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1. THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to Browse the pains and pitfalls She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Still, no response. It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it wasn't hers either. Apparently, as I found out afterwards, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal program." The meal plan, 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 on until there: all 37 dates to be exact. Of course at first I was outraged. How could women take advantage of me like that? As I matured in my online dating, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are three significant levers in our lives which, if we pull them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation. I learned this first hand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at the same time. I quit the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend who I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and relationship novice. I was scared. I was scarred. 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 small voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you're not. You are going to kick on online dating's ass!" I started to channel my distress into anger, and my anger into determination. I started to approach online dating just 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 learn online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, starting meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so that you can't just get dates, but maybe find the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I must preface that based on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process might need to be different than the below. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment.

2. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I will go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be much more likely to enjoy the procedure. And, if you are diligent, you may 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 perhaps they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Note: You can also hear the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a whole lot of these strategies as we navigate the present struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship trip (and answer listener questions). The absolute most common mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is they don't define their goal clearly. Deep down inside, most of us know whether we're looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario I've discovered is that both women and men that are searching for a meaningful relationship are maximizing 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 assist her with her OKCupid profile. She's a remarkably 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. The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating website. Basically, so as to maximize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photos. Now I want to be clear, there is nothing wrong with girls having"promiscuous" photos online. The issue, in the event of dating, is the format of a dating profile and what you lead with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual cues much faster than written clues. In actuality, they have found that men who are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by without even activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles conceal most information aside from the profile photograph until a user clicks, leading with provocative photos sets a bad first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have hot 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 plenty of classy ways to have interesting 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 photographs were only sending signals that she is looking for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys filling up her inbox. For men, we tend to have the opposite issue. Every man who has done online dating will attest to the struggle of getting a woman to swipe right in their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation. Guys, this is completely your fault.

3. I have seen men spend hours talking about the numbers of their favorite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, and even how financial reports will 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 begin swiping like orangutans until their fingers develop calluses. Guys, 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 lot 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 interest no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for desired outcome, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. For instance, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, every week), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months later that, while it is good to go on a lot of dates and get practice relationship (remember I was off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to be sure I had been dating the right people. Fortunately I realized this before I was the victim of any more"meal plans." 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 work or social, we make up our mind about whether we like the person in less than 1 second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is that the first impression you make is based solely on your profile image. They do not get to hear you talk. They do not get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it is a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there is a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If a person is approaching online dating as an experiment, obviously the first thing to test 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 image wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I was not certain how I could test multiple pictures considering I could only put one as the default option.

4. The response: testing across apps. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the same on every profile, but I set up another profile image on each. I rotated the images across profiles before I could find a large enough sample size and make sure that the platform was not effecting results. Four of my real 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 film that I did not read much into, pic B, was actually a huge turn off for pretty much 100% of women. 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 girls in that photo are really good friends of mineso that I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photos can be your biggest blind spot. To totally test this idea out, I actually 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. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super simple optimization that may look like 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 want to speed this process up, you can actually ask your matches exactly what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a match wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user comments" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she thought was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Now, a part of this error may be my fault, because I took his advice quite literally. I began 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 idea 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 overall self and being yourself. Whether we like to admit it or not, we are never our complete selves except when we're by ourselves.

5. Seth Godin has a great podcast on"signals," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we knowingly choose which signals to give to other men and women. A man wearing a button up top, as an example, isn't necessarily wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he's wealthy. Much like 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 is okay with subsequent 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 whole party flirting and dancing. We made plans to have a lunch date at 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 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. At first I did not even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we started talking. 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 guy. I was that guy. I didn't really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized that we had almost nothing in common. The outfit she'd used as a signal at the party didn't match her personality at all. 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 need to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't want to let them know about how 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. Crafting a good description is perhaps the toughest and personal piece of improving your online dating profile. There's no ideal answer, but there are definitely some incorrect answers. The first step to having a good dating profile description is using a 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 gives some color to your interests and personality.

6. Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Online 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 men messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with. The Headline 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 browse everything in a similar manner. Due to this, I think the headline is possibly the most crucial bit of your description and you need to try different variations until you find one that works for you. After a lot of testing I found that this one worked best for me: "Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active." The goal of the headline is to give a quick snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and brief acts like a stop sign for the person who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their 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 solid content marketer knows, great content is about respecting the medium that you are creating the content for. For instance, if I went into a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she will definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online relationship, however. You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and make sure it is quintessentially you. The Intro Paragraph After that initial curiosity is peaked, you can start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This is not the time to compose a book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this individual, your headline and picture being the first two. The intro paragraph gives a small amount of colour and possibly some talking points that you can talk about in chat (again, ladies, this is extremely important to include if you would like 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 favorite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I am a creative at heart but I really like learning about new and businesses ideas. I'm into photography, design, 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"

7. This paragraph outlines a couple of 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 enjoy 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 like watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95 percent or more of the people in your area enjoy those things too. Rather than attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so you can find common ground, but also things which are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Many people like being outside and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. 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've viewed your content. In dating, you basically want 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 first contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have paired with a guy 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 do not want to appear 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: "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're an interesting person who likes to play outside." Again, as with this information, 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.

8. The beauty 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 initial talking and contact The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation. Having to chat online as your first conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to start a new relationship. For starters, it's a very unnatural method of communicating, since it's been shown 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're serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online relationship, then it's a fantastic 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 will spare you some of the terrible ideas I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let's examine how well you can judge a good opener from a poor one. How's it going?" How was your weekend?" (or any other variation of this sort of question). D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I will let you consider it for a second. (I will add some distance before the reply below. Scroll once you're ready.) Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response

9. Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, then you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst answer.) In order of best to worst, the answers are B, D, 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 modify this to ask about some other part of the profile, like 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 shows that you read. If I can use the book opener to start a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? I'm now 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 began with this opener felt much more natural and went past a few messages. The next best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works almost as well, but it's obviously confined 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 sounds 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 have made contact and the other person has responded, it's time to have a conversation. 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'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 guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a regular conversation just like you want a friend. DO attempt 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 they feel like they're being interviewed. Be certain that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her appearance or body. Irrespective of how well intentioned you are, it will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you are wysyłanie wiadomości na badoo so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You are..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a couple of online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I've tried to be nice and friendly, I have still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much men pretend that they don't care about the dialogue, they do.

10. And they normally have no clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the conversation in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you are tired of discussions feeling like interviews, then make sure to ask the guy about things he is interested in also. It takes two to tango. DON'T make conclusions too soon. In my experience women tend to put a lot more thought in their text messages than men do. If a guy 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 the two parties: Attempt to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a great tool to fulfill someone, but it is just that. It is a tool, it isn't actual dating. My overall recommendation for moving from online to in real life is either one long conversation or two brief conversations. It should never take more than a week to establish a date. So, if you match with each other on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about having a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the apps, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how to set up great dates... Step 4 -- Making a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online portion of dating, I soon realized that securing the date is just half the battle. The second half of this battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house. Where you have your date determines 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 frequently selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. Initially I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. But bear in mind, I was completely new to dating so I was only following what I had seen in movies. Many of them did not go well, but I was not certain why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I should experiment with some other locations. What occurred next was absolutely mind blowing.

11. Almost like flipping a light switch, my dates enhanced tremendously. It was not I was doing anything differently or that I had been choosing better women to go on dates with, it was simply 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 start speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You are not ready to order because you have been talking. The waiter gives you"another moment." You look at the menu making comments about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You talk and talk. You then 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 instantly. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that most 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. Therefore, if we're getting worse at getting in-person conversations, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact you will be able to have an amazing in-person conversation with a complete stranger? 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 above the ground like a giant cat toy. My fingers began to sweat and I knew that I couldn't hold on to the ledge much longer. "O well," I thought,"this will be a great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I expected the sharp shock of the rope on my climbing harness. But there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity. As it happens, my climbing partner had 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 eventually stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both emotionally and physically. My entire dating career made a 180-degree turn when I started taking my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. Some of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most essential elements to a wonderful 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 changing so that you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Activity -- Can we both do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men get this one pretty wrong. It is fun to teach someone something that you are passionate about, but be certain it's not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she isn't scared of heights first. Scalability -- Would the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how can we end the date earlier?

