3 Reasons Your rozmowa na tinderze Is Broken (And How to Fix It)

1. She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Still, no reply. At that moment I imagined picking up the bill and slapping her across the face with it as hard as I could. It definitely was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I found out later, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal program." The meal plan, if you're not familiar with it, is when women go on dates with guys merely to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she definitely fell into. When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all the dates I had gone on until there: all 37 dates to be precise. Of course at first I was outraged. How could women take advantage of me like that? As I matured in my online dating, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are 3 major levers in our lives that, if we pull on them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships can be the difference between depression and elation. I discovered this firsthand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at once. I stopped the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend who I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating newcomer. I was depressed. I was scared. 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 triggered and a small voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you are not. You're going to kick on 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 called,"The Process."

2. In this blog post I will take you through the whole process I took to master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so you can't only get dates, but possibly find the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I must preface that based on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might have 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. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I will go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be more inclined to enjoy the procedure. And, if you are diligent, you may end up finding that special person. UPDATE: As of 2019 I've been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 decades and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that mad, but maybe they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Listen to the Modern Dating Show Podcast for more tips, tricks, and embarrassingly real stories. Note: You can also hear the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a whole lot of these strategies as we navigate the current struggles and embarrassments of his own 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 goal clearly. Deep down inside, the majority of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've discovered is that both men and women who are looking for a meaningful relationship are maximizing 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's an incredibly 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. In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem. Basically, so as to optimize 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 arrangement of a dating profile and what you lead with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual cues much faster than written hints. In fact, they've found that men who are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by without even activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles hide most information other than the profile photo before a user clicks, resulting in provocative photographs sets a poor first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have hot photos up on your instagram, leading together on your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong type of guy. There are also plenty of classy ways to possess interesting pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain.

3. Online dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy 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 issue. Every man 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. Men, this is entirely your own fault. I have seen guys spend hours talking about the numbers of their favorite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, as well as how financial reports will effect the team's chances. However, when it comes to online dating, guys tend to slap a few pictures in their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans until their fingers develop calluses. Guys, stop. Before you start creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you're trying to attain. Are you trying to date a lot of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. "If you try to appeal to everybody, you will appeal to no one." The techniques I will outline below work for either desired result, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. For example, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a great deal of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months later that, while it's 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 was dating the perfect folks. Fortunately I realized this before I had been the victim of any more"meal plans" 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 1 second.

4. 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 don't get to smell you (it's a thing). All you get is one picture and there is a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If one is coming online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to test is your profile picture. I first started this process in a very unscientific way... I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my pictures. One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first picture was not my best. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't sure how I could test numerous pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The answer: testing across programs. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the same on each profile, but I put up a different profile image on each. I rotated the images across profiles until I could get a big enough sample size and make certain that the platform was not effecting results. Four of my actual dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least games. Interestingly enough, a film that I did not read much into, pic B, was actually a massive turn off for pretty much 100% of women. I was shocked when I found out this, because the two girls in that photo are really good friends of mine, so that I never would have made this connection. Sometimes your photos can be your biggest blind spot. To completely test this idea out, I really enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) into the experiment and had them change out their profile pictures. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super simple optimization that can look like a pain now, but it is going to save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20 percent of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you want to speed this process up, you can actually ask your matches exactly what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a match wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she thought was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I wasn't getting jobs.)

5. 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, part of this error might be my fault, since I took his advice quite literally. I started to speak my thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wished to act. This turned out to be a horrible idea. With no filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I have come to understand that there is a difference between being your overall self and being yourself. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are never our total selves except when we're by ourselves. Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we knowingly choose which signals to give to other men and women. A man wearing a button up top, for instance, is not necessarily wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the sign that he's wealthy. Much like someone who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is indicating she does not wish to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is signaling that he's okay with subsequent convention. Signals matter. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my attention. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked very cute. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the entire 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 decided to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a woman walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed all in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace around her neck. At first I did not even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we started talking. I was that man. I did not really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized we had practically nothing in common. The outfit she'd used as a sign at the party did not match her personality in any way. We finished the date cordially and moved on. Choosing your signals is great, but picking false signals not so much. The same goes for your online dating profile description. You don't want to lie, but you also don't want to be your complete self. You need to tell them about how you collect classic records, you don't want to let them know about the way you cry every time a U2 song comes on.

