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However, when it comes to online dating, guys have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans until their palms develop calluses.
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She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the invoice. 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 was not my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I found out afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal plan." The meal plan, if you're not familiar with it, is when girls go on dates with guys just to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she definitely fell into. When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all of the dates I had gone until that point: 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 relationship, however, I realized that this was really a reaction for what men do to women. There are 3 major levers in our lives which, if we pull on them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships can be the difference between depression and elation. I learned this firsthand because in the last 5 years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at once. I stopped the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year relationship with my girlfriend who I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating newcomer. I was scarred. 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're not. You are going to kick on online dating's ass!" I started to channel my misery into anger, and my anger into determination. I started to approach online dating like one big experiment. I began creating what I predicted,"The Process." In this blog post I'll take you through the whole process I chose to master online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, beginning meaningful conversations, as well as crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so that you can't only get dates, but maybe discover 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 below. 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'm going to go meet interesting people and do interesting things," you'll
be more likely to enjoy the procedure. And, if you are diligent, you might end up finding that special person. UPDATE: As of 2019 I have been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 years and we've moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that mad, but maybe they are, I will leave it for you to judge. Note: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a whole lot of these approaches as we browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own dating journey (and answer listener questions). The absolute most frequent mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that 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 found is that both women and men who 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 assist her with her OKCupid profile. She's a remarkably smart and capable woman and she's' quite 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 receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photographs. Now I would like to be clear, there is nothing wrong with girls having"promiscuous" pictures online. The issue, in the event of dating, is the format of a relationship and what you lead with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual cues much faster than written hints. In actuality, they have 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 photographs sets a bad first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have hot photos up in your instagram, leading together on your online dating profile is sending signals that may be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are plenty of classy ways to possess intriguing pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Online dating pictures can be both intriguing and classy So, although Maddy was attempting to locate a relationship, her photos were only sending signals that she's searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag men filling up her inbox. For men, we tend to have the opposite issue. Every guy who has done online dating will testify to the struggle of getting a girl to swipe directly on their profile, let alone to get them to participate in a conversation. Men, this is entirely your fault. I have seen men spend hours talking about the statistics of their favorite 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, guys have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start 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 are trying to attain. Are you trying to date a great deal of people? Or are you trying to find a meaningful relationship? And"both" isn't an answer. "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will interest no one." The techniques I will outline below work for desired result, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. By way of instance, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a great deal of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months after that, while it is great to go on a lot of dates and get practice dating (remember I was off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to make sure I was dating the perfect folks. Luckily I realized this before I was the victim of some 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 projected 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 the first impression you make is based solely on your profile image. They don't get to hear you speak. They do not get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it's a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there's a 99% chance it is the wrong one. If a person is coming online dating as an experiment, obviously the first thing to check is your profile picture. I started this process in a very unscientific way... One hundred, and I mean 100% of them said that my first picture was not my best. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't sure how I could test multiple pictures considering that I could only put one as the default option. The answer: testing across apps.
I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, along with the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the same on each profile, but I set up a different profile image on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles until I could find a large enough sample size and make certain that the platform wasn't effecting results. Four of my actual dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least games. Interestingly enough, a film I did not read into, pic B, was actually 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 girls in that photo are really good friends of mine, so I never would have made this connection. Sometimes your photographs can be your greatest blind spot. To totally test out this idea, I really enrolled a few friends (both men and women) to 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 easy optimization that may seem to be a pain now, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20% of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them often. Top Tip: If you would like to speed up this process, you can really ask your games what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photos she thought was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Now, part of this 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 behave how I wished to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. With no filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I've come to understand 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 signs to give to other people. A guy wearing a button up shirt, for example, is not always
wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the sign that he is wealthy. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she does not want to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is indicating that he's okay with subsequent convention. Signals matter. In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my eye. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the entire party dancing and flirting. We made plans to have a lunch date in the college cafeteria after that week. I got to the cafeteria early and chose to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a woman walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed all in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace around her neck. Initially I didn't even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we began talking. I was that man. I did not care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized we had almost nothing in common. The outfit she'd used as a sign at the party did not match her personality in any way. We finished the date cordially and moved on. Choosing your signals is great, but choosing false signals not so much. The same goes for your online dating profile description. You do not need to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You want to tell them about how you collect classic records, you don't want to tell them about how you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You need 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. First impressions matter. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the most difficult and personal piece of improving your online dating profile. There's absolutely no right answer, but there are some wrong answers. The first step to getting a great dating profile description is using a clear structure. I break down a relationship profile description into 3 components: Headline: A brief sentence someone can read quickly.
Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that provides some colour to your interests and character. Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Internet dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something that you can talk about. Ladies this is especially true for you. If you don't want men 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: fast and without much thought. It might be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar way. Because of this, I think the headline is perhaps the most crucial bit of your description and you need to try different variations until you find one that works 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 fast snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that's authentic, interesting, and short functions like a stop sign for the person who is scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. Chances are they'll laugh at the question. As any good content marketer knows, great content is all about respecting the medium that you're creating the content for. For example, if I went up to a woman in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she'll definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online dating, 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. After that initial curiosity is peaked, you can 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 color and possibly some talking points that you can discuss in conversation (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 outdoors as much as possible! Some of my favorite items 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 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 couple of 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 like hanging out with friends, watching movies, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I'm positive there are people on earth who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of the people in your area enjoy those things too. As opposed to attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so you can discover common ground, but also things that are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Many people like being outdoors and photography. -- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball. -- But very few people like learning about companies 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've viewed your content. In dating, you basically want the individual to message you. This sounds like a no brainer, but I've found that a whole lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they eventually become discouraged from making first contact. I have heard countless stories of girls who have paired with a man who they really enjoy, but the man never messages them. When I ask them why they don't message first, it is said that they don't know what to say or they don't want to appear desperate. Butobviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have an individual section that states: Again, as with this information, when in doubt just check it out. Try using a call to action and see if your conversations improve. If they don't, just delete it. The attractiveness of dating apps is that rather than having 1--5 opportunities to make a connection, as you would if you went to a bar for example, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making initial contact and chatting where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it has to do with the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a massive limitation when you are trying to start a new relationship. For starters, it is a very unnatural method of communicating, since it's been shown that we receive 55 percent of
our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communicating. It is logical then that when you take millions of people and put them in an unnatural communication environment you get some pretty unnatural conversations. While it might 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 fantastic 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 determine if I did not have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I'll spare you some of the terrible thoughts I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let us test how well you can judge a fantastic opener from a poor one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? How's it going?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of the sort of question). D) "Hey! How did you like X book?" (according to a book they listed in their profile) I'll allow you to 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 Scroll for the response Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst response.) 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 the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that clearly depends if they've put a book in their profile. You can alter this to ask about some other part of the profile, such as a picture or a location in their own pictures. The reason 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 usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? (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 second best option,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works nearly as well, but it is obviously confined to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be strange if you used this on a Friday). An alternate version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it's because it sounds too much like I am going to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think of 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 dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating suggestions for guys: 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 noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is I know that the man is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation just like you want a friend. DO attempt to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own thoughts. Among the most common complaints I've heard from female friends is they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also discuss things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her body or appearance. 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're..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help guide the conversation. Even when I've tried to be friendly and nice, I have still received quite curt or standoff-ish responses. No matter how much guys pretend they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they normally have no clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and direct the conversation in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you are tired of discussions feeling like interviews, then make sure to ask the man about things he's interested in also. It takes two to tango. DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women have a tendency to place a good deal more thought into their text messages than guys do. If a man says something that looks 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 conversation from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a great tool to meet someone, but it is just that. It is a tool, it isn't actual dating. My general recommendation for moving from online to in real life is either one long conversation or two 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 programs, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how to set up good dates... Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will make you 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 the date goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your residence. In which you have your date decides about 50--70% of the results of the date. But first a question... Where is the worst place to have a date? As it happens, it's actually at the most frequently selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. Initially I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But bear in mind, I was completely new to relationship so I was just following what I'd seen in movies. Many of them did not go well, but I was not sure why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and expensive) dates, I determined that I need to experiment with several other locations. What occurred next was totally mind blowing. It wasn't 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 don't work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger outside a restaurant. You sit down at a table. You begin talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You are not ready to order since you have been talking. The waiter provides you"another minute." You look at the menu making remarks about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You continue talking. You then run out of things to discuss. What do you do next? There are no exits, nothing around to comment on, nothing to see or do. You have to keep talking. Talk... Talk... Talk! A dinner date provides no options. It is a singular task that depends on you connecting with a complete stranger almost immediately. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that most of us are getting worse at having in-person discussions. Spending
so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in-house communication abilities. So, if we are getting worse at having in-person discussions, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact you will be able to have an remarkable in-person conversation with a complete stranger? 3 Rules for Creating Great Dates I never thought that relationship could be a life-or-death action, but one day changed all that. I was holding on to a small ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet above the ground 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 expected the sharp jolt of the rope in my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity. As it turns out, my jak zagadać na badoo climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope just as I'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't grab the rope until I had dropped 15 feet to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a massive jolt, both emotionally and physically. "Okay this date may be a little too exciting," I thought. My whole dating career made a 180-degree turn when I began taking my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I'd take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between. A number of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most essential elements to a wonderful date spot 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 you can pick up new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Activity -- Can we do the activity reasonably well? I've seen guys get this one pretty wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you are passionate about, but make certain it's not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she is not afraid of heights first. Scalability -- Would the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! No chemistry? No problem, how do we end the date earlier?
