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1. She looked me straight in the eyes and smiled. Again, I looked at her and then looked at the bill. Still, no response. It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it was not hers either. Apparently, as I found out afterwards, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal program." The meal plan, if you're not familiar with it, is when women go on dates with men 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 of the dates I had gone until there: all 37 dates to be exact. How could women take advantage of me like that? As I matured in my internet dating, however, I understood that this was actually a response for what men do to women. There are three 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 stopped the career I had been building for more than 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend who I believed I was going to marry. All of a sudden I was a career and dating newcomer. I was depressed. I was scared. I was scarred. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated and a small voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you are not. You're going to kick online dating's ass!" I started to channel my distress into anger, and my anger into determination. I began to approach online dating just like one big experiment. I started creating what I predicted,"The Process." In this blog post I'll take you through the whole process I took to master online dating. From optimizing your profile, A/B analyzing your descriptions, starting meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll discuss how to streamline the online dating process so you can't only get dates, but possibly 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 need to be different than the under. 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 fascinating people and do interesting things," you will be much more likely to enjoy the process. And, if you're 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 decades and we have moved in together. So maybe these strategies are not all that crazy, but maybe they are, I'll leave it for you to judge. Listen to the Modern Dating Show Podcast for more tips, tricks, and embarrassingly real stories.

2. Note: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I pay a lot of these strategies as we browse the current struggles and embarrassments of his own relationship journey (and answer listener questions). The absolute most frequent error 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, the majority of us know whether we are looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun. The more common scenario that I've found is that both women and men who are looking for a meaningful relationship are optimizing 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 is an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' quite beautiful, a true 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she would need my help. In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem. The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating site. Basically, so as to optimize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to just include her most provocative photos. Now I want to be clear, there is nothing wrong with girls having"promiscuous" pictures online. The problem, in the case of dating, is the arrangement of a relationship and what you contribute with. Our brains have evolved over centuries to pick up on visual cues much faster than written clues. In fact, they have found that men that are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by without even activating their conscious brain. Because dating profiles conceal most information aside from the profile photo before a user clicks, resulting in provocative photos sets a poor first impression. So, while it's totally fine to have sexy photos up on your instagram, leading together on your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong type of guy. Additionally, there are lots of classy ways to possess interesting pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain. Internet Dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was trying to find a relationship, her photos were only sending signals that she's looking for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys filling up her inbox. For men, we tend to have the opposite problem. Every guy who has done online dating will attest to the battle of getting a woman to swipe right in their profile, let alone to make them participate in a conversation. Men, this is entirely your fault. I have seen guys spend hours talking about the numbers of their favorite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, as well as how financial reports will influence the team's chances. But, when it comes to online dating, men have a tendency to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start

3. swiping like orangutans till their palms develop calluses. Guys, stop. Before you begin 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 trying to find a meaningful relationship? And"both" is not an answer. "If you try to appeal to everybody, you will interest no one." The techniques I'll outline below work for either desired outcome, 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 great deal of dates and get practice dating (remember I had been off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to be sure I had been dating the perfect people. Fortunately I realized this before I had been the victim of some more"meal plans" STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures and descriptions According to a study from Princeton, it's projected that in any relationship, whether its social or work, 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 picture. They don't get to hear you speak. They don't get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it is a thing). All you get is 1 picture and there's 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 first 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 picture wasn't my best. It was interesting feedback, but I was not sure how I could test multiple pictures considering I could only put one as the default. The response: testing across programs. I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr.

4. I kept 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 get a large enough sample size and be sure that the platform was not effecting results. Four of my actual dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture which I thought was my best was always the one with the least games. Interestingly enough, a picture that I did not read into, pic B, was actually a huge turn off for pretty much 100% of girls. I was shocked when I found out this, because the two women in that photo are actually good friends of mineso that I never would have made that connection. Sometimes your photographs can be your greatest blind spot. To completely test this idea out, I actually 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 can seem like a pain today, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches. This is the 20 percent of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them frequently. Top Tip: If you want to speed up this process, you can actually ask your matches what they think of your own pictures. If a conversation with a match wasn't going well, I decided to 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.) Now, part of the error may 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 horrible idea. Without any filter or thought behind my actions, I rubbed more than a few people the wrong way. Now that I have matured a bit, I have come to understand that there's 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'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 signals to give to other people. A guy wearing a button up top, for example, is not necessarily wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the sign that he is wealthy.

