The Best Dating Advice

…and why you should too!

Whether it’s eleven pipers piping, Shriners on mini-bikes or the majesty of a well-crafted float, the atmosphere at a St-Patrick’s Day parade sparkles with wonder and anticipation. The pride wells up from inside and burns through your chest as you survey the spectacle about you. Or maybe, that’s just too many Irish whiskeys and Guinness on an empty stomach.

Either way, it’s an easy bet that everyone who has come out to partake in the festivities is friendly and there to have a good time, so it’s awesome an opportunity to meet new people. If you do it right, these strangers can become lifelong friends and/or lovers. I knew a girl who wound up meeting her future husband. And more than a few guys, their girlfriends. It’s makes you wonder if the day isn’t under some Celtic spell. For I have seen even the shyest, most awkward, drunken ramblers whose patter is less charming and coherent than the raving lunatics in the asylums come away with dates.

Here’s your action plan to make the most of parade day:

1) Breakfast: Unless you’ve been out ’til four in the morning the night before (and even if you have), set the right tone for parade day by inviting all your friends and acquaintances over for a pot-luck breakfast. Gauge how many guests you’ll have and give each one an item to be responsible for.

2) Paparazz-ize: Be sure to capture all the fun and excitement, including the riske or outrageous moments, on your digital camera. This will come in handy when you’re meeting people at the parade or bars.

3) Pick Your Spot: If your plan does not include a pre-parade top-up of Irish or Bailey’s coffee, get to the route early an stake your claim on the spot of land where you and your friends will be hanging out. Consider sight-lines and proximity to the nearest washroom.

4) Dress appropriately: I covered this in the last post. Showing your St. Patrick’s Day colours is a great way to bond with strangers (Read: have that hottie realize at a subconscious level that you are safe and someone they can be comfortable around).

5) Remember the kids: How you act around children, especially if they are not your own, says a lot to a potential mate about the kind of person you are. Breakout the stickers and cheap candies you picked up at the Dollar Store earlier in the week, and distribute them liberally.

6) Post-Parade agenda: You want to have the after-parade party all planned out. If you can, send a few friends ahead of you to reserve tables at whichever bar you’ve chosen. You’ve been meeting people all morning, demonstrating how popular, fun, friendly and stable you are. You are ready to take it to the next level.

Invite each and every one of them to party with you at the bar. If you’ve followed the action plan so far, this should be a “no-brainer”.

Congratulations: You’ve made friends and influenced people. You have successfully laid the groundwork for a wealth of potential dates. Stay on track and don’t let the alcohol get away from you. Slainte!

Are you still stumped about what to get your guy for the holidays?

I remember, as as children, when any one of us asked what he wanted for Christmas (or even his birthday), my father would always say, “You know what I really could use? Some socks and deodorant”. Sure, he didn’t want us spending all our allowance on his gift, but he was also communicating one aspect of the perfect guy gift: practicality. To boil things down to a basic level, men are at heart, a goal setting and achieving machine. We get a lot of satisfaction from accomplishing our goals and any gift that helps us do that is always appreciated.

As men, our DNA evolved over time to help us better track down and kill our dinner. As we became better at this, our brains developed larger centers for spacial reasoning and more capabilities for deductive thought. In these modern times, however, these inherent skills are no longer needed to keep us alive. So, we instinctively seek out ways to exercise them. You can see them at work in the great architectual wonders of the world as well as in one of the most popular pasttimes of young North Amercian males: video games.

Another facet of life men have to negotiate is their status amongst a peer group. This can have a positive or negative effect on his social life, depending upon where he falls in that group. This is one reason most men (dare I say: All Men) love gadgets. No matter their purpose, they are cool. They are a symbol of male staus.

So, here are three questions you might want to consider before buying anything. Does your gift:

Help him accomplish something (have a prcatical value)?
Engages the spacial & problem solving parts of his brain?
Add to his social value among his peers (make him seem cool)?

If your gift has any one of these aspects, you’re on the right track. If it has all three, watch out, fireworks are about to explode.

This question has plagued men ever since our ancestors first started to celebrate the holiday. It’s especially troubling to new relationships, where you haven’t known one another for very long. It can be such a daunting question that we put off thinking about it until, uh oh, is it December 24th already?

