Talk Dating

ThirtySomething and Single: Thoughts for ThirtySomethings

2008-09-19T23:37:00.001-07:00

Being ThirtySomething is rapidly becoming the crux age for many of us. It's the time when we have matured and have woken up one morning to understand finally who we are and what we are about. We generally have some idea of direction at this age and it is a time for choices and crossroads. Life may have begun at 40 in times gone by but these days your 30th birthday is the age to sit up and take note. It is a time for reflection and self analysis, for checking how we are doing with our ambitions, and coming to terms with the fact that we are passing into a more mature age group - like it or not. I am not suggesting that becoming 30 means getting older or changing our lives but there are few of us who doubt it is not a time when we start to think - think a lot.

Now dating is heavily related to this ThirtySomethings age group because now that careers have been sorted out and a salary is coming in regularly it has dawned on us that we better get a partner to share some of these things with. For women, it may be a time when children become dauntingly high on their list of priorities and the hunt is on for a suitable parent and father. It may not yet be a time for frantic panic but its not far away. We will not get steadily older and whilst some of us will get better with age, most of us start to look a little ragged round the edges so we need to secure the best dating options whilst we still can

Being ThirtySomething means having more time and money to date properly, to make decisive choices about who, where and what you want to date and to learn from past dating mistakes. By now most of us will have at least on important relationships in the bag though some of us will not yet have fallen in love. We have strong friendships and plenty of shared practical experience in the ways of the heart. But all is not well, dating as you get older becomes increasingly frustrating and tiring. Your base levels for a perfect match have increased and you are becoming increasingly selective. You are tired of meeting jerks and timewasters and people who simply don't match with you, people out for sex and anything they can get.

The other major thing to add is that dating for ThirtySomethings is higher risk. Time is moving on, you don't want to waste more years in another failed relationship so you become determined to get it right so you become more cautious and careful. You are aware of divorce law, so you are also aware that you can meet the wrong person and they could take half of what you worked so hard to achieve. You have become cautious in your old age.

Dating fatigue has set in if you have been single for some time and you feel increasingly frustrated that you will not meet the right person. There is a tiny dread in the back of your mind that it may not be possible to meet Mr. or Miss Right because just maybe they don't exist. Increasingly you may come across unparalleled shallowness, in both sexes. Men can lose their hair in their thirties and women can age in different ways. Suddenly you won't do because you are thin on top or maybe your bosom isn't as pert as it was 10 years ago. You discover that that search for a soul mate may well be bull and that if you are George Clooney or Jennifer Aniston you will always do nicely.

The next issue to hit ThirtySomethings when dating is where to date. In your twenties you were are trance and rave clubs until 3am, or in bars with friends dancing until all hours and still able to be fresh in the office for 8.30am. Now you are 35, it isn't so easy to burn the candle at both ends. You need your sleep, you may not feel comfortable in places surrounded by people a decade younger so you may seek out solace in newer places. It is true that the cafe bar society has grown out of a wealthy ThirtySomething dating society and we can be thankful, but places to date are still not as easy to come by. It seems that clubs for ThirtySomethings are a little forced, and too directed to in your face dating. In other words, subtlety of the dating ritual has been lost, you are being checked out from the moment you enter the room.

Another issue that crops up with dating and ThirtySomethings is the age group we should date. Should we go for younger people, let us say aged 25 upwards, or maybe we like the more mature man or woman, let us say over 40. This really is an issue. It is an issue if we are still wanting children. In our thirties the people we may meet could already have a child or be separated or divorced and don't want another child. Or they may be actively seeking to have a child. If you are a woman you may be looking for a man who will make a good father. If you are a man you may be looking for a woman of child bearing age and therefore may not consider a woman over 40. This is the dilemma. Age starts to become a factor. It is possible you will feel you don't have much in common with someone aged 21 but do find them attractive, on the other hand you may find yourself drawn to the more mature aspects of an older man or woman. You can go in both directions at this age as you straddle the age gap.

The people we meet of our own age gap now have stories to tell, they may have baggage or they may have lost of baggage. We all have some kind of emotional dross we carry with us but in this age group it becomes very relevant. Do we want to meet people who already have a child by someone else, could we cope with children who aren't ours? There are a great many people on the rebound who have just spent years in relationships that didn't end. They could have had a 12 year marriage and be 31 and divorced and vowing never to get married again. Therefore, the people we meet as ThirtySomethings are far more complex than before.

The purpose of this article is not to provide answers but to acknowledge that being ThirtySomething is a very difficult age for dating and to recognize some of the factors that we are all sharing. I for one am 37 and never married so I know this subject well. We will carry on dating with renewed optimism but let us not forget that there are millions of people just like us, all looking for our perfect partner whilst coping with the issues stated.

