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Therefore, if we're getting worse at having in-person discussions, why would you bet your whole 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 ground like a giant cat toy.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to navigate the pains and pitfalls I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill. She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the bill. Still, no reply. It definitely was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I found out afterwards, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal plan." The meal plan, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when women go on dates with guys just 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 the dates I had gone until there: all 37 dates to be exact. 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 place. As I matured in my internet relationship, however, I realized that this was really a reaction for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... 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 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 stopped the career I had been building for over 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 dating newcomer. I was scarred. One dayI was sitting in the shower feeling sorry for myself for over an hour. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated 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 began to approach online dating just like one big experiment. I started creating what I called,"The Process." In this blog post I'll take you through the whole process I chose to learn online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, starting meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so that you can't just get dates, but possibly discover
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 own comfort, your process might have to be different than the under. 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 will go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you'll be much 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 decades and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not 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. Notice: You can also hear the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a whole lot of these approaches as we browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own dating journey (and answer listener questions). The absolute most frequent error I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their target clearly. 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 searching 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 internet dating, she asked me to assist her with her OKCupid profile. She's an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' quite beautiful, a real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she'd 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, so as to maximize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there is nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" pictures online. The issue, in the case 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've found that men who are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles conceal most information aside from the profile photo before a user clicks, leading with provocative photographs sets a poor first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have hot photos up in your instagram, leading together in your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to possess intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain. Internet Dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was trying to find a relationship, her photos were only sending signals that she's searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys 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 battle of getting a girl to swipe right on their profile, let alone to make them participate in a conversation. Guys, this is completely your own fault. I've seen men 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 on their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans until their fingers develop calluses. Men, stop. Before you start creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you're trying to attain. Are you trying to date a great deal of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will interest no one." The techniques I will outline below work for desired outcome, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of instance, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I only realized months after that, while it is good to go on a great deal of dates and get practice dating (recall I was off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to make sure I had been dating the perfect folks. Luckily I realized this before I was the victim of any more"meal plans" STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures and descriptions According to a study from Princeton, it is estimated that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make our mind up about whether we like the person in less than one second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is the first impression you make is based solely on your profile picture. They do not get to hear you talk. They do not get to shake your hand. They do not get to smell you (it is a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there's a 99% chance it's the wrong one. If a person is coming online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to test is the profile picture. I started this process in a very unscientific way...
One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first picture wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I was not sure how I could test numerous pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The answer: testing across apps. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr. I retained my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I set up another profile picture on each. I rotated the images across profiles until I could get a big enough sample size and make sure that the platform was not effecting results. Four of my real dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture which I thought was my best was always the one with the least matches. Interestingly enough, a picture that I did not read into, pic B, was really a massive turn off for pretty much 100 percent of women. I was shocked when I found this out, because the two women in that photo are really good friends of mineso that I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photographs can be your biggest blind spot. To totally test out this idea, I actually enrolled a few friends (both men and women) to the experiment and had them change out their profile pictures. They got varied results, but one thing was consistent: the picture they thought was their best, never performed the best. This is a super simple optimization that may look to be 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 which will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them often. Top Tip: If you want to speed up this process, you can really ask your matches what they think of your own 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 photos she believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Now, part of the error might be my fault, since I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my mind, dress how I wanted to dress, and act 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'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're 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 men and women. A guy wearing a button up shirt, as an example, is not necessarily wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the signal that he's wealthy. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is indicating she doesn't wish to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is signaling that he is okay with following convention. Signals matter. In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my eye. I approached her and we instantly hit off. We spent the whole party dancing and flirting. We made plans to have a lunch date at the college cafeteria after that week. I got to the cafeteria early and chose to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a 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. 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 man. I was that man. I didn't 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'd used as a sign at the party didn't match her personality at all. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Choosing your signs is good, but choosing false signals not so much. You do not need to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You want to tell them about how you collect classic records, you don't want to tell them about how you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You need to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not want to let them know about how you ran over your cat. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the toughest and personal bit of improving your online dating profile. There's no right answer, but there are some wrong answers. The first step to getting a good dating profile description is using a clear structure. I break down a dating profile description into 3 parts:
Headline: A short sentence someone can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that gives some color to your interests and character. Call to Action: A desired action you want them to take. Online dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something that you can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you do not want men messaging you"hey" 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 media sites: fast and without much thought. It might be, in fact, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar manner. Due to this, I think the headline is perhaps the most important piece of your description and you should 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: "Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active." The objective of the headline is to provide a quick snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and short 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 that will be successful?" Chances are they'll laugh at the question. As any solid content marketer knows, great content is about respecting the medium that you're producing the content for. By way of instance, if I went up to a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she will definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online relationship, however. You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be sure that it is quintessentially you. The Intro Paragraph After that initial curiosity is peaked, you can start 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 person, your headline and picture being the first two.
