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1. THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to Browse the pains and pitfalls I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill. She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Still, no reply. At this time I imagined picking up the bill and slapping her across the face with it as hard as I could. It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I discovered afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal program." The meal program, if you're not familiar with it, is when girls 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 of the dates I had gone on until there: all 37 dates to be precise. How could women take advantage of me like this? Especially since I was being so vulnerable by putting myself out there to ask them out in the first place. As I matured in my internet dating, however, I realized that this was actually a response for what men do to women. There are three significant levers in our lives that, if we pull them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation. I learned this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I quit the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend that I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating novice. I was depressed. I was scared. I was scarred. After 9 months of misery and frustration I was about to give up on online dating all together. One day, I 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're going to give up? No, no you're not. You're going to kick 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 began creating what I predicted,"The Process." In this blog post I'll take you through the entire process I chose to learn online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so you can't just get dates, but maybe discover 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 may have to be different than the below. However, the important takeaway here is to pull back the

2. emotions that come from dating and treat it like an experiment. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet interesting people and do interesting things," you'll be much more likely to enjoy the process. And, if you're 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 years and we have moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that crazy, 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 listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a lot of these strategies as we browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship journey (and answer listener questions). STEP 1 -- Decide what you're looking for 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, most of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario I've found is that both men and women that are searching for a meaningful relationship are optimizing their relationship for fun instead. I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with online dating, she asked me to help her with her OKCupid profile. She's an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' quite beautiful, a true 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she'd need my help. In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem. Basically, in order to maximize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there is nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" pictures online. The issue, in the event of dating, is the format of a dating profile and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual clues much faster than written clues. In actuality, they have found that men that 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 other than the profile photograph until a user clicks, leading with provocative photographs sets a bad first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have sexy photos up on your instagram, leading together in your online dating profile is sending signals that may be attracting the wrong sort of guy. There are also plenty of classy ways to possess intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Online dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was trying to locate a relationship, her photos were sending signals that she's searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox.

3. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 Every guy who has done online dating will testify to the struggle of getting a girl to swipe directly in their profile, let alone to get them to engage in a conversation. Men, this is completely your fault. I have seen guys spend hours talking about the statistics of their favourite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, as well as how financial reports will influence the team's chances. However, when it comes to online dating, guys tend to slap a few pictures in their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans till their palms develop calluses. Men, stop. Before you begin creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you are trying to achieve. Are you trying to date a lot of people? Or are you trying to find a meaningful relationship? And"both" is not an answer. "If you try to appeal to everybody, you will interest no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for either desired result, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of example, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, every week), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months later that, while it's great to go on a great deal of dates and get practice dating (recall I had been 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 was the victim of some more"meal plans." STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures and descriptions First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it is projected that in any relationship, whether its social or work, we make our mind up about if we like the person in less than one second.

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 1 picture and there's a 99% chance it's the wrong one. If a person is approaching online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to check is the profile picture. I started this process in a very unscientific way... I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my pictures. One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first image was not my best. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't sure how I could test multiple pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The response: testing across apps. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the same on every profile, but I put up another profile picture on each. I rotated the images across profiles before I could get a big enough sample size and be certain that the platform wasn't 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 games. Interestingly enough, a film I didn't read much into, pic B, was actually a massive turn off for pretty much 100% of girls. I was shocked when I found this out, because the two girls in that photo are actually good friends of mine, so I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photos can be your greatest blind spot. To totally 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. 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 seem like a pain now, but it is going to save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20% of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them often. Top Tip: If you would like to speed up this process, you can actually ask your games exactly 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 photographs she thought was best. (I also used this technique

5. to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Now, a part of this error might be my fault, because I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and act how I wished to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. With no filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way. Now that I've matured a bit, I've come to realize that there's a difference between being your total self and being yourself. Whether we like to admit it or not, we're never our total selves except when we're 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 signs to give to other men and women. A man wearing a button up top, as an instance, isn't necessarily wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the sign that he is wealthy. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she doesn't want to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is signaling that he is okay with following convention. In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my eye. 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 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 in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace round her neck. At first 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 began talking. I was that man. I did not care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized that we had almost nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a signal at the party 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 do not want to lie, but you also don't want to be your complete self. You want to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't want to tell them about how you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You want to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you don't need to tell them about how you ran over your cat. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the toughest and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There is absolutely no right answer, but there are definitely some wrong answers. The first step to having a good dating profile description is having a clear structure.

