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1. 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. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the bill. Still, no response. 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 called"the meal program." The meal plan, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when girls go on dates with guys merely to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she definitely fell into. When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all of the dates I had gone on until that point: all 37 dates to be precise. Of course at first I was outraged. How could women take advantage of me like this? As I matured in my internet dating, however, I understood that this was actually a response for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are three major 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 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 over 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend that I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating novice. 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 small voice in my head said,"you are going to give up? No, no you are not. You're 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 master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so you can not just get dates, but maybe discover the love of your life (with minimal stress).

2. Now, before I get into it, I should preface that based on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process may have to be different than the below. However, the important takeaway here is to pull back the feelings that come from relationship 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'll be more likely to enjoy the procedure. 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 decades and we have moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that crazy, but perhaps they are, I will leave it for you to judge. Notice: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a lot of these approaches as we browse the current struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship journey (and answer listener questions). The complete most common mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is they don't define their target clearly. Deep down inside, most of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've found is that both women and men that are looking for a meaningful relationship are maximizing their dating for fun instead. I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with internet dating, she asked me to help her with her OKCupid profile. She's an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' really beautiful, a true 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she'd need my help. The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating site. Basically, in order to maximize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photographs. 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 arrangement of a relationship and what you lead with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual clues 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 activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles conceal most information other than the profile photo 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 in your online dating profile is sending signals that may be attracting the wrong type of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to have intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain. Online dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was trying to find a relationship, her photographs were only sending signals that she's looking for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys filling up her inbox. Every guy who has done online dating will attest to the battle of getting a woman to swipe right in their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation.

3. Guys, this is completely your own 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, as well as how financial reports will effect the team's chances. But, when it comes to online dating, men have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans till their palms develop calluses. Men, 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 outcome, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of example, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, every week), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I only realized months later that, while it is great 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 folks. Luckily I realized this before I had been the victim of any more"meal programs " STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures 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 our mind up 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 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 1 picture and there's a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If one is coming online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to test is your 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 photos. One hundred, and I mean 100% of them said that my first picture wasn't my best.

4. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't certain 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, along with the dreaded Tindr. I retained my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I put up a different profile image on each. I rotated the images across profiles until I could get 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 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% 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 out this, because the two women in that photo are actually good friends of mineso that I never would have made this connection. Sometimes your photos can be your biggest blind spot. To completely test out this idea, I really enrolled a few friends (both men and women) into the experiment and had them change their profile pictures. This is a super easy optimization that may look to be a pain now, but it is going to 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 would like to speed this process up, you can really ask your games exactly what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user comments" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photos she believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I wasn't getting jobs.) Now, a part of the error might be my fault, because I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my mind, 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 over 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're never our complete selves except when we are by ourselves. Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we

5. actively choose which signals to give to other people. A man wearing a button up top, as an example, isn't necessarily 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 indicating she doesn't wish to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is signaling that he's okay with following convention. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my attention. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked really cute. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the whole party flirting and dancing. We made plans to have a lunch date in the college cafeteria later 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 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'd 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 we had almost nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a signal at the party did not match her personality at all. We ended the date cordially and moved on. Signals matter. Choosing your signs is great, but picking false signals not so much. You don't want to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You need to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you do not need to let them know about how you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You want to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you don't want to tell them about how you ran over your cat. Crafting a good description is perhaps the most difficult and personal bit of improving your online dating profile. There is absolutely no right answer, but there are some incorrect answers. The first step to getting a great dating profile description is using a very 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 personality. 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 that you two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you don't want guys messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with.