When it comes to buying gifts for women, any present you intend to buy for her should be appropriate to her taste. However, figuring out what her tastes are is exactly where a lot of men get tripped up, despite their best intentions.

Women are regularly trying to understand the meaning of their communications with others. It’s just apart of the software hard-wired in them from birth. Often, what we may think of cute, cheeky or innocent may end up offending her once she looks at it through her “what does this gift say about me” filter. Here are a few questions to keep you on track:

Is your gift:
*Thoughtful (meaningful beyond the price-tag)?
*Considerate (connected to a shared moment)?
*Appropriate (suitable to her demeanor and style)?
*fun (about her spirit, not her need for a new kitchen appliance)?

Still unsure? Women are very good at giving off subtle hints about things they want or things they want guys (or their guy) to know. As men, we are terrible at picking up these subtle signals. We need the message loud and clear, not a faint whisper through bad reception on an old radio; which is what it often sounds like, so we dismiss it.

You can, however, with a little practice, become good at picking up these signals. Pay attention when the two of you are out window shopping. Look for clues when she says she likes something/doesn’t have something. It will usually just be a passing comment (to us anyway. She may feel like she’s being very clear). When the time comes, not only will she be surprised and smiling, saying, “How did you know? This is awesome”, it will show that you made a conscious effort to get her something you knew she would like. And that, when it comes from the right place, is very attractive to women.

If you make a note of these things and remember them for later, you will never have to scramble for a last minute gift ever again.

The Holiday Season officially kicks off next week. Whether you celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah or Kwanzaa, this is the one time of year where we are able to transcend the minutiae and BS of everyday life and genuinely embrace our fellow man. Smiles and handshakes are seen as sincere expressions of interest and well-being rather than being filtered through the eyes of suspicion and cynicism.

One of the best ways to capitalize on all the good vibrations and socializing at this time of year is to make yourself the center of attraction – an ambassador of good will and peace towards all men.

Here’s your holiday season action plan (works best if Christmas is your thing, but if not, you can always make believe or substitute items/icons/wording as necessary):

Step One: Go to the Dollar Store in your neighbourhood and pick up a Santa hat.

Step Two: Wear your new chapeau out to the club, bar, reception or wherever you want to make an impression. You’ll immediately attract attention and people will be curious about you.

Step Three: Move among the crowd. Go from table to table and ask whomever is there (men, women, single, coupled) what they would like for Christmas.

Step Four: For even more fun, pretend that you actually are Santa Clause. Talk about your elves’ production schedules, jet-lag, or rather sleigh-lag, from traveling all night, how you thought you saw the person you are talking to’s name on the naughty-list, etc…

Step Five: Take this concept to the next level by getting yourself a sleek moleskin notebook. On four or five pages write down as many men and women names as you can think of on the left side. On the right side of those pages, write Naughty or Nice. This way, no matter who you run into, you can pull out your “little black book” and let them know if they will be getting a present or a lump of coal this year.

It’s a lot of fun and people WILL remember you; sometimes for years after-the-fact.

When it comes to dating and romance, nothing is more pressuring than a first date. But what if it didn’t have to happen that way? What if you had a plan? A basic blueprint for handling the date?

You know how it is. You are out minding your own business. Maybe you are out with friends at the pool hall, or even alone at the bus stop, and then you see them. Your pulse quickens, your sweat glands engage and you feel anxious. Who is this stranger who is intoxicating your senses? You instantly want to know all about them, even possess them. You lose the will to eat, the urge to sleep. This person is all you can think about.

Driven by your urges, you finally decide to make yourself vulnerable to rejection. You may have spent days or weeks mustering up the courage to talk to them and ask them out. But the risk turns out to be worth it, because they said “yes”. You relax. Your physiological responses return to normal and you start thinking about how great it is that you have set a date with this person.

This is where many people go astray. They start making HD quality pictures in their heads about how great things will be when they get together with this person and start investing a lot of emotion in to the process. When it’s finally time to go on the date, they have built up their expectations so high that there is MASSIVE pressure to make sure everything goes right.

Studies show that having a plan dramatically increases your chances of having things go the way you want them to. I recently posted a FREE nine-page PDF report called: “7 Tips To a Killer First Date”, designed to help you navigate the first date minefields. You can download it here: