5 Vines About jak zaczac rozmowe na tinderze That You Need to See

I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill.

She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled.

Still, no response.

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

Apparently, as I discovered afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal plan." The meal program, if you're not familiar with it, is when women go on dates with men merely 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 of the dates I had gone until there: all 37 dates to be exact. How could women take advantage of me like this? Especially since I was being so vulnerable by putting myself out there to ask them out in the first place.

As I matured in my online relationship, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women.

Online dating sucks, but...

There are 3 significant levers in our lives which, if we pull on them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation.

I discovered this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time.

I quit the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend that I believed I was going to marry.

All of a sudden I was a career and relationship newcomer. I was depressed. I was scared. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene triggered and a little voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you are not. You're going to kick online dating's ass!"

I started to channel my misery into anger, and my anger into determination. I started to approach online dating like one big experiment. I started 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, beginning meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates.

We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so you can't only get dates, but maybe 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 own comfort, your process might need to be different than the under. However, the important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from dating and treat it like an experiment.

If you approach it with the mindset of,"I will go meet interesting people and do interesting things," you'll be more inclined to enjoy the procedure. 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 decades and we've moved in

together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that mad, but perhaps 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.

Note: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a lot of these strategies as we browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own dating trip (and answer listener questions).

The complete 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 women and men that are looking for a meaningful relationship are optimizing their dating for fun instead.

I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with online dating, she asked me to assist her with her OKCupid profile. She is a remarkably smart and capable woman and she's' really beautiful, a real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she would need my help.

The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating website. Basically, in order to maximize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photographs.

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

Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual clues much faster than written hints. In actuality, they have found that men that are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by without even activating their conscious brain.

Because dating profiles conceal most information other than the profile photograph until a user clicks, leading with provocative photographs sets a bad first impression.

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

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

Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 Every guy who has done online dating will attest to the struggle of getting a woman to swipe directly in their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation.

Men, this is entirely your own fault.

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

But, when it comes to online dating, guys have a tendency to slap a few pictures in their profile and then start 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're trying to achieve.

Are you trying to date a great deal of people?

Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship?

And"both" is not an answer.

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

The techniques I will outline below work for desired outcome, 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 lot of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled.

I just realized months later that, while it is great to go on a lot 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 had been dating the perfect folks.

Luckily I realized this before I had been the victim of some 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 is estimated that in any relationship, whether its social or work, we make our mind up about if we like the person in less than one second.

The single biggest flaw in online dating is that the first impression you make is based solely on your profile picture. They don't get to hear you speak. 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, obviously 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 them said that my first picture was not 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 answer: 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 games.

Interestingly enough, a picture that I didn't read much into, pic B, was really a massive turn off for pretty much 100 percent of girls.

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

Sometimes your photographs can be your greatest blind spot.

To completely test out this idea, I actually enrolled a few 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.

Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super easy optimization that may look 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 often.

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

Descriptions are negotiable In highschool I had a history teacher, Mr. Hernandez, who gave me perhaps 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 thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wanted 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'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," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we knowingly choose which signs to give to other people. A guy wearing a button up shirt, as an instance, isn't necessarily wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he's wealthy.

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

In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my attention. 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 was waiting, a woman walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed 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.

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 almost nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a signal at the party didn't match her personality in any way. We ended the date cordially and moved 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 want to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You need to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't want to let them know about how you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You want to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not want to tell them about how you ran over your cat.

First impressions matter.

Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the toughest and personal bit of enhancing your online dating profile.

There is absolutely no ideal answer, but there are some wrong answers.

The first step to having a good dating profile description is having a very clear structure.

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

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

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

Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating programs the way they surf social networking sites: fast and without much thought. It could be, in fact, 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 bit 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 provide a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and short functions like a stop sign for the person who is scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. It is likely that they'll laugh at the question.

As any good content marketer knows, terrific content is all about respecting the medium that you are creating the content for. For 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 need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be sure it is quintessentially you.