The intro paragraph provides a little bit of colour and possibly some talking points that you can talk about in chat (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to add if you want to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph which worked best for me was: "I love being outdoors as much as possible! Some of my favorite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I am 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 couple of basic activities and hobbies I like as well as some non-standard things like business, design, and Tim Ferriss that might peak curiosity. The main thing to remember about this section is to avoid the generic activities that could apply to pretty much anyone. I can not tell you how many profiles I've seen that list things like: "I like hanging out with friends, watching films, 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% or more of those 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 which are uniquely you. For example in my description above: -- Most people like being outside and photography. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. This is optional, although it certainly helps. In advertising, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content. In dating, 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 have heard countless stories of girls who have matched with a man who they really enjoy, but the man never messages them. When I ask them why they don't message first, they say 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. But, obviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have a single section that states:
My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outdoors." Again, as with all this advice, when in doubt just test 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 connection, as you would if you went to a pub for instance, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it has to do with the conversation. Having to talk online as your first conversation is a huge limitation when you are trying to start a new relationship. For starters, it's a very unnatural way of communicating, because it's been proven that we receive 55% of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communicating. It makes sense then that if you take millions of people and set them in an unnatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it might be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online dating, 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 more and more people. This gave me the opportunity to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply wouldn't have been able to determine if I didn't have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I'll spare you some of the terrible thoughts I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let's examine how well you can judge a good opener from a bad one. For bonus points, try to order them from most effective to least effective. A) "Hey! What is it going?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of this type of question). How did you like X book?" (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will allow you to think about it for a second. (I'll add some distance before the answer below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response
Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer 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 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 novel," that obviously depends if they've put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of the profile, such as a movie or a place in their pictures. The reason I suspect that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you actually read their profile and b) it indicates that you read. If I can use the book opener to initiate a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? (This is the way I opened the conversation with my now-long-term girlfriend). Pretty much every conversation I began with this opener felt much more natural and moved past a few messages. The second best option,"Hey! How was your weekend?" 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). Have any fun plans for the weekend?" This worked pretty well, but not nearly as well. I suspect it is because it seems too much like I am about 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 the other person has responded, it is time to have a dialogue. Every
conversation varies, but there are a few guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating suggestions for men: DON'T attempt to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation just like you want a friend. DO try to talk about things she's 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 will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You are..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I have tried to be nice and friendly, I have still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much men pretend they don't care about the dialogue, they do. And they normally don't have any clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the conversation in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you are tired of discussions feeling like interviews, then make sure to ask the man about things he's interested in also. It takes two to tango. DON'T make conclusions too soon. In my experience women tend to put a good deal more thought in their text messages than men do. If a guy says something that seems weird or strange, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't read too much into it, chances are he didn't either. Now a proposal for the two parties: Try to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a great 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 either 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 each other on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about using 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 make you smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online portion of dating, I soon realized that procuring the date is only half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you've even set out from your residence. As they say in real estate: location, location, location. Where you have your date determines about 50--70% of the outcome of the date.
But first a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it is actually at the most frequently selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. At first I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But remember, I was totally new to relationship so I was just following what I had seen in movies. Most of them didn't go well, but I was not certain why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and pricey ) dates, I decided 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 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 sit down at a desk. You start speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You're not ready to order since you have been talking. The waiter gives you"another moment." You look at the menu making remarks about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You order food. 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 have 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 problem is exacerbated by the fact that most 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. Therefore, if we're getting worse at getting in-person conversations, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact that you'll be able to have an amazing 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 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. "O well," I thought,"this is going to be a good bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp shock of the rope in my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I began falling for what felt co napisać na tinderze like eternity. As it happens, my climbing partner had let go of the rope just as I'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't grab the rope until I had fallen 15 feet to what I was certain was my upcoming death.
