15 Surprising Stats About jak napisać do dziewczyny na badoo

THE ULTIMATE GUIDE TO ONLINE DATING: Tips, tricks, and manipulations to Browse the pains and pitfalls I looked at her and then looked at the dinner bill.

She looked me directly in the eyes and smiled.

Still, no response.

It definitely wasn't my best moment, but it was not hers either.

Apparently, as I discovered later, I had fallen into a trap known as"the meal program." The meal program, if you're not familiar with it, is when girls go on dates with guys just to get a free meal. It was obviously quite popular with attractive college girls, a classification she definitely fell into.

When I first heard about the"meal plan," I did a mental rewind as I scrolled back through all the dates I had gone until there: all 37 dates to be precise.

Of course at first I was outraged.

How could women take advantage of me like this? Especially since I was being so vulnerable by putting myself out there to ask them out in the first location.

As I matured in my internet relationship, however, I realized that this was really a response for what men do to women.

There are 3 major levers in our lives which, if we pull on them correctly, can change everything. Our career, our health, and our relationships are the difference between depression and elation.

I discovered this first hand because in the past five years I went through the excruciatingly painful and draining process of pulling all three levers at once.

I quit the career I had been building for over 7 years and I left my 10-year connection with my girlfriend who I thought I was going to marry.

All of a sudden I was a career and relationship newcomer. I was scared. I was scarred.

After 9 months of misery and frustration I was going to give up on online dating all together.

One day, I was sitting in the shower feeling sorry for myself for over an hour. And then, for some unknown reason, my ambitious gene activated and a little voice in my head said,"you're going to give up? No, no you are not. You are going to kick on online dating's ass!"

I started to channel my misery into anger, and my anger into determination. I started to approach online dating like one big experiment. I began creating what I called,"The Process."

In this blog post I'll take you through the whole process I took to master online dating. By optimizing your profile, A/B testing your descriptions, starting meaningful conversations, and even crafting interesting dates. We'll go over how to streamline the online dating process so that you can't just get dates, but possibly discover the love of your life (with minimal stress).

Now, before I get into it, I must preface that depending on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process might need to be different than the below. However, the important takeaway here is to pull back the feelings that come from relationship and treat it like an experiment.

If you approach it with the mindset of,"I'm going to go meet fascinating people and do interesting things," you'll be much more likely to enjoy the procedure. And, if you're diligent, you might end up finding that special person.

UPDATE: As of 2019 I've been with my new girlfriend, who I met on OkCupid, for 4 years and we have moved in together. So maybe these strategies aren't all that crazy, but maybe they are, I'll leave it for you to judge.

Notice: You can also listen to the Modern Dating Show podcast, where my friend Trevor and I cover a lot of these approaches as we browse the present struggles and embarrassments of his own dating journey (and answer listener questions).

The absolute most frequent error I see both guys and gals making when it comes to online dating is they don't define their target obviously. Deep down inside, the majority of us know whether we're looking for a serious relationship or just to have fun.

The more common scenario that I've discovered is that both women and men who are looking for a meaningful relationship are optimizing their relationship for fun instead.

I remember how one day when my coworker, Maddy, heard about my success with online dating, she asked me to help her with her OKCupid profile. She is an incredibly smart and capable woman and she's' really beautiful, a real 10 out of 10, so I was confused why she would need my help.

In less than 5 seconds I saw the problem.

The photos I saw in her profile looked like they belonged more on thechive.com rather than on any dating website. Basically, so as to maximize for receiving dates, Maddy had chosen to only include her most provocative photos.

Now I would like to be clear, there is nothing wrong with women having"promiscuous" photos online. The problem, in the case of dating, is the format of a dating profile and what you lead with.

Our brains have evolved over centuries to intuitively pick up on visual cues much faster than written clues. In actuality, they have found that men that are even walking with their girlfriend, will reflexively look if an attractive woman walks by activating their conscious brain.

Because dating profiles conceal most information other than the profile photograph until a user clicks, leading with provocative photos sets a poor first impression.

So, while it's totally fine to have hot photos up in your instagram, leading together on your online dating profile is sending signals that could be attracting the wrong sort of guy. Additionally, there are plenty of classy ways to possess interesting pictures that speak to more than just the unconscious brain.

Online dating pictures can be both classy and intriguing So, although Maddy was attempting to locate a relationship, her photographs were sending signals that she's searching for"fun." Understandably, she had a line of douchebag guys filling up her inbox.

Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 4

For men, we tend to have the opposite issue.

Every guy who has done online dating will attest to the struggle of getting a woman to swipe directly on their profile, let alone to make them engage in a conversation.

Guys, this is completely your fault.

I have seen guys spend hours talking about the statistics of their favorite sports team, which player has what stats, who's health is suffering, as well as how financial reports will effect the team's chances.

But, when it comes to online dating, guys tend to slap a few pictures on their profile and then start swiping like orangutans until their palms develop calluses.

Men, stop.

Before you start creating or re-creating your dating profile, stop and think about what you're trying to attain.

Are you trying to date a lot of people?

Or are you trying to find a meaningful relationship?

And"both" isn't an answer. As the saying goes...

"If you try to appeal to everybody, you will interest no one."

The techniques I'll outline below work for either desired result, but the choices you make will significantly affect your"conversion" rate.

For example, the first time I mastered everything in this procedure, I started going on a great deal of dates (3--4 per week, weekly ), but I still felt incredibly unfulfilled.

I just realized months after that, while it's great to go on a great deal of dates and get practice relationship (recall I had been off the dating scene for 10 years), it was even more important to be sure I had been dating the right folks.

Fortunately I realized this before I had been the victim of any more"meal programs ."

STEP 2 -- A/B Test your online dating profile pictures and descriptions First impressions matter.

According to a study from Princeton, it's estimated that in any relationship, whether its social or work, we make up our mind about whether we like the person in less than one second.

The single biggest flaw in online dating is that the first impression you make is based solely on your profile picture. They do not get to hear you talk. They don't get to shake your hand. They don't get to smell you (it is a thing).

All you get is one picture and there is a 99% chance it is the wrong one.

If one is coming online dating as an experiment, naturally the first thing to test is the profile picture. I started this process in a very unscientific way...

I went to every female friend I knew and asked her what she thought of my photos.

One hundred, and I mean 100% of them said that my first picture was not my best.

It was interesting feedback, but I wasn't sure how I could test multiple pictures considering that I could only put one as the default.

The answer: testing across programs.

I created profiles on Hinge, OKCupid, CoffeeMeetsBagel, and the dreaded Tindr.

I retained my profile description the exact same on every profile, but I set up another profile picture on each. I rotated the images across profiles before I could find a large enough sample size and make certain that the platform wasn't effecting results.

Four of my actual dating profile pictures Sure enough, the profile picture that I thought was my best was always the one with the least matches.

Interestingly enough, a film that I did not read much into, pic B, was really a huge turn off for pretty much 100 percent of girls.

I was shocked when I found out this, because the two women in that photo are really good friends of mineso that I never would have made this connection.

Sometimes your photos can be your greatest blind spot.

To totally test out this idea, I actually enrolled a couple of friends (both men and women) to the experiment and had them change their profile pictures.

They got varied results, but one thing was consistent: the picture they thought was their best, never performed the best.

This is a super easy optimization that may look to be a pain now, but it will save you from dozens, if not hundreds, of missed matches.

This is the 20% of work that will get you that 80% improvement in results, so please rotate your photos and rotate them often.

Top Tip: If you would like to speed up this process, you can actually ask your games exactly what they think of your pictures. If a conversation with a game wasn't going well, I decided to get some"user comments" by asking her why she swiped right and which of my photographs she thought was best. (I also used this technique to ask recruiters why I wasn't getting jobs.)

Now, a part of the error may be my fault, because I took his advice very literally. I began to speak my thoughts, dress how I wanted to dress, and behave how I wanted to act.

This turned out to be a very bad idea.

With no filter or idea behind my actions, I rubbed over a few people the wrong way.

Now that I have matured a bit, I've come to realize that there's a difference between being your total self and being yourself.

Whether we like to admit it or not, we are never our complete selves except when we are by ourselves.

Seth Godin has a wonderful podcast on"signals," that you can listen to here. In the podcast, he explains that we actively choose which signs to give to other men and women. A man wearing a button up shirt, as an instance, is not necessarily wealthy, but the button up top is putting out the sign that he's wealthy.

Much like someone who wears all black and an anarchy necklace is signaling she doesn't want to follow society's rules, the man in the button up shirt is signaling that he is okay with following convention.

In college I met a girl at a party who immediately caught my eye. She was wearing a summer dress, flower earrings, and looked very cute. I approached her and we immediately hit off. We spent the whole party flirting and dancing.

