I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill. She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Still, no reply. 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 wasn't hers either. Apparently, as I discovered afterwards, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal plan." The meal program, if you're not familiar with it, is when women go on dates with guys merely 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 of the dates I had gone until that point: all 37 dates to be precise. Of course at first I was outraged. How could women take advantage of me like that? 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 online dating, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women. There are 3 significant levers in our lives which, if we pull 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 past five years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I quit the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend that I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship novice. I was scarred. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene triggered and a little voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you are not. You're going to kick online dating's ass!" I started to channel my distress 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 took to master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, starting meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so you can not just get dates, but maybe find the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I should preface that based on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process might need to be different than the below. But, 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 fascinating people and do interesting things," you
will be more likely to enjoy the process. And, if you're 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 years and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that mad, 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 browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship journey (and answer listener questions). The absolute most frequent mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their goal obviously. 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 that I've found is that both women and men that are looking for a meaningful relationship are optimizing their relationship for fun instead. I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with online dating, she asked me to help 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'd need my help. Basically, so as to optimize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there is nothing wrong with girls having"promiscuous" pictures online. The issue, in the event of dating, is the arrangement 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 clues. In fact, they have 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 hide most information other than the profile photo until a user clicks, leading with provocative photographs sets a poor first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have hot photos up in 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 possess intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Online dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing 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 guys filling up her inbox. Every man who has done online dating will attest to the battle of getting a girl to swipe right in their profile, let alone to get them to participate in a conversation. Men, this is completely your fault. I have seen guys spend hours talking about the numbers of their favorite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, and even how financial reports will effect the team's chances. However, when it comes to online dating, men have a tendency 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 are trying to attain. Are you trying to date a lot of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" is not an answer. "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will interest no one." The techniques I will outline below work for either desired result, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. For instance, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a great deal of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I only realized months after that, while it is great to go on a lot of dates and get practice dating (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. Luckily I realized this before I was the victim of any more"meal programs " STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile images and descriptions First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it's estimated that in any relationship, whether its social or work, we make our mind up about if we like the person in less than 1 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 don't get to smell you (it's a thing). All you get is one picture and there's a 99% chance it's the wrong one. If a person is approaching 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... One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first image wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I was not certain how I could test numerous pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The response: testing across apps. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr. I retained my profile description the exact same on each profile, but I set up a different profile image on each. I
rotated the images across profiles until I could find a large enough sample size and be sure that the platform was not 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 games. Interestingly enough, a film I didn't read into, pic B, was actually a massive turn off for pretty much 100% of women. I was shocked when I found this out, because the two girls in that photo are really good friends of mineso I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photographs can be your greatest blind spot. To totally test out this idea, I really enrolled a couple of 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 now, but it is going to save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20 percent of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you want to speed this process up, you can actually ask your matches exactly what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I wasn't getting jobs.)
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 very literally. I began to speak my mind, dress how I wanted to dress, and act how I wanted to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. Without any filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I have come to understand that there is 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 knowingly choose which signals to give to other people. A guy wearing a button up shirt, for example, is not necessarily wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the signal that he is wealthy. Much like someone who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she does not want to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is signaling that he's okay with subsequent convention. In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my attention. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked very 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 in 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 woman 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. At first I did not 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 man. I did not really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized we had practically nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a sign at the party did not match her personality at all. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Signals matter. Choosing your signs 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 want to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you do not want to tell them about how you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You want to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not need to tell them about how you ran over your cat. Crafting a good description is perhaps the toughest and personal bit of improving your online dating profile. There is absolutely no right answer, but there are definitely some wrong answers. The first step to having a great dating profile description is using a clear structure. I break down a relationship profile description into 3 parts: Headline: A short sentence someone 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 another
person by letting them know something that you two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you don't want men messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating programs the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It might be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to browse everything in a similar way. Due to this, I think the headline is perhaps the most important piece of your description and you need to try different variations until you find one that works for you. After a lot of testing I found that this one worked best for me: The objective of the headline is to give a fast snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and brief functions like a stop sign for the person who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell 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're creating the content for. For example, if I went into a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she will definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online dating, however. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and make sure it is quintessentially you. After that initial curiosity is peaked, you can start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This is not the time to compose a novel 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 little bit of color and perhaps some talking points that you two can talk about in chat (again, ladies, this is extremely 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 favorite items 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 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 avoid the generic activities that could apply to pretty much anybody. I can not tell you how many profiles I've seen that list things like:
"I like hanging out with friends, watching movies, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I'm positive that there are people in the world who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95 percent or more of the folks in your area enjoy 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 it's possible to discover common ground, but also things that are uniquely you. For example in my description above: -- Most people like being outdoors and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. The Call To Action
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've viewed your content. In relationship, you essentially need the person to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I've 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 do not want to appear 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 says: My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outdoors." Again, as with this information, when in doubt just check it out. Try having a call to action and see if your
conversations improve. If they don't, simply delete it. The attractiveness of dating programs is that rather than having 1--5 opportunities to make a relationship, as you would if you went to a pub for example, you have tens of thousands of chances and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making initial talking and contact where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation. Having to talk online as your first conversation is a huge limitation when you are trying to begin a new relationship. For one thing, it is a very unnatural method 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 is logical then that when you take countless people and put them in an unnatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it is a fantastic idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the opportunity to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply wouldn't have been able to see if I didn't 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 fantastic opener from a bad one.
QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? What is it going?" (or some other variation of the type of question). D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will allow you to consider it for a second. (I will add some distance 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 answer Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, then you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you chose the worst answer.) In order of best to worst, the replies are B, D, A, C (D being best). There are pluses and minuses to some conversation starter. While I found that 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 alter this to ask about some other part of the profile, such as a movie or a location in their pictures. The reason why I suspect 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 typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? I am currently 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 began with this opener felt much more natural and went beyond a few messages. The next best choice,"Hey! Works almost as well, but it's obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). An alternate version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! Have any fun plans for the weekend?" This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it's because it seems too much like I am 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 is time to have a dialogue. Every dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating tips for guys: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is I know that the guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation like you would with a friend. DO try to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own thoughts. Among the most common complaints I've heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Be sure that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure.
DON'T make comments about her appearance or body. Irrespective 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 guide the conversation. Even when I've tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much men pretend they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they usually don't have any clue what they are doing, so offer them some help and direct the conversation in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you're tired of conversations feeling like interviews, then be certain that you ask the guy about things he's interested in as well. 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 seems weird or strange, give him the benefit of the doubt and do not read too much into it, chances are he did not 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 is just that. It's a tool, it is not actual dating. My general recommendation for moving from online to in real life is either 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 begun talking about having a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the apps, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a lot more fun too in case you know how to set up great dates... Step 4 -- Making a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online part of dating, I soon realized that procuring the date is only half the battle. The second half of this battle, how well the date goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house. Where you have your date determines about 50--70 percent of the results of the date. But first a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it's actually at the most frequently selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. Initially 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 didn't go well, but I wasn't sure why. After a dozen or so awkward (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with some other locations.
What occurred next was absolutely mind blowing. It wasn't I was doing anything differently or that I was 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 sit down at a desk. You begin speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You are not ready to order since you have been talking. The waiter gives you"another minute." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You order food. You continue talking. You then run out of things to talk about. What should you do next? You need to keep talking. Talk... Talk... Talk! A dinner date provides no choices. 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 discussions. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in-house communication abilities. Therefore, if we are getting worse at getting in-person discussions, 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 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 floor like a giant cat toy. My fingers started 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 great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I expected the sharp jolt of the rope on my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I began falling for what felt like eternity. As it turns out, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope just as I'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and did not catch the rope until I had dropped 15 ft to what I was certain was my forthcoming death. Eventually 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 career made a 180-degree turn once I started taking my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. I'd 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 spot could be distilled into three classes: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you're walking, your landscape is shifting 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's fun to teach
someone something that you're 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 -- Would the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! Let's go get dessert! No chemistry? No issue, how do 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. I know what you're thinking,"This man took women out to the same areas like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?" No. This was my go-to sequence, but, depending on interests, I'd substitute different activities to keep the dates interesting. This was simply a template that simplified my choices and reduced the cognitive load I was putting in my brain. So here's my perfect dating sequence: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks each Friday from the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the difficulties of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food preferences. Then (if you're a guy) you've got to account for cost of meals. Off the grid accomplishes this because there are over 20 different types of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. Feel like going all out? 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, action, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between talking and activity. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a woman had made it #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 event so we could both dress nicely for that particular night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a girl did not like facts and science it likely wouldn't 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 make a reasonably successful dating arrangement. Here are a few ideas on what to search for on each date as you try to make your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for good conversation. Be certain that you can reliably go to 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 to not book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You've broken the ice and you have both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Select an activity you will both like that isn't too tricky. Ideally choose an activity which has a cadence in which you alternate
between doing something and speaking. 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 both confirmed you enjoy each other, it is time to bring it to the next level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it should confirm whether or not you want to keep on seeing each other long term. Following the excitement of dates one and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you select provides new intimacy to the connection. For instance, if I did not visit the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe among the most important pieces of the online dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the man is the one forcing the relationship sequence (which is not always the case) there are a few questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? How long should you wait between date 1 and date 2? When should you go for the kiss? When should you sleep together? 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 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 is very easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message , she messages youback and forth, forth and back. To be able to make certain I don't waste all my time with internet 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 constant conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of the digital world too long. It may feel jak zagadać do dziewczyny na messengerze 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, functioning as"the new guy" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff. One thing I discovered 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 after that? 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 to the calendar with the option of cancelling if needed. When I took this technique and applied it to dating, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it's 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 are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you're getting a lot of uncertainty. Nobody 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 do not like them, they just want to know.
So my suggestion is to stop 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 means to do this is by telling them you are not ready to date right now. I had a woman tell me this and it was the simplest let down I have 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 always. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they've just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer 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 badly, 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 set up a date, but there is no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week. Permit the relationship to get some breathing room. A good way to judge if 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 is even scientific proof for it as well. In several studies, anthropologists have found that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that relationship 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 mobile phone records and comparing telephone patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that humans will also invest more effort into relationships when there is a risk of that connection 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 connection strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for dating I found worked fairly 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 would spread out the first 3 dates across a one month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship 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 dating approaches helped me tremendously, but depending
upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might have to be different than the one above. In actuality, because dating is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it's imperative 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 a real rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply jump and continue. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less extreme rides will help you 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 just make 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 want to diversify your portfolio and decrease your risk of catastrophic failure. A way of doing this is by going on dates that are not just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your relationship partner behaves, at least you'll have a fantastic time doing something interesting. And, to minimize the risk, you need to build both an outreach and relationship sequence so you decrease the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you like doing and then fit the dates into these 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, regardless of how well I did all the above things, I had my share of terrible dates. The girl 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 enjoy 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 each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on yourself, 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 would super love 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 dating, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.