Quick Dating Tips for Keeping the Momentum In Relationships

2008-09-19T23:36:00.000-07:00

Once you have started dating regularly you will need to think about keeping the momentum going. It is all too easy to allow your dating to run out of steam too early and watch your date lose interest in you. It is also the case that you can easily lose interest in them too. This happens because most often there is too much given and received too soon. People sometimes get bored and go after a new thrill, others suddenly lose interest for no apparent reason leaving you high and dry.

1. Dating is about fun and enjoying the company of your new romantic interest. The first and primary thing you must do is keep this element of fun high. So keep your dates amusing and interesting and do many varied and creative things, whatever the weather. This should never stop.

2. Do not give of yourself too much too soon. You must remain your enigma factor and an element of mystery to retain your date's interest. Therefore don't always explain everything and don't tell your entire life story too early on.

3. Keep your main life going and remain as busy and as routine as possible. A busy person is an interesting person and whilst you should not play games with your date, you do not suddenly need to start explaining everywhere you go and everything you do. The more they wonder about you the more they will want to know you.

4. Keep sex out of reach for a while in the early stages until you are practically wanting to rip each other's clothes off. Whilst this desire is at it's most intense so will your relationship grow. Ultimately sex brings a special closeness between two people but it should not necessarily be immediate. Many is the guy or girl who has lost someone for being too forthcoming too soon.

5. Retain your independence for nothing has changed. Whilst you may well soon fall in love, your friends are still there as are your nights out and your independent socializing. When things often go wrong it is because you have isolated yourself from your normal life too quickly and too soon. I advocate that you should always be able to bring something unique back to your relationship and to do this you must keep your independent interests to a degree.

6. Plan things together and communicate about the future. Have common goals and learn to work as a team to make some of these goals occur. I don't mean big things like buying a house together but the first step will be vacations for building that solid foundation.

7. Learn to laugh together a lot and keep laughing. Humor is the one factor beyond all others that seems to stray from relationships. It is both your responsibilities to keep things fun and entertaining so think up as many things as possible and start straight away.

8. Spend time together. It sounds obvious but it is amazing how many relationships drift simply because people don't put the time in. Work is just work. If this is your big romance it should start to take priority. Money most certainly isn't everything but quality time is. You will strengthen your bond if you put each other first as frequently as possible.

9. Communicate with each other. People seem to forget how to talk once they have started dating. It is as if you think you have said enough already. Well communication and eye contact and letting each other know how you feel, both good and bad, which will make all the difference as to whether you survive as a couple.

10. Listen to your partner and feel her/his needs. Listening is greatly underrated and should be practiced by everyone. People tell you things in the most unspoken or subtle of was. By listening to the person you love, you will see how you can keep things alive and alight.

11. Be spontaneous. There is nothing more boring than routine. Every little thing helps from planning a surprise weekend to turning up from work with flowers. It is your responsibility to be spontaneous every day so get into the habit, however long you have been dating.

Being Single: It's Not All Fun and Games

2008-09-19T23:33:00.001-07:00

Being single means different things to each of us. For some it is a way of life. For a small minority, it is the way we always will be. For most of us, its is a constant battle with optimism. Hope springs eternal they say. We weren't designed to spend our lives alone. For the solitary monk it may be a life of dedication but for us mere mortals, its is a state of being that we hope is temporary.

Being single is not easy. It means first of all that we are daily responsible for every decision we make. We can't share decision making because there is no one close enough to share things with. We trust our friends but we will not have formed as close a bond as we do in a long term personal relationship. Therefore it us up to us to decide what we do each day, whether we go to work, what we will have for dinner, where we will go at a weekend, what we do on vacation and where and how we socialize.

When we get home in an evening there isn't anyone there (which is why so often we have cats and dogs) to welcome us. We prepare dinner alone (or don't bother), run a bath, take a shower and generally live a solitary existence punctuated by our social life and friends as well as work routine. One of the primary issues about being single is not being able to discuss things on our mind when we want to. In social circles we can to an extent and we may call up friends on the phone but this lacks the deeper understanding and compassion we receive from a close partner in a relationship.

We like to play ideas off each other, discuss, talk, think aloud and have pillow talk about the future. All of this is missing when single. Occasional dates or romantic encounters may provide passing closeness but in effect we remain single still. There is something interesting on the TV, but we won't chat about that until we are at work. We have an ailment that worries us, who do we discuss that with? There is an issue with a person at work, what should we do. Friends and family play their part but they don't fill that singleness we are likely to feel.

Cooking for one is a painful experience. What is the point of cooking a nice meal if there is no one to share it with. There is a great movie but we will watch it alone. We need to go shopping and get something new for the apartment but we are going to have to do without the fun of deciding together. Then of course there is sex. Sex-for-one is well known to most singles but its generally not what we were designed for.

Close relationships offer companionship, understanding, empathy, friendship as well as love and romance and without them, we are pretty much left to our own devices to fill that void. When we are younger there is so much to focus on that it may not be such an issue but as we get older we begin to discover that visiting the wonders of the world alone is deeply dissatisfactory.