12. Using 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 are thinking,"This guy took women out to the very same places like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to order, but, depending on interests, I would substitute unique activities to keep the dates interesting. This was simply a template which simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting on my mind. Happy brain = Happy dates. So here is my perfect dating arrangement: 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 everyone has different food tastes. Then (if you're a man ) you've got to account for cost of meals. Off the grid solves this since there are over 20 distinct types of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it 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 vary based on interests but I had a few go-tos, specifically: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: These actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, action, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between talking and activity. 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. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a woman had made it #3, it meant I actually 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 event so we could both dress nicely for that special night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a girl didn't 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 night. 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 ideas on what to look for on each date as you try 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 certain that you can reliably visit this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Ensure you are able to schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book 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 will 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 in which you alternate between doing something and speaking. Going on a 10 mile run is great for exercise, but it does not allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a

13. movie theater has similar limits. Date #3: You both confirmed you enjoy each other, it's time to bring it to another level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it should confirm whether or not you want to keep on seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you select gives new intimacy to the relationship. By way of example, if I didn't visit the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right maybe one of the most crucial pieces of the internet dating mystery that I see guys screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the man is the one forcing the relationship 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? 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 will 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's quite easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message , she messages you, back and forth, back and forth. In order to make sure that I don't waste all my time with online conversations I found that it was best to ask a girl to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or about 20 minutes of continuous conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of this virtual 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 once I was 25, working as"the new man" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff. Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would use their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar balances. One thing I discovered is that each and every time they were finishing a call they would ask,"okay so what does your calendar look like for next week? Busy? Okay how about the week then? O that's no good too. Okay how about the week after that?" Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would always insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting into the calendar with the option of cancelling if desired. Once I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is a bit contrarian, but it has worked really well: Always ask for 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're getting a lot of uncertainty. Nobody likes uncertainty. No one likes to check their phone every hour to determine if you've texted them or not. Nobody likes to wonder whether you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals do not mind if you do not like them, they just want to

14. know. So my suggestion is to stop playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you do not, have the respect to let them know you don't. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them that you are not 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 utilized it later myself also ). I must pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not always. Nobody likes to be smothered or chased constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they have just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you chase them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the more they chase you." If you find someone who you would like to be with really badly, don't frighten them away by being obsessive. If they like you as well, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively attempt 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 if a relationship is going well is if you find yourself missing the other person and vice versa. There is a great deal of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific evidence for it also. In a number of studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the people in that connection have been forced apart. What is interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same holds 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 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 between dates, ironically, 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 -- variable This arrangement meant that I'd spread out the first 3 dates across a one month period. This allowed for enough time for the connection to grow and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was especially helpful when I was really into them.

15. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of this post, these dating approaches helped me tremendously, but depending upon your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process might need to be different than the one above. The important takeaway here is to pull back the emotions that come out of relationship. In actuality, because relationship is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it's vital to have a system set up 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 hop on and continue. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less extreme rides can help you enjoy the ride a good deal more. 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 frequently discuss on 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 minimize your chance of catastrophic failure. A means of doing that is by going on dates which are not just sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your dating partner behaves, at least you'll have a good time doing something interesting. And, to decrease the risk, you should build both an outreach and relationship sequence so that you reduce the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Find a few activities you like 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. Of course, regardless of how well I did all of the above things, I still had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal plan being just one of several. Dating is a rollercoaster that will scare you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. But 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 yourself, improving your discussions, your dates, and your relationship with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. Until then, strap in and enjoy the ride. If you enjoyed this post, I would super love if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more folks can find it. And, if you've any more questions about relationship, listen to our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the show.