What the Oxford English Dictionary Doesn't Tell You About jak zaczac rozmowe na

1. She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the bill. Still, no reply. It definitely was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I discovered afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal plan." The meal plan, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when girls go on dates with men 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 exact. Of course at first I was outraged. 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 location. As I matured in my online relationship, however, I realized that this was really a reaction for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are three significant levers in our lives that, if we pull on them correctly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships can be the difference between depression and elation. I learned this first hand because in the past five 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 over 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend who I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating newcomer. I was scared. 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 activated and a little voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you're not. You're going to kick on online dating's ass!" I began to channel my misery into anger, and my anger into determination. I started to approach online dating 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 took to master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, starting meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so that you can't only get dates, but possibly discover the love of your life (with minimal stress).

2. Now, before I get into it, I must preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process may need to be different than the under. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the feelings that come from dating and treat it like an experiment. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you'll be more likely to enjoy the process. And, if you are diligent, you might 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've moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that mad, but perhaps they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Listen to the Modern Dating Show Podcast for more tips, tricks, and embarrassingly real stories. Notice: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a whole lot of these strategies as we navigate the present struggles and embarrassments of his own dating trip (and answer listener questions). The complete most frequent mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their goal obviously. Deep down inside, most of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've discovered is that both women and men who are searching 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 help her with her OKCupid profile. She is an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' quite 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, in order to optimize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photos. Now I would like to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" photos online. The issue, in the case of dating, is the format of a relationship and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual cues much faster than written clues. In fact, they've 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 hide most information aside from the profile photograph until a user clicks, leading with provocative photos sets a bad first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have sexy photos up in your instagram, leading with them in your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong type of guy. There are also lots of classy ways to possess intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind.

3. Internet Dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was trying to find a relationship, her photographs were sending signals that she is searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 For men, we tend to have the opposite problem. Every man who has done online dating will testify 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 completely your fault. I've 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 effect the team's chances. However, when it comes to online dating, guys have a tendency 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're trying to achieve. Are you trying to date a great deal of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. "If you try to appeal to everybody, you will appeal to no one." The techniques I will outline below work for desired result, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of example, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a great deal of dates (3--4 per week, every week), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I only realized months after 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 make sure I was dating the right people. Luckily I realized this before I was the victim of any more"meal plans"

4. STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures and descriptions First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it's estimated that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make our mind up about whether we like the person in less than one second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is that the first impression you make is based solely on your profile image. They don't get to hear you speak. They do not get to shake your hand. They do not get to smell you (it is a thing). All you get is one picture and there's a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If one is coming 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 them said that my first picture wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't certain how I could test numerous pictures considering I could only put one as the default option. The answer: testing across programs. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr. I retained my profile description the exact same on each profile, but I set up a different profile picture on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles before I could get a big enough sample size and be certain that the platform wasn't 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 matches. Interestingly enough, a picture that I did not read into, pic B, was actually a huge turn off for pretty much 100 percent of women. I was shocked when I found this out, because the two girls in that photo are really good friends of mineso that I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photos can be your greatest 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. They got varied results, but one thing was consistent: the picture they thought was their best, never performed the best. This is a super simple optimization that may look to be a pain now, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches.

5. This is the 20% of work which will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them often. Top Tip: If you want to speed up this process, you can really ask your matches exactly what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a match was not going well, I decided to get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photos she thought was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I wasn't getting jobs.) 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, a part of the 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 act how I wanted to act. This turned out to be a horrible idea. Without any filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I have come to realize 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," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we knowingly choose which signals to give to other people. A guy wearing a button up top, as an instance, is not always wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he is wealthy. Much like someone 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 signaling that he's okay with following convention. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my eye. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the whole 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 chose to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a woman walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed all in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace around her neck. Initially I didn't even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date.

6. She sat down and we began talking. I was that man. I didn't care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized that we had almost nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a signal at the party did not match her personality Click here for more at all. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Choosing your signals is good, but choosing false signals not so much. 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 how you cry every time a U2 song comes on. 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 most difficult and personal bit 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 great dating profile description is having a clear structure. I break down a relationship profile description into 3 parts: Headline: A short sentence somebody can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that provides some color to your interests and character. Call to Action: A desired action you want them to take. Online dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something you two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you don't want guys messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to begin the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating programs the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It could be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar manner. Due to this, I think the headline is perhaps the most crucial bit of your description and you need to try different variations until you find one that is right 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's authentic, interesting, and brief functions like a stop sign for the individual who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their phone. If you ask any top-performing marketer,"how do I create content which will be successful?" It is likely that they'll laugh at the question. As any good content marketer knows, terrific content is all about respecting the medium that you're producing the content for. For example, if I went up to a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she will definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online relationship, however.

7. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and be certain that it is quintessentially you. Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can start 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 small amount of color and perhaps some talking points that you can discuss in conversation (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to include if you would like to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph which worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as you can! Some of my favourite items are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I am a creative at heart but I love 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 good book at Promenade cafe" This paragraph outlines a few basic activities and hobbies I enjoy 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 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 positive there are people in the world who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of those folks in your area enjoy those things too. As opposed to attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so you can find common ground, but also things that are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Many people like being outdoors and photography. -- But very few people like learning about businesses or Tim Ferriss. 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 need the individual to message you. This sounds like a no brainer, but I've found that a lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they eventually become discouraged from making first contact.

8. I've heard countless stories of girls who have matched with a guy who they really enjoy, but the guy never messages them. When I ask them why they don't message first, it is said that they don't know what to say or they don't want to appear desperate. 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: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outdoors." Again, as with this advice, when in doubt just test it out. Try using a call to action and see if your conversations improve. When they don't, just delete it. The attractiveness of dating apps is that instead of having 1--5 opportunities to make a relationship, as you would if you went to a bar for instance, you have thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making initial contact and chatting where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation. Having to talk online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship. For starters, it is a very unnatural way of communicating, because it's been proven that we receive 55% of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communication. It makes sense then that if you take millions of people and put them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it's a fantastic idea to research your results a little bit. As I got better at optimizing my profile, I started matching with a growing number of people. This gave me the opportunity to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply wouldn't have been able to determine if I didn't have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I'll spare you some of the terrible thoughts I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let us examine how well you can judge a fantastic opener from a bad one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? For bonus points, try to purchase them from most effective to least effective. What is it going?" B) "Hey! How was your weekend?" (or any other variation of this type of question).

9. D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will allow you to think about it for a second. (I will add some distance before the answer below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer And the answer is... If you guessed D, then you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst response.) 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 that the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X novel," that clearly depends if they have put a book in their profile. You can alter this to ask about some other part of their profile, such as a movie or a location in their pictures. The reason I suspect 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 initiate a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? I'm currently reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (This is how I opened the conversation with my now-long-term girlfriend). Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt much more natural and moved past a few messages. The second best choice,"Hey! Works nearly as well, but it's obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it is because it seems too much like I am 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's time to have a dialogue. Every dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I'll put in here as hints. First, some online dating tips for guys:

10. 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 noise 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 just like you want a friend. DO try to talk about things she's interested in but also add your own ideas. Among the most common complaints I've heard from female friends is they feel like they're being interviewed. Make certain that you ask questions, but that you also discuss things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her body or appearance. Irrespective 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 are..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I have tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received quite curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend they don't care about the dialogue, they do. And they normally don't have any clue what they are doing, so offer them some help and guide the conversation in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you are tired of discussions feeling like interviews, then be certain to ask the man about things he's interested in also. DON'T make conclusions too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to put a lot more thought in their text messages than men do. If a man says something that seems weird or strange, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't read too much into it, chances are he didn't either. Now a suggestion for the two parties: Try to move the conversation from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a excellent tool to meet someone, but it is just that. It is a tool, it isn't actual dating. My general 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. Thus, if you match with one another on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about using a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the apps, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how to set up great dates... Step 4 -- Making 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 only half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you've even set out from your residence. In which you have your date decides about 50--70 percent of the outcome of the date. But a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it happens, it is actually at the most commonly selected dating place: A sit-down restaurant.

11. At first I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. But remember, I was completely new to relationship so I was only following what I had seen in movies. Many of them did not go well, but I wasn't certain why. After a dozen or so awkward (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with several other locations. What happened next was totally mind blowing. 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 think dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You sit down at a desk. You start speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You are not ready to order because you have been talking. The waiter gives you"another moment." You examine the menu making remarks about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You order food. You continue talking. You talk and talk. Then you run out of things to discuss. What do you do next? There are no exits, nothing around to comment on, nothing to see or do. You have to keep talking. Talk... Talk... Talk! A dinner date provides no 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 getting 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're 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? 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 small 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 is going to be a great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp shock of the rope on my climbing harness. However, 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 did not catch the rope until I had fallen 15 feet to what I was certain was my upcoming death. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both emotionally and physically. "Okay this date might be a little too exciting," I thought. My whole dating profession made a 180-degree turn once I started taking my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I'd take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between.