We made plans to have a lunch date in the college cafeteria later that week.

I got to the cafeteria early and chose to save us a booth seat. As I was waiting, a girl walked up to me and smiled. I looked up and saw a cute girl dressed in black, wearing black eyeshadow and an anarchy necklace around her neck.

At first I did not even recognize her, but after a few baffled blinks with my eyes I realized it was my date.

She sat down and we started talking. After some awkward conversation, she explained that her friends were sick of her being single so they had dressed her up to be"cuter" for the party to attract a guy.

I was that guy.

I didn't really care what she dressed like, but as we picked up our conversation we soon realized that we had practically nothing in common. The outfit she'd used as a sign at the party did not match her personality at all. We finished the date cordially and moved on. Choosing your signals is great, but picking false signals not so much.

The same goes for your online dating profile description.

You don't need to lie, but you also don't want to be your complete self. You need to tell them about how you collect classic records, you do not want to let them know about how you cry every time a U2 song comes on. You need to tell them about how you volunteer at the animal shelter, you don't want to tell them about how you ran over your cat.

Crafting a fantastic description is perhaps the toughest and personal piece of enhancing your online dating profile. There's no ideal answer, but there are definitely some incorrect answers.

The first step to having a good dating profile description is using a clear structure.

I break down a dating profile description into 3 parts: Headline: A short sentence somebody can read quickly.

Intro Paragraph: A little longer description that gives some color to your interests and character.

Call to Action: A desirable action you want them to take. Online dating is inherently awkward, so help the other person by letting them know something you can talk about. Ladies this is particularly true for you. If you don't want men messaging you"hey" or"wanna f*ck?" Then give them some fuel to begin the conversation with.

Unfortunately, people tend to surf online dating apps the way they surf social networking sites: quickly and without much thought. It could be, in fact, that mobile devices have trained us to browse everything in a similar manner.

Because of this, I think the headline is perhaps the most important bit of your description and you should try different variations until you find one that works for you. After a lot of testing I discovered that this one worked best for me: The goal of the headline is to give a fast snapshot of what's unique about you. Having a headline that is authentic, interesting, and short functions like a stop sign for the person who's scrolling through the dozens of profiles on their cell phone.

If you ask any top-performing marketer,"how do I create content that will be successful?" Chances are they'll laugh at the question.

As any solid content marketer knows, great content is all about respecting the medium that you are creating the content for. For instance, if I went into a girl in a bar and said,"Outdoorsy, curious, ambitious, active," she'll definitely get up and leave.

The opposite is true for online dating, however.

You want your headline to be fluff free. Keep it to a 3--6 words, or a single sentence, and make sure it is quintessentially you.

Once that initial curiosity is peaked, you should start paving a path towards them getting to know you a little bit more.

This is not the time to write a book about yourself. After all, this is only your 3rd touch point with this person, your picture and headline being the first two.

The intro paragraph gives a little bit of colour and perhaps some talking points that you can discuss in conversation (again, ladies, this is incredibly important to add if you want to have more meaningful conversations).

The intro paragraph that worked best for me was:

"I love being outdoors as much as you can! Some of my favourite things are surfing, climbing, and playing volleyball. I'm a creative at heart but I really like learning about businesses and new ideas. I am into photography, layout, and Tim Ferriss.

My ideal Saturday is playing volleyball at the beach with friends. My perfect Sunday is reading a fantastic book at Promenade cafe" This paragraph outlines a few basic activities and hobbies I like and some non-standard items like business, design, and Tim Ferriss that might peak curiosity.

The most important thing to remember about this section is to prevent the generic activities that could apply to pretty much anybody. I can't tell you how many profiles I've seen that list things like: "I like hanging out with friends, watching films, binging on Netflix, and going on hikes."

While I am sure there are people on earth who don't enjoy watching movies or hanging out with friends, probably 95% or more of the folks in your area enjoy both those things too.

As opposed to jak znaleźć dziewczynę przez internet trying to fit in, attempt to stand out.

Try to balance your description between things most people like, so it's possible to discover common ground, but also things which are uniquely you.

For example in my description above: -- Many people like being outdoors and photography.

-- Some people like surfing, climbing, and volleyball.

-- But very few people like learning about companies or Tim Ferriss.

This is optional, although it certainly helps. In advertising, a call to action (CTA) is the action that you want the user to take after they've viewed your content.