5. Much like a person who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is indicating she does not want to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is signaling that he is okay with following convention. Signals matter. In college I met a woman at a party who immediately caught my attention. I approached her and we instantly hit off. We spent the entire 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, http://fernandoqovz260.bearsfanteamshop.com/17-reasons-why-you-should-ignore-portal-randkowy-badoo-pl a girl 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'd dressed her up to be"cuter" for the party to attract a man. I was that man. I did not really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized we had almost nothing in common. The outfit she had used as a signal at the party did not match her personality at all. We ended the date cordially and moved on. Signals matter. Choosing your signals is great, but choosing false signals not so much. You do not want to lie, but you also don't want to be your total self. You need to tell them about how you collect vintage records, you do not want to let them know about the way you cry every time a U2 tune comes on. You need to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you do not need to let them know about how you ran over your cat. First impressions matter. Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the toughest and personal piece of improving your online dating profile. There's no right answer, but there are definitely 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 components: Headline: A brief sentence somebody can read quickly. Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that gives 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 the other person by letting them know something you 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.

6. Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating programs the way they surf social media sites: fast and without much thought. It might be, in actuality, that mobile devices have trained us to browse everything in a similar manner. Because of this, I think the headline is possibly the most important 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 objective of the headline is to provide a fast snapshot of what is unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and short acts like a stop sign for the person who is scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their phone. If you ask any top-performing marketer,"how do I create content that will be successful?" It is likely that they'll laugh at the question. As any good content marketer knows, terrific content is all about respecting the medium that you're producing the content for. By way of example, if I went into a woman in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she will definitely get up and leave. The reverse is true for online relationship, however. You need your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or one sentence, and be certain that it is quintessentially you. The Intro Paragraph After that initial curiosity is peaked, you should start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more. This is not the time to compose 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 gives a little bit of color and possibly some talking points that you can discuss in chat (again, ladies, this is extremely important to include if you would like to have more meaningful conversations). The intro paragraph that worked best for me was: "I love being outside as much as possible! Some of my favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I love learning about new and businesses ideas. I am into photography, design, and Tim Ferriss.

7. My perfect Saturday is playing volleyball at the beach with friends. My perfect Sunday is reading a fantastic book at Promenade cafe" This paragraph outlines a few basic hobbies and activities I enjoy 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 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 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 folks in your area enjoy those things too. Rather than attempting to fit in, attempt to stand out. Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to discover common ground, but also things which are uniquely you. For instance in my description above: -- Many people like being outside and photography. -- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss. The Call To Action This is optional, although it certainly helps. In marketing, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they have viewed your content. In relationship, you basically need the individual to message you. This seems like a no brainer, but I have found that a lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they finally become discouraged from making first contact. I've heard countless stories of women who have matched with a guy 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 appear desperate. The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you. But, obviously you don't want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific.

8. On OkCupid they have an individual section that says: Again, as with all this advice, when in doubt just test it out. Try using a call to action and see if your conversations improve. When they don't, just delete it. The attractiveness 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 instance, you have tens of thousands of opportunities and"do-overs" to play with. STEP 3 -- Making first 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 huge limitation when you are trying to start 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 makes sense then that if you take countless people and put them in an unnatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations. While it may be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you are serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online dating, then it is a good idea to study your results a little bit. This gave me the chance to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply 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 test how well you can judge a fantastic opener from a bad one. For bonus points, try to order them from most effective to least effective. A) "Hey! What is it going?" How was your weekend?" C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or some other variation of this sort of question). (according to a book they listed in their profile) I will allow you to consider it for a second. (I will add some space 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