6. The Headline Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating programs the way they surf social media sites: fast and without much thought. It might be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to browse everything in a similar way. Due to this, I think the headline is possibly the most crucial piece of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that works for you. After a lot of testing I found that this one worked best for me: The objective of the headline is to provide a fast snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and brief functions 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 which 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. By way of instance, 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 a single sentence, and be certain it is quintessentially you. The Intro Paragraph Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can begin paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This isn't the time to write a book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your headline and picture being the first two. The intro paragraph provides a small amount of color and perhaps some talking points that you can talk about in chat (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to add if you would like to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph that worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as possible! Some of my favorite items are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I really like learning about businesses and new ideas. I am 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 hobbies and activities I enjoy and 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 prevent the generic activities that could apply to pretty much anyone. I can't 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'm positive that there are people in the world who don't like watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95 percent or more of the folks in your area enjoy those things too. As opposed to attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to discover common ground, but also things that jak rozpocząć rozmowę z dziewczyną are uniquely you. For example in my description above: -- Most people like being outdoors and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about businesses or Tim Ferriss. This is optional, even though 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. In relationship, you essentially need the individual 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. I've heard countless stories of women who have paired with a man who they really enjoy, but the guy 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. The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you. But, obviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have an individual section that says: "You should message me if..." ← This is OkCupid's sub-heading but you can just manually add it on other online dating apps too. My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outdoors." Again, as with this advice, when in doubt just check 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 opportunities to make a relationship, as you would if you went to a bar for example, you have thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making initial talking and contact where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation. Having to talk online as your first conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship.

8. For one thing, it's a really unnatural way of communicating, because it's been proven that we receive 55 percent 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 pretty unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online dating, then it's a good idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the opportunity to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply wouldn't have been able to see if I didn't 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 fantastic opener from a bad one. For bonus points, try to order them from most effective to least effective. What is it going?" B) "Hey! How was your weekend?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of this sort of question). D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I'll allow you to consider it for a second. (I'll add some space before the reply below. Scroll as soon as you're ready.) Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the response

9. Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you chose 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 any conversation starter. While I found that the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that obviously depends if they have put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of their profile, such as a movie or a location in their pictures. The reason why I guess that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you actually read their profile and b) it indicates 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 am 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 a lot more natural and went past a few messages. The next best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works nearly as well, but it is obviously limited 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 too. I suspect it's because it seems too much like I am going to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think about something interesting. The Do's & Don'ts of Online Conversation Now that you'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 suggestions. First, some online dating tips for men: DON'T attempt to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that sound 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 like you would with a friend. DO try to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own thoughts. One of the most common complaints I have heard from female friends is they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her appearance or body. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it'll be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you are so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You are..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a couple of online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I've tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received quite

10. 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 are doing, so offer them some help and direct the dialogue in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you're tired of conversations feeling such as interviews, then make sure to ask the man about things he's interested in as well. It takes two to tango. DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to place a lot more thought into their text messages than men do. If a man says something that looks weird or strange, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't read too much into it, chances are he did not either. Now a suggestion for the two parties: Attempt to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a excellent tool to meet someone, but it is just that. It's a tool, it isn't actual dating. My general recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two short conversations. It should never take more than a week to set up 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 programs, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a lot more fun too if you know how to set up good dates... Step 4 -- Making a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online part of dating, I soon realized that procuring the date is only half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house. As they say in real estate: location, location, location. Where you have your date determines about 50--70 percent of the outcome of the date. But first a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it is actually at the most frequently selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. At first I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But remember, I was completely new to relationship so I was just following what I'd seen in movies. Many of them didn't go well, but I was not certain why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and expensive) dates, I decided that I need to experiment with some other locations. What occurred next was totally mind blowing. 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 believe dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this:

11. You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a table. You start speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You choose beverages. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You are not ready to order because you've been talking. The waiter provides you"another minute." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You talk and talk. You then run out of things to talk about. What should you do next? You need to keep talking. A dinner date provides no options. It's a singular task that depends on you connecting with a complete stranger almost instantly. This problem is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at getting in-person discussions. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in- person communication skills. Therefore, if we're getting worse at getting in-person conversations, why would you bet your whole love life on the fact that you'll be able to have an remarkable in-person conversation with a complete stranger? I had been holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet above the ground like a giant cat toy. My fingers started to sweat and I knew that I couldn't hold on to the ledge much longer. "O well," I thought,"this will be a good bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp shock of the rope in my climbing harness. But there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity. As it turns out, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't catch the rope until I had fallen 15 ft to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Finally the rope eventually stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both physically and emotionally. "Okay this date might be a little too exciting," I thought. My whole dating profession made a 180-degree turn once I started taking my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. Some of these activities worked better than others. But I found out that the most crucial 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 scenery is changing so you can grab 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 guys get this one fairly wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you're passionate about, but make certain it's not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she is not scared of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how do we end the date earlier? Using these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence which nearly doubled the amount of successful dates I went on.

