The Best Dating Advice

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).

There is definitely an “art” to conversation. The problem is that most of us are clueless as to what that might be. I mean, how do you start a conversation with a someone you have never met before? I’m sure you know that, as much fun as they are, pick-up lines are the quickest way to have yourself labeled as a loser or psycho. You want to be fun and engaging. Take something simple like “hello” and go a step further. “I thought I would come over and say (use of air-quotes optional) Hello!” And then pause and actually say, “Hello!”. or swap it up after the pause with, “but then I decided against it. You know where I could get some Cheese Doodles?”. And wait for him or her to respond. Congratulations, you have officially “broken the ice”.

Another fun thing I like to do is approach a girl from the side, stand next to her, see what she’s looking at and say, in a low voice, “So, are you planning to steal that?” Just be sure you have a comeback for whatever she says, like, “That’s good, I was going to grab it myself and you had me worried I might have to wrestle you for it”. And remember to keep a straight face.

Your goal should be to stand out, by being original – not so much in what you are saying, but how you are saying it. A key to achieving this goal is to be sincerely interested in what the other person is talking about. Be in the moment. Use humour and tease them a little about what they are saying. You want to create an atmosphere of “play”. Ask unusual questions and tell truthful and off-the-wall stories about yourself and people you know. Purposely misinterpret something they say and put a funny spin on it.