In relationship, you basically need the individual to message you. This sounds like a no brainer, but I have found that a whole lot of people, both guys and girls, have been rejected so many times that they eventually become discouraged from making first contact.

I've heard countless stories of girls who have matched with a man who they really like, but the guy never messages them. When I ask them why they do not message first, they say that they don't know what to say or they do not want to seem desperate.

The call to action helps alleviate this problem by making it clear that you want them to message you.

But, obviously you don't want everyone to message you, so make your call to action specific.

On OkCupid they have a single section that states: Again, as with all this information, when in doubt just check it out. Try having a call to action and see whether your conversations improve. When they don't, just delete it.

The attractiveness of dating apps is that instead of having 1--5 chances to make a relationship, as you would if you went to a bar for instance, you have tens of thousands of chances and"do-overs" to play with.

STEP 3 -- Making first talking and contact The place where online dating falls flat on its face compared to"in real life" relationship is when it comes to the conversation. Having to chat online as your initial conversation is a huge limitation when you're trying to begin a new relationship.

For one thing, it's a very unnatural method of communicating, because it's been shown that we receive 55% of our communication from non-verbal (or in this case non-typed) communicating.

It makes sense then that when you take countless people and put them in an unnatural communication environment you get some fairly unnatural conversations.

While it might be fun to play around with weird conversation openers, if you're serious about finding a fantastic relationship through online dating, then it is a good idea to research your results a little bit. This gave me the chance to begin testing different conversation openers and see patterns that I simply wouldn't have been able to see if I did not have a high match rate.

Listen to The Modern Dating Show Episode 6 I will spare you some of the terrible ideas I had, but in the spirit of good fun, let's test how well you can judge a good opener from a bad one.

QUIZ Which of the following conversation starters performs the best?

A) "Hey! How's it going?"

B) "Hey! C) "Question: Batman or Superman?" (or some other variation of this sort of question). How did you like X book?" (according to a book they listed in their profile) I will let you consider it for a second.

(I will add some space before the answer below. Scroll once you're ready.)

Scroll for the response Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response Scroll for the answer Scroll for the response And the answer is...

If you guessed D, then you chose the best answer! (If you guessed C, you picked the worst answer.)

In order of best to worst, the replies are D, B, A, C (D being best).

There are pluses and minuses to any conversation starter. While I found the absolute best conversations resulting from"Hey! How did you like X book," that obviously depends if they've put a book in their profile.

You can modify this to ask about some other part of the profile, like a picture or a place in their own pictures. The reason I guess the book one works best though is because a) it shows you actually read their profile and b) it shows that you read.

If I may use the book opener to start a conversation I typically also extend it to,"Hey! How did you like x publication? (This is the way I opened the dialogue with my now-long-term girlfriend).

Pretty much every conversation I started with this opener felt much more natural and moved beyond a few messages.

The second best choice,"Hey! How was your weekend?" Works almost as well, but it is obviously confined to Sundays, Mondays, or Tuesdays. (It would be odd if you used this on a Friday).

An alternate version I tried on Thursdays or Fridays was,"Hey! This worked pretty well, but not nearly as well. I suspect it is because it seems too much like I'm about to ask her on a date or it puts her on the spot to think of something interesting.

The Do's & Don'ts of Online Conversation Now that you have made contact and the other person has responded, it is time to have a conversation. Every conversation varies, but there are some guidelines that I'll put in here as hints.

First, some online dating suggestions for men: DON'T try to be interesting by being obnoxiously weird. I can't tell you how many messages my female friends have shown me that sound objectively psychotic. The sad thing is that I know that the guy is just nervous and trying to think of something interesting to say. Just have a normal conversation just like you would with a friend.

DO attempt to talk about things she's interested in but also add your own thoughts. Among the most common complaints I've heard from female friends is they feel like they're being interviewed. Be certain that you ask questions, but that you also discuss things about yourself in equal measure.

DON'T make comments about her body or appearance. Regardless of how well intentioned you are, it will be perceived in the wrong way. Saying things like,"you are so beautiful! You've got a cute smile! You're..." will only result in a polite"thank you" and will not create meaningful conversation.

Now, a few online dating suggestions for girls: DO be nice and help direct the conversation. Even when I have tried to be nice and friendly, I have still received very curt or standoff-ish answers. No matter how much men pretend they don't care about the conversation, they do. And they normally don't have any clue what they are doing, so offer them some help and guide the dialogue in a positive direction.