12. Now I know what you're thinking,"This guy took women out to the same areas like it was some kind of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to order, but, depending on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates interesting. This was simply a template which simplified my decisions and reduced the cognitive load I was putting on my mind. So here is my perfect 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 problems of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food preferences. Then (if you are a man ) you have to account for cost of meals. Off the grid accomplishes this since there are over 20 different kinds of (affordable) cuisine. Additionally, it allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. Feel like going all out? Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves. Date #2 -- Variable: This date could change based on interests but I had a couple of go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the shore. Why I like it: These actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between talking and activity. If we did a picnic on the beach, we could go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach. Why I like it: This date was particularly important because if a girl had made it #3, it meant I actually liked her. It also meant we might take the connection to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, also it was a semi-formal event so we could both dress nicely for that particular night. This was also my secret test because if a woman did not like facts and science it probably wouldn't work out between us anyway. 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 all 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 sequence. Here are a few ideas on what to look for on every date as you attempt to make your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for great conversation. Make sure that you can reliably go to this place, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Make sure you are able to 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 have both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you will both like that isn't too difficult. Avoid intimidating actions 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 fantastic for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limits. Date #3: You both confirmed you enjoy each other, it's time to take it to another level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It should be romantic, it should test how compatible you both really are, and it should confirm whether you want to continue 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 provides new intimacy to the

13. connection. By way of example, if I didn't visit the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe among the most important pieces of the online dating puzzle that I see men screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the guy is the one forcing the dating sequence (which is not necessarily the case) there are some questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you sleep together? Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending on your context, your culture, and your comfort your answers may vary. The important thing is to actually think about timing, rather than leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It's very easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message , 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 that it was best to ask a woman to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or roughly 20 minutes of constant conversation. Again, try not to linger at the safe-space of the digital world too long. It might 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 once I was 25, functioning as"the new guy" in a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team. Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would use their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar accounts. One thing that I discovered is that every time they were ending 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?" No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting to the calendar with the choice of cancelling if needed. Once I took this technique and applied it to dating, it led to a 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 are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting a lot of uncertainty. No one likes uncertainty. No one likes to look at their phone every hour to determine if you've texted them or not. No one likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals don't mind if you do not like them, they only want to know. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you 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 ready to date at this time. I had a girl tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself too). I should pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly.

14. 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 constantly text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. He told me,"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 find someone who you would like to be with really badly, don't frighten them away by being obsessive. If they like you too, there is no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively try to set up 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 is a lot 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 found 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 in the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same holds true in humans. By data mining mobile phone records and comparing call patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that people will also invest more effort into relationships when there is a probability of that relationship weakening. I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively simple 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 dating I found worked fairly 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 1 month period. This allowed for enough time for the relationship to mature and helped me make sure I did not suffocate my dates, which was especially helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of this post, these dating approaches helped me tremendously, but based on your

15. context, your culture, and your own 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 dating. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it is imperative 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 hold on. Making certain you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less extreme rides will help you enjoy the ride a good deal 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 frequently discuss on the podcast, even when you let go of expectations and only create your goal just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Like the help of world wide 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 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 fun. And, to decrease the risk, you should build both an outreach and dating sequence so that you decrease the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you like doing and then fit the dates into these activities. This is also a wonderful 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, regardless of how well I did all of the above items, I 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 bear in mind, once you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You're not as bad as they say you are, you're also not as good as you think you are." Take every date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you constantly work on your own, improving your discussions, your dates, and your connection with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. If you enjoyed this post, I'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more folks can discover it. And, if you have any more questions about dating, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.