The 17 Most Misunderstood Facts About tinder jak zacząć rozmowę

1. THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to navigate the pains and pitfalls She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Still, no response. At that moment I imagined picking up the bill and slapping her across the face with it as hard as I could. It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I discovered afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal program." The meal program, if you're not familiar 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 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 that point: all 37 dates to be precise. Of course at first I was outraged. How could women take advantage of me like this? Especially since I was being so vulnerable by putting myself out there to ask them out in the first place. As I matured in my internet dating, however, I understood that this was actually a reaction for what men do to women. There are three significant levers in our lives which, if we pull them properly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships can be 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 quit the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend who I thought I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating novice. I was scared. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated and a little voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you're 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 like one big experiment. I started creating what I called,"The Process." In this blog post I will take you through the whole process I took 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 you can not only get dates, but possibly find the love of your life (with minimal stress). Now, before I get into it, I should preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process may need to be different than the below. But, the important takeaway here is to pull back the feelings that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment.

2. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be much more inclined to enjoy the procedure. And, if you're diligent, you may end up finding that special person. UPDATE: As of 2019 I have been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 years and we have moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that mad, but perhaps they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Notice: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a lot of these strategies as we navigate the current struggles and embarrassments of his own dating 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 searching for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've discovered is that both men and women who are searching for a meaningful relationship are optimizing their relationship for fun instead. I remember how one day Find more information when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with internet dating, she asked me to assist her with her OKCupid profile. She is an incredibly 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. In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem. Basically, in order to optimize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photographs. Now I want to be clear, there's nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" photos online. The problem, in the case of dating, is the arrangement of a dating profile and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual cues much faster than written hints. In actuality, they've 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 other than the profile photograph until a user clicks, leading with provocative photos sets a poor first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have sexy photos up on your instagram, leading with them in your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to possess interesting pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain. Online dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was attempting to find a relationship, her photographs were 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 guy who has done online dating will testify to the battle of getting a girl to swipe right in their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation.

3. Guys, this is entirely your own fault. I have seen men spend hours talking about the statistics 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, guys have a tendency to slap a few pictures in their profile and then begin swiping like orangutans till their fingers 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 great deal 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 appeal to no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for either desired result, but the choices you make will vastly affect your"conversion" rate. For example, the first time I mastered everything in this process, I started going on a great deal of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I only realized months later that, while it's great 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 make sure I had been dating the perfect people. Fortunately I realized this before I had been the victim of some more"meal programs ." STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile images and descriptions First impressions matter. According to a study from Princeton, it's projected that in any relationship, whether its work or social, we make up our mind about if 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 speak. They do not get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it is a thing). All you get is one 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... 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 picture wasn't my best.

4. It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't certain how I could test numerous pictures considering that I could only put one as the default. The answer: testing across apps. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr. I kept my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I set up a different profile picture on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles until I could get a big enough sample size and make certain that the platform was not 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 matches. Interestingly enough, a picture I didn't read much into, pic B, was actually a massive turn off for pretty much 100 percent of women. When I asked them why, without skipping a beat they replied,"it makes you look like a player." I was shocked when I found out this, because the two girls in that photo are really good friends of mineso that I never would have made this connection. Sometimes your photographs can be your biggest blind spot. To completely test out this idea, I actually enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) to the experiment and had them change out their profile pictures. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 2 This is a super simple optimization that may look like a pain today, but it is going to save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20% of work which 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 matches what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a game was not 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 was not getting jobs.) Now, part of the error might be my fault, because I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wished to act. This turned out to be a horrible idea. With no filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Now that I've matured a bit, I have come to 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.

5. Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we knowingly choose which signals to give to other men and women. A guy wearing a button up shirt, as an example, isn't always wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the signal that he's wealthy. Much like someone who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is indicating she does not wish to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is indicating that he is okay with subsequent convention. In college I met a woman 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 instantly hit off. We spent the whole party flirting and dancing. We made plans to have a lunch date in the college cafeteria after that week. I got to the cafeteria early and decided 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. 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 began 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 sign at the party did not match her personality at all. We ended the date cordially and proceeded on. Signals matter. Choosing your signs is good, but choosing 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 classic records, you do not need to tell them about how you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You want to tell them about the way you volunteer at the animal shelter, you don't want to let them know about how you ran over your cat. First impressions matter. Crafting a good description is perhaps the most difficult and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There's absolutely no right answer, but there are some incorrect answers. The first step to having a great dating profile description is having a very clear structure. I break down a relationship profile description into 3 components: Headline: A short sentence someone can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that provides some color to your interests and personality. Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Online dating is inherently awkward, so help another