The Intro Paragraph Once 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 compose a book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your headline and picture being the first two.

The intro paragraph gives a little bit of color and possibly some talking points that you can discuss 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 outdoors 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 businesses and new ideas. I'm into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss.

My ideal 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 enjoy 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 activities that could apply to pretty much anybody.

"I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching movies, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes."

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

As opposed to trying 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 which 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.

This is optional, even though 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 dating, you basically need the person 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 first contact.

I have heard countless stories of women 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 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 says: "You should message me if..." ← This is OkCupid's sub-heading but you can just manually add it on other online dating programs too.

Again, as with this advice, when in doubt just test it out. Try using a call to action and see whether your conversations improve. If they don't, just delete it.

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

STEP 3 -- Making initial contact and chatting where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation.

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

For one thing, it's a very unnatural way of communicating, since it's been proven that we receive 55 percent of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communication.

It makes sense then that when you take countless people and set Learn more them in an unnatural communication environment you get some pretty unnatural conversations.

While it might be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it's a fantastic idea to research your results a little bit.

As I got better at optimizing my profile, I started matching with a growing number of people. This gave me the chance to start 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 ideas I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let us examine how well you can judge a fantastic opener from a poor one.

QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best?

For bonus points, try to order them from most effective to least effective.

A) "Hey! What is it going?" How was your weekend?"

C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or some other variation of this sort of question). How did you like X book?" (based on a book they listed in their profile) I'll allow you to think about it for a second.

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

Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response

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

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

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

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

You can alter this to ask about some other part of their profile, like a picture or a place in their own pictures. The reason 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 can use the book opener to initiate a conversation I usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? (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 moved past a few messages.

The next best option,"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 alternate version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly as well. I suspect it is because it seems too much like I'm going to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think about something interesting.

The Do's & Don'ts of Online Conversation Now that you have made contact and another person has responded, it is time to have a conversation. Every dialog changes, but there are a few guidelines that I will put in here as hints.

First, some online dating suggestions for guys: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that noise 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 just like you would with a friend.

DO attempt to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own ideas. Among the most common complaints I have 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 body or appearance. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it'll be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You're..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation.

Now, a couple of online dating suggestions for girls:

DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I've tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received very curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they normally don't have any clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction.

DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you're tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then make sure that you ask the guy about things he's interested in as well. It takes two to tango.

DON'T make conclusions too soon. In my experience women tend to place a good deal more thought in their text messages than men do. If a man 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 proposal for both parties: Try to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a excellent tool to fulfill someone, but it is just that. It is a tool, it is not 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 programs, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too if you know how to set up good dates...

Step 4 -- Making a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online portion of relationship, I soon realized that securing the date is just half the battle.

The second half of this battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your residence.

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

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

But first a question...

Where's the worst place to have a date?

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

At first I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. But bear in mind, I was completely new to dating so I was just following what I'd seen in movies.

Most of them didn't go well, but I was not sure why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and expensive) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with several other locations.

What happened next was totally mind blowing.

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

Here's why I believe dinner dates do not work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger outside a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a desk. You begin speaking, 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 because you have been talking. The waiter provides you"another moment." You look at the menu making comments about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later.

Then you run out of things to discuss. What do 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 options. It is a singular task that depends on you connecting with a complete stranger almost instantly.

This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most of us are getting worse at having 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 getting in-person discussions, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact you will be able to have an amazing 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 above 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 anticipated the sharp shock of the rope on my climbing harness. But there was no jolt. I began falling for what felt like eternity.

As it happens, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope as I had 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 forthcoming death.

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

My entire dating career made a 180-degree turn once I began carrying my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. I would 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. But I found out that the most crucial elements to a great date place could be distilled into three classes: Walkability -- Do we have to sit together or can we walk around? When you're walking, your scenery is changing so that you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!"

Action -- Can we both do the activity 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 sure it's not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she isn't 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 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 places like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?"

