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-- But very few people like learning about businesses or Tim Ferriss. <br>This is optional, although it certainly helps. In marketing, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content.<br>In relationship, you basically want the person to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I have 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.
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THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to navigate the pains and pitfalls I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill. She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Still, no response. At that moment 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 wasn't hers either. Apparently, as I found out later, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal program." The meal program, if you're 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 of 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 place. As I matured in my online relationship, however, I understood that this was really a response for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are 3 major levers in our lives which, if we pull them correctly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation. I discovered this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I stopped the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend who I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship newcomer. I was scarred. After 9 months of misery and frustration I was going 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 little voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you are not. You're going to kick online dating's ass!" I started to channel my distress into anger, and my anger into determination. I began to approach online dating like one big experiment. I began creating what I predicted,"The Process." In this blog post I will take you through the whole process I took to master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so you can not just get dates, but possibly find the love of your life (with minimal stress).
Now, before I get into it, I should preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process may have to be different than the under. However, 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 will go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be much more inclined 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 mad, but maybe they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Listen to the Modern Dating Show Podcast for more tips, tricks, and embarrassingly real stories. Note: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a lot of these strategies as we browse the current struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship trip (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 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 I've discovered 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 internet 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. The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating website. Basically, in order to optimize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there's nothing wrong with girls having"promiscuous" photos online. The problem, in the case of dating, is the format of a dating profile and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to 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 without even activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles conceal most information other than the profile photograph until a user clicks, resulting in
provocative photos sets a poor first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have sexy photos up in your instagram, leading together on your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to have intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Online dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was attempting 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. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 Every man who has done online dating will testify to the battle of getting a woman to swipe right on their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation. Guys, this is completely your fault. I've 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, men have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans till their fingers develop calluses. Guys, stop. Before you start creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you're trying to attain. Are you trying to date a lot of people? Or are you searching for a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. As the saying goes... "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will interest no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for either 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 procedure, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I only realized months after that, while it's good to go on a great deal of dates and get practice relationship (remember I had been 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 some more"meal programs " STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile images and descriptions
First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it is projected that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make our mind up about if 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 picture. 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's the wrong one. If a person is approaching online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to check is your profile picture. I first started this process in a very unscientific way... I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my pictures. One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first picture wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't sure how I could test multiple pictures considering 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 retained my profile description the same on each profile, but I set up a different profile picture on each. I rotated the images across profiles before I could get a big enough sample size and be sure 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 did not read much into, pic B, was really a massive turn off for pretty much 100 percent of girls. When I asked them why, without skipping a beat they answered,"it makes you look like a player." I was shocked when I found this out, because the two women in that photo are really good friends of mineso I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photos can be your biggest blind spot. To completely test this idea out, I actually enrolled a few 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. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super simple optimization that may seem like a pain now, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches.
This is the 20 percent of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you want to speed up this process, you can actually ask your matches what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a match wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) In highschool I had a history teacher, Mr. Hernandez, who gave me the worst piece of advice I've ever received:"just be yourself" Now, a part of this error might be my fault, because I took his advice quite literally. I started to speak my mind, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wished to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. With no filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I have come to 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 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 actively choose which signals to give to other men and women. A man wearing a button up shirt, for instance, isn't always wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the signal that he's wealthy. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she doesn't wish to follow society's rules, the guy in the button up shirt is indicating that he is okay with following convention. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my eye. I approached her and we instantly 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 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 around 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 started talking. After some awkward conversation, she explained that her friends were sick of her being single so they had dressed her up to be"cuter" for the party to attract a man. 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 practically nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a sign at the party didn't match her personality at all. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Choosing your signals is great, but picking false signals not so much.
You do not want to lie, but you also don't want to be your complete self. You need to tell them about how you collect classic records, you do not need to tell them about the way you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You need to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not need to let them know about how you ran over your cat. First impressions matter. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the most difficult and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There is no ideal answer, but there are definitely some wrong answers. The first step to having a good dating profile description is having a very clear structure. I break down a dating profile description into 3 components: Headline: A short sentence somebody can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A bit longer description that provides some colour to your interests and character. Call to Action: A desired 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 particularly true for you. If you do not want guys messaging you"hello" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to begin the conversation with. The Headline Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating apps the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It could be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to browse everything in a similar manner. Because of this, I think the headline is perhaps the most crucial bit of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that is right for you. After a lot of testing I discovered that this one worked best for me: "Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active." The goal of the headline is to provide a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and brief acts like a stop sign for the individual who is scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. 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 creating the content for. For example, if I went into a girl at a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she will definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online dating, however. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be sure it is quintessentially you.