6. You want 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. First impressions matter. Crafting a good description is perhaps the toughest and personal bit of improving your online dating profile. There is 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 components: Headline: A brief sentence somebody can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that gives some color to your interests and personality. Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Online dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something that you two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you do not want guys messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating apps the way they surf social media sites: quickly and without much thought. It might be, in fact, that mobile devices have trained us to browse everything in a similar way. Because of this, I think the headline is perhaps the most crucial 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: The objective of the headline is to give a fast snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and brief acts like a stop sign for the person who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their phone. Chances are they'll laugh at the question. As any good content marketer knows, great content is about respecting the medium that you are creating the content for. By way of example, if I went into a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she'll definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online dating, however. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and make sure that it is quintessentially you. The Intro Paragraph Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can begin paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This is not the time to write a novel about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your picture and headline being the first two. The intro paragraph provides a little bit of colour and possibly some talking points that you two can talk about in chat (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to include if you want to have more meaningful conversations).

7. The intro paragraph that worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as possible! Some of my favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I really like learning about new and businesses ideas. I am into photography, design, 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 enjoy and some non-standard items like business, design, and Tim Ferriss that might peak curiosity. The most important thing to remember about this section is to prevent the generic activities that could apply to pretty much anybody. "I like hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I am sure there are people on earth who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of those folks in your area enjoy both those things too. As opposed to attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to discover common ground, but also things which are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Most people like being outside and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- 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've viewed your content. In dating, you essentially need the individual to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I've found that a whole lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they eventually become discouraged from making initial contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have matched with a man who they really enjoy, but the man never messages them. When I ask them why they do not message first, they say 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. Butobviously you don't want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have an individual section that states: My CTA goes as follows:

8. "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 check it out. Try having a call to action and see whether your conversations improve. When they don't, just delete it. The attractiveness of dating apps is that instead of having 1--5 chances 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 initial talking and contact The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" dating is when it comes to the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a massive limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship. For starters, it's a really unnatural method of communicating, because it's been proven that we receive 55 percent of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communication. It is logical then that when you take millions of people and put them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it might be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online relationship, then it is a good idea to research your results a little bit. This gave me the chance to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just 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 will spare you some of the terrible ideas I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let us test how well you can judge a good opener from a bad one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? How's it going?" How was your weekend?" (or some other variation of this sort of question). D) "Hey! (according to a book they listed in their profile) I'll allow you to consider it for a second.

9. (I will add some distance before the answer below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer And the answer is... If you guessed D, then 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 any conversation starter. While I found the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that obviously depends if they have put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of their profile, such as a movie or a location in their pictures. The reason I guess that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you really read their profile and b) it indicates that you read. If I may use the book opener to start a conversation I usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? (This is the way I opened the dialogue with my now-long-term girlfriend). Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt a lot more natural and went past a few messages. The second best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works almost as well, but it is obviously confined to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it's because it seems too much like I'm going to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think 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 dialogue. Every dialog changes, but there are a few guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating suggestions for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a regular conversation just like you want a friend. DO attempt to talk about things she's interested in but also add your own thoughts. One of the most common complaints I have heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Be certain that you ask questions, but that you also discuss things about yourself in equal measure.

10. DON'T make comments about her appearance or body. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it'll be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you are so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You're..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I've tried to be nice and friendly, I have still received very curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend that they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they normally don't have any clue what they are 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 like interviews, then be certain that you ask the man 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 lot more thought into their text messages than men do. If a guy says something that looks weird or odd, 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 fast. Online dating is a excellent tool to fulfill 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 brief 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 having a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the programs, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how to set up good dates... Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will make you smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online part of relationship, I soon realized that procuring the date is just half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house. As they say in real estate: location, location, location. Where you have your date determines about 50--70 percent of the results of the date. But first a question... Where is 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. Boring, I know. But remember, I was completely new to dating so I was just following what I had seen in movies. Most of them did not go well, but I wasn't sure why. After a dozen or so awkward (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with several other locations.