12. Some of these activities worked better than others. But I found out that the most crucial elements to a great date place could be distilled into three classes: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your scenery is shifting so that you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Action -- Can we both do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men get this one fairly wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but be certain it is not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she is not 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 earlier? With these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence which 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 places like it was some kind of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to sequence, but, based on interests, I would substitute unique activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was simply a template that simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting in my brain. So here is my perfect dating sequence: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks every Friday by the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everybody has different food tastes. Then (if you are a guy) you've got to account for cost of meals. Off the grid solves this because there are over 20 different kinds of (affordable) cuisine. It also lets you walk around, people watch, and get drinks. It is possible to 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 couple of go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the shore. Why I like it: These activities had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, grab cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between activity and talking. If we did a picnic on the beach, 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 in the Cal Academy of Sciences where you can grab drinks and look at exhibits.

13. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a girl had made it #3, it meant I really liked her. It also meant we might take the relationship to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, plus it was a semi-formal occasion so we can both dress nicely for that particular night. This was also my secret test because if a girl did not like facts and science it probably would not work out between us anyway. Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are just three examples of how to take online dating offline and make a reasonably successful dating arrangement. Here are a few ideas on what to look for on each date as you try to make your own dating sequence: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for good conversation. Make certain that you can reliably go to this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Make sure you can schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You have broken the ice and you have both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you'll both like that isn't too difficult. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence where you alternate between doing something and talking. Going on a 10 mile run is fantastic for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Watching a movie at a movie theater has similar limits. Date #3: You both confirmed you like each other, it's time to take it to the next level. Try to make this date a bit more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it ought to confirm whether you want to keep on seeing each other long term. Following the excitement of dates one and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you select gives new intimacy to the connection. For example, if I didn't visit the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right maybe among the most important pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see men screw up again and again is time. Assuming the man is the one driving the relationship sequence (which is not always the case) there are some questions you 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 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 main 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 conversation die out. You message her, she messages youback and forth, back and forth. To be able to make certain I do not 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 this virtual world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it's very easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, functioning as"the new guy" in a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff.

14. One thing 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 after that? O that's no good also. Okay how about the week after that?" No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting to the calendar with the choice of cancelling if desired. When I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to a pretty incredible results. This rule is a bit contrarian, but it'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're 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. No one 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 would be to stop playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them you aren't prepared to date at this time. I had a girl tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself too). I should pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get very excited by the person they have just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. Stop Chasing Shadows once I was thirteen years old, my grandfather gave me some advice that I still use to this day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you chase them, the more they run away. The more you run away, the longer they chase you." If you discover someone who you would like to be with really poorly, don't scare them away by being obsessive. If they like you as well, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously try to establish 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 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 as well. In several studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that relationship have been forced apart. What is interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans. By data mining mobile phone records and comparing telephone patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that humans will also invest more effort into relationships when there is a risk of that relationship weakening.

15. I tried applying this research to relationship in a relatively straightforward way and, to my surprise, it worked nicely. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse between dates, ironically, makes the 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 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- variable This arrangement meant that I would spread out the first 3 dates across a one month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship to mature and helped me make sure I did not suffocate my dates, which was particularly helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the beginning of this post, these dating approaches helped me tremendously, but depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your procedure might have to be different than the one above. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it's vital to have a system in place to 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 just jump and continue. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less intense rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more. Perhaps the single most important point to bear in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we often discuss about the podcast, even when you let go of expectations and only make your goal just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Similar to the advice of world wide investors, you want to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing that is by going on dates that are not just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your dating partner behaves, at least you will have a good time doing something interesting. And, to minimize the risk, you should build both an outreach and dating sequence so that 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 wonderful way to filter out people that aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money in the long run. Of course, regardless of how well I did all of the above things, I had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal program being just one of several. But remember, when you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You are 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 constantly work on your own, improving your conversations, your dates, and your relationship with other people, that investment will pay off far beyond online

16. dating. Until then, strap in and enjoy the ride. If you enjoyed this post, I'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below to ensure that more folks can find it. And, if you have any more questions about dating, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.