The Intro Paragraph After that initial curiosity is peaked, you should start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This isn't the time to write a novel about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your headline and picture being the first two. The intro paragraph provides a small amount of colour and possibly some talking points that you two can talk about in conversation (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to add if you want to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph that worked best for me was: "I love being outdoors as much as possible! Some of my favourite items are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I love learning about new and businesses ideas. I am into photography, design, 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 hobbies and activities 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 prevent the generic actions that could apply to pretty much anybody. 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." While I am sure there are people in the world who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of the folks in your area enjoy both those things too. Rather than trying 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 that are uniquely you. For example in my description above: -- Many people like being outside and photography. -- But very few people like learning about businesses or Tim Ferriss. The Call To Action This is optional, even though it certainly helps. In advertising, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content. In relationship, you essentially want the individual to message you. This sounds like a no brainer, but I have 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 like, but the man never messages them. When I ask them why they do not message first, they say that they don't know what to say or they don't want to appear desperate. But, obviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have a single section that states: "You should message me if..." ← This is OkCupid's sub-heading but you can just manually add it on other internet dating apps too. My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you are an interesting person who likes to play outside." Again, as with all this advice, when in doubt just test it out. Try using a call to action and see whether your conversations improve. When they don't, simply delete it. The beauty of dating programs is that instead of having 1--5 chances to make a connection, as you would if you went to a pub for example, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first contact and chatting The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" dating is when it comes to the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you are trying to begin a new relationship. For one thing, it is a really unnatural method of communicating, since it's been proven that we receive 55% of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communicating. It makes sense then that when you take millions of people and set them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a good relationship through online dating, then it is a fantastic idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the chance to start testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just wouldn't have been able to see if I did not have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I will spare you some of the terrible thoughts I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let's 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 order them from most effective to least effective. A) "Hey! What is it going?" B) "Hey! How was your weekend?" (or some other variation of the sort of question). D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will let you think about it for a second. (I'll add some distance before the reply below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst response.) In order of best to worst, the replies are D, B, A, C (D being best). There are pluses and minuses to some 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 the profile, like a picture or a place in their pictures. The reason why I suspect the book one works best though is because a) it shows you really read their profile and b) it indicates 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 now reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (This is how I opened the dialogue with my now-long-term girlfriend).
Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt much more natural and went past a few messages. The second best option,"Hey! Works almost as well, but it is obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). An alternative 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 seems too much like I am about 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've made contact and the other person has responded, it is time to have a dialogue. Every conversation varies, but there are a few guidelines that I'll put in here as hints. First, some online dating suggestions for guys: DON'T attempt 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've heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Be sure that you ask questions, but that you also discuss things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her appearance or body. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you're so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You're..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I've tried to be nice and friendly, I've still received very curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend that they don't care about the dialogue, they do. And they usually 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 like interviews, then be certain that you ask the guy about things he's interested in as well. DON'T make conclusions too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to put a good deal more thought into their text messages than men do. If a man says something that seems weird or odd, give him the benefit of the doubt and do not read too much into it, chances are he didn't either. Now a suggestion for both parties: Try to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a excellent tool to fulfill someone, but it's just that. It is a tool, it is not 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 set up a date. Thus, 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 apps, 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 -- Creating 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 procuring the date is only half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well the date 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 results of the date. But a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it's actually at the most frequently selected dating place: A sit-down restaurant. At first I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But remember, I was totally new to relationship so I was only following what I had seen in movies. Most of them didn't go well, but I wasn't sure why. After a dozen or so awkward (and pricey ) dates, I decided that I should experiment with several other locations. What occurred next was totally mind blowing. It was not that I was doing anything differently or that I was choosing better girls to go on dates with, it was merely a matter of context. Here's why I believe dinner dates do not work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You sit down at a desk. 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 since you've been talking. The waiter provides you"another moment." You look at the menu making remarks about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You order food. You talk and talk. Then you run out of things to discuss. 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 choices. It is a singular task that depends on you connecting with a complete stranger almost immediately. This issue 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 are getting worse at getting in-person discussions, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact you will be able to have an remarkable in-person conversation with a complete stranger? I was holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet over the floor like a giant cat toy. "O well," I thought,"this will 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 let go of the rope as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't grab the rope until I had dropped 15 feet to what I was certain was my upcoming death. Finally the rope eventually stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both emotionally and physically. My whole dating career made a 180-degree turn when I started taking my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. I'd take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between. Some of these activities worked better than others. But I found out that the most essential elements to a wonderful date spot could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we have to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your landscape is changing so that you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!" (It is San Francisco after all). Activity -- Can we both do the action reasonably well? I've seen guys get this one fairly wrong. It is 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 scared of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! No chemistry? No problem, how can we end the date sooner? Using these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence that nearly doubled the amount of successful dates I went on. 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?" No. This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates interesting. This was simply a template that simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting in 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 by the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the difficulties of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food preferences. Then (if you're a man ) you've got to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this since there are over 20 distinct types of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. You can extend the date by getting dessert or listening to the live bands. Feel like going all out? 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 activities 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 pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between talking and activity. If we did a picnic on the shore, we can go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach.
