The Best Dating Advice

Have you ever met a really awesome chick or a super cool dude? I’m talking about someone who captures your imagination and truly stands out from all the other men or women online. Someone so intriguing that you just want to know everything about them.

A week ago, you were a normal, levelheaded person enjoying life. Now, your head is filled with thoughts about someone you don’t really know and who dosen’t know you. Still, you can’t stop thinking about them. You want to know where they are right now. You want to know what they are doing, who they are doing it with and even your friends are starting to call your behaviour “stalker-ish”. Yup, your obsessed.

The alluring promise of finding your perfect mate, your perfect girlfriend/boyfriend, your perfect one-night-stand can be overwhellming. You start thinking about what it would be like to spend a lot of time with them, what it would be like to date them, what it would be like to sleep with them. And you find that all these thoughts send a jolt of excitement through your body and you feel you have to make this happen. The next thing you know you’re spending all your free time and maybe even some of your work time online searching through profiles to find them.

We can easily get caught up in the fantasies in our heads. We predict (favorably) how someone will react to us as if it were fact and then add favorable circumstance after favorable circumstance until any resemblance to the actual person’s personality and situation is non-existent. But we think it’s real and then we act on this new reality and get upset when things don’t turn out like we wanted or expected.

Just like social media, internet dating has a darkside. We need to set some realistic expectations of what we will find. Here are three ways to keep your head and keep it real:

1) Go with your “gut”. If the other person seems in any way unreal, sketchy or makes you feel vulnerable, say “thanks, but no thanks”, no matter how great they seem “on paper”.

2) Don’t spend weeks chatting/e-mailing/IMing. You want to move offline as soon as reasonably possible. If you want your romantic fantasy to come true, you need to create it in person, not from behind your firewall.

3) Understand that no matter how much time you’ve spent romancing each other online, the first time you meet in person is really the first time you are meeting them. Respect it as such. It’s a whole new experience in 3D.

One of the best things about internet dating sites is that they introduce you to people you would have otherwise never met. Ever. When I started looking into online dating to get dates, I was at a point in my life where I was just not meeting the type of women in my day-to-day life that I wanted to date. And when I finally signed-up, I found the world waiting for me.

There is a learning curve, but if you are sincere and are willing not to take things personally, online dating can be a treasure-trove of fun, adventure and romance.

Let’s take a look at setting up your profile in a way that gets people interested in you.

1 – Pictures: Unless you are in the “witness relocation program” (official or unofficial), there is absolutely no reason not to have a photo of yourself up on the site. Yeah, you may want to be judged on your personality and not your picture, but without a photo, your personality may not even have a chance to be seen. If no one clicks on your profile, you will never have a chance to shine. Get a friend with a digital camera to take it. Upload it from your work computer. Do whatever you have to do to make it happen. VERY IMPORTANT: make sure that it is a recent picture.

2-Catchy Headline: Most dating sites ask you to write a catchy one-sentence advertisment for your profile. It’s your “Hello” to everyone who is browsing the site. The more intriguing you can be, the better. Don’t be affraid to make a controversial statement. The whole point is to get them to click on your profile. My best headline for getting my profile open and in front of a prospective date was: “I want to talk to you about making the best decision you’ll ever make” (and then my “about me” section followed on the same theme). Was clicking on my profile the best descision they could have ever made? Probably not. Making a sandwhich could have been a better decision, but the headline made them curious. It was a bold statement. They couldn’t help but click on my profile.

3 -Description/About Me section: This is where you truly get to showcase your personality and shine like the superstar you are. After having mediocre success with a couple of different descriptions, I signed up again, under a different e-mail, as a female, so I could see what other men were writing in their profiles. I must have read a good forty or fifty and to my horror they all sounded alike, mine included – no wonder I wasn’t attracting the women I wanted. I think a total of three guys had profiles that stood out.

Dare to be different. Put things in your description that make you sound unique (not creepy). You want to be memorable – for the right reasons.

You may have noticed how the social scene tends to dry up after the holidays. Everyone is still feeling too bloated from all the fruitcake, sugary & chocolate treats and turkey dinners to move, let alone think about leaving the sanctuary of their warm and cozy homes.

And even if they can get some momentum and are brave enough to face the arctic temperatures that generally befall us at this time of year, the sheer magnitude of the Visa or Mastercard bills is enough to stifle the will of even the heartiest of souls.

You see, the formula for the post holiday season looks something like this: Economically uncertain times + cold weather + large credit card bills = not goin’ no place; even for dinner.

You could wait for Spring, when everyone starts to thaw out and once again populate the popular watering holes, museums, bookstores and charity events. Or, you might want to fire up the keyboard and type your way to where an army of potential dates are waiting to meet you.

January is a great time to be involved in online dating. With a sense of new hope, many singles resolve to get their love-life in order and a common first step is signing up to one or more dating sites.

Some sites are paid and some free. I have found that, as a general rule, you are more likely to find people who are serious about meeting someone on the paid sites. And depending on how the site is set up, you are more likely to cut down on the number of “emotionally weird” contacting you. People tend to think more about sending an e-mail when they have to pay to do it. That being said, I have met and dated some really great people on the free sites. You may want to consider putting a profile up on both types of sites and test which ones work better for you.

Popular paid sites include:
Match.com
Lavalife.com
Mate1.com

Popular FREE sites include:
DownToEarth.com (associated with Match.com)
PlentyofFish.com

Have you ever been frustrated with your dating results?

Do you ever feel like dating is a complicated series of moves and counter-moves where one mistake can spell out D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R?

Does it ever seem like dating is merely a numbers game where some people get the partner they want and some people settle for the partner they get?

Have you ever felt like you could get the person you wanted, if only you knew the right combination of things to do and say?

My resolution for 2009 is to help you build a better dating life. In my e-course, “My Best Year Ever“, I will personally guide you through a series of weekly learnings to help you be the person who naturally dates the kind of person you want to date; even if you think they may be “out of your league”, right now.

For 52 weeks – a full year, I will guide you step-by-step through some very powerful concepts, real world case studies and action exercises designed to help you get this stuff at a deep level.

Free enrollment for this course will be capped at 100 students. Any more and I will not be able to ensure the quality of the training.

Just click on the sign-up button and we’ll get you started:

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