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 sequence, but, based on interests, I'd substitute unique activities to keep the dates interesting. This was simply a template that simplified my decisions and reduced the cognitive load I was putting on my brain. So here is my ideal dating arrangement: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks each Friday from 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 are a guy) you have to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this since there are over 20 distinct types of (affordable) cuisine. It also lets you walk around, people watch, and get drinks. It is possible to extend the date by getting dessert or listening to the live bands. Date #2 -- Variable: This date could vary based on interests but I had a couple of go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: What these actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, grab cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between activity and talking. If we did a picnic on the 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 to date #3, it meant I really liked her. Additionally, it meant we might take the connection to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, also it was a semi-formal occasion so we can both dress well for that particular night. This was also my secret test because if a woman didn't like science and facts it likely would not work out between us anyway. As an additional 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 merely 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 each date as you attempt to create your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for great conversation. Be sure that you can reliably go to 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 not to book someone's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You have broken the ice and you've both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you'll both like that is not too difficult. 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 does not allow for conversation. Watching a movie at a movie theater has similar limitations. Date #3: You both confirmed you like each other, it is time to bring it to the next level. Try to make this date a bit
more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it should confirm whether you want to continue seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you select gives new intimacy to the connection. By way of instance, if I did not go to the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right Perhaps among the most crucial pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the guy is the one driving the relationship sequence (which isn't necessarily the case) there are a few questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? How long should you wait between date 1 and date 2? When should you go for the kiss? Here I'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 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 you, back and forth, forth and back. To be able to make sure I do not waste all my time with online conversations I found it was best to ask a girl 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 this virtual world too long. It may feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste plenty 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 I noticed is that each and 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" another meeting to the calendar with the option of cancelling if needed. Once I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it has worked really well: Always request the next date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you're putting yourself out there. You are opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting plenty of uncertainty. Nobody likes uncertainty. No one likes to check their phone every hour to see if you've texted them or not. Nobody likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals do not mind if you don't like them, they just want to know. So my suggestion is to stop playing games, both with the other person and with yourself. If you don't, 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 and it was the simplest let down I've ever experienced and utilized it later myself too). I must pause here for one 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've just met and then they proceed to text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. He explained,"Women are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the longer they pursue you." If you discover someone who you would like to be with really poorly, don't scare them away by being fanatical. If they like you as well, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively try to establish a date, but there's no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week. Allow the relationship to have some breathing room. A good way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you find yourself missing the other person and vice versa. There is a lot of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there's even scientific proof for it also. In several studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals in that connection have been forced apart. What's 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 telephone patterns and length, the researchers at the university found that people may also invest more effort into relationships if there is a risk of that connection weakening. I tried applying this research to relationship in a relatively simple way and, to my surprise, it worked nicely. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in between dates, paradoxically, makes the relationship strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for dating that 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 -- factor This arrangement meant that I'd spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship to grow and helped me make sure I 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 context, your culture, and your own comfort, your procedure may have to be different than the one above. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it's imperative to have a system in place that will assist you navigate the ups and downs. By engaging in online dating you are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on a real rollercoaster, it would be foolish to just hop on and hold on. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less intense rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a whole lot more. Perhaps the single most important thing to keep in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we frequently discuss on the podcast, 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. Similar to the help of world wide investors, you want to diversify your portfolio and minimize your chance of catastrophic failure. A means of doing that is by going on dates that are not only sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your relationship partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something interesting. And, to decrease the risk, you should build both an outreach and dating sequence so you decrease 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 run. 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. Dating is a rollercoaster that will frighten you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. But bear in mind, when you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You are never 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 yourself, improving your discussions, your dates, and your connection with other people, 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 to ensure that more folks can find it. And, if you have any more questions about dating, listen to our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the show.
