The Best Dating Advice

A couple of weeks ago, we talked about the best ideas for approaching and engaging someone you don’t know.

However, the best techniques in the world won’t help you, if you are not able to go over and say “something”. This is where a lot of people, especially men get stuck. Not only can they find it physically stressful, but hate the thought of making themselves vulnerable. Usually, they wind up talking themselves out of it, coming up with all kinds of reasons why they might get shot down.

I have been guilty of this in the past too. One particular St. Patrick’s day, I happened to be in a pub just after they finished serving breakfast. I spied a pretty colleen with light in her eyes, a seductive smile and a brazen attitude. She was there with some friends, her father and one of his friends.

I managed to befriend the group, but my fears had kept me from saying anything to the girl. At one point I end up in another section of the bar with the father’s friend, an Irish octogenarian. I confided in him my situation. He took a breath and looked at me with a combination of pity and understanding and offered his advice: “A faint heart never won a fair maid”.

While it hardly seemed helpful at the time, it served to remind me over the years that I had to get out of my own head and have the courage to take some action, if I was going to successfully interact with the opposite sex (let alone go home them).

So here’s your three step action plan:

1) Turn off, blot out, or kill off those nagging voices in your head that tell you you can’t do it or it won’t work out. They’re not real anyways.

2) Have something to say, preferably bold and humorous. Rehearse it beforehand. Know what direction you want to take the conversation.
This will be an enormous help when your emotions kick up and try to drag you away.

3) Realize that nothing bad is going to happen. Relax and enjoy the moment. See where the conversation leads you. This is just another human being you’re talking to, with all same hopes and fears as the rest of us.

So, you’ve been dating someone for a few months when you suddenly have the realization that this person is just like the last person you dated. And the person before that, and before that and so on. Or are they?

Why is it that no matter what some people do, they always manage to attract the exact same type of relationship, jobs and circumstances they just spent the last six months trying to get away from?

Well it’s not as bewildering as it might first seem. Just like I talk about in “7 Tips To For A Killer First Date“, while you are growing up you absorb a lot of information about how life works from your environment and these “imprints” affect your choices to this day. Even though you no longer have any connection to that original experience.

When it comes to romance, you likely have certain preferences that you screen for when selecting a partner. Some are conscious choices you have made over the years and others are unconscious decisions based on these childhood imprints and your beliefs about what you deserve, how happy you think you should be, etc…

Relationships are dynamic. We are constantly adjusting our actions and communication. In a game of badminton, one player lobs the shuttlecock across the net to the other player. The other player interprets the aim and responds, adjusting his serve. Something not so different is happening when you interact with your significant other. If you are constantly & consistently communicating in the same way and doing the same things every time with each successive partner, it might not surprise you that they all start to react to you in a similar fashion.

Another one of the amazing things our brains do is that they love to pick out and analyze patterns, sometimes where none exist (conspiracy theories, anyone?). Part of that is taking your experiences from past relationships and pointing out when situations seem familiar.

So, if it seems like you are always in the same relationship, even though the people are different, you might want to stop a moment and see if it could have anything to do with:

1) Your Preferences: Your conscious and unconscious decisions about who you want to be with.
2) Your Communication: Are you indirectly creating the same circumstances over and over?
3) Your Beliefs: Are you placing limits on them or yourself because of how you think the world should work?

Any one of them could be the reason you’re getting that oh-so-comfortable familiar feeling mixed in with a heavy dose of unnerving awareness.

Thanks to everyone who took the time to fill out the brief Dating Survey. We got a generous amount of feedback that we will be using to tailor our future posts to your needs. If you haven’t had a chance yet to give us your input, there is a link in the right sidebar that will take you to the survey.

One of the biggest questions to come out of the survey was about meeting new people. In particular, how do you walk up to someone you don’t know and strike up a relationship?

Your Approach: Of course, how you choose to engage the hottie you’ve singled out will depend on where you both are. For example, how you act and what you would say will be different if you are approaching him/her in a club, pub, school library, house party, cafeteria, Frat party, or on the street. You want to think about what each situation demands in terms of your energy level, language, conversation topics and attire.

Time: Because they don’t know you, they’ll likely have their guard up, wondering what you want and how long you’ll be harassing them. Put the personal at ease by telling the right away that you need to get back to your friends (you must be normal, you have friends), but you wanted to come over and say hello first. Or some variant thereof. When your time is up(30 seconds to one minute), leave. You can always follow-up later.

Storytelling: You need something to say other than “Hi, you’re cute”. If you have trouble pulling stuff out the air to talk about, memorize something. Keep it simple, truthful, fun and entertaining. You want the other person to be intrigued. Then, when you come around again, they’re dying to talk to you.

Presence: Being “Present” doesn’t just mean showing up. It’s about actively being focused on what’s happening. When you’re Present, you can feel the energy between the two of you. If you get to that point and you are sincere in your desire to connect with this person (i.e. not just looking for sex), you can say or suggest anything and the other person would likely agree to it. It’s a very intense experience, kinda like looking into someone’s soul.

Context: As Einstein would say, “It’s all about relativity”. Not only do you need to be Present, you need to be congruent with the situation (if you are Present, you’re words and actions will follow). You want to blend in to the atmosphere that’s already there. If there’s a huge mismatch and you are out of sync with your surroundings you risk scaring off the very person you wanted to befriend.

Keep things fun and light. If you don’t end up making a “love connection”, assess what happened. Look at where things went well and think about how you can improve where they didn’t. Tweak your approach and try again.

Spring is traditionally a time for new beginnings. The last vestiges of winter are slowly melting away. That winter romance that kept you all fired up through the ice and snow has started to cool down. Or maybe, you endured the wind and cold solo. Either way, you are warming to the hunger pulling you in to the “summer dating” season. You can feel it in the air – temperatures are climbing and the darling buds of May are poised to blossom.

Last week I talked about “Your Plan”. Well, having a plan is great and all, but if you execute it using the wrong information, you’re not going to get the results you want; whether that’s a date with the charismatic cute boy in class, a hook-up with the sexy latina making eyes at you in the lunch line or charting a life-long relationship with your ideal partner.

I seriously want to make this your best summer ever. In order to do that, I’m gonna need your help. All information is not created equal. “The right information” as it applies to your best friend, may not be the information YOU need to succeed.

Give me five minutes of your time and help me understand the kind of information you are looking for at The Best Dating Advice. I’ve designed a brief survey where you can give us your input.

Just click on the link below: