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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. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the invoice. Still, no response. It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it wasn't hers either. Apparently, as I discovered afterwards, I had fallen into a trap called"the meal program." The meal program, if you're unfamiliar with it, is when women go on dates with men just to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she certainly fell into. When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all the dates I had gone 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 online relationship, however, I understood that this was actually a reaction for what men do to women. Online dating sucks, but... There are 3 significant levers in our lives that, 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 once. 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 relationship novice. After 9 months of misery and frustration I was about to give up on online dating all together. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene triggered and a little voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you're not. You are going to kick online dating's ass!" I began 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 entire process I chose to master online dating. By 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 just get dates, but maybe find the love of your life (with minimal stress).

2. 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 dating and treat it like an experiment. If you approach it with the mindset of,"I will go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be more inclined to enjoy the process. 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 years and we have moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that crazy, but maybe they are, I will leave it for you to judge. Notice: You can also hear 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). STEP 1 -- Decide what you're looking for The absolute most common mistake I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is that they don't define their target obviously. Deep down inside, the majority of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario I've found is that both women and men that are searching for a meaningful relationship are maximizing their relationship for fun instead. I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with online 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 real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she would need my help. Basically, in order to maximize for getting dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photos. Now I want 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 dating profile and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual clues 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 photos sets a bad first impression. So, while it is totally fine to have sexy photos up on your instagram, leading with them in your online dating profile is sending signals that may be attracting the wrong type of guy. Additionally, there are plenty of classy ways to have interesting pictures that speak to more than just the subconscious mind. Online dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was attempting to locate a relationship, her photographs were sending signals that she is searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys filling up her inbox. Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4 For men, we tend to have the opposite problem.

3. Every man who has done online dating will attest to the battle of getting a girl to swipe directly on their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation. Guys, this is entirely your own 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. However, when it comes to online dating, men have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans till their 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. "If you try to appeal to everyone, you will appeal to no one." The techniques I will outline below work for either desired result, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate. For example, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a lot of dates (3--4 per week, every week), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled. I just realized months later that, while it's 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 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 According to a study from Princeton, it is projected that in any relationship, whether its social or work, we make up our mind about whether we like the person in less than one second. The single biggest flaw in online dating is 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 don't get to smell you (it's a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there is a 99% chance it's the wrong one. If a person is approaching online dating as an experiment, obviously the first thing to test is the profile picture. I started this process in a very unscientific way... I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my pictures. One hundred, and I mean 100% of these said that my first image wasn't my best.

4. It was interesting feedback, but I was not certain how I could test multiple pictures considering I could only put one as the default option. The response: testing across programs. 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 set up another profile picture on each. I rotated the pictures across profiles before I could find a large enough sample size and make sure 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 picture I did not read much into, pic B, was actually a massive turn off for pretty much 100 percent of girls. I was shocked when I found this out, because the two girls in that photo are actually good friends of mine, so I never would have made this connection. Sometimes your photos can be your biggest blind spot. To totally test this idea out, I actually enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) into the experiment and had them change their profile pictures. They got varied results, but one thing was consistent: the picture they thought was their best, never performed the best. This is a super easy optimization that can look to be a pain today, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20% of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you would like to speed up this process, you can actually ask your matches exactly what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to at least get some"user feedback" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she believed was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I was not getting jobs.) Descriptions are negotiable

5. Now, part of the error might be my fault, since I took his advice quite literally. I began to speak my mind, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wanted to act. This turned out to be a very bad idea. With no filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed over 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're never our total selves except when we are by ourselves. Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," which you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we actively choose which signals to give to other people. A guy wearing a button up top, for instance, isn't necessarily wealthy, but the button up shirt is putting out the sign that he's wealthy. Much like a person 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's okay with subsequent convention. Signals matter. In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my eye. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked very 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 in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace round her neck. At first I did not even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date. She sat down and we 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 man. I was that man. I did not care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized we had practically nothing in common. The outfit she'd used as a sign at the party did not match her personality at all. We finished the date cordially and proceeded on. Signals matter. Choosing your signals is good, but picking false signals not so much. The same goes for your online dating profile description. You don't need to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You want to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you don't want to tell them about the way you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You want to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not want to tell them about how you ran over

6. your cat. First impressions matter. Crafting a good description is perhaps the most difficult and personal bit of improving your online dating profile. There is no ideal answer, but there are some incorrect answers. The first step to having a great dating profile description is having a clear structure. I break down a dating profile description into 3 parts: Headline: A short sentence somebody 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. Online dating is inherently awkward, so help another person by letting them know something you two can talk about. Ladies this is especially 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. The Headline Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating apps the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It might be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to surf everything in a similar manner. Because of this, I think the headline is possibly the most important piece of your description and you need to 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 objective of the headline is to provide a quick snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and brief functions like a stop sign for the individual who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone. 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 creating the content for. By way of instance, if I went up to a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she'll definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online relationship, however.

7. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and make sure that it is quintessentially you. Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you can start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This is not the time to write a book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this individual, your headline and picture being the first two. The intro paragraph gives a small amount of colour and perhaps some talking points that you can discuss in chat (again, ladies, this is extremely important to include if you want to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph which worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as you can! Some of my favourite items are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I am a creative at heart but I really like learning about new and businesses 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 good book at Promenade cafe." This paragraph outlines a couple of basic hobbies and activities I enjoy and 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 actions that could apply to pretty much anyone. "I like hanging out with friends, watching movies, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes." While I am positive there are people in the world who don't like watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of those people in your area enjoy both those things too. Rather than trying to fit in, try 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 are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Most people like being outside 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, although it certainly helps. In advertising, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content.

8. In relationship, you basically need the person to message you. This seems 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 initial contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have matched with a man who they really like, 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 seem desperate. The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you. Butobviously you do not want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific. On OkCupid they have a single section that says: My CTA goes as follows: "You should message me if you're an interesting person who likes to play outside." Again, as with all this information, when in doubt just test it out. Try using a call to action and see if your conversations improve. If they don't, simply delete it. The beauty of dating apps is that instead of having 1--5 chances to make a relationship, as you would if you went to a bar for example, you have get more info tens of thousands of chances and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making initial talking and contact The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" dating is when it has to do with the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a massive limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship. For one thing, it is a very unnatural way of communicating, because it's been proven that we receive 55% of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communicating. It is logical then that when you take countless people and set 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're serious about finding a good relationship through online relationship, then it is 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 just would not 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 us examine how well you can judge a fantastic opener from a poor one. QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best? For bonus points, try to order them from most effective to least effective. What is it going?"

9. C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or some other variation of this type of question). D) "Hey! (based on a book they listed in their profile) I'll let you consider it for a second. (I will add some space before the answer 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 answer Scroll for the answer And the answer is... If you guessed D, then you picked the best answer! (If you guessed C, you chose the worst answer.) In order of best to worst, the answers are D, B, 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 novel," that clearly depends if they have put a book in their profile. You can alter 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 shows that you read. If I may use the book opener to initiate a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? (This is how I opened the dialogue with my now-long-term girlfriend). Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt a lot more natural and went beyond a few messages. The second best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works almost as well, but it is obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday). An alternative version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it's because it seems too much like I am about to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think about something interesting. The Do's & Don'ts of Online Conversation

10. Now that you have made contact and another person has responded, it's time to have a conversation. Every conversation varies, but there are some guidelines that I will put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating tips for guys: DON'T attempt to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can not tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the man is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a regular conversation like you would with a friend. DO try to talk about things she is interested in but also add your own thoughts. Among the most common complaints I have heard from female friends is that 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're so beautiful! You have a cute smile! You're..." will only lead to a polite"thank you" and won't create meaningful conversation. Now, a few online dating suggestions for women: DO be nice and help direct 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 men pretend they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they usually have no clue what they're doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction. DON'T answer questions without asking any of your own. If you're tired of discussions feeling such as interviews, then be certain that you 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 lot more thought in their text messages than guys do. If a man says something that seems weird or odd, give him the benefit of the doubt and do not read too much into it, chances are he didn't either. Now a proposal 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 is not actual dating. My overall 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 one another on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about having a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the apps, but also get them off quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too in case you know how

11. to set up good dates... Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will cause you to smile more and sweat less After I had mastered the online portion of dating, I soon realized that securing the date is just half the battle. The second half of this battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your house. As they say in real estate: location, location, location. Where you have your date determines about 50--70% of the outcome of the date. But first a question... Where's the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, it is 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 bear in mind, I was completely new to dating so I was just following what I had seen in movies. Most of them did not go well, but I wasn't sure why. After a dozen or so embarrassing (and expensive) dates, I decided that I need to experiment with some other locations. What happened next was totally mind blowing. Almost like flipping a light switch, my dates enhanced tremendously. It wasn't I was doing anything differently or that I had been picking better women to go on dates with, it was simply 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 desk. You start talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about drinks. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You're not ready to order since you have been talking. The waiter gives you"another minute." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You continue talking. 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 choices. It is a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost instantly. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at having in-person conversations. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in- person communication skills. So, if we are getting worse at getting in-person conversations, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact that you'll be able to have an amazing in-person conversation with a complete stranger? 3 Rules for Creating Great Dates

12. I never thought that relationship could be a life-or-death activity, but one day changed all that. 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 over 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 anticipated the sharp jolt of the rope on my climbing harness. However, there was no jolt. I began 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 didn't catch the rope until I had dropped 15 ft to what I was certain was my forthcoming death. Finally the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both emotionally and physically. My entire dating career made a 180-degree turn when I began taking my dates on fun activities instead of dinners. I'd take them to play tennis, rock climb, festivals, picnics at the beach, music shows, and everything in between. Some of these activities worked better than others. But I found out that the most 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're walking, your scenery is shifting so that you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!" Activity -- Can we both do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men 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 girl rock climbing? Make sure she is not scared of heights first. Scalability -- Would the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how can we end the date sooner? Using these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence which nearly doubled the number of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you're thinking,"This guy took women out to the same areas like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to sequence, but, depending on interests, I'd substitute different activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was merely a template which simplified my decisions and decreased the cognitive load I was putting on my brain. So here is my perfect dating arrangement: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks every Friday by the San Francisco bay. Why I like it: One of the difficulties of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food tastes. Then (if you're a guy) you have to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this since there are over 20 different kinds 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. Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves. Date #2 -- Variable: This date could vary based on interests but I had a few go-tos, specifically: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the shore. Why I like it: These actions had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk

13. around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favorite bar, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we could alternate between talking and activity. Why I like it: This date was especially important because if a woman 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, plus 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 likely wouldn't work out between us anyway. As an added bonus, it was also a 20-min walk from my place, so that helped with the"scalability" of the evening. Listen to each of the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are 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 look for on every date as you try to make your own dating sequence: Date #1: Search for a casual environment that is not 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 will need to make reservations. Make sure you are able to schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book a person's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You have broken the ice and you have both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Choose an activity you'll both like that is not too difficult. Avoid intimidating actions like karaoke, group sports, or water skiing. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence in which you alternate between doing something and talking. Going on a 10 mile run is fantastic for exercise, but it does not allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limits. Date #3: You both confirmed you enjoy each other, it is time to bring 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 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 may be a lull in date 3, so make sure whatever you select provides new intimacy to the connection. For instance, if I did not visit the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Getting your Timing Right maybe among the most crucial pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see men screw up again and again is timing. Assuming the man is the one driving the dating sequence (which isn't always the case) there are a few questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you go for the kiss? Here I will share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your own comfort your answers may vary. I will share my experience (as a heterosexual man living in San Francisco) and you can make whatever adjustments you deem appropriate. The main thing is to actually consider timing, as opposed to leaving it up to"feeling." Going from Online to Offline It is quite easy to let a great online conversation die out. You message , she messages youback and forth, forth and back. To be able to make certain I don't waste all my time with online conversations I found that it was best to ask a girl to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or about 20 minutes of constant conversation. Again, try not to linger at the safe-space of this virtual world too long. It might feel like it's necessary, but it is quite easy to waste plenty of time and momentum in the chat room.

14. Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, working as"the new guy" in a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales staff. Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would utilize their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar accounts. One thing that I noticed 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 then?" Regardless of what the prospect said, the salesperson would always insist on at least"penciling" another meeting to the calendar with the choice of cancelling if needed. When 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 ask for the next date on the first date. One of the worst things about dating is that you are putting yourself out there. You're opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting a lot of uncertainty. Nobody 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 do not mind if you do not 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 means to do this is by telling them you aren't ready to date right now. I had a woman tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and used 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 very excited by the person they've just met and they then proceed to constantly text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. He explained,"Girls 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 want to be with really badly, do not frighten them away by being fanatical. If they like you as well, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should actively try to set up a date, but there is no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week. Permit the relationship to get 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'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 people in that relationship have been forced apart. What is interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans. By data mining mobile phone records and comparing call patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that people may also invest more effort into relationships when there is a risk of that relationship

15. weakening. I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively straightforward way and, to my surprise, it worked very well. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse between dates, paradoxically, 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 -- factor This sequence meant that I would spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for enough time for the 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 this post, these relationship approaches helped me tremendously, but based on your context, your culture, and your own comfort, your process may need to be different than the one above. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it's 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 simply jump and hold on. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less extreme rides can help you enjoy the ride a whole lot more. As we frequently discuss on the podcast, when you let go of expectations and only create your target just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread. Like the advice of world wide investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing this is by going on dates which aren't only sit-down dinners, so that regardless of how your relationship partner behaves, at least you'll have a fantastic time doing something interesting. 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. Find a few activities you like doing and then match 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 run. Naturally, regardless of how well I did all the above things, I still had my share of terrible dates. The girl who used me as a meal program 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, once you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You're never as bad as they say you are, you are also not as good as you think you are." Take every date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you work on your own, improving your conversations,

16. 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'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below to ensure that more people can discover it. And, if you've any more questions about relationship, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the show.