6. person by letting them know something you two can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you do not want guys messaging you"hello" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to start the conversation with. Unfortunately, people tend to surf internet dating programs 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 manner. Due to this, I think the headline is perhaps the most crucial bit of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that is right for you. After a lot of testing I 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 individual who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. If you ask any top-performing marketer,"how do I create content that will be successful?" It is likely that they'll laugh at the question. As any good content marketer knows, great content is all about respecting the medium that you are producing the content for. By way of example, if I went into a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, energetic," she'll definitely get up and leave. The opposite is true for online dating, however. You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and be certain it is quintessentially you. 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 compose a novel 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 perhaps 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 which worked best for me was: "I love being outdoors as much as possible! Some of my favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I am a creative at heart but I really like learning about businesses and new 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 fantastic book at Promenade cafe." This paragraph outlines a few basic activities and hobbies I enjoy as well as some non-standard things like business, design, and Tim Ferriss that might peak curiosity. The main thing to remember about this section is to avoid the generic activities that could apply to pretty much

7. anyone. I can not tell you how many profiles I've seen that list things like: "I enjoy hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I'm sure there are people on earth who don't like watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of those 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 which are uniquely you. For example 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 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've viewed your content. In relationship, you essentially want the individual to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I've found that a lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they finally become discouraged from making initial contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have matched with a man who they really enjoy, but the guy 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 seem desperate. Butobviously you don't want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have a single 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. Again, as with all this information, when in doubt just test it out. Try having a call to action and see whether your conversations improve. If they don't, just delete it. The beauty of dating programs is that instead of 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 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 are trying to begin a new relationship. For one thing, it's a very 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.

8. It makes sense then that when you take countless people and put them in a supernatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it might be fun to play around with bizarre conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online relationship, then it's a fantastic idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the opportunity to start testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I just wouldn't have been able to see if I did not have a high match rate. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I'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 good opener from a bad one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? What is it going?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or any other variation of this sort of question). (according to a book they listed in their profile) I'll let you consider it for a second. (I'll add some distance before the reply below. Scroll as soon as you're ready.) Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer Scroll for the answer And the answer is... If you guessed D, then you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst response.) In order of best to worst, the replies are B, D, A, C (D being best). There are pluses and minuses to any conversation starter. While I found the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X novel," that obviously depends if they've put a book in their profile. You can alter this to ask about some other part of their profile, like a movie or a location in their pictures. The reason why I suspect that the book one works best though is because a) it shows you actually read their profile

9. and b) it indicates that you read. If I may use the book opener to start a conversation I usually also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? (This is the way 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 moved past a few messages. The second best choice,"Hey! Works nearly as well, but it is obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). An alternative version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly as well. 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've made contact and another person has responded, it is time to have a dialogue. Every dialog changes, but there are a few guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating suggestions for men: DON'T attempt to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that 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 try to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own ideas. 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 discuss 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 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've still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much men pretend that they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they usually have no 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 are tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then be certain 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 put a good deal more thought into their text messages than men 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 did not either. Now a proposal for the two parties: Try to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively fast. Online dating is a excellent tool to fulfill someone, but it is just that. It's a tool, it is not actual dating.

10. My general recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two brief conversations. It should never take more than a week to set up a date. So, if you match with each other on a Monday, you should definitely have started 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 make you smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online part of relationship, I soon realized that securing 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. Where you have your date decides about 50--70 percent of the outcome of the date. But a question... Where's the worst place to have a date? As it happens, it's actually at the most commonly selected dating location: A sit-down restaurant. Initially I was taking all of my dates to restaurants for dinner. Boring, I know. But remember, I was totally new to dating so I was only following what I had seen in movies. Most of them did not go well, but I wasn't certain why. After a dozen or so awkward (and expensive) dates, I decided that I need to experiment with several other locations. What happened next was totally mind blowing. Almost like flipping a light switch, my dates enhanced tremendously. It was not that I was doing anything differently or that I had been choosing better girls to go on dates with, it was merely a matter of context. Here's why I believe dinner dates do not work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger outside a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a table. You start talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again for your food order. You are not ready to order since you've 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 order food. You talk and talk. You then run out of things to discuss. What do you do next? You need 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 many of us are getting worse at getting in-person discussions. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in- person communication skills. So, if we're getting worse at having in-person conversations, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact

11. that you'll be able to have an amazing 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 had been holding on to a small ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet over the ground like a giant cat toy. 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 great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp shock 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 climbing partner had momentarily 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 ft to what I was sure was my forthcoming death. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally. My whole dating career made a 180-degree turn once I began carrying 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. But I found out that the most crucial elements to a wonderful date place could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we have to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your landscape is changing so that you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!" Activity -- Can we both do the action 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 sure it's not too hard. Taking a woman rock climbing? Make sure she is not afraid of heights first. Scalability -- Can the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a terrific time? Great! Let's go get dessert! No chemistry? No problem, how can we end the date earlier? With these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence which nearly doubled the number of successful dates I went on. I know what you're thinking,"This man took women out to the same places like it was some kind of regimented assembly line?" No. This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I would substitute different activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was simply a template that simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting on my mind. So here is my ideal dating arrangement: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks every Friday from the San Francisco bay.

12. 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 guy) you've got to account for cost of meals. Off the grid solves this because there are over 20 different types of (affordable) cuisine. It also lets you walk around, people watch, and get drinks. Feel like going all out? Date #2 -- Variable: This date could vary based on interests but I had a few go-tos, namely: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach. Why I like it: What these activities had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between activity and talking. If we did a picnic on the beach, we can go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach. Date #3 -- Cal Academy Adult Night: An adult-only night in the Cal Academy of Sciences where you can grab drinks and look at exhibits. Why I like it: This date was especially important because if a woman had made it to date #3, it meant I actually 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 girl did not like facts and science it probably would not work out between us anyway. Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are just three examples of how to take online dating offline and create a reasonably successful dating arrangement. Here are a few ideas on what to search for on every date as you try 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 good conversation. Make sure that you can reliably visit this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you will need to make reservations. Ensure you can schedule the date for a weeknight (try to not book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You have broken the ice and you've both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Select an activity you will both like that isn't too tricky. Avoid intimidating activities like karaoke, group sports, or water

13. skiing. Ideally choose an activity which has a cadence where you alternate between doing something and speaking. 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 limitations. Date #3: You 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 should be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it ought to confirm whether you want to keep on seeing each other long term. Following the excitement of dates one and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you choose gives new intimacy to the connection. For example, if I did not visit the Cal Academy I'd go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right Perhaps one of the most crucial pieces of the online dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the man is the one forcing the relationship sequence (which is not necessarily the case) there are some questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? How long should you wait between date 1 and date 2? Here I'll 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. The main thing is to actually think about timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It's very easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message her, she messages you, back and forth, forth and back. In order to make certain that I don't waste all my time with internet conversations I found that 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 in the safe-space of this virtual world too long. It may feel like it's necessary, but it's 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, functioning as"the new man" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team. One thing that I noticed 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 great too. Okay how about the week after that?" No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would always insist on at least"penciling" another meeting into the calendar with the choice of cancelling if desired. When I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is a bit contrarian, but it's 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're getting plenty 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 would be to quit playing games, both with another person and on your own. 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 you aren't ready to date at this time. I had a woman tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself also ). I must pause here for one caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly. Nobody likes to be smothered or chased constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they've just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and see them day after day after day. He told me,"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 frighten them away by being obsessive. 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 every single night of the week. Permit the relationship to have 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's a lot of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there's even scientific evidence for it as well. In a number of studies, anthropologists have found 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 duration, the researchers at the university found that humans will also invest more effort into relationships if there is a probability of that connection weakening. I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively straightforward way and, to my surprise, it worked nicely. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse in between dates, paradoxically, makes the connection strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for dating that I found worked pretty well was the following: Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- factor This sequence meant that I'd spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for enough time

15. for the connection to grow and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was particularly helpful when I was really into them. Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of the post, these relationship strategies helped me tremendously, but based upon your context, your culture, and your comfort, your procedure 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 (similar to job hunting), it's vital to have a system in place to assist you navigate the ups and downs. By engaging in online dating you are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply jump 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 good deal more. As we often discuss about the podcast, 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 wide investors, you want to diversify your portfolio and minimize your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing that is by going on dates that aren't just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your dating partner behaves, at least you will have a good time doing something interesting. And, to minimize the risk, you should build both an outreach and relationship sequence so you decrease the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Find a few activities you enjoy doing and then match the dates into these activities. This is also a great way to filter out people that aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money in the long run. Of course, regardless of how well I did all of the above items, 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 bear in mind, when you're feeling down and like giving up on love altogether: "You are 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 work on your own, improving your discussions, your dates, and your connection with other people, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. If you enjoyed this post, I would super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below so that more people can find it. And, if you've any more questions about dating, listen to our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.