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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 this time I imagined picking up the bill and slapping her across the face with it as hard as I could.

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 not familiar with it, is when girls go on dates with guys 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 there: all 37 dates to be precise.

Of course at first I was outraged.

How could women take advantage of me like that?

As I matured in my internet dating, however, I understood that this was actually a response for what men do to women.

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

I learned this firsthand because in the past five years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at once.

I stopped the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend who I believed I was going to marry.

All of a sudden I was a career and relationship newcomer. I was scared. I was scarred. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated and a small voice in my head said,"you're 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'll take you through the whole process I took to master online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates.

We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so that you can not only get dates, but possibly discover 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 have to be different than the below. However, 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'm going to go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you'll

be much more inclined to enjoy the procedure. And, if you are diligent, you may end up finding that special person.

UPDATE: As of 2019 I've been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 years and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that crazy, but perhaps they are, I will 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 listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a whole lot of these strategies as we navigate the current struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship trip (and answer listener questions).

The absolute most frequent error 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 searching for a serious relationship or just to have fun.

The more common scenario I've discovered is that both men and women that 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 help her with her OKCupid profile. She is a remarkably smart and capable woman and she's' quite beautiful, a real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she would need my help.

In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem.

The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating site.

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

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

Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual clues much faster than written hints. In actuality, they've found that men who are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by activating their conscious brain.

Because dating profiles conceal most information other than the profile photo before a user clicks, leading with provocative photos sets a bad first impression.

So, while it's totally fine to have hot photos up on your instagram, leading together on your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are plenty of classy ways to have intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain.

Internet Dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was trying 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 issue.

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

Guys, this is completely your own fault.

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

But, when it comes to online dating, men have a tendency to slap a few pictures in their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans until their fingers 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 great deal of people?

Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship?

And"both" is not an answer. As the saying goes...

"If you try to appeal to everybody, you will interest no one."

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

By way of example, 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 after that, while it's great to go on a lot of dates and get practice relationship (recall I was 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 pictures and descriptions First impressions matter.

According to a study from Princeton, it is projected that in any relationship, whether its social or work, 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 speak. They do not get to shake your hand. They do not get to smell you (it is a thing).

All you get is 1 picture and there's a 99% chance it's the wrong one.

If one is approaching online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to check 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 them said that my first picture wasn't my best.

It was interesting feedback, but I was not sure how I could test numerous pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option.

The answer: testing across apps.

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

I retained my profile description the same on each profile, but I set up a different profile picture on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles until I could get a large enough sample size and make certain that the platform wasn't effecting results.

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

Interestingly enough, a film I didn't read into, pic B, was really a massive turn off for pretty much 100% of women.

I was shocked when I found out this, because the two girls in that photo are actually good friends of mineso I never would have made this connection.

Sometimes your photos can be your greatest blind spot.

To totally test this idea out, I actually enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) into the experiment and had them change their profile pictures.

They got varied results, but one thing was consistent: the picture they thought was their best, never performed the best.

This is a super simple optimization that can seem to be 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 frequently.

Top Tip: If you would like to speed up this process, you can really ask your games what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a match wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user feedback" 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, a part of this error may be my fault, since I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my mind, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wished to act.

This turned out to be a horrible idea.

With no filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way.

Now that I've matured a bit, I've come to understand that there's a difference between being your total 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 great podcast on"signals," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we actively choose which signs to give to other people. A man wearing a button up shirt, for instance, isn't always wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the signal that he's wealthy.

Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is indicating she does not want to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is indicating that he's okay with subsequent convention.

Signals matter.

In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my attention. 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 flirting and dancing.

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

I got to the cafeteria early and chose to save us a booth seat. As I Informative post 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 around 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'd used as a sign at the party didn't match her personality in any way.

We ended the date cordially and moved on. Choosing your signals is great, but choosing false signals not so much.

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 do not want to let them know about the way you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You want to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you don't need to let them know about how you ran over your cat.

First impressions matter.

Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the most difficult and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There's no right answer, but there are definitely some wrong answers.

The first step to getting a great dating profile description is using a very clear structure.

I break down a relationship profile description into 3 components: Headline: A brief sentence somebody can read quickly.

Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that gives some colour to your interests and character.

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

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

Due to this, I think the headline is possibly the most important piece of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that is right for you. After a lot of testing I found that this one worked best for me: The goal of the headline is to give a quick snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and short functions like a stop sign for the individual who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their phone.