DON'T answer questions without asking some of your own. If you are tired of discussions feeling like interviews, then make sure that you ask the guy about things he is interested in as well. It takes two to tango.

DON'T make judgments too soon. In my experience women tend to place a lot more thought into their text messages than men do. If a guy says something that looks weird or strange, give him the benefit of the doubt and don't read too much into it, chances are he did not either.

Now a proposal for the two parties: Attempt to move the dialogue from online to in real life relatively quickly. Online dating is a great tool to meet someone, but it's just that. It is a tool, it is not actual dating.

My general recommendation for moving from online to in real life is one long conversation or two short conversations. It should never take more than a week to establish a date. So, if you match with one another on a Monday, you should definitely have begun talking about using a date by Wednesday.

So yes, use the apps, but also get off them quickly. In real life is a good deal more fun too if you know how to set up good dates...

Step 4 -- Creating a date sequence that will make you smile more and sweat less Once I had mastered the online portion of dating, I soon realized that procuring the date is only half the battle.

The second half of this battle, how well goes, is largely determined before you've even set out from your house.

As they say in real estate: location, location, location.

In which you have your date decides about 50--70% of the results of the date.

But first a question...

Where's the worst place to have a date?

As it happens, it's actually at the most frequently selected dating place: A sit-down restaurant.

At first I was taking all my dates to restaurants for dinner. But remember, I was totally new to relationship so I was just following what I had seen in movies.

Most of them did not go well, but I was not sure why. After a dozen or so awkward (and pricey ) dates, I determined that I should experiment with some other locations.

What occurred next was totally mind blowing.

It was not that I was doing anything differently or that I had been picking better women to go on dates with, it was simply a matter of context.

Here's why I believe dinner dates don't work, it goes something like this: You meet a complete stranger outside a restaurant. You have an awkward hug. You sit down at a desk. You start talking, then the waiter interrupts asking about beverages. You choose beverages. You continue to speaking. The waiter interrupts again to your food order. You are not ready to order because you've been talking. The waiter gives you"another minute." You look at the menu making comments about the choices. The server comes back ten minutes later. You order food. You talk and talk. Then you run out of things to talk about. What do you do next? You have to keep talking.

A dinner date provides no choices. It's a singular task that depends on you linking with a complete stranger almost instantly.

This issue is exacerbated by the fact that many of us are getting worse at getting in-person discussions. Spending so much time online has enhanced our written communication skills, but it has also atrophied our in-house communication abilities.

Therefore, if we're getting worse at having in-person discussions, why would you bet your entire love life on the fact that you'll be able to have an amazing in-person conversation with a complete stranger? I was holding on to a little ledge, about the size of a golf-ball, while the rest of my body dangled 30-feet above the floor like a giant cat toy. "O well," I thought,"this will be a good bonding experience."

As I let my fingers slip off the ledge I anticipated the sharp jolt of the rope in my climbing harness. But there was no jolt. I started falling for what felt like eternity.

As it turns out, my climbing partner had momentarily let go of the rope just as I had slipped off the ledge. She panicked and didn't grab the rope until I had fallen 15 ft to what I was sure was my upcoming death.

Eventually the rope finally stopped and I felt a huge jolt, both physically and emotionally.

"Okay this date might be a little too exciting," I thought.

My whole dating profession made a 180-degree turn once I started carrying my dates on fun activities rather than dinners.

Some of these activities worked better than others. However, I found out that the most essential elements to a great date spot could be distilled into three classes: Walkability -- Do we need to sit together or can we walk around? When you are walking, your landscape is shifting so that you can grab new conversation topics as you go. "O look at that naked man on rollerblades!" (It is San Francisco after all).

Action -- Can we do the activity reasonably well? I've seen men get this one fairly wrong. It's fun to teach someone something that you are passionate about, but make sure it's not too hard. Taking a girl rock climbing? Make sure she isn't afraid of heights first.

Scalability -- Can the date grow or shrink in scale as needed? Having a great time? Great! No chemistry? No issue, how do we end the date earlier?

With these three criteria, I crafted a 3 date sequence which nearly doubled the number of successful dates I went on.

I know what you are thinking,"This man took women out to the very same areas like it was some sort of regimented assembly line?"

