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!

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? From beginning to end?

You know how it is. Maybe you are out with friends at the pool hall, or even alone at the bus stop, and then you see him/her. Your pulse quickens, your sweat glands engage and you start feeling anxious and aren’t sure what to do about it. Who is this person who seems to be causing your (allergic?) reaction? How is this stranger intoxicating your senses so profoundly? You instantly want to know everything about them, even possess them. You lose the desire to eat, the urge to sleep. This person is all you can think about.

Driven by your dominant urges, you finally decide to make yourself vulnerable to rejection. You may have spent days or weeks mustering up the courage to talk to him/her and ask them out. And 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 up 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.

So, what do you do now? You have a date, but do you have a plan for the date? All of sudden you start worrying about all the things that will go wrong if you somehow do not impress this person. Having a plan will dramatically increase your chances of having things work out the way you want them to, but what of the intangibles? Which “you” are you showing up as? How do you create that “connection”? Are we having fun yet? How do you “end” the date? I recently posted a FREE nine-page PDF report called: “7 Tips For a Killer First Date“, designed to help you navigate these first date minefields. You can download it here:

It’ll should answer about 90% of your questions, send me an e-mail for the other 10%.

Being alone can suck. Being alone on a day when you are consistently bombarded with images of happy, loving couples can be downright “slit your wrists” depressing. The endless advertisements for how important & special it is to be in a relationship on this day can leave you feeling angry, lonely and bitter, staring at the clouds in your coffee, wondering “what the hell is wrong with me?”

I would like to think that “what’s wrong with you” is that you have standards. After all, anyone with half a brain, a little persistence and a bit of time on their hands can get a date. But is the meth-head from down the street, living in the cardboard box adjacent to the Salvation Army store really the person you want to introduce to mom?

In automobile lingo, you would be dating a Yugo. Yeah, it’ll get the job done, but essential things like a heater are considered “optional extras”. Now, a Porsche will cost you more (in time & effort) and may be a little harder to come by, but you won’t have to worry about freezing your toes on those cold winter nights.

Take a moment to remind yourself that you are sticking to your vision. You have already chosen not to get involved with anyone who doesn’t live up to your standards. You have already decided to take the time to find someone with all the qualities you respect and admire. You already know that doing this will give your future relationship it’s best shot at success. Don’t compromise your values now, because you are feeling the pressure to be “relationshiped”.

However, if you’re determined to get a date so you too can be apart of the Valentine’s Day festivities, you will want to figure out where your target prospects are likely to hang out. Are you more likely to find someone to date:

*at your local gym?
*taking in an art class?
*doing yoga at the “Y”?
*hanging out online?
*volunteering at your favorite charity?
*out walking your dog?

Most men and women of quality aren’t hanging out at the local pub, martini bar or nightclub. Some are, but you will find the majority of them out doing things in your day-to-day life. Think about where you went today. Did you meet anyone interesting? Could you have? What about that hottie who smiled at you? The one in the coffee shop? The one browsing the sale rack in the specialty boutique?Potential dates abound. You just need to tune in to the possibilities.

Even better, find them where they’re actually looking for you:

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.

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: