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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 below. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment.
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I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill. She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Still, no reply. It definitely was not my best moment, but it wasn't hers either. Apparently, as I discovered later, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal plan." The meal plan, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when girls Homepage 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 on until there: all 37 dates to be exact. 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 internet relationship, however, I realized that this was actually a reaction for what men do to women. There are three significant levers in our lives that, if we pull on them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation. I learned this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I stopped the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend who I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship newcomer. I was depressed. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated and a little voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you are not. You are going to kick online dating's ass!" I started to channel my misery into anger, and my anger into determination. I began to approach online dating like one big experiment. I began creating what I predicted,"The Process." In this blog post I will take you through the entire process I took to learn online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so you can not only get dates, but maybe 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 own comfort, your process may have to be different than the under. However, the important takeaway here is to pull back the feelings that come from dating and treat it like an experiment. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I will 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 have moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that mad, but perhaps they are, I will leave it for you to judge.
Note: You can also hear the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a whole lot of these approaches as we browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship journey (and answer listener questions). The complete most frequent mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their goal obviously. Deep down inside, most of us know whether we are searching 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 searching 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 an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' quite beautiful, a true 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she'd 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 website. Basically, in order to maximize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photos. Now I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" pictures online. The issue, in the event of dating, is the arrangement of a relationship and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual clues much faster than written clues. In actuality, they 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 aside from the profile photo before a user clicks, resulting in provocative photographs sets a poor first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have sexy photos up in your instagram, leading together in your online dating profile is sending signals that may be attracting the wrong sort of guy. There are also lots 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's looking for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 For men, we tend to have the opposite problem.
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 participate in a conversation. Guys, this is entirely 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. However, when it comes to online dating, guys have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans till their palms develop calluses. Men, 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 lot 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'll outline below work for desired result, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of example, 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 later that, while it's good 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 was dating the perfect folks. Fortunately I realized this before I had been the victim of some more"meal plans" STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile images and descriptions According to a study from Princeton, it's projected that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make our mind up about if we like the person in less than 1 second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is that the first impression you make is based solely on your profile picture. They do not get to hear you talk. They don't get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it's a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there is a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If one is coming online dating as an experiment, obviously the first thing to test is the 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 photos. One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first picture was not my best.
It was interesting feedback, but I was not certain how I could test multiple pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The answer: testing across programs. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I put up a different profile image on each. I rotated the images across profiles before I could get a big enough sample size and make sure that the platform wasn't effecting results. Four of my real dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least matches. Interestingly enough, a picture that I did not read much into, pic B, was really a huge turn off for pretty much 100 percent of women. I was shocked when I found out this, because the two girls in that photo are actually good friends of mine, so that I never would have made this connection. Sometimes your photographs can be your biggest blind spot. To totally test out this idea, I really enrolled a few friends (both men and women) into the experiment and had them change out their profile pictures. This is a super easy optimization that may look like a pain now, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20 percent of work which will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you want to speed up this process, you can really ask your games what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to at least get some"user feedback" 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 wasn't getting jobs.) Now, part of the error may be my fault, since I took his advice very literally. I started 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. Without any filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way. Now that I've matured a bit, I have come to realize 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're by ourselves. Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we
knowingly choose which signals to give to other people. A man wearing a button up top, for example, isn't always wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the sign that he is wealthy. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she doesn't want to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is indicating that he is okay with following convention. Signals matter. In college I met a girl 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 at the college cafeteria after that week. I got to the cafeteria early and chose to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a girl walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed 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 started talking. After some awkward conversation, she explained that her friends were sick of her being single so they had dressed her up to be"cuter" for the party to attract a guy. I was that man. 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 at all. We ended the date cordially and moved on. Signals matter. Choosing your signs is good, but picking 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 classic records, you don't want to tell them about how you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You need to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you don't need to tell them about how you ran over your cat. First impressions matter. Crafting a good description is perhaps the toughest and personal bit of improving your online dating profile. There's no ideal answer, but there are definitely some wrong answers. The first step to getting a good dating profile description is using a very clear structure. I break down a dating profile description into 3 components: Headline: A short sentence someone can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that provides some colour to your interests and personality. 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 you two can talk about. Ladies this is especially true for you. If you do not
want men messaging you"hello" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with. The Headline Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating apps the way they surf social networking sites: fast 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 possibly the most crucial 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 provide a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and brief functions like a stop sign for the person who is scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. Chances are they'll laugh at the question. As any solid content marketer knows, terrific content is about respecting the medium that you're creating the content for. For instance, if I went into a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she'll definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online dating, however. You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be certain it is quintessentially you. Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can begin paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This isn't the time to write 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 colour and possibly some talking points that you two can discuss in chat (again, ladies, this is incredibly 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 favorite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I really like learning about new and businesses ideas. I'm into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss. My perfect Saturday is playing volleyball at the beach with friends. My perfect Sunday is reading a good book at Promenade cafe" This paragraph outlines a few basic activities and hobbies I enjoy and some non-standard items like business, design, and Tim Ferriss that might peak curiosity. The main thing to remember about this section is to prevent the generic actions that could apply to pretty much anybody. "I like hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I'm positive 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.
