The Best Dating Advice

All over the world, millions of people are making resolutions they intend to implement this year. Some of those people are signing up for gym memberships, becasue they have resolved to be more fit this year. Some of those people are reading books and taking courses on how to quit smoking, because they are determined to live a healthier lifestyle this year.

My resolution is to help you build a better dating life and make 2009 your most successful year, where this part of your life is concerned. In a few days, we’ll be launching our most ambtitious project ever; a 52-week e-course called “My Best Year Ever”. We’re still nailing down the precise details, but this much I can tell you:

Like many of you, my post-Christmas cashflow is running a little low. And I do not believe that is something that should stop you from having an awesome year of dating. So, I have decided to release this e-course at the unbeatable price of: FREE. Check back in a few days for more details about what this e-course can help you achieve in 2009 and be sure to sign-up.

Here’s to your dating success in 2009

No matter where you end up tomorrow night, whether you find yourself lined up behind the police tape in Time Square to watch the ball drop, counting down the new year at your favorite club or mixing in the last tangible drops of 2008 with your favorite spirits at a house party, there is one thing you can do to separate yourself from the rest of the pack and become instantly attractive to any member of the opposite (in some cases, same) sex.

A few years ago, my buddy Mike and I were at a New Year’s Eve party where we knew absolutely no one. It was mostly a bunch of twenty-something university types that were stuck in town over the holidays. Our coats were piled up on one another in someone’s bedroom and our drinks were clustered in the kitchen. There was the usual “shop talk” about finals, graduate school and which teacher equated to what smell and so forth….. Here’s a tip: If you want to be interesting at a party, don’t talk about your GPA.

As we were introduced to the party guests and later arrivals were introduced to us, I made a point of remembering everyone’s name - not an easy task. So, when it came time to grab another beer and I spotted a two cute girls chatting in the kitchen, my knapsack at their feet, I was able to say to the cuter one: “Hey Dana, hand me my bag, will ya?”. I had met her only thrity minutes before and had not said more than a couple of words. Her eyes lit up and she seemed a little surprised, blurting out “You remembered my name”. “Sure”, I said as she followed me into the living room area. “This is Steve - hey Steve, and over there is Brett” and so, on.

Now, she wanted to talk to me, badly. I had sparked “instant attraction”. How often do you remember the names of people you meet at parties or of friends of friends? Can you count the number of times? If you’re like most people it’s probably somewhere between rarely and never. And this is exactly why “Dana” was impressed. Doing this made me stand out from everyone else. It made me different; intriguing; rare. It made her want to know more about me.

Here’s your three step action plan:

1) Remember everyone’s name (that’s the tough part) & talk to someone who looks interesting.
2) Use their name casually, in conversation (”Hey Julie, I was just talking to Brad in the other room. You know Brad right? [insert a fun fact about Brad here] We were just talking about “Eagle Eye”. Do you think something like that could actually happen?”)
3) Build on the intrigue and be social with the rest of the group (DO NOT isolate and cling to them all night).

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, we 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.

What do the economy and dating have in common? The current state of the stock market in many ways resembles someone who has lost their ability to be emotionally consistent; up 800 points, down 1000; up 300, down 700. Every step of the way, they are losing precious ground.

If we, and by we I mean everyone on the planet, were to allow ourselves to be unconcerned by the minor drops and gains of the day-to-day trading; If we weren’t watching the markets every second, demanding to know what it all means and desperately trying to hold on to every profitable cent, a lot of this instability would settle. The problem is we have invested in a strategy that is predicated on everything going in a positive direction. We have invested so much in to this one strategy, that the mere thought that we could possibly lose some ground will send us into a tailspin of irrational, fear based, behaviour.

Someone who does not have much experience with dating puts the same kind of pressures on their interactions when they go out on a date. They need things to go right. They need to make sure they say and do the right things. They need to make sure everything is perfect. This “need-iness” leads to questions like “Am I the kind of person you normally date?”, “Are you attracted to guys/girls like me?” and a whole host of reaction based questions.

Afterall, they have invested in a strategy and desperately want to hold on to every positive gain they have made during the date. Unfortunately, this strategy is steeped in fear, fear of losing the disired outcome - another date. And, this kind of behaviour is the quickest way to ensure their isn’t one.

Your biggest assets on a date is having an ability to “roll with the punches”. Even if it appears as though things are not going smoothly, you can recover quite easily by hanging back. Make a clever quip or relaxed remark, instead of frantically trying to “fix” the situation and you’ll see how easily things get back on track.