6. I break down a dating profile description into 3 parts: Headline: A brief sentence somebody can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that provides some colour to your interests and personality. 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 two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you don't want men messaging you"hello" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to begin the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf online 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 browse everything in a similar manner. Because of this, I think the headline is perhaps the most important bit of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that works for you. After a lot of testing I found that this one worked best for me: "Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active." The goal of the headline is to give a fast snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and brief acts like a stop sign for the person who is 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 good content marketer knows, terrific content is about respecting the medium that you are producing the content for. By way of instance, if I went up to a woman at a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," 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 a single sentence, and make sure 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 book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this individual, your picture and headline being the first two. The intro paragraph provides a little bit of colour and perhaps some talking points that you can discuss in conversation (again, ladies, this is extremely important to include if you want to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph which worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as possible! Some of my favourite items are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball.

7. I am a creative at heart but I really like learning about businesses and new ideas. I'm into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss. My ideal Saturday is playing volleyball at the beach with friends. My perfect Sunday is reading a fantastic book at Promenade cafe." This paragraph outlines a couple of basic hobbies and activities I like as well as 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 avoid the generic actions that could apply to pretty much anyone. "I like hanging out with friends, watching movies, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I'm positive there are people in the world who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of the people in your area enjoy those things too. Rather than attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to find common ground, but also things which are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Many people like being outside and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about businesses or Tim Ferriss. The Call To Action 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 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 finally become discouraged from making initial contact. I've heard countless stories of girls who have matched with a man who they really enjoy, but the 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 do not want to seem 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 an individual section that says: My CTA goes as follows:

8. "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outside." Again, as with this advice, when in doubt just test it out. Try having a call to action and see if your conversations improve. When they don't, just delete it. The attractiveness of dating apps is that rather than having 1--5 opportunities to make a connection, as you would if you went to a bar for instance, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it has to do with the conversation. Having to talk online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to start a new relationship. For starters, it's a really unnatural way of communicating, because it's been shown that we receive 55% 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 set them in an unnatural communication environment you get some pretty unnatural conversations. While it might be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online relationship, then it is a good idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the opportunity to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply would not 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 us examine how well you can judge a good opener from a bad one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? A) "Hey! What is it going?" (or some other variation of the type of question). How did you like X book?" (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will let you consider it for a second. (I'll add some space before the reply below. Scroll as soon as you're ready.)

9. Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you chose the worst response.) 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 that the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that obviously depends if they've put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of their profile, such as a picture or a place in their own pictures. The reason why I suspect the book one works best though is because a) it shows you actually read their profile and b) it shows that you read. If I can use the book opener to initiate 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 conversation 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 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 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 have made contact and another person has responded, it is time to have a dialogue. Every conversation varies, but there are some guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating tips for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that 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 try 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 they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure.

10. DON'T make comments about her body or appearance. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you are so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You are..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help direct 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 guys pretend that they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they normally have no clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you are tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then make sure that you ask the guy about things he's interested in as well. It takes two to tango. DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to place a lot more thought in their text messages than guys do. If a man says something that seems weird or strange, give him the benefit of the doubt and do not read too much into it, chances are he did not either. Now a suggestion for both parties: Attempt to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a excellent tool to meet someone, but it is just that. It is a tool, it is not actual dating. My overall recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two brief conversations. It should never take more than a week to establish a date. So, if you match with each other on a Monday, you should definitely have started talking about using a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the programs, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a lot more fun too if you know how to set up good dates... Step 4 -- Making a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online part of dating, 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 house. In which you have your date determines about 50--70% of the results of the date. But a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it is actually at the most commonly selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. At first I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. But bear in mind, I was totally new to dating so I was just following what I'd seen in movies. Most of them didn't go well, but I wasn't certain why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with several other locations. What occurred next was totally mind blowing.

11. Almost like flipping a light switch, my dates enhanced tremendously. 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 believe dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You sit down at a table. You begin speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You're not ready to order because you've been talking. The waiter gives you"another minute." You examine the menu making remarks about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You continue talking. You talk and talk. You then run out of things to talk about. What should you do next? There are no exits, nothing around to comment on, nothing to see or do. You need to keep talking. A dinner date provides no options. It's a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost instantly. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most 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 discussions, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact that you'll be able to have an remarkable in-person conversation with a complete stranger? 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 over the ground like a giant cat toy. My fingers started to sweat and I knew that I couldn't hold on to the ledge much longer. "O well," I thought,"this will be a great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp jolt of the rope in 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 just as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't grab the rope until I had fallen 15 ft to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Finally the rope eventually stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both emotionally and physically. "Okay this date may be a little too exciting," I thought. My entire dating career made a 180-degree turn once I began taking my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I would take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between.