Rather than trying to fit in, try to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to find common ground, but also things that are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Most people like being outdoors and photography. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. This is optional, even though it certainly helps. In marketing, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content. In relationship, you essentially want the individual to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I have found that a whole lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they finally become discouraged from making initial contact. I've heard countless stories of girls who have matched with a man who they really enjoy, but the guy never messages them. When I ask them why they don't 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 do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have an individual section that states: Again, as with all this advice, when in doubt just test it out. Try having a call to action and see whether your conversations improve. If they don't, just delete it. The attractiveness of dating programs is that instead of having 1--5 opportunities to make a connection, as you would if you went to a bar for instance, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation. Having to talk online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to start a new relationship. For one thing, it is 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 millions of people and put them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it is a good idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the chance to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just would not have been able to see if I did not have a high match rate.
Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I will spare you some of the terrible 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. For bonus points, try to purchase them from most effective to least effective. How's it going?" B) "Hey! How was your weekend?" (or any other variation of the type of question). D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I'll allow you to consider it for a second. (I'll add some distance before the answer below. Scroll as soon as you're ready.) Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst 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 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 movie or a location in their pictures. The reason why I suspect that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you actually read their profile and b) it shows that you read. If I may use the book opener to start a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? I am now reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (This is how I opened the conversation with my now-long-term girlfriend). Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt much more natural and went past a few messages. The second best option,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works nearly 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! This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it's because it sounds too much like I am about 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 dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I'll put in here as hints. First, some online dating suggestions for men: DON'T attempt to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is I know that the man is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation like you want a friend. DO try to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own ideas. One of the most common complaints I have heard from female friends is they feel like they're being interviewed. Be certain 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'll be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You're..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I have tried to be friendly and nice, I have still received quite curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend that they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they usually have no clue what they are doing, so offer them some help and guide the conversation in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you're tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then be certain to 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 have a tendency to place a good deal more thought into 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 suggestion for the two parties: Attempt to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a excellent tool to meet someone, but it's just that. It's a tool, it is not actual dating. My overall recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two short conversations. It should never take more than a week to establish a date. Thus, 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 programs, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how to set up great dates...
Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will make you smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online portion of relationship, 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. As they say in real estate: location, location, location. Where you have your date decides about 50--70% of the results of the date. But a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it is actually at the most commonly selected dating place: A sit-down restaurant. Initially I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. 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 should experiment with some other locations. What happened next was totally mind blowing. It wasn't that I was doing anything differently or that I was choosing better girls to go on dates with, it was merely a matter of context. Here's why I believe dinner dates don't 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 choose beverages. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You are not ready to order because you've been talking. The waiter gives you"another moment." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You talk and talk. Then you run out of things to discuss. What should you do next? You need to keep talking. A dinner date provides no options. It's a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost instantly. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at getting in-person discussions. Spending so much time online has improved our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in- house communication abilities. So, if we are getting worse at having 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? 3 Rules for Creating Great Dates I never thought that relationship could be a life-or-death action, but one day changed all that. I was holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet above 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 great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I expected the sharp shock of the rope in my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity. As it happens, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope just as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and did not grab the rope until I had dropped 15 feet to what I was certain was my upcoming death. Eventually the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally. My entire dating profession made a 180-degree turn when I started taking my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I'd take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between. A number of these activities worked better than others. But I found out that the most essential elements to a wonderful date spot could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your scenery is shifting so that you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Activity -- 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're passionate about, but make sure it is not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she isn't scared of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! No chemistry? No problem, how can we end the date earlier? With these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence which nearly doubled the amount of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you're thinking,"This man took women out to the very same areas like it was some sort of
regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to sequence, but, depending on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was simply a template that simplified my decisions and reduced the cognitive load I was putting on my mind. So here is my ideal dating sequence: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks each Friday by the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everybody has different food preferences. Then (if you are a guy) you've got to account for cost of food. Off the grid solves this since there are over 20 different kinds of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. You can extend the date by getting dessert or listening to the live bands. Date #2 -- Variable: This date could change based on interests but I had a couple of go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the shore. Why I like it: What 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 favorite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between activity and talking. 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 girl had made it #3, it meant I actually 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 could both dress well for that special night. This was also my secret test because if a girl didn't like facts and science 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 tips on what to look for on every date as you try to make your own dating sequence: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for good conversation. Make certain that you can reliably visit this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Make sure you can schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book someone's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You have broken the ice and you have both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Select 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 fantastic for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Watching a movie at a movie theater has similar limitations. Date #3: You confirmed you enjoy each other, it is time to bring it to the next level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It should be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it ought to 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 choose gives new intimacy to the connection. For instance, if I did not go to the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead.
STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right Perhaps among the most important pieces of the internet dating mystery that I see men screw up again and again is time. Assuming the man is the one driving the relationship sequence (which isn't necessarily the case) there are some 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 useful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. The main thing is to actually consider timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling." Going from Online to Offline It is quite easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message her, she messages you, back and forth, forth and back. In order to make sure I do not 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 roughly 20 minutes of constant conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of the virtual world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it's quite easy to waste plenty of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, working as"the new guy" in a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team. 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 after that? O that's no good also. Okay how about the week after that?" Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" another meeting to the calendar with the choice of cancelling if desired. When I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to a pretty incredible results. This rule is a bit 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. Nobody 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 whether you like them or not. Surprisingly, most people do not mind if you do not like them, they only want to know. So my suggestion is to stop playing games, both with the other person and on your own. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them that you aren't prepared to date right now. I had a woman tell me and it was the simplest let down I have ever experienced and used it later myself too). I must pause here for one caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not always.
I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get very excited by the person they have just met and then they proceed to constantly text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. Stop Chasing Shadows once I was thirteen years old, my grandfather gave me some advice that I still use to this day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer 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, don't 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 every single night of the week. Permit the relationship to have some breathing room. A good way to judge if a relationship is going well is if you end up missing the other person and vice versa. There's a 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 discovered 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 length, the researchers at the university found that people may also invest more effort into relationships if there is a risk of that relationship 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 relationship 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'd spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the connection to mature and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was especially helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of this post, these dating approaches helped me tremendously, but depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might need to be different than the one above.
The important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from dating. In fact, because relationship is such an emotional activity (like 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 are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on a real rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply hop on and hold on. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less intense rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more. As we often discuss about the podcast, even when you let go of expectations and only create your goal just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Like the advice of world-class investors, you want to diversify your portfolio and minimize your chance of catastrophic failure. A means of doing this is by going on dates that are not only sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your dating partner behaves, at least you'll have a fantastic time doing something interesting. And, to minimize the risk, you should build both an outreach and dating sequence so you reduce the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Find a few activities you enjoy doing and then fit the dates into these activities. This is also a wonderful way to filter out people that aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money in the long term. Of course, regardless of how well I did all of the above items, I had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal program being just one of several. But bear in mind, once you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You are not as bad as they say you are, you're also not as good as you think you are." Take each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on yourself, improving your discussions, your dates, and your connection with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. Until then, strap in and enjoy the ride. If you enjoyed this post, I'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more people can find it. And, if you have any more questions about relationship, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.
