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1. She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Still, no reply. It definitely was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I discovered later, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal program." The meal program, if you're not familiar 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 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 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 internet relationship, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women. There are three major 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 firsthand because in the past five years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at once. I quit the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend that I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship novice. I was depressed. I was scarred. One dayI was sitting in the shower feeling sorry for myself for over an hour. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene triggered and a little voice in my head said,"you are 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 began to approach online dating 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 took to master 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 that you can't just get dates, but possibly discover the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I should preface that based on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might need to be different than the below. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the 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 fascinating people and do interesting things," you'll be more inclined to enjoy the process. And, if you're diligent, you might end up finding that special person. UPDATE: As of 2019 I've been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 years and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that mad, but maybe they are, I will leave it for you to judge.

2. 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 current struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship journey (and answer listener questions). The complete most frequent error I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their target clearly. Deep down inside, most of us know whether we are searching for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario I've discovered is that both women and men who are looking 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 assist 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 would need my help. Basically, so as to maximize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photos. Now I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" photos online. The issue, in the event of dating, is the format of a relationship and what you lead with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual cues much faster than written clues. In actuality, they've found that men that are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by without even activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles hide most information aside from the profile photo before a user clicks, resulting in provocative photographs sets a poor first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have hot photos up in your instagram, leading together in your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong type of guy. There are also lots of classy ways to have intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain. Online dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was attempting to locate a relationship, her photos were sending signals that she is looking for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox. 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 directly in their profile, let alone to make them participate in a conversation. Men, this is completely your fault. I have seen men spend hours talking about the numbers of their favourite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, and even how financial reports will influence the team's chances. However, when it comes to online dating, guys have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans until their fingers develop calluses. Guys, stop.

3. Before you start creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you're trying to attain. Are you trying to date a great deal of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for desired result, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of instance, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a great deal of dates (3-- 4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months after that, while it's good to go on a lot of dates and get practice dating (recall I was off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to make sure I had been dating the right people. Fortunately I realized this before I was the victim of any 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 is estimated that in any relationship, whether its social or work, we make up our mind about whether we like the person in less than one second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is the first impression you make is based solely on your profile image. They don't get to hear you speak. 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 coming online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to test is the profile picture. I first started this process in a very unscientific way... One hundred, and I mean 100% of them said that my first image wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I was not sure how I could test numerous pictures considering I could only put one as the default. The answer: testing across apps. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the same on each profile, but I put up a different profile picture on each. I rotated the images across profiles until I could get a big enough sample size and make sure that the platform was not effecting results. Four of my actual dating profile pictures

4. Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least matches. Interestingly enough, a film I didn't read into, pic B, was really a huge turn off for pretty much 100 percent of women. I was shocked when I found out this, because the two girls in that photo are really good friends of mine, so that I never would have made 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) to the experiment and had them change 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 easy optimization that may look to be a pain today, but it will 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 matches what they think of your 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 believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Now, part of this error may be my fault, since I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave 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've matured a bit, I have come to realize that there is a difference between being your total self and being yourself. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are never our complete selves except when we're by ourselves. Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we actively choose which signs to give to other men and women. A man wearing a button up top, as an example, is not necessarily wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he's wealthy. Much like someone who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she doesn't want to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is indicating that he is okay with following convention.

5. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my attention. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked very cute. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the entire party dancing and flirting. 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 girl walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace round her neck. Initially I didn't even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we started talking. After some awkward conversation, she explained that her friends were sick of her being single so they'd dressed her up to be"cuter" for the party to attract a guy. I was that man. I did not really 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 didn't match her personality in any way. We ended the date cordially and moved on. Choosing your signals is good, but choosing false signals not so much. 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 let them know about the way you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You want to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not need to tell them about how you ran over your cat. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the most difficult and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There is absolutely no right answer, but there are some wrong answers. The first step to having a great dating profile description is using a clear structure. I break down a dating profile description into 3 parts: Headline: A short sentence someone can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that provides some colour to your interests and character. Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Internet dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something you 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 start the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating programs the way they surf social media sites: fast and without