Being single is a heightened sense because our society emphasizes couples. From meals for two in the grocery store, to paying for single supplements in hotels; much is set against the single person. Why do we pay extra for a single bed when on vacation? The we have our friends who are in couples which does much to heighten our sense of singledom. Dinner parties mean we are excluded due to not having a partner, or we are matched up with some geek we have little in common with by friends desperate to pair us off.

Adult society in the West is made up of approximately 33% single people and this is increasing at a remarkable rate. Admittedly in many areas of the service industry, singles are being seen as a new market and opportunities to cash in on single life are steadily coming into the market place. But again it emphasis a state of play we may not wish to be reminded of. When we set off outdoors on a weekend we will encounter many many couples along the way and we find ourselves wondering what it is about them that got them together when we are total treasures that no one appears to discover?

Therefore being single means being optimistic. It means keeping positive in the face of adversity. That adversity manifests itself through the thought in the back of our heads that whispers 'what if..'. What if we meet someone tomorrow, what if we spend out lives alone and never meet anyone again, what ever we never fall in love, what if no one actually likes us, what if we were meant to remain single. And it is this whispering that we fight to keep at bay daily by fighting to remain optimistic.

Optimism comes from the general knowledge that most of us will meet someone, we will find Mr. or Miss Right soon enough. But as we get older, we start to worry, even start to silently panic. If we are to meet our perfect match it has to happen before we are too old. We would like it to happen whilst we are still young enough. And as anyone in their 30's appreciates, as we get older , so time speeds up. In our twenties, time seemed endless. But as the wrinkles in the corner of our eyes demonstrates, one day we wake up and we are older, much older. And we are still single.

Being single is to an extent a triumph,. It means we have avoided the disappointment of dating disasters, wrong choices, and loneliness within a terrible relationship. It means we still have our own choices and our own sense of direction. We have the full sense of self determination and control over destiny. But at the same time it wears us down. It may be hard to admit, but the vast majority of us don't like being single. In fact we hate it.

We hate it because we don't get to share. We don't get to make happen the sharp image in our head of the perfect relationship we know is possible with the right partner. We have a never ending well of 'giving' that so far has been ignored. We want to give and we want to please. We wish to love and we want that opportunity. We are ready and willing but we are not allowed. Its almost like being in an isolation cell in prison. Being single heightens our sense of the need to give and it heightens the sense of frustration accordingly.

Being single isn't a cornfield full of casual sex, boozy nights, general lack of responsibility and carefree existence over the age of 25. Its a burden that many of us carry. Through failed relationships we have built up a mental list of the things we will never accept again in a relationship and at the same time it provokes and overpowering explanation of what we really do hope for. Being single isn't about choices, it is about circumstances. We know that had we been a certain place, had a certain life, then we probably wouldn't be single. But where we find ourselves today means that we are. Well we are for the time being.

By dating we keep our hopes alive. We realize that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. And whilst the most recent suitor may not have been the one for us, at least we are heading in the right direction. And that's how many of us cope with being single. We do everything we can to keep our hopes alive. We convince ourselves that being single is by choice and that we are just waiting to meet the right one. And that's true, that's exactly what we are doing. But the 'what if' whispers away. Our body clocks may tick louder, our hair may thin, but we KNOW we will get there in the end. We hope.

Being single means living with a sense of frustration that little else can match. We don't have the answers as to why we are alone. We even ask 'why me?' This isn't how we have envisaged our lives, this isn't how we saw our future. So why has it happened? What went wrong. Where did we go wrong? Where are all the nice guys and girls. Maybe they have all been snapped up. Maybe there simply aren't any and we are fooling ourselves. Then we remind ourselves of the few examples of great friends in great relationships and this provides us with the temporary proof we need. And then we begin to question ourselves further. We may even question our own judgment, wondered if we have missed our best opportunity to be in a good relationship. Maybe we are simply too choosey? Maybe it really is all our fault. But of course it isn't.

When vacations and national holidays and Christmas or Thanksgiving come along, then we are reminded heavily just what being single feels like. On Valentine's day we are also reminded that we are yet again this year solitary creatures. However this year will be different. We feel it. We have our sights set one on or two potentials and who knows where things may lead. Who knows, by Christmas we could be engaged.

Married people often think the grass is greener on the other side. People in bad relationships dream of the freedom of being single. I have been told many times that I don't know how lucky I am to be single. The next time someone says that to me, I will go over and stick my finger in their eye and remind myself indeed how lucky I am that I decided to do that..all by myself.

Dating Etiquette and Rules to Follow

2008-09-19T23:32:00.003-07:00

When you begin dating, you must recognize that there are some major rules of thumb to follow that will help you be successful with others. When I write these kind of lists I often feel like I am a teacher restating the basics; but the truth is we all forget from time to time. Dating is about two people coming together to see whether they are compatible and then enjoying each other's company so that they may move towards forming a close bond. In doing so there are things that you should remember.