This was my go-to sequence, but, depending on interests, I'd substitute unique activities to keep the dates intriguing. This was simply a template which simplified my decisions and reduced the cognitive load I was putting in my brain.

So here is my ideal dating arrangement: Date #1 -- Off the Grid: Off the Grid is a gathering of food trucks each Friday by the San Francisco bay.

Why I like it: One of the difficulties of inviting someone out to dinner is that everyone has different food tastes.

Then (if you are a guy) you have to account for cost of food. Off the grid accomplishes this since there are over 20 distinct types of (affordable) cuisine. It also allows you to walk around, people watch, and get drinks. You can extend the date by getting dessert or listening to the live bands. Queue the awkward white-boy dance moves.

Date #2 -- Variable: This date could vary based on interests but I had a few go-tos, specifically: Little Italy, rock climbing, tennis, picnic on the beach.

Why I like it: These activities had in common were the 3 variables: walkability, activity, scalability. We could walk around Little Italy, catch cannolis, stay for drinks at Jack Karouac's favourite pub, or abort early. With both rock climbing and tennis we can alternate between talking and activity. If we did a picnic on the beach, we can go for romantic walks or huddle around a fire pit on Ocean Beach.

Why I like it: This date was especially important because if a woman had made it to date #3, it meant I really liked her. It also meant we might take the relationship to the bedroom. The Cal Academy night fulfilled all requirements, also it was a semi-formal event so we can both dress well for that particular night. This was also my secret evaluation because if a girl did not like science and facts it probably would not work out between us anyway.

Listen to all the episodes of The Modern Dating Show These are just three examples of how to take online dating offline and make a reasonably successful dating sequence. Here are a few tips on what to search for on every date as you try to make your own dating sequence:

Date #1: Look for a casual environment that is not intimidating. Dark bars or loud places do not make for good conversation. Be certain that you can reliably visit this area, so avoid places with long waits or where you need to make reservations. Make sure you are able to schedule the date for a weeknight (try not to book someone's weekend for a first date).

Date #2: You've broken the ice and you have both agreed to a second date, so have fun with this one! Select an activity you will both like that isn't too difficult. Ideally choose an activity which has a cadence in which you alternate between doing something and talking. Going on a 10 mile run is fantastic for exercise, but it doesn't allow for conversation. Seeing a movie at a movie theater has similar limits.

Date #3: You confirmed you like each other, it is time to take it to the next level. Try to make this date a bit more special than the first two. It needs to be romantic, it should test how compatible you really are, and it ought to confirm whether or not you want to keep on seeing each other long term. After the excitement of dates and two, there may be a lull in date 3, so be sure whatever you choose gives new intimacy to the relationship. For instance, if I didn't visit the Cal Academy I would go dancing instead.

STEP 5 -- Obtaining your Timing Right maybe one of the most important pieces of the internet dating puzzle that I see guys screw up again and again is time. Assuming the guy is the one forcing the dating sequence (which isn't necessarily the case) there are some questions you will need to ask: When should you ask her to go on a date? When should you sleep together?

Here I'll share my answers to these questions that I've found most helpful. But again, depending upon your context, your culture, and your comfort your answers may vary. The important thing is to actually consider timing, rather than leaving it up to"feeling" Going from Online to Offline It is very easy to let a great online dialog die out. You message , she messages you, back and forth, back and forth.

In order to make sure I do not waste all my time with online conversations I found that it was best to ask a girl to go on a date after about 2 days of messaging or about 20 minutes of constant conversation.

Again, try not to linger at the safe-space of this virtual world too long. It may feel like it's necessary, but it's quite easy to waste plenty of time and momentum in the chat room.

Going from Date 1 to Date 2 When I was 25, functioning as"the new man" at a tech startup, my desk was placed right behind the sales team.

Every day I overheard their sales calls where they would use their jedi mind tricks to close deals with multi-million dollar accounts.

One thing that I discovered is that every time they were ending a call they would ask,"okay so what does your calendar look like for next week? Busy? Okay how about the week after that? O that's no good too. Okay how about the week after that?"

No matter what the prospect said, the salesperson would insist on at least"penciling" the next meeting into the calendar with the option of cancelling if needed.

When I took this technique and applied it to relationship, it led to some pretty incredible results. This rule is somewhat contrarian, but it's worked really well: Always ask for the second date on the first date.

One of the worst things about dating is that you're putting yourself out there. You're opening yourself up to strangers and in return you are getting a lot of uncertainty.