11. What occurred next was totally mind blowing. Almost like flipping a light switch, my dates improved tremendously. It wasn't that I was doing anything differently or that I was choosing better women to go on dates with, it was simply a matter of context. Here's why I think dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a desk. You start talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You choose beverages. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You're not ready to order because you have been talking. The waiter provides you"another moment." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You talk and talk. You then run out of things to discuss. What should you do next? You have to keep talking. A dinner date provides no options. It's a singular task that depends on you connecting with a complete stranger almost instantly. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at having in-person discussions. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in- person communication skills. So, if we are getting worse at getting in-person conversations, 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 was holding on to a small ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet over the floor like a giant cat toy. My fingers began to sweat and I knew that I couldn't hold on to the ledge much longer. "O well," I thought,"this will be a great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I expected 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'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't catch the rope until I had dropped 15 ft to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Eventually the rope eventually stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both physically and emotionally. "Okay this date may be a little too exciting," I thought. My entire dating career made a 180-degree turn once I started 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

12. between. Some 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'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!" Activity -- Can we both do the action reasonably well? I've seen guys get this one pretty wrong. It is fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but be sure it's not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she is not afraid of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how can we end the date earlier? With these three criteria, I crafted a three 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 same areas like it was some kind of regimented assembly line?" No. This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates interesting. This was merely a template that simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting in my brain. Happy brain = Happy dates. So here is my perfect dating arrangement: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks each Friday by the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food tastes. Then (if you're a man ) you've got to account for cost of food. Off the grid solves this since there are over 20 distinct kinds of (affordable) cuisine. It also allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. You can 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 change based on interests but I had a few go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: What these actions had in common were the 3 factors: walkability, action, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between talking and activity. 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 especially important because if a woman had made it #3, it meant I actually liked her. It also meant we might take the connection to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, also it was a semi-formal event so we could both dress well for that special night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a girl didn't like facts and science it likely wouldn't work out between us anyway.

13. Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are just 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 each date as you attempt to make your own dating sequence: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for great conversation. Make sure that you can reliably go to this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Make sure you are able to schedule the date for a weeknight (try to not book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You've broken the ice and you've both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Select an activity you will both like that is not 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 doesn't allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limits. 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 you want to continue seeing each other long term. Following the excitement of dates one and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you choose provides new intimacy to the connection. For instance, if I didn't go to the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right maybe one of the most crucial pieces of the internet dating mystery that I see guys screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the guy is the one driving the relationship sequence (which isn't necessarily the case) there are some questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your comfort your answers may vary. 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, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It is very easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message , she messages youback and forth, back and forth. To be able to make certain I don't 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 the virtual world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it is very easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2 once 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 utilize their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar balances. One thing that I discovered is that 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 too. Okay how about the week after that?"

14. Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting to the calendar with the option of cancelling if needed. When I took this technique and applied it to 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'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 would be to stop playing games, both with the other person and on your own. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you do not, have the respect to let them know you don't. (A gentle means to do this is by telling them you are not prepared to date right now. I had a woman tell me and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself too). I should 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've just met and they then proceed to 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,"Women are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the longer they pursue you." If you discover someone who you want to be with really badly, do not scare them away by being fanatical. If they like you too, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously attempt to set up a date, but there is no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week. Allow the relationship to get some breathing room. A fantastic way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you find yourself missing the other person and vice versa. There is 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 discovered that many primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that relationship have been forced apart. What is interesting is that researchers in the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same holds 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 when there is a risk of that connection weakening.

15. I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively simple way and, to my surprise, it worked very well. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in between dates, paradoxically, makes the connection strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for relationship that I found worked pretty well was the following: Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- variable This arrangement meant that I'd spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship to grow and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was particularly helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of this post, these dating strategies helped me tremendously, but depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your procedure might have to be different than the one above. The important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come out of relationship. In fact, because relationship is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it is imperative to have a system set up 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 jump and continue. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less intense rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a whole lot more. Perhaps the single most important thing to keep in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we frequently discuss about the podcast, even when you let go of expectations and just 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 wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your risk of catastrophic failure. A way of doing that is by going on dates that aren't just 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 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 like doing and then fit the dates into these 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. Naturally, irrespective of how well I did all the above items, I had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal program being just one of several. Dating is a rollercoaster that will frighten you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. But remember, once you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether:

16. "You Learn more here are never 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 relationship with other people, 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 love if you hit the green hand clap button below to ensure that more people can find it. And, if you have 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.