Dating should always be fun and it is as much your responsibility to ensure it is. When you are dating ensure that you do everything you can to make the meeting enjoyable.
Eye contact is crucial when dating so it is good etiquette to provide as much attention as possible to your date. They should feel that they are the only person in the room. If you use the date as an excuse for general partying you failed.
You will be courteous and complimentary. Your date has made an effort for you and your personal opinions are not welcome at this stage.
As a man you must never talk to a woman's breasts. They hate it. Being appreciated for her feminine charms is one thing, but talking to her breasts is down right rude and is not acceptable, so hold her gaze throughout.
You will always turn up for a date unless you have given enough time for it to be canceled. Standing someone up is not acceptable adult behavior, and shows contempt for your prospective date by wasting their time. This kind of arrogance is detestable.
You will always turn up on time and not keep your date waiting. If the transport is unreliable set off in good time. Being punctual shows respect for your date and illustrates how organized you are.
You will not be flash or extravagant. These are the domain of the classless rich who impress with their wealth. It shows no taste whatsoever to throw your credit card about and entertain with champagne unless you are simply after cheap thrills.
Smoking and drinking copious amounts on dates are no good unless the love of both is shared by both parties. Smoking in a restaurant will do nothing for your image and shows crass disregard for others.
You will not be opinionated or arrogant on a date and you will try to avoid discussions on politics and religion in the early stages. You may be very opinionated on certain topics and maybe for good reason but that does not mean you are right. You will come across badly to your date of you act like this. Arrogance makes most people feel uncomfortable so avoid at all costs.
You will never argue or be rude to others on a date, it simply is not acceptable. You are trying to show your good side so arguing over service charge or whether the wine is chilled enough will make you look a fool. Arguing with a waiter is a huge no-no.
You will be a listener and not talk your date to death, particularly if you are male. Listening shows interest and the ability to compromise. If your idea of a date is talking about yourself and your opinions all night then do the world a favor and stay at home alone.
You will make an effort to dress well. In this day and age there is absolutely no excuse to look bad. Poor dress sense shows laziness and will do nothing to promote you. Furthermore it shows a lack of respect for your date who has made an effort.
You will make an effort to be fresh and smell good. I cannot believe I have to mention hygiene to men (and the odd woman !) so frequently. You should be shaven, bathed and smell very good. It costs nothing except a bottle of good quality cologne and some shower gel.
You will never swear and use uncouth language as you will come across as an idiot. Leave street talk to later. If you want to find the girl of your dreams, then treat her with respect. Women are able to use strong language in more effective subtle ways but even so, leave it on the first date if possible.
Never ever will you discuss your ex dates or how many people you have slept with. This is the domain of enigma. As a man, you will not be encouraged to discuss sex however hard she tries to provoke you. Ignore this message at your peril as I know what I am talking about. The longer you sustain the mystery the better your chances.
If you don't like your date then don't be quick to give them a hard time. They are human beings like you and they deserve always to be treated with respect. You can and will have a good time with someone you are not attracted to, so treating someone badly because they are not your type is not acceptable behavior. Rudeness is not allowed.
You will never tell lies on a date either to get someone into bed or to promote yourself because you WILL get found out. Maybe not now but probably when it is too late. Tell the truth or avoid a subject if necessary.
As a man you will pay the bill on the first date without question and you will not discuss money openly at this stage. Money discussions are crass and lack sophistication.
You will ensure your date feels comfortable at all times and encourage their feelings of comfort if you detect any signals of being uncomfortable. You will also ensure that your date gets home safely in a cab etc.
You will never try and sleep with your date on the first occasion but any method. Sex comes later my friend, no arguments. If you do sleep with them on the first date, the chances are it is over before it began.
You will make sure you are as entertaining and witty as possible and will not reply on alcohol to see you through. Getting wasted on a date shows no respect whatsoever and makes a mockery of the whole situation.
You will call when you promise to call and not keep someone hanging on. If you don't like your date then don't falsely promise anything or leave the door open. Again this shows a great disrespect for your date if you do. Waiting for the phone to ring has long term repercussions.

And finally, you will NEVER date and pretend to be single when you are not. The line to your companion late in the evening "well I am kind of seeing someone" makes me personally seethe. Go dating when you are single and not until.

The Class Factor - Meeting People with Class When Dating

2008-09-19T23:32:00.001-07:00

When dating, there are certain people I have encountered who always stand out. It is not those who were the most visually stunning or those who were the most flash, it was simply those few people who exuded class. Men can have class, women can have class. But what do I mean? Well, by class I mean a level of sophistication, education, intelligence and breeding that makes them stand out from the crowd. Now get this straight. Class has nothing (zero) to do with wealth. Its has everything to do with knowing how to act and how to have a level of style and sophistication that most people are too lazy to carry off.