If you ask any top-performing marketer,"how do I create content which will be successful?" Chances are they'll laugh at the question.

As any solid content marketer knows, great content is all about respecting the medium that you are creating the content for. For example, if I went up to a woman at a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she will definitely get up and leave.

The opposite is true for online dating, however.

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

The Intro Paragraph Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can begin paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more.

This is not the time to compose 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 color and perhaps some talking points that you two can discuss in chat (again, ladies, this is extremely important to add if you would like to have more meaningful conversations).

The intro paragraph which 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'm 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 few basic activities and hobbies I like and some non-standard things 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 anybody.

"I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching movies, 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 percent or more of those folks in your area enjoy both those things too.

As opposed to attempting to fit in, attempt 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 example in my description above: -- Most people like being outside and photography.

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

The Call To Action This is optional, although it certainly helps. In marketing, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they've viewed your content.

In relationship, you basically want the individual to message you. This sounds 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 initial contact.

I've heard countless stories of girls who have paired with a guy who they really like, but the guy 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 seem desperate.

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

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

On OkCupid they have an individual section that states: "You should message me if..." ← This is OkCupid's sub-heading but you can just manually add it on other online dating programs too.

My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you are an interesting person who likes to play outdoors."

Again, as with all this information, when in doubt just check it out. Try having a call to action and see if your conversations improve. When they don't, just delete it.

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

STEP 3 -- Making first contact and chatting where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" dating is when it has to do with the conversation.

Having to talk online as your first conversation is a massive limitation when you are trying to start a new relationship.

For starters, it is a very unnatural way of communicating, because it's been shown 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 put them in an unnatural communication environment you get some pretty unnatural conversations.

While it might be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it's 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 opportunity to start testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just would not have been able to see if I didn't 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 fantastic opener from a bad one.

QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best?

For bonus points, try to purchase them from most effective to least effective. How's it going?"

B) "Hey! C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of the type of question).

D) "Hey! (according to 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 once you're ready.)

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

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

In order of best to worst, the answers are D, B, A, C (D being best).

There are pluses and minuses to any conversation starter. While I found the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that clearly depends if they've put a book in their profile.

You can modify this to ask about some other part of their profile, such as a movie or a location in their pictures.

The reason I guess 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 initiate a conversation I usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book?

(This is how I opened the dialogue with my now-long-term girlfriend).

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

The next best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works almost as well, but it's obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be strange if you used this on a Friday).

An alternative version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! Have any fun plans for the weekend?" This worked pretty well, but not nearly as well. I suspect it's because it seems too much like I'm going to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think of something interesting.

The Do's & Don'ts of Online Conversation Now that you've made contact and another person has responded, it's time to have a dialogue. Every conversation varies, but there are some guidelines that I'll put in here as hints.

First, some online dating tips for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you how many messages my female friends

have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a regular conversation like you would with 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 appearance or body. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You are..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation.

Now, a couple of 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 answers. No matter how much guys 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 like interviews, then make sure to ask the man about things he is interested in also.

DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to place a lot more thought in their text messages than guys do. If a man says something that seems weird or strange, 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 the two parties: Attempt to move the conversation from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a great tool to meet someone, but it's just that. It's a tool, it isn't actual dating.

My overall recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two brief conversations. It should never take more than a week to set up a date. Thus, if you match with each other on a Monday, you should definitely have started talking about having a date by Wednesday.

So yes, use the programs, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too if you know how to set up great dates...

Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will make you smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online portion of relationship, I soon realized that securing the date is only half the battle. The second half of this battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house.

As they say in real estate: location, location, location.

Where you have your date determines about 50--70 percent of the results of the date.

But a question...

Where is the worst place to have a date?

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

Initially I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. But bear in mind, I was totally new to relationship so I was just following what I'd seen in movies.

Many of them did not go well, but I wasn't certain why. After a dozen or so awkward (and expensive) dates, I determined that I should experiment with some other locations.

What happened next was totally mind blowing.

It wasn't I was doing anything differently or that I had been picking better girls 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 outside 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 talking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You're not ready to order since you have been talking. The waiter gives you"another moment."

You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You then run out of things to talk about. What do you do next? You need to keep talking.

A dinner date provides no options. It's a singular task that depends on you connecting with a complete stranger almost instantly.

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that most 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 are getting worse at having in-person conversations, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact you will be able to have an remarkable in-person conversation with a complete stranger? I had been holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet over the ground 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 jolt of the rope in my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I began falling for what felt like eternity.