Finally the rope eventually stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both emotionally and physically. "Okay this date might be a little too exciting," I thought. My whole dating profession made a 180-degree turn when I started carrying 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. But I found out that the most crucial elements to a great date spot could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you're walking, your scenery is shifting so you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Action -- Can we do the action reasonably well? I've seen guys get this one pretty wrong. It's 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 is not scared of heights first. Scalability -- Would the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! Let's go get dessert! No chemistry? No problem, how do we end the date earlier? Using these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence which nearly doubled the number of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you are thinking,"This man took women out to the very same places like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?" No. This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I would substitute unique activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was simply a template which simplified my choices and decreased the cognitive load I was putting in my brain. Happy brain = Happy dates. 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 problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everybody has different food preferences. Then (if you are a man ) you've got to account for cost of food. Off the grid solves this since there are over 20 different kinds of (affordable) cuisine. It also lets you 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: These activities had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, grab cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between activity and talking. If we did a picnic on the beach, we can go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach. Date #3 -- Cal Academy Adult Night: An adult-only night in the Cal Academy of Sciences where you can catch
drinks and look at exhibits. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a woman had made it #3, it meant I really liked her. Additionally, it meant we might take the relationship to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, also it was a semi-formal event so we can both dress well for that special night. This was also my secret test because if a girl did not like facts and science it likely wouldn't work out between us anyway. As an added bonus, it was also a 20-min walk from my place, so that helped with the"scalability" of the evening. 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 every date as you attempt to make your own dating sequence: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for great conversation. Make sure that you can reliably go to this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you will need to make reservations. Ensure you are able to schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You've broken the ice and you've both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you'll both like that isn't too tricky. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence in which 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 enjoy each other, it's time to take it to the next level. Try to make this date a bit more special than the first two. It should be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it ought to confirm whether you want to keep on seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you choose provides new intimacy to the relationship. By way of instance, if I did not go to the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right Perhaps one of the most crucial pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see men screw up again and again is time. Assuming the guy is the one forcing the dating 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? How long should you wait between date 1 and date 2? Here I will share my answers to these questions that I've found most useful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. 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 quite easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message her, she messages you, back and forth, forth and back. To be able to make sure that I do not waste all my time with 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 at the safe-space of the virtual world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room.
Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, working as"the new man" in a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team. Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would use their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar balances. 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?" Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting into the calendar with the choice 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 has 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're opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are 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. No one likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals do not mind if you don't like them, they only want to know. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with another person and on your own. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you don't. (A gentle means to do this is by telling them that you aren't ready to date at this time. I had a woman tell me and it was the easiest let down I've 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. Nobody likes to be smothered or chased constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they have just met and they then proceed to text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. He explained,"Women are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the more they run away. The more you run away, the longer they pursue you." If you find someone who you would like to be with really poorly, don't scare them away by being fanatical. If they like you too, there is no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively try to establish a date, but there's no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week. Allow the relationship to have some breathing room. A good way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you end up missing the other person and vice versa. There's a lot of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific evidence for it also. In a number of studies, anthropologists have found that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that relationship have been forced apart. What is interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans. By data mining cell phone records and comparing telephone patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that people may also invest more effort into relationships if there is a risk of that connection
weakening. I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively straightforward way and, to my surprise, it worked nicely. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in 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 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 start of this post, these dating approaches helped me tremendously, but based upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process may have to be different than the one above. In actuality, because dating is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it is imperative to have a system set up to assist 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 extreme rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a whole lot 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, even when you let go of expectations and only make your goal 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-class investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your risk of catastrophic failure. A means 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'll have a fantastic time doing something fun. And, to decrease the risk, you should 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 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, irrespective of how well I did all of the above things, I had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal plan being just one of many. But remember, when you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You are never as bad as they say you are, you are also not as good as you think you are."
Take every date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on yourself, improving your discussions, 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 appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more folks can discover it. And, if you have any more questions about dating, listen to our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the show.