6. much thought. It could be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar manner. Because of this, I think the headline is perhaps the most important 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 goal of the headline is to give a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and short acts like a stop sign for the person who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. If you ask any top-performing marketer,"how do I create content that will be successful?" It is likely that they'll laugh at the question. As any solid content marketer knows, terrific content is all about respecting the medium that you're producing the content for. By way of example, if I went up to a girl at a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she will definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online relationship, however. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be sure 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 picture and headline being the first two. The intro paragraph gives a small amount of color and perhaps some talking points that you can talk about in conversation (again, ladies, this is extremely important to include if you would like 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 favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I love learning about new and businesses ideas. I'm into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss. My perfect Saturday is playing volleyball at the beach with friends. My perfect Sunday is reading a fantastic book at Promenade cafe." This paragraph outlines a few basic activities and hobbies I like and 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 actions that could apply to pretty much anyone. I can not tell you how many profiles I've seen that list things like: "I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching movies, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes."

7. While I am sure there are people on earth who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of those people in your area enjoy both those things too. Rather than trying to fit in, try to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so you can find common ground, but also things which are uniquely you. For example in my description above: -- Most people like being outside and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. This is optional, even though 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 need the person to message you. This sounds like a no brainer, but I have found that a lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they finally become discouraged from making initial contact. I have heard countless stories of girls who have paired with a guy who they really enjoy, but the man never messages them. When I ask them why they do not message first, it is said that they don't know what to say or they don't want to seem desperate. The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you. Butobviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have a single section that states: My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outside." Again, as with this information, when in doubt just test it out. Try having a call to action and see if your conversations improve. When they don't, simply 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 example, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" dating is when it has to do with the conversation. Having to talk online as your initial conversation is a massive limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship. For one thing, it is a really unnatural way of communicating, since it's been shown that we receive 55 percent of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communication.

8. It makes sense then that when you take countless people and put them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it might be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it is a good idea to research 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 determine if I did not 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 poor one. How's it going?" B) "Hey! C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or some other variation of this type of question). (according to a book they listed in their profile) I will let you think about it for a second. (I'll add some space before the reply below. Scroll as soon as you're ready.) Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response 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 book," that obviously depends if they have put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of the profile, such as a picture or a location in their own pictures. The reason I suspect that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you really read their profile and b) it indicates that you read. If I may use the book opener to initiate a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? (This is how I opened the dialogue with my now-long-term girlfriend).

9. Pretty much every conversation I began with this opener felt a lot more natural and moved past 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! Have any fun plans for the weekend?" This worked pretty well, but not nearly as well. I suspect it's because it sounds 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 conversation varies, but there are a few guidelines that I will put in here as hints. First, some online dating tips for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is 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 attempt to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own thoughts. 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're so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You're..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I've tried to be nice and friendly, I have still received very curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend they don't care about the dialogue, they do. And they normally don't have any clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you're tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then make sure that you ask the guy about things he's interested in also. DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women tend to place a good deal more thought into their text messages than guys do. If a guy says something that seems weird or odd, give him the benefit of the doubt and do opis na badoo dla faceta not read too much into it, chances are he didn't either. Now a proposal for the two parties: Try to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a excellent tool to meet someone, but it's just that. It is a tool, it isn't actual dating. My general 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 set up a date. So, if you match with one another on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about using a date by Wednesday.

10. So yes, use the programs, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too if you know how to set up good dates... Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will make you smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online part of dating, I soon realized that procuring the date is just half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you've even set out from your house. In which you have your date determines about 50--70 percent of the outcome of the date. But a question... Where's the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it is actually at the most frequently selected dating place: A sit-down restaurant. At first I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. But bear in mind, I was completely new to dating so I was just following what I had seen in movies. Many of them did not go well, but I wasn't sure why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and pricey ) dates, I decided that I should experiment with several other locations. What occurred next was absolutely mind blowing. It wasn't that I was doing anything differently or that I was picking better girls to go on dates with, it was merely a matter of context. Here's why I think dinner dates do not work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger outside a restaurant. You sit down at a desk. You begin talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You're not ready to order because you have been talking. The waiter provides you"another moment." You examine the menu making remarks about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You continue talking. You talk and talk. Then you run out of things to talk about. What do you do next? You have to keep talking. Talk... Talk... Talk! A dinner date provides no options. It is a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost immediately. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at having in-person conversations. 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 discussions, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact you will 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. "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 began falling for what felt like eternity.