As it turns out, my climbing partner had let go of the rope as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't grab the rope until I had fallen 15 ft to what I was sure was my forthcoming death.

Eventually the rope eventually stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally.

"Okay this date might be a little too exciting," I thought.

My whole dating profession made a 180-degree turn when I began taking my dates on fun activities instead of dinners.

A number of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most crucial elements to a wonderful date place could be distilled into three categories:

Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your landscape is changing so you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!"

Activity -- Can we do the action reasonably well? I've seen men get this one fairly wrong. It is fun to teach someone something that you are passionate about, but make certain it is not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she is not afraid 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 problem, how can we end the date earlier?

With these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence that nearly doubled the amount of successful dates I went on.

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

No. This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I would substitute unique activities to keep the dates intriguing.

This was simply a template that simplified my choices and reduced the cognitive load I was putting on my brain.

Happy brain = Happy dates.

So here's my ideal dating arrangement: 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 difficulties of inviting someone out to dinner is that everybody has different food tastes.

Then (if you are a guy) you've got to account for cost of meals. Off the grid accomplishes this because there are over 20 distinct kinds of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it lets you walk around, people watch, and get drinks. It is possible to extend the date by getting dessert or listening to the live bands.

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

Why I like it: These activities had in common were the 3 factors: walkability, action, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, grab cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between activity and talking. If we did a picnic on the shore, we can go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach.

Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a girl had made it to date #3, it meant I really 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 event so we can both dress well for that particular night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a girl didn't like science and facts it likely would not work out between us anyway.

Listen to all 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 every date as you try to create your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for good conversation. Be sure that you can reliably go to this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you will 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've both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you will both like that is not too tricky. Avoid intimidating activities like karaoke, group sports, or water skiing. Ideally choose an activity which 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 both confirmed you like each other, it's time to take it to another level. Try to make this date a little 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 you want to continue seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you choose provides new intimacy to the relationship. By way of instance, if I did not visit the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead.

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

When should you sleep together?

Here I will share my answers to these questions that I've found most useful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. The important thing is to actually think about timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It's very easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message her, she messages you, back and forth, back and forth. To be able to make certain 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 about 20 minutes of continuous conversation.

Again, try not to linger at the safe-space of this virtual world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it's very easy to waste plenty of time and momentum in the chat room.

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

One thing that I noticed is that every time they were finishing a call they would ask,"okay so what does your

calendar look like for next week? Busy? Okay how about the week after that? O that's no good too. Okay how about the week after that?"

No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" another meeting into the calendar with the choice of cancelling if needed.

Once I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it has 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 are 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 determine if you've texted them or not. Nobody likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals don't mind if you don't like them, they just want to know.

So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with another person and with yourself. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them you are not prepared to date at this time. I had a girl tell me this and it was the simplest let down I have ever experienced and used it later myself also ).

I must pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not always. Nobody likes to be smothered or chased constantly.

I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they have just met and then they 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 more they pursue you."

If you find someone who you want to be with really poorly, do not frighten them away by being fanatical. If they like you too, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously attempt to establish a date, but there is no reason to go on dates every single night of the week.

Allow the relationship to have some breathing room. A fantastic way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you find yourself 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's even scientific evidence for it also.

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 at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans.

By data mining cell phone records and comparing telephone patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that people will also invest more effort into relationships when there is a probability of that connection weakening.

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

My cadence for relationship 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 sequence meant that I'd spread out the first 3 dates across a one month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the connection to grow and helped me make sure I did not suffocate my dates, which was especially helpful when I was really into them.

Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of the post, these relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but depending on your context, your culture, and your own 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 vital to have a system in place that will help 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 just hop on and continue. Making certain you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less intense rides will allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more.

Perhaps the single most important point 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, even when you let go of expectations and only create your target just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread.

Like the help of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A means of doing that is by going on dates which aren't just sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your relationship partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something fun.

And, to decrease the risk, you need to build both an outreach and dating sequence so that you reduce the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you like doing and then fit the dates into those activities. This is also a great way to filter out people who 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 things, I still had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal program being just one of several.

Dating is a rollercoaster that will scare you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten

on. But bear in mind, once you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You're not as bad as they say you are, you are 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 relationship with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating.

If you enjoyed this post, I'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below to ensure that more folks can discover it. And, if you've 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.