If as a woman, someone held the door open for me, got my chair, and knew about wines and food and could converse well on a wide range of subjects I would be impressed and see them as having class. You may not have two cents to rub together but if you are thoughtful and intelligent, caring and well read, you may have class. Class has nothing to do with what you wear although your class will show through the way you wear your clothes. I will give you an example: In Bali a male friend on walking up to a temple, immediately pulled out a well crafted silk sarong. He had read the need to keep covered in Indonesian temple and his research and preparation shoed his class in this situation.

An angry man shouting at a waiter on a date shows no class at all and should be avoided. It may be the style of people of some great cities to be bullish and aggressive and rude, particularly in restaurants but this kind of behavior shows no class at all and speaks volumes about they lack of knowledge of how to treat fellow humans. A person with class will not be rude but will be gracious and polite. A person with true class will know when it is necessary to make a point and can be firm without ever raising their voice. I know so many girls who have been outraged by their date making a complete display of himself by having to be rude and arrogant to a waiter to demonstrate their power. It is sad, it is fruitless and such men will deserve to remain single.

The problem with modern generations is that we have seen a dumbing down of society and as this has happened so stupidity is applauded and intelligence ignored. Whilst James Bond may still be a screen idol, his level of sophistication is seen in very few. It is almost as if class is only available to the wealthy few. This is not true. Women with class tend to be subtle and understated as do men. Women will tend not to be ostentatious though they will be educated and informed with specific tastes in anything and everything. You can test out people by simply asking their opinions on things. Ask them what is their favorite Picasso composition, ask them what they think of this years authors or even current events. Class will show through in informed reasoning and sparkling conversation. With class comes wit and observation.

People with class know how to treat you well but more importantly know how to make you the center of attention whilst you are together. An old friend used to spend hours in a restaurant whilst her date eyed up every woman who entered the building. She put up with it for a time but the man had no class. Yes I have had some dates where the gaze remains focused on me, where I am listened to intently, reasoned with, debated with and made to feel special and fascinating. That is a date with class.

So where do you find people who have class? Does it mean hanging around academic and literary circles or art galleries? Not at all. First of all let us be clear. Your type of date may simply not be this kind of person at all. If getting recklessly drunk in your local bar with the girl of your dreams is your thing then that is perfect. If you simply like sharing Dunkin' donuts and coffee, that is perfect too. You will find a person with class by sticking to those who will treat you well. When dating make sure you look to find someone who matches you in intelligence and interests. Date people who know how to treat you well and ensure you are made to feel special. Date people who behave impeccably and make you feel like you are walking on air.

No one has to put up with second best in their lives so wanting to meet someone with class is not out of the question. Simply make a list of the qualities that you would like in someone and then ensure that you primarily date those who are able to fulfill those promises.

If someone has class, you want to be with them. You feel good to be with them and you feel good about yourself. You feel like your world has opened up and that there are millions of new possibilities. You feel you can learn form them and they can learn from you.

Here is a list of things that I found in my special dates who did have class that you may want to look for to.

They are intelligent and witty
They listen and are very interested
They are quietly confident about their own abilities
They are well dressed but understated
They are well-travelled or had studied hard
They are conscientious and polite
They are well-read and have wide interests
They know who they are and have ambitions
They are never rude or arrogant
They ensure you are the focus of attention
They ensure you always feel comfortable
They are always considerate
They are relaxed and extremely easy to chat with
They make you feel good just to be with them
They are a person of the people
They never discuss their money and belongings
They are never loud and ostentatious

If you get some of the following when you are with a date then you may have found someone who does have class. Remember, class has nothing to do with riches and wealth and is really about manners and breeding and how people treat others, including you.

Meeting the Parents: Stressful Occasions

2008-09-19T23:31:00.004-07:00

Okay so you have met the love of your life. You have been safely cocooned in your love nest and things have been going fabulously. You guys are getting pretty serious and its time to take things to the next level due to inquisitive phone calls from keenly interested parents. Lets face it, you are dreading it. Your private life is about to be held open to scrutiny by people you know to be scrupulously honest. This is dangerous territory dear reader.

The first danger is that your parents could confirm something you have already thought of but discounted. You know that they have a lazy eye but you don't need it bringing up over tea and biscuits. Now we certainly don't need a good time ruining so we hope that we are wrong. The next is that parents have high expectations and standards for their offspring and the person you are about to drag through their pristine front door is about to be interrogated like a war criminal. Woe betide them if they fail the interview as it can leave you feeling isolated. On the other hand its possible your parents could simply be embarrassing by pulling out photo albums of the time when you had Mumps aged 3.