No. This was my go-to order, but, depending on interests, I would substitute unique activities to keep the dates interesting. This was merely a template that simplified my choices and decreased the cognitive load I was putting on my brain. Happy brain = Happy dates.

So here's my perfect dating arrangement: 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 problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everybody has different food preferences. Then (if you're a man ) you have to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this because there are over 20 different kinds of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. It is possible to extend the date by getting dessert or listening to the live bands. Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves.

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

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

Date #3 -- Cal Academy Adult Night: An adult-only night at the Cal Academy of Sciences where you can grab drinks and look at exhibits.

Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a woman had made it to date #3, it meant I really liked her. It also meant we might take the relationship 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 woman did not like facts and science it likely would not work out between us anyway. As an additional bonus, it was also a 20-min walk from my place, so that helped with the"scalability" of the evening.

Listen to all the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are just three examples of how to take online dating offline and make a reasonably successful dating sequence. Here are a few ideas on what to search for on every date as you try to create your own dating arrangement:

Date #1: Look for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for good conversation. Make sure that you can reliably visit this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you will 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 another date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you'll both like that isn't too difficult. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence where you alternate between doing something and speaking. Going on a 10 mile run is great for exercise, but it does not allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limits.

Date #3: You both confirmed you like each other, it's time to take it to another level. Try to make this date a bit more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you both really are, and it ought to confirm whether you want to keep on seeing each other long term. Following the excitement of dates one and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you select gives new intimacy to the connection.

For instance, if I didn't visit the Cal Academy I'd 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 a few questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you sleep together?

Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. I'll share my experience (as a heterosexual male living in San Francisco) and you can make whatever adjustments you deem appropriate. The important thing is to actually think about timing, rather than leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It's very easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message , she messages youback and forth, back and forth. To be able to make certain that I do not waste all my time with online conversations I found it was best to ask a woman to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or roughly 20 minutes of constant conversation.

Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of this digital world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it is quite 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 staff. Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would utilize their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar balances.

One thing that I discovered is that each and 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 then? O that's no good also. Okay how about the week then?"

Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would always insist on at least"penciling" another meeting to the calendar with the option of cancelling if needed.

Once 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 next date on the first date.

One of the worst things about dating is that you're putting yourself out there. You are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting plenty of uncertainty.

Nobody likes uncertainty.

No one likes to check their phone every hour to see if you've texted them or not. No one 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 stop playing games, both with another person and on your own.

If you like them, tell them you like them.

If you don't, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle means to do this is by telling them that you aren't prepared to date right now. I had a girl tell me this and it was the simplest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself also ).

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

I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get very excited by the person they've just met and then they proceed to constantly text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day.

Stop Chasing Shadows When I was thirteen years old, my grandfather gave me some advice that I still use to this day. He explained,"Girls are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the more they chase you."

If you find someone who you want to be with really poorly, don't scare them away by being obsessive. If they like you too, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively attempt to establish a date, but there's no reason to go on dates every single night of the week.

Allow 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 lot of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific proof for it as well.

In a number of studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the people in that relationship have been forced apart. What's interesting is that researchers in the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans.

By data mining cell phone records and comparing call 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 relationship in a relatively straightforward 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 relationship 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'd spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship to mature and helped me make sure I did not suffocate my dates, which was particularly helpful when I was really into them.

Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, these relationship approaches helped me tremendously, but depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process may need to be different than the one above. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it's imperative to have a system in place to 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 just jump and continue. Making certain you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less extreme rides can help you enjoy the ride a good deal more.

Perhaps the single most important point to bear in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we often discuss on 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.

Similar to the advice of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing this is by going on dates which aren't only sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your relationship partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something interesting.

And, to minimize the risk, you need to build both an outreach and dating sequence so you decrease 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 run.

Of course, irrespective of how well I did all of the above things, I had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal program being just one of many. But remember, 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 each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on your own, improving your conversations, your dates, and your connection with other people, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating.

If you enjoyed this post, I'd super love if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more folks can find 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.