A Beginner's Guide to jak zacząć rozmowę z dziewczyną

1. THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to Browse the pains and pitfalls She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the bill. Still, no response. It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I found out later, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal program." The meal program, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when girls go on dates with guys 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 the dates I had gone 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 dating, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... 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 discovered this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I quit the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend that I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating newcomer. I was depressed. I was scarred. After 9 months of misery and frustration I was going to give up on online dating all together. 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 are going to kick on online dating's ass!" I began to channel my distress into anger, and my anger into determination. I began to approach online dating just like one big experiment. I started creating what I predicted,"The Process." In this blog post I'll take you through the whole process I chose to learn online dating. By 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 that you can't 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. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment.

2. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be much more likely to enjoy the process. And, if you are diligent, you may end up finding that special person. UPDATE: As of 2019 I have been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 decades and we have moved jak zaproponować dziewczynie spotkanie in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that crazy, 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 pay a lot of these approaches as we navigate the current struggles and embarrassments of his own dating trip (and answer listener questions). The absolute most frequent mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their goal obviously. Deep down inside, most of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've found is that both men and women who 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 is a remarkably smart and capable woman and she's' really beautiful, a real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she'd need my help. In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem. Basically, in order to maximize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" pictures online. The problem, in the case of dating, is the arrangement of a relationship and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual clues much faster than written hints. In actuality, they have found that men 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 conceal most information other than the profile photograph until a user clicks, resulting in provocative photographs sets a bad first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have sexy photos up in your instagram, leading together in your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong type of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to have interesting pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Internet Dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was attempting to find a relationship, her photos were only sending signals that she's searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox. Every guy who has done online dating will attest to the struggle of getting a girl to swipe right on their profile, let alone to make them participate in a conversation.

3. Men, this is completely 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, and even how financial reports will effect the team's chances. But, when it comes to online dating, men tend to slap a few pictures on their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans till 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 achieve. Are you trying to date a lot of people? Or are you trying to find a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. As the saying goes... "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for either desired outcome, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of example, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months later that, while it's good to go on a great deal of dates and get practice relationship (remember I was off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to be sure I had been dating the perfect folks. Fortunately I realized this before I had been the victim of some more"meal programs " STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile images and descriptions First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it's projected that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make up our mind 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 image. 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 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 started this process in a very unscientific way... I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my pictures. One hundred, and I mean 100% of them said that my first picture wasn't my best.

4. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't certain how I could test multiple pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The response: testing across programs. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I set up another profile image on each. I rotated the images across profiles before I could find a big enough sample size and be sure that the platform wasn't effecting results. Four of my actual dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture which I thought was my best was always the one with the least games. Interestingly enough, a picture I didn't read into, pic B, was actually a massive turn off for pretty much 100% of girls. 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 actually enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) to the experiment and had them change their profile pictures. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super easy optimization that can look to be 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 often. Top Tip: If you want to speed this process up, you can actually ask your games what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to at least get some"user comments" 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.) In highschool I had a history teacher, Mr. Hernandez, who gave me the worst piece of advice I've ever received:"just be yourself" Now, part of this error may be my fault, because I took his advice quite literally. I began to speak my mind, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wanted to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. Without any filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I've come to understand that there's a difference between being your overall self

5. and being yourself. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are never our complete selves except when we are by ourselves. Seth Godin has a great podcast on"signals," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we actively choose which signals to give to other people. A man wearing a button up top, as an example, isn't necessarily wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he's wealthy. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she does not want to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is indicating that he's 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 flirting and dancing. We made plans to have a lunch date at the college cafeteria later 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 round her neck. At first I did not even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we started talking. I was that guy. I didn't really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized that we had practically nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a sign at the party did not match her personality at all. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Choosing your signals is good, but choosing false signals not so much. The same goes for your online dating profile description. You don't need to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You need to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't need to let them know about the way you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You need to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not want to tell them about how you ran over your cat. First impressions matter.

6. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the toughest and personal bit of enhancing your online dating profile. There's absolutely no ideal answer, but there are some incorrect 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 parts: Headline: A brief sentence someone can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that gives 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 the other person by letting them know something you two can talk about. Ladies this is especially true for you. If you do not want guys messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to begin the conversation with. The Headline Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating programs the way they surf social media sites: fast and without much thought. It could be, in fact, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar manner. 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 quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and brief acts like a stop sign for the individual 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, great content is about respecting the medium that you're producing the content for. By way of instance, if I went up to a woman in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she will definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online relationship, however. You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and make certain that it is quintessentially you. The Intro Paragraph After 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 book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your headline and picture being the first two. The intro paragraph gives a little bit of color and possibly some talking points that you can discuss in chat (again, ladies, this is extremely 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 items are surfing, climbing, and playing

7. volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I love learning about businesses and new ideas. I am into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss. My ideal 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 items 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 anybody. "I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I'm sure there are people on earth who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of the people in your area enjoy those things too. As opposed to attempting to fit in, try to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so you can discover common ground, but also things that are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Most people like being outdoors and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. The Call To Action This is optional, even though it certainly helps. In advertising, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they've viewed your content. In dating, you basically want the person 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 first contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have paired with a guy who they really like, but the guy never messages them. When I ask them why they don't message first, they say that they don't know what to say or they don't want to appear desperate. But, obviously you don't want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have an individual section that says: My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you are an interesting person who likes to play outdoors." Again, as with all this information, when in doubt just test it out. Try having a call to action and see whether your

8. 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 relationship, as you would if you went to a pub for instance, you have tens of thousands of chances 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 has to do with the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you are trying to start a new relationship. For starters, it is a really unnatural method 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 is logical then that when you take countless people and set them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with weird 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. As I got better at optimizing my profile, I started matching with a growing number of people. This gave me the chance to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just wouldn't have been able to see if I didn't have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I'll spare you some of the terrible thoughts I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let's test how well you can judge a good opener from a bad one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? What is it going?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of the type of question). D) "Hey! How did you like X book?" (according to a book they listed in their profile) I will allow you to consider it for a second. (I'll add some distance before the reply below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer

9. Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer And the answer is... If you guessed D, you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you chose the worst answer.) In order of best to worst, the answers are D, B, A, C (D being best). There are pluses and minuses to any conversation starter. While I found 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 modify this to ask about some other part of the profile, like a movie or a location in their own pictures. The reason why I suspect the book one works best though is because a) it shows you really read their profile and b) it shows that you read. If I can use the book opener to start a conversation I usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? I am currently reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (This is 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 beyond a few messages. The second best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works nearly as well, but it is obviously confined to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be strange if you used this on a Friday). An alternate version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it's because it sounds too much like I'm 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 the other person has responded, it's time to have a conversation. Every dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I will put in here as hints. First, some online dating suggestions for guys: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is I know that the man is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation like you would with a friend. DO attempt to talk about things she's interested in but also add your own thoughts. Among the most common complaints I've heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her appearance or body. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you are so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You're..." will only

10. result in a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation. Now, a couple of online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I've tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much guys pretend they don't care about the dialogue, they do. And they usually 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 are tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then make sure to ask the guy about things he is interested in as well. DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women tend to place a good deal more thought in their text messages than men do. If a man says something that looks weird or 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 both 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 isn't 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 establish a date. So, if you match with one another on a Monday, you should definitely have started 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 in case you know how to set up great dates... Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online part of relationship, I soon realized that securing 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 residence. 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 first a question... Where is the worst place to have a date?

11. As it turns out, it's actually at the most commonly selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. Initially I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. But bear in mind, I was totally new to relationship so I was only following what I had seen in movies. Most of them did not go well, but I was not certain why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and expensive) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with some other locations. What happened next was totally mind blowing. It wasn't I was doing anything differently or that I had been choosing better girls 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 outside a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a desk. You begin speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You're not ready to order since you've been talking. The waiter provides you"another moment." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You then run out of things to talk about. 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 connecting with a complete stranger almost immediately. 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- person communication skills. So, if we're getting worse at having in-person conversations, 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? 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 over the ground like a giant cat toy. "O well," I thought,"this will be a good 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 started falling for what felt like eternity. As it turns out, my climbing partner had 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 ft to what I was sure was my forthcoming death.

12. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally. "Okay this date may be a little too exciting," I thought. My whole dating career made a 180-degree turn when I began carrying my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. A number of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most essential elements to a wonderful date spot could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we have to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your scenery is shifting so you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!" (It is San Francisco after all). Action -- Can we both do the action reasonably well? I've seen men get this one fairly wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but make sure it's not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she isn't scared of heights first. Scalability -- Would the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how do we end the date sooner? With these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence that nearly doubled the number of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you are thinking,"This guy took women out to the very 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 intriguing. This was merely a template which simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting in my brain. So here is my ideal dating sequence: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks every Friday from the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everybody has different food preferences. Then (if you're a man ) you have to account for cost of meals. Off the grid solves this because there are over 20 distinct types 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. Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves. Date #2 -- Variable: This date could vary based on interests but I had a couple of go-tos, specifically: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: What these activities had in common were the 3 factors: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can 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

13. 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, plus it was a semi-formal event so we can both dress well for that particular night. This was also my secret test because if a woman did not like science and facts it likely wouldn't work out between us anyway. As an additional bonus, it was also a 20-min walk from my place, so that helped with the"scalability" of the evening. Listen to all the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are just three examples of how to take online dating offline and create a reasonably successful dating sequence. Here are a few ideas on what to look for on each date as you try 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 good conversation. Be certain that you can reliably visit this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Ensure you are able to 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 will both like that is not too difficult. Avoid intimidating actions like karaoke, group sports, or water skiing. Ideally choose an activity which 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 limitations. Date #3: You both confirmed you like each other, it's time to bring it to another level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It should be romantic, it should test how compatible you both really are, and it should confirm whether or not you want to keep on seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you choose gives new intimacy to the connection. For example, if I did not go to the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe one of the most important pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the guy is the one forcing the dating sequence (which is not always the case) there are some questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you go for the kiss? Here I will share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your comfort your answers may vary. The main thing is to actually think about timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling." Going from Online to Offline It's quite easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message , she messages youback and forth, back and forth. To be able to make sure I don't waste all my time with internet conversations I found that it was best to ask a girl to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or about 20 minutes of continuous conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of this digital world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste plenty of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2

14. once I was 25, functioning as"the new guy" in a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff. One thing I noticed 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 then? O that's no good also. Okay how about the week after that?" Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would always insist on at least"penciling" another 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 a bit contrarian, but it's worked really well: Always request the next date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you're putting yourself out there. You are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting plenty of uncertainty. No one 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 if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most people don't mind if you do not like them, they just want to know. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you don't. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them that you are not prepared to date right now. I had a girl tell me this and it was the easiest let down I have ever experienced and utilized it later myself also ). 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 have just met and they then proceed to text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. Stop Chasing Shadows When I was thirteen years old, my grandfather gave me some advice that I still use to this day. He explained,"Girls are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the more they chase you." If you discover someone who you want to be with really badly, do not frighten them away by being obsessive. If they like you too, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously try 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 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 is even scientific evidence for it as well. In several studies, anthropologists have found that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that relationship have been forced apart. What's interesting is that researchers in the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same holds true in humans.

15. By data mining cell phone records and comparing call patterns and length, the researchers at the university found that people will also invest more effort into relationships when there is a probability of that relationship weakening. I tried applying this research to relationship in a relatively simple way and, to my surprise, it worked very well. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse between dates, ironically, makes the relationship strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for dating 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 would 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 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 relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but based on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process might have to be different than the one above. In actuality, because relationship is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it's imperative to have a system set up that will assist you navigate the ups and downs. By engaging in online dating you are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual 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 extreme rides can help you 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 help of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing that is by going on dates that aren't only sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your dating partner behaves, at least you'll have a good time doing something fun. And, to minimize 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 those activities. This is also a great way to filter out people who aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money in the long run. Of course, irrespective of how well I did all the above items, I had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal program being just one of many. But bear in mind, once you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You're not as bad as they say you are, you are also not as good as you think you are." Take every date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on yourself, improving your conversations,

16. your dates, and your connection with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. If you enjoyed this post, I'd super love if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more folks can discover it. And, if you've any more questions about dating, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.