12. A number of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most crucial elements to a wonderful date place could be distilled into three classes: Walkability -- Do we have to sit together or can we walk around? When you're walking, your landscape is changing so you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!" Action -- Can we do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men 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 isn't scared of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how can we end the date sooner? With these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence that nearly doubled the Go to this website number of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you're thinking,"This guy took women out to the same areas like it was some kind of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to sequence, but, based on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was merely a template that simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting on my brain. Happy brain = Happy dates. So here's my ideal 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 difficulties of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food tastes. Then (if you're a guy) you've got to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this since there are over 20 distinct kinds of (affordable) cuisine. It also allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. Date #2 -- Variable: This date could change based on interests but I had a couple of go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: What these actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between talking and activity. If we did a picnic on the shore, we could go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach. Date #3 -- Cal Academy Adult Night: An adult-only night at the Cal Academy of Sciences where you can grab drinks and look at exhibits. Why I like it: This date was especially important because if a girl had made it to date #3, it meant I really liked her. It also meant we might take the connection to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, plus it was a semi-formal occasion so we can both dress nicely for that special night. This was also my secret test because if a woman did not like facts and science it probably wouldn't work out between us anyway. Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are merely three examples of how to take online dating offline and create a reasonably successful dating sequence. Here are a few ideas on what to search for on every date as you attempt to make your own dating

13. arrangement: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for great conversation. Be sure that you can reliably go to this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you will need to make reservations. Make sure you can schedule the date for a weeknight (try to not book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You've broken the ice and you have both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Select an activity you'll both like that isn't too tricky. Avoid intimidating actions like karaoke, group sports, or water skiing. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence in which you alternate between doing something and talking. Going on a 10 mile run is fantastic for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limitations. Date #3: You both confirmed you like each other, it is time to take it to another level. Try to make this date a bit more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it should confirm whether you want to continue seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you choose gives 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 among the most crucial pieces of the online dating mystery that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the guy is the one driving 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? How long should you wait between date 1 and date 2? When should you go for the kiss? Here I will share my answers to these questions that I've found most useful. But again, depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. The important thing is to actually think about timing, rather than leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It's very easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message her, she messages youback and forth, back and forth. To be able to make certain that I do not waste all my time with online conversations I found it was best to ask a 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 the digital world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste plenty of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2 once I was 25, working as"the new guy" 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 noticed is that each and every time they were finishing a call they would ask,"okay so what does your calendar look like for next week? Busy? Okay how about the week then? O that's no good also. Okay how about the week then?" No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would always insist on at least"penciling" another meeting into the calendar with the option of cancelling if needed.

14. Once I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it has worked really well: Always ask for the second date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you are putting yourself out there. You are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you 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. Nobody likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals don't mind if you don't like them, they only want to know. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you do not, have the respect to let them know you do not. (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 utilized it later myself too). I should pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not always. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get very excited by the person they've just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you chase them, the more they run away. The more you run away, the more they pursue you." If you find someone who you would like 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 attempt to set up a date, but there is no reason to go on dates every single 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 great deal of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there's even scientific proof for it as well. In several studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that connection have been forced apart. What's interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans. By data mining cell phone records and comparing call patterns and length, the researchers at the university found that humans may also invest more effort into relationships if there is a probability 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 connection strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for dating I found worked pretty well was the following: Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1

15. 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 relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but depending upon your context, your culture, and your comfort, your procedure may 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're getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply hop on and hold on. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less extreme rides will help you enjoy the ride a whole lot more. As we frequently discuss about the podcast, when you let go of expectations and only create your goal just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Like the advice of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and minimize your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing this is by going on dates that are not just sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your dating partner behaves, at least you'll have a fantastic time doing something interesting. And, to decrease the risk, you should build both an outreach and relationship sequence so you reduce the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you enjoy doing and then fit the dates into these 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, regardless of how well I did all of the above things, I still 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 scare you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. 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 each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on your own, improving your conversations, your dates, and your relationship with others, 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 relationship, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the show.