9. Scroll for the response Scroll for the response And the answer is... If you guessed D, you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you chose the worst answer.) In order of best to worst, the answers are B, D, A, C (D being best). There are pluses and minuses to some conversation starter. While I found the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that clearly depends if they have put a book in their profile. You can modify this to ask about some other part of their profile, such as a picture or a place in their pictures. The reason I suspect 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 can use the book opener to start a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x book? I am currently reading'Losing my Virginity' by Richard Branson and highly recommend it!" (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 went beyond a few messages. The second best option,"Hey! Works almost as well, but it's obviously limited to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be strange if you used this on a Friday). Have any fun plans for the weekend?" This worked pretty well, but not nearly too. I suspect it is because it seems too much like I'm about 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 have made contact and the other person has responded, it is time to have a conversation. Every dialog changes, but there are some guidelines that I'll put in here as suggestions. First, some online dating tips for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you the number of messages my female friends have shown me that noise objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation just like you would with 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 have heard from female friends is that they feel like they're being interviewed. Make sure that you ask questions, but that you also share things about yourself in equal measure. DON'T make comments about her 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've got 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 direct the conversation. Even when I've tried to be friendly and nice, I've still received quite curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much men pretend they don't care about the dialogue, they do. And

10. they normally have no clue what they are 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 conversations feeling such as interviews, then make sure 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 tend to put a good deal more thought into their text messages than guys do. If a guy says something that seems weird or odd, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't read too much into it, chances are he didn't either. Now a suggestion for both parties: Try to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a excellent tool to meet someone, but it's just that. It's a tool, it is not actual dating. My overall 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 establish a date. So, if you match with each other on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about using a date by Wednesday. So yes, use the apps, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a lot more fun too in case you know how 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 relationship, I soon realized that procuring the date is just half the battle. The second half of the battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you have even set out from your residence. In which you have your date determines about 50--70% of the results of the date. But first a question... Where's the worst place to have a date? As it turns out, 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. But remember, I was totally new to relationship so I was only following what I'd seen in movies. Most of them didn't go well, but I wasn't sure 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 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 think dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this:

11. You meet a complete stranger out a restaurant. You sit down at a desk. You start speaking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You continue to talking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You are not ready to order because you've been talking. The waiter gives you"another moment." You examine the menu making comments about the choices. The waiter comes back ten minutes later. You order food. Then you run out of things to discuss. What should 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 choices. It's a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost immediately. This issue is exacerbated by the fact that most of us are getting worse at having in-person conversations. Spending so much time online has improved our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in- person communication skills. Therefore, if we're getting worse at having in-person conversations, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact that you'll 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 had been 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 is going to be a great bonding experience." As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I expected the sharp shock of the rope on my climbing harness. But there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity. As it turns out, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope just as I'd slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't catch the rope until I had fallen 15 feet to what I was sure was my upcoming death. Eventually the rope eventually stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both emotionally and physically. "Okay this date might be a little too exciting," I thought. My entire dating profession made a 180-degree turn when I began carrying my dates on fun activities rather than dinners. I would 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 essential elements to a great date place could be distilled into three categories: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you're walking, your landscape is changing so that you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked guy on rollerblades!"

12. Action -- Can we do the action reasonably well? I've seen guys get this one fairly wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you are passionate about, but be sure it's not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she isn't scared of heights first. Scalability -- Would the date increase or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! Let's go get dessert! No chemistry? No issue, how can we end the date earlier? Using these three criteria, I crafted a three date sequence which nearly doubled the amount of successful dates I went on. Now I know what you are thinking,"This guy took women out to the same areas like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?" This was my go-to order, but, based on interests, I'd 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 in my mind. Happy brain = Happy dates. So here is my ideal dating sequence: 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're a man ) you've got 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. Feel like going all out? Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves. 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 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 pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between talking and activity. 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 particularly important because if a woman had made it #3, it meant I really liked her. It also meant we might take the connection to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, also it was a semi-formal occasion so we can both dress nicely for that particular night. This was also my secret test because if a girl didn't like facts and science it probably would not work out between us anyway. Listen to all 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 sequence. Here are a few ideas on what to search for on each date as you try to make your own dating arrangement: Date #1: Look for a casual environment that isn't intimidating. Dark bars or loud places don't make for great conversation. Be certain that you can reliably visit this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you will need to make reservations. Ensure you are able to schedule the date for a weeknight (try to not book someone's weekend for a first date). Date #2: You have broken the ice and you have both agreed to another date, so have fun with this one! Choose an

13. activity you will both like that isn't too difficult. Ideally choose an activity that has a cadence where you alternate between doing something and speaking. Going on a 10 mile run is great for exercise, but it does not allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limitations. Date #3: You confirmed you enjoy each other, it's time to bring it to the next level. Try to make this date a little more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it should confirm whether or not you want to keep on seeing each other long term. Following the excitement of dates one and two, there can be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you choose provides new intimacy to the relationship. For instance, if I did not go to the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead. STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right maybe among the most important pieces of the online dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the guy is the one forcing the dating sequence (which isn't always the case) there are a few questions you need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? 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, as opposed to 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. In order to make certain 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 about 20 minutes of constant conversation. Again, try not to linger in the safe-space of the 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. 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. One thing that I discovered is that every time they were ending a call they would ask,"okay so what does your calendar look like for next week? Busy? Okay how about the week after that? O that's no good too. Okay how about the week then?" No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would 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 somewhat 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. No one likes uncertainty. No one likes to look at their phone every hour to see if you've texted them or not. No one likes to wonder whether you like them or not. Surprisingly, most people don't mind if you do not like them, they just want to know.

14. So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with another person and with yourself. If you like them, tell them you like them. If you don't, have the respect to let them know you do not. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them you are not prepared to date right now. I had a girl tell me this and it was the easiest let down I've ever experienced and utilized it later myself also ). I must pause here for one caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not constantly. I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get really excited by the person they have just met and then they proceed to text them, call them, and watch them day after day after day. Stop Chasing Shadows When I was thirteen years old, my grandfather gave me some advice that I still use to this day. He explained,"Girls are like shadows, the more you pursue them, the longer they run away. The more you run away, the more they chase you." If you find someone who you would like to be with really poorly, do not frighten them away by being fanatical. If they like you as well, there is no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously attempt to establish a date, but there's no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week. Permit the relationship to get some breathing room. A fantastic way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you end up missing the other person and vice versa. There's a great deal of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific proof for it as well. In several studies, anthropologists have discovered that lots of primates invest more effort into a relationships if the individuals 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 cell phone records and comparing telephone 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 weakening. I tried applying this research to relationship in a relatively straightforward way and, to my surprise, it worked nicely. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse between dates, paradoxically, makes the connection strengthen rather than weaken. My cadence for relationship 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

15. This sequence meant that I would spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship to mature and helped me make sure I did not 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 approaches helped me tremendously, but based on 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 from dating. In actuality, because dating is such an emotional activity (similar to job hunting), it's imperative to have a system set up to help 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 continue. Making sure you have that lap belt secured and that you've been on a few less extreme rides will allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more. Perhaps the single most important point to bear in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we frequently discuss on the podcast, 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-class investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your risk of catastrophic failure. A means 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 will have a good time doing something interesting. And, to minimize the risk, you should build both an outreach and dating sequence so you reduce the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Locate a few activities you enjoy doing and then match 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 had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal program being just one of several. But bear in mind, when you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You're 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 work on yourself, improving your conversations, your dates, and your connection with others, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. Until then, strap in and enjoy the ride. If you enjoyed this post, I'd super love if you hit the green hand clap button below to ensure that more folks can discover it. And, if you've any more questions about dating, hear our podcast where you can submit your own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.