Why I like it: This date was especially important because if a woman 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 well for that particular night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a girl did not like science and facts it likely wouldn't work out between us anyway. As an added bonus, it was also a 20-min walk from my place, so that helped with the"scalability" of the evening. Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are merely three examples of how to take online dating offline and make a reasonably successful dating arrangement. Here are a few tips on what to search for on every date as you attempt to create your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for good conversation. Be sure 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 another date, so have fun with this one! Select an activity you'll both like that isn't too tricky. Avoid intimidating activities like karaoke, group sports, or water skiing. Ideally choose an activity which has a cadence where you alternate between doing something and talking. Going on a 10 mile run is great for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Watching a movie at a movie theater has similar limits. Date #3: You confirmed you like each other, it's time to take it to the next level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It should be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it ought to confirm whether or not you want to continue seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates one and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you select gives new intimacy to the connection. By way of example, if I didn't go to the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe one of the most important pieces of the online dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the man is the one driving the dating sequence (which isn't necessarily the case) there are some questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you go for the kiss? Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most useful. But again, depending on your context, your culture, and your comfort your answers may vary. The important thing is to actually consider timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling." Going from Online to Offline It is very easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message , she messages youback and forth, forth and back. To be able to make certain that I don't waste all my time with online conversations I found it was best to ask a woman to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or about 20 minutes of continuous conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of the digital world too long. It may feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste a lot of time and momentum in the chat room. Going from Date 1 to Date 2
When I was 25, working as"the new guy" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team. One thing that I discovered 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 after that? O that's no good too. Okay how about the week then?" Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" another meeting to the calendar with the option of cancelling if desired. Once I took this technique and applied it to dating, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is a bit contrarian, but it has worked really well: Always request the second date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you're putting yourself out there. You're opening yourself up to strangers and in return you're getting plenty of uncertainty. Nobody likes uncertainty. No one likes to look at their phone every hour to see if you've texted them or not. No one likes to wonder whether you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals don't mind if you do not like them, they only want to know. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with the other person and on your own. If you do not, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle means to do this is by telling them you aren't ready to date at this time. I had a woman tell me and it was the simplest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself also ). I should pause here for one caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they've just met and then they proceed to 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 explained,"Women are like shadows, the more you chase them, the more they run away. The more you run away, the longer they pursue you." If you find someone who you would like to be with really badly, do not scare them away by being obsessive. If they like you too, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively attempt to establish a date, but there is no reason to go on dates every single night of the week. Permit the relationship to have some breathing room. A good way to judge if a relationship is going well is if you find yourself missing the other person and vice versa. There's a great deal of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific evidence for it as well. In several studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the people 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 cell phone records and comparing call patterns and length, the researchers at the university found
that people will 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 simple way and, to my surprise, it worked very well. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in between dates, paradoxically, makes the connection strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for relationship that I found worked pretty well was the following: Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- factor This sequence meant that I would spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for enough time for the relationship to grow and helped me make sure I did not suffocate my dates, which was particularly helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of the post, these relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but based upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your procedure may need to be different than the one above. The important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from dating. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it's imperative to have a system in place to assist you navigate the ups and downs. By engaging in online dating you are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual rollercoaster, it would be foolish to just jump and hold on. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less extreme rides can help you enjoy the ride a whole lot more. As we often discuss on 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 help of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A means of doing that is by going on dates which are not just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your relationship partner behaves, at least you'll have a good time doing something interesting. And, to minimize the risk, you should build both an outreach and dating sequence so you decrease the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you enjoy doing and then fit the dates into those activities. This is also a great way to filter out people that aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money jak poderwać dziewczyne przez internet in the long term.
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 plan being just one of several. But bear in mind, once you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You're never as bad as they say you are, you are also not as good as you think you are." Take every date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on yourself, improving your discussions, your dates, and your connection with other people, 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 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.