Friendly parents are lovely and you will always feel far worse as the offspring than the love of your life who has never met them before because you are fearing the embarrassment factor. They are not. If your new love is flirtatious you can be driven up the wall by their over friendly behavior and your mom or dad taking a shine to them. There again you must also take into consideration the awkwardness that could ensue due to parental excesses and eccentricities. You may have grown used to your father's liking from swinging from the branches of a tree in the garden but your date may be somewhat shocked.

Of course before any first meeting there is always that amazing briefing you get in the car on the way. Parents of course never live round the corner, but usually about 30 miles+ away. On the way you will explain about all the little foibles and eccentricities, things to watch out for, apologies in advance. Things to say and things not to say etc. My favorite was when I dated an Italian girl. I visited Florence to visit and had to formally ask her father permission to escort her after 10.30pm at night. I was ushered into his study where I appeared to have encountered Marlon Brando from the Godfather. Unfortunately he spoke no English. I had to spend 3 hours in there and we used sign language. He enjoyed my silly efforts and granted permission!

Then again you may be the visiting lover who is being introduce din which case you are either going to be not good enough for daddy's little princess of mommy's little soldier. Its a fact. Well that's what you feel on the way and play repeatedly though various scenarios that could develop. What happens if the toilet won't flush, what happens if I accidentally break a Ming vase or start cursing uncontrollably for absolutely no reason. And so the stress levels mount accordingly.

Usually when we get introduced to parents they are really looking forward to meeting us as long as we aren't the 20th that month. Parents simply want their children to be happy in life and love and as long as their prospective partners are nice then that's fine. Or so you think. Remember that at the back of the mind is the thought that you could end up being one of the family and who exactly will be paying for the wedding anyway! So it pays to make a real effort and be conscientious on this occasion.

If you mess things up you can be jeopardizing your own relationship so try and be on form, take a small gift with you and have your wits about you and your sense of humor switched up high. Is meeting the parents really that important? yes it can be, it depends on many factors like closeness of family and age etc. But in the end we all seek some kind of acceptance for our newly-chosen partner, we want to be told we have made a very good choice. And who better to do it than the people closest. A necessary hurdle that you must leap.

Things to Remember on a first visit:

Be polite and show respect
Don't have a hangover from the night before
Don't ever refer to sex and your partner
Don't ask if you can sleep together at their house
Take small gift with you that has been researched
Refer to the parents formally unless invited otherwise
Do not drink alcohol unless invited
Never attempt to smoke, even in the garden or yard
Never refuse food and drink. Accept graciously
Do show humor and character but not too much
Do think through some basic questions they may ask
Do not be evasive about your work or career
Dress well and look presentable
Avoid any form of bad language
Think of the entire situation as a small interview

Dating Fatigue: Tired of Dating

2008-09-19T23:31:00.003-07:00

The fact is, we all get tired of it - dating. I do and maybe you do too. Yes its true, we get tired of trying to meet people we like. We go through hell on earth to meet someone, elicit their details, spend ages and ages chatting, emailing, messaging, writing, phoning and then we go dating. And then we go dating again. And it comes to nothing. And ultimately dating fatigue sets in. We singles know this feeling and yet it is rarely discussed and even less written about. The fact is, being single is hard work and it wears us out.

I know that some of you reading this will have despaired from time to time, thinking that your perfect person is never to be found whilst also hoping secretly that they are hiding just round the corner. After a number of dates you wonder if it is worth it. Emotionally drained, high hopes, low results and you think, "it can't only be me", surely! Yes you are right, you are suffering from dating fatigue but it isn't only you. We all feel it.

Why? Well we make a mental list and then try and reduce it. A mental list of the things we want our partner to be, the qualities and attributes we would like them to have. Maybe this comes from having our fingers burned, maybe from downright experience. The fact is, we all have our list and we need that list. Mr. Right will just not be Mr. Right without us checking first. When we find that the people we date don't really match up to our mental perception of what we want after beginning so optimistic, we feel drained of it. We need to recharge our batteries before rejoining the dating battle.

And this cycle continues, time and time again. There are a few yes, who are very lucky indeed and they will probably not be reading this, but for most of us we need to take a methodical approach. We are on a life campaign to find someone to love, so expect to get tired, expect to feel let down occasionally and pace yourself. Don't go on 20 dates a week thinking Mr. Perfect is waiting in the next singles bar. He may be, but he probably won't be. Instead, concentrate on quality rather than quantity.

To avoid dating fatigue decide on what we want, who we want and when we want - it. Do you build yourself up in anticipation before each date and lead yourself into an emotional crisis, or do you keep a cool clear head and wait to be pleasantly surprised? Do you have just one or two high quality dates a month with true potential partners or do you go out with every available person you meet. I suspect the latter will certainly bring on dating fatigue. But oddly, so will the former. You see, high quality dates are as draining and possibly a bigger let down than anything. To be faced with true potential and then to watch it fade away over a Merlot is soul destroying and many of us have felt that. The fact is , there is no easy answer concerning dating regularity. They will both wear you down.