If you ask any male who is having trouble meeting women to date, he’ll likely tell you about how “bad” the dating scene is. He may even suggest that the only way to “get with a woman” is either to have a lot of money, be a celebrity or be an abusive jerk (a.k.a. a Badboy); as evidenced by the number of horror stories these guys hear, from the girl they desperately want to hook up with, about her crappy boyfriend.

What is it about these so-called “Badboys” that is so undeniably attractive to women? Why do women flock to them, even though they usually end up causing a lot of emotional and sometimes physical injury. Would you jab a pointy stick through your head to clean out a little earwax? Would you cut your arm off to stop it from itching? Probably not. Though it seems like this is exactly the kind of trade-off beautiful, smart, rational women are making when they date a Badboy.

Let’s see if we can’t demystify their mystique. First of all, they are typically not nice guys. They do not seem to care about anything or anyone. They are self-centered and aloof and communicate mostly through their body language. Forty thousand years ago, before modern language existed this was also how our ancient ancestors decided which males were good to mate with and would produce the best/strongest offspring. Hmmm…

Badboys never chase women. They are referred to as “a challenge”. The woman is working to get his attention rather than the other way around. How many times do guys beg and plead, trying to get a girl’s attention? How many times do guys have women chasing them but only want the one who won’t give them the time of day? Hmmm…

Badboys also have interesting lives. Since they typically have no regard for the social graces, they are prone to step on a few toes. Their emotions are raw and they express them freely. Have you ever noticed that they are continually getting into one emotionally dramatic situation after another? This is attractive because the drama and the emotion have nothing to do with the woman. She can watch safely from afar as it unfolds. Sounds kind of like a soap opera, doesn’t it? Do you know anyone that likes soap operas?

So those are just a couple of the things that badboys have going on that short circuit a woman’s rational brain and speak directly to her biology. And this is why they are never able to explain to you why they like that guy. WHY is a question based in logic. The badboy is more about a feeling, an intensity, a primal urge.

In the culinary arts, they say that the first bite is with the eye. Basically, the presentation of the food is believed to be as important as the taste. Because, if it doesn’t look good, our brains will tell us that it’s not likely to taste good either.

Madison Avenue would like us to believe that this same logic holds true when it comes to dating and relationships. After all, it serves their best interest. It helps them sell us more products as we try to achieve this ideal we are told we need to meet.

The flaw in their logic is that food cannot tell you about thier latest experience travelling along the Mayan Riviera, meeting Puff Daddy at a photo shoot or the spotting that Baby Phat sale on a side street boutique.

You see, good looks in and of themselves are merely a moment frozen in time; a portrait of a promise - a promise of a stellar personality. This is why athletic GQ guys and actresses grace the covers of our magazines. We are left to fill in that empty promise with our imagination and longings; deciphering what these celebrated humans must be like in person.

Despite the mass media messages bombarding our brains every day, the truth is, physical attributes are only half the equation when it comes to attraction. A vibrant, outgoing nature, graceful movements or an intriguing approach to life all factor in to the overall picture. This composite of features and personality is what we refer to as beauty

So long as you shower regularly and are well groomed, all you really need is a sense of style, inline with the type of person with whom you want to connect. Attention to character and charisma, combined with a little knowledge about what styles and fabrics suit your body-type and/or what makeup looks good on you is more important when it comes to being attractive to the opposite (or in some case the same) sex.

First impressions are important. You still want to look good, but having good looks isn’t really that necessary; as it’s peronality that will “seal the deal” when it comes to being attractive in the long term.

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:

When we have a romantic interest in someone, we want them to see us at our best. We typically dress to impress and tell a few stories that portray us in a positive light. We dab on a little extra cologne. We use our best make-up. We will even rent a sports car and turn up the charm, all to make a good impression.

Last Sunday, my girlfriend and I participated in CIBC’s “Run for The Cure”; both a walk and run raising funds and awareness for breast cancer. The magnitude of the event was striking. While we were trying to keep warm just before the start of the race, she noted that this would be a great place for guys to meet women. Afterall, there were about two hundred women for every guy in attendance.

I started thinking about how a woman might feel about a guy running for what is considered by most to be a “woman’s cause” (even though, about 2000 men in North America contract the disease every year). When we talked about it some interesting points came up:

1. You’ll generate a sense of mystery as to why you are there.

2. You are showing an awareness of issues beyond the snags in the latest X-Box release.

3. You are demonstrating a desire to contribute back to society.

4. You’ll be perceived as someone who is able to handle tough problems when they come up.

5. You are putting your humanity on display.

All of these qualities are extremely attractive to women and if you are open & friendly, don’t be surprised when you find yourself the center of attention.