11. As it turns out, my climbing partner had let go of the rope as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't catch the rope until I had dropped 15 ft to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally. My whole dating profession made a 180-degree turn when I started taking my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. I would take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between. Some of these activities worked better than others. But I found out that the most crucial elements to a great date place could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your scenery is shifting so you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!" Action -- Can we both do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men get this one pretty wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but make certain it is not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she is not afraid of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how do we end the date sooner? With these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence that nearly doubled the number of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you're thinking,"This man took women out to the very same areas like it was some kind of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to sequence, but, depending on interests, I would substitute unique activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was merely a template that simplified my decisions and reduced the cognitive load I was putting on my mind. Happy brain = Happy dates. 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 have to account for cost of meals. Off the grid accomplishes this because there are over 20 different kinds of (affordable) cuisine. It also allows you to 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 few go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: What these actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, action, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, grab cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite 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 catch drinks and look at exhibits.

12. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a girl had made it to date #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, also it was a semi-formal occasion so we can both dress well for that special night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a woman did not like facts and science it likely 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 every date as you attempt to make your own dating sequence: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for good conversation. Make certain that you can reliably visit this place, 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 have broken the ice and you've both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you will both like that isn't too tricky. 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 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 limitations. Date #3: You both confirmed you like each other, it is 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 can be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you choose gives new intimacy to the connection. For instance, if I didn't visit the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe among the most crucial pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see men screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the man is the one forcing the relationship sequence (which is not necessarily the case) there are some questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? How long should you wait between date 1 and date 2? Here I will share my answers to these questions that I've found most useful. But again, depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. I'll share my experience (as a heterosexual male living in San Francisco) and you can make whatever adjustments you deem appropriate. The important thing is to actually think about timing, rather than leaving it up to"feeling." Going from Online to Offline It is quite easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message her, she messages you, back and forth, back and forth. In order to make certain that 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 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 very easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2

13. When I was 25, functioning as"the new guy" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff. One thing I noticed is that 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 great also. Okay how about the week then?" Regardless of 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 somewhat contrarian, but it's worked really well: Always ask for the second date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you're putting yourself out there. You are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting a lot of uncertainty. Nobody likes uncertainty. No one likes to look at their phone every hour to see if you've texted them or not. Nobody likes to wonder whether you like them or not. Surprisingly, most people do not mind if you don't like them, they only want to know. So my suggestion is to stop playing games, both with another person and on your own. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them that you are not ready to date right now. I had a woman tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself too). I must pause here for one caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly. Nobody likes to be smothered or chased 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. He explained,"Women 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 want to be with really poorly, do not frighten them away by being obsessive. If they like you as well, there is no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously try to establish a date, but there's no reason to go on dates every single night of the week. Allow the relationship to get some breathing room. A fantastic way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you end up 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's even scientific proof for it also. In a number of 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's interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans.

14. By data mining cell phone records and comparing telephone patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that humans may also invest more effort into relationships if there is a risk of that relationship weakening. 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 in between dates, paradoxically, makes the relationship strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for relationship that I found worked pretty well was the following: Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- factor This sequence meant that I would 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 especially helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the beginning of the post, these relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but depending on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process might have to be different than the one above. In fact, because relationship is such an emotional activity (like 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 jump and hold on. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less extreme rides will help you enjoy the ride a whole lot more. Perhaps the single most important thing 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 just make your target just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Similar to the help of world-class investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your risk of catastrophic failure. A means of doing this is by going on dates that aren't just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your relationship partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something interesting. And, to decrease the risk, you should build both an outreach and relationship sequence so that you decrease the

15. cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Find 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 term. Naturally, irrespective of how well I did all of the above items, I had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal program being just one of several. Dating is a rollercoaster that will frighten you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. But remember, when you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You are never as bad as they say you are, you are also not as good as you think you are." Take each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you constantly work on your own, improving your discussions, your dates, and your relationship 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 people 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 show.