The single factor that crops up more than anything in giving us dating fatigue lays deep within communication issues. By that, I mean lying. People tell lies, they tell us what we want to hear, they pretend to be something they aren't and they avoid the truth about things they shouldn't. Not everyone does that, but a great many do. Its because many people don't feel happy about themselves, they want to be something larger than life, they want to impress and in doing so, they exclude themselves from dating success. We realize we are not being told the truth, we acknowledge the original potential but its too late. The date is over.

A friend of mine told me recently that there was no point in dating me because in truth I wasn't their ideal and they were now solely focusing on finding that perfect partner. I admire them for their honesty and their focused dating regime. It kind of lacks romance but I respect dedication to the cause.

I think that the way we all should deal with dating fatigue is simple: take some time off, like holiday if you like. Go do something completely different, begin a new sport or hobby and enjoy the important simple pleasures in life and stop thinking about Mr. Right. And in doing so - well you may be pleasantly surprised who you meet. Oh and your batteries will be recharged too.

Fear of Dating: Conquer Your Dating Fears

2008-09-19T23:31:00.001-07:00

More than anything else, fear when dating will get you off to a bad start. Your date can sense that you are scared a mile away. It shows, it comes across and it is hard to disguise. Fear makes the person on the receiving end feel unattractive and unsteady. It makes them not want to be in this situation with you and you will find that rejection comes quickly. It is a viscous circle because the reason often why you will feel fear is because you fear rejection.

Fear of rejection is debilitating. It prevents you from functioning properly. It affects your movements and speech and most certainly prevents you from displaying the glorious aspects of your relaxed character. You are uptight so you can't talk fluently, your words come out all wrong, you don't come across properly. In some circumstances I have seen people come across as aggressive merely because they were frightened of being rejected.

We want to be loved, we want to be liked, we want to attract, we want to be popular and we want to succeed in the things we try. But something inside us tells us in advance of our actions that we are going to fail. The girl we approach won't like us and she will reject our advances so we are not sure why we will try, but we will. The problem with this approach is that your fear shows through already, so its not you who is allowing you to be rejected, but that your fear of rejection is in itself causing the rejection to happen.

What is lacking here my friends is confidence. If your confidence levels are up - you are on form. You are interesting as well as interested. You are smiling and you can take a joke. You can approach and have fun and make light of any situation. In turn this makes the person you have approached feel relaxed in your company and able to judge how your character truly comes across. If you make someone laugh, you have them interested already. If you are frightened you will cease up.

Now I know how fear of rejection can be because I have felt this way. I see a beautiful girl and she is waiting to be approached. She has caught my eye and she appears receptive. However, I would either not approach or if I did it would take me so long that the moment had passed and she could already tell that I was scared. In a previous article I spelled it out for guys, one of the most attractive qualities in a man is confidence. You cannot become confident overnight and using drugs and alcohol to assist is a huge mistake. What you can do is look at how you can change things you don't like about yourself to increase your confidence levels.

You may fear rejection because you have been rejected so many times already. In which case you are already scared. Well it is true that dating is a numbers game and that eventually someone will say yes, but then perhaps you are introducing yourself to the wrong type of girls in the wrong way. If you use chat-up lines, stop instantly and start being more natural.

Interestingly there is a recent report in the London Times* relating to a study by the Social Issues Research center in Oxford as to why men get their approach wrong so often and mistake the signals women give out which may assist in dealing with the fear of rejection. Men often mistake the signs of friendliness from a woman as an overture for something else when this is not what is actually happening. If you are scared of being rejected yet again after making a pass at a woman there may be a very good reason. Women appear to be sending out very subtle but misleading flirtatious signals known as "proteans".

The man will read this "proteans" as flirtatious signals giving him the green light to act. However the woman is in fact assessing and working out whether you are a suitable mate or not. All potential suitors are interrogated through these signals in the same way. When you first meet a prospective date she will bombard you for the first few minutes with many confusing protean signals (named after the Greek river god Proteus who was able to change his form to evade enemies !). These ambiguous signals confuse the man allowing women to gain the upper hand by finding out what the man is truly like very quickly. Because of this, it is hardly surprising therefore that men become confused and consequently face rejection.

The most surprising outcome from the study was that in two-thirds of cases, the opening flirtatious gambit was initiated by the woman , most likely through a flirtatious gaze, repeated to attract your attention. It goes to prove therefore what I always believed, in that when you enter the room the woman has already decided whether you area good candidate or not, even if you are led to believe it was all your idea. Men appear to make the approach but it is in fact the woman using very very subtle techniques.

This survey and general information on this subject is significant because it helps us understand and combat our fear of rejection. Women in modern society are able and willing to make the move for partners they like. Women are not wallflowers. If we are to readily accept findings like those above then we should consider that we are being tested in our initial approach and that it is clear fear will make us fail from the outset. So its critical that you deal with your confidence levels in advance of an approach.

