentioned you are, it'll be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You are..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation.

Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I have tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received quite curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much men pretend that they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they usually have no clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction.

DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you're tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then make sure that you 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 into their text messages than guys do. If a guy says something that looks weird or odd, give him the benefit of the doubt and do not read too much into it, chances are he didn't either.

Now a suggestion for both parties: Attempt to move the conversation from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a great tool to fulfill someone, but it's just that. It's a tool, it isn't actual dating.

My general 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 set up a date. So, if you match with one another on a Monday, you should definitely have started talking about having a date by Wednesday.

So yes, use the apps, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how to set up good 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 dating, I soon realized that procuring the date is just half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well the date goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house.

Where you have your date decides about 50--70% of the results of the date.

But first a question...

Where's the worst place to have a date?

As it happens, it is actually at the most frequently selected dating place: A sit-down restaurant.

Initially I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But bear in mind, I was totally new to dating so I was just following what I had seen in movies.

Many of them did not go well, but I wasn't certain why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and expensive) dates, I decided that I need to experiment with several other locations.

What happened next was absolutely mind blowing.

It wasn't I was doing anything differently or that I was picking better girls to go on dates with, it was merely a matter of context.

Here's why I think dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You sit down at a table. You start talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You're not ready to order since you've been talking. The waiter gives you"another minute." You examine the menu making remarks about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You order food. You continue talking. You talk and talk. You then run out of things to talk about. What should you do next? There are no exits, nothing around to comment on, nothing to see or do. You need to keep talking. Talk... Talk... Talk!

A dinner date provides no choices. It is a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost instantly.

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at getting in-person conversations.

Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our inperson communication skills.

So, if we're getting worse at having in-person conversations, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact that you'll be able to have an remarkable in-person conversation with a complete stranger? I was holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet above the floor like a giant cat toy.

My fingers began to sweat and I knew that I couldn't hold on to the ledge much longer. "O well," I thought,"this is going to be a good bonding experience."

As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp shock of the rope in my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity.

As it turns out, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope as I'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and did not catch the rope until I had fallen 15 feet to what I was certain was my upcoming death.

Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both emotionally and physically.

My entire dating profession made a 180-degree turn when I began carrying my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I'd take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between.

A number of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most essential elements to a wonderful 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 man on rollerblades!" (It is San Francisco after all).

Activity -- Can we both do the action reasonably well? I've seen men get this one pretty wrong. It is fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but be certain it is not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she isn't afraid of heights first.

Scalability -- Would the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! Let's go get dessert! No chemistry? No issue, how can we end the date earlier?

Using these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence that nearly doubled the number of successful dates I

went on.

I know what you are thinking,"This man took women out to the very same areas like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?"

This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I'd substitute unique activities to keep the dates interesting. This was merely a template that simplified my choices and reduced the cognitive load I was putting in my brain.

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 everybody has different food preferences. Then (if you are a man ) you have to account for cost of food. Off the grid solves this since there are over 20 distinct kinds of (affordable) cuisine. It also lets you walk around, people watch, and get drinks. Feel like going all out? Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves.

Date #2 -- Variable: This date could vary based on interests but I had a few go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach.

Why I like it: What these activities 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 favourite pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between talking and activity. If we did a picnic on the shore, 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 catch drinks and look at exhibits.

Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a woman 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 well for that special night. This was also my secret test because if a girl did not like facts and science it likely would not work out between us anyway. As an added bonus, it was also a 20-min walk from my place, so that helped with the"scalability" of the night.

Listen to all the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are merely three examples of how to take online dating offline and make a reasonably successful dating arrangement. Here are a few tips on what to search for on each date as you try to create your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for great conversation. Be sure that you can reliably visit this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Ensure you can schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book someone'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 tricky. 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 does not allow for conversation. Watching a movie at a movie theater has similar limits.

Date #3: You confirmed you like 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 should be romantic, it should test how compatible you both really are, and it ought to confirm whether or not you want to continue seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates one and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you choose provides new intimacy to the relationship. By way of instance, if I did not go to the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead.

STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right Perhaps one of the most important pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the guy is the one driving the relationship sequence (which isn't always the case) there are some questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date?

Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. The main thing is to actually consider timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling."

Going from Online to Offline It's quite easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message her, she messages you, back and forth, forth and back. To be able to make sure that I do not waste all my time with online conversations I found that it was best to ask a girl to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or about 20 minutes of continuous conversation.

Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of this virtual world too long. It may feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room.

Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, working as"the new guy" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff.

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 great also. Okay how about the week after that?"

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 needed.

When I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to a pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it's worked really well: Always request the second 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 are getting plenty of uncertainty.

No one likes uncertainty.

No one likes to check their phone every hour to determine if you've texted them or not. No one likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most people don't mind if you don't like them, they only want to know.

So my suggestion would be to quit playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you don't. (A gentle means to do this is by telling them that you aren't 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 must 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've just met and they then proceed to text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the more they run away. The more you run away, the longer they chase you."

If you find someone who you would like to be with really poorly, do not scare them away by being obsessive. If they like you as well, there is no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously attempt to set up a date, but there is 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 whether a relationship is going well is if you end up missing the other person and vice versa.

There's a great deal of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific proof for it as well.

In several studies, anthropologists have found that many primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that connection have been forced apart. What is interesting is that researchers in the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans.

By data mining mobile phone records and comparing call patterns and length, the researchers at the university found that people will also invest more effort into relationships if there is a probability of that relationship weakening.

I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively simple way and, to my surprise, it worked nicely. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in between dates, paradoxically, makes the relationship strengthen rather than weaken.

My cadence for dating 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'd spread out the first 3 dates across a one month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the connection to mature and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was particularly helpful when I was really into them.

Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, these relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but based on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process might need to be different than the one above. In actuality, because dating is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it's imperative to have a system in place that will assist you navigate the ups and downs.

By engaging in online dating you're getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply jump and continue. Making certain you have that lap belt secured and that you've been

on a few less extreme rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more. As we frequently discuss on the podcast, when you let go of expectations and just create your target just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread.

Similar to the advice of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your risk of catastrophic failure. A way of doing that is by going on dates that are not just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your dating partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something fun.

And, to minimize the risk, you should build both an outreach and relationship sequence so you reduce the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you enjoy doing and then match the dates into those activities. This is also a great 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.

Of course, irrespective of how well I did all the above items, I had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal plan being just one of several. But remember, once you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You are not as bad as they say you are, you're also not as good as you think you are."

Take each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on yourself, improving your discussions, your dates, and your relationship with other people, 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 to ensure that more folks 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 show.