No one likes uncertainty.

No one likes to check their phone every hour to determine if you've texted them or not. No one likes to wonder if you like them or not. Surprisingly, most individuals don't mind if you don't like them, they just want to know.

So my suggestion is to quit playing games, both with the other person and on your own.

If you like them, tell them you like them.

If you don't, have the respect to let them know you don't. (A gentle way to do this is by telling them that you are not prepared to date right now. I had a woman tell me this and it was the simplest let down I've ever experienced and used it later myself also ).

I should pause here for a single caveat: Yes, you should tell them you like them, but not always.

I see this a lot with both guys and girls who get very excited by the person they've just met and then they proceed to constantly text them, call them, and see them day after day after day.

Stop Chasing Shadows once I was thirteen years old, my grandfather gave me some advice that I still use to this day. He told me,"Girls are like shadows, the more you chase them, the more they run away. The more you run away, the longer they chase you."

If you find someone who you want to be with really badly, do not frighten them away by being obsessive. If they like you too, there's no need to chase them. Yes, you should consciously attempt to set up a date, but there's no reason to go on dates each and every night of the week.

Allow the relationship to get some breathing room. A fantastic way to judge whether a relationship is going well is if you end up missing the other person and vice versa.

There's a great deal of truth in the saying,"absence makes the heart grow fonder," and now there is even scientific evidence for it as well.

In a number of studies, anthropologists have discovered that many primates invest more effort into a relationships if the people in that relationship have been forced apart. What's interesting is that researchers at the Aalto University in Finland have recently confirmed that the same is true in humans.

By data mining cell phone records and comparing telephone patterns and duration, the researchers at the university found that humans will also invest more effort into relationships if there is a risk of that connection weakening.

I tried applying this research to dating in a relatively simple way and, to my surprise, it worked very well. It turns out that by simply allowing for some time to elapse between dates, ironically, makes the connection strengthen rather than weaken.

My cadence for relationship that I found worked pretty well was the following:

Date 1 -- Day 0 Date 2 -- 7 days after Date 1 Date 3 -- 14 days after Date 2 Date 4 -- variable This arrangement meant that I would spread out the first 3 dates across a 1 month period. This allowed for sufficient time for the relationship to grow and helped me make sure I didn't suffocate my dates, which was especially helpful when I was really into them.

Takeaways and Next Steps As I mentioned at the start of the post, these dating strategies helped me tremendously, but based on your context, your culture, and your comfort, your process may have to be different than the one above. In fact, because dating is such an emotional activity (like job hunting), it is imperative to have a system set up to help you navigate the ups and downs.

By engaging in online dating you are getting on a rollercoaster of emotions and, like on an actual rollercoaster, it would be foolish to simply hop on and continue. Making certain you have that lap belt secured and that you have been on a few less intense rides can allow you to enjoy the ride a good deal more.

Perhaps the single most important thing to keep in mind though is to let go of expectations and treat the process like an experiment. As we frequently discuss on the podcast, when you let go of expectations and just create your target just having fun with other human beings, online dating becomes something to look forward to rather than something to dread.

Like the help of world-class investors, you need to diversify your portfolio and decrease your chance of catastrophic failure. A way of doing that is by going on dates which are not just sit-down dinners, so that no matter how your dating partner behaves, at least you will have a fantastic time doing something interesting.

And, to decrease the risk, you need to build both an outreach and dating sequence so that you decrease the cognitive load of having to think of new dates constantly. Find a few activities you enjoy doing and then fit the dates into those activities. This is also a wonderful way to filter out people that aren't compatible with you in the first place, which will save you time and money in the long run.

Naturally, irrespective of how well I did all the above things, I had my share of terrible dates. The woman who used me as a meal program being just one of many.

Dating is a rollercoaster that will frighten you, challenge you, and sometimes make you wish you had never gotten on. But bear in mind, when you're feeling down and enjoy giving up on love altogether: "You are never as bad as they say you are, you're also not as good as you think you are."

Take each date as an opportunity to improve yourself. If you constantly work on your own, improving your discussions, your dates, and your relationship with other people, that investment will pay off far beyond online dating. Until then, strap in and enjoy the ride.

If you enjoyed this post, I'd super appreciate if you hit the green hand clap button below to ensure that more folks can find it. And, if you have any more questions about dating, listen to our podcast where you can submit your

own dating questions and we'll answer them on the display.