What is also important to add is that we have heard it said that women hate to be ignored and can find a man more attractive initially if men are not fawning all over them. This must be highly linked to these protean signals. The woman is checking you out as a potential mate but you are not reciprocating. If you are not displaying fear, but nonchalance or disinterest, this may confuse the woman and increase her interest in you. We can categorize this behavior as a game, and it most certainly is a game of courtship yes.

Fear in dating has to be dealt with, it will not assist you in meeting the person of your dreams. It is almost always linked to how you view yourself in terms of looks and skills and almost all of these issues can be dealt with. If you increase your confidence levels and then combine this with a sensible approach to who you approach then your success rate in the initial approach will soar. If you combine this with pre-armed knowledge that you will be bombarded with confusing signals you can decide that rejection is all part of the natural dating game and isn't so serious after all. Have fun and don't fear.

Top Dating Regrets About Past Dates

2008-09-19T23:30:00.003-07:00

I decided to take a survey of good friends and find out what kind of regrets people had when dating. Regrets took on many different forms in their varied answers but I thought it was interesting to ask because it often highlights dating issues we often forget to mention. As with many of my surveys, the results are haphazard but are useful in pointing out that we are not alone in the mistakes that occur in our dating lives.

Here follows are a mind boggling catalogue of dating disasters that we should bear in mind as lessons learned.

1, In top spot - dating a married person. Man or woman, it makes no difference. In every version the story was the same, dating a married person was a complete disaster. Not withstanding the lies, deceit, regret, cheating and false promises, on NO occasion did anyone I asked have a good outcome for their married affairs. This was one good example of how to waste your years waiting for someone who will never leave; sharing your loved one with someone else and spending thousands of dollars on stolen moments and brief weekends where you were not the only person on their mind. Avoid like the plague unless you want to lose all the dignity you ever had.

2. Amazingly not marrying your childhood sweetheart was number 2. It appears there are a lot of people who have spent years wishing they had married the person of their dreams when they had the chance. Unfortunately this often tends to be your childhood sweetheart or first love at college. At the time you are too young and there are too many other fish in the sea. In later years you have used them as a bench mark of the minimal level of romance required for potential partners and never quite match it. This leads to a feeling of making do with second best. In turn you start hankering for the girl or boy from all those years ago.

3. Not asking someone out on a date when the offer was there. This is a biggie because we are dealing with the eternal niggling "what if.." question. This tends to come out as a regret at a time when other things are not going well and you find yourself fantasizing. What if you had asked him out. What if you had said yes to that date. What if you had got married and had children. It seems that not asking someone out can leave a long term legacy. Just look at the popularity of reunion sites on the Internet just now.

4. Not ending a bad relationship earlier. Yes lot of us listed this one. There are many of us who have entered into a relationship willingly only to discover to our cost that the relationship wasn't all it could be. Whilst the door was only over there we chose for many a reason not to walk out of it. Whilst perhaps a worthy concept in itself it does none of us a service. The fact is, too many of us have stayed in long term relationships that were not good for ourselves and our partners. If only we had had the courage at the time.

5. Dating the wrong person for the wrong reasons. Maybe for sex, for appearance, for contacts, for business reasons or even out of sympathy. It appears that there are plenty of people out there who have dated people for the wrong reasons and lived to regret it. This has to be balanced against hindsight. Looking back it is obvious which people we perhaps should never have dated but there are plenty of us who dated the wrong person at the time and knew we were doing it. No excuse.

6. Putting your career first and waiting too long. Oh yes, this is a modern classic. Our current society has a problem in that a third of all adults are now single - and growing. The most commonly sited reason is that we put our career first, especially through out 20's and then begin seriously dating in our 30's when we feel ready. The problem is that we are not as young as we were, not as attractive as when we were 21 in many cases, our body clocks are ticking at a deafening volume and all the best catches have been snapped up. A great many of us appear to be wishing we had sorted out our love lives earlier. Be warned.

7. Leaving someone you were in love with. I don't have the answers but it cropped up quite a few times in my survey and could be tied in with point 2. People in love have left and seem to struggle to find an explanation. All too often the decision was regretted very quickly only to find that the rejected partner had closed and bolted the door and you were never going to be allowed back. Infidelity is the primary cause, or more to the point, getting caught. If you love someone stay with them faithfully appears to be the lesson here.

8. Not being the nice person you could have been. Treating someone badly in a relationship always comes back to haunt you if you are the guilty party, however empowering it may have felt at the time. As we grow older we list mentally those we could have been nicer too and I am amazed how many of us confess we could have been nicer people to our lovers. I am not talking about physical violence though we all accept that it does exist within our society. No I simply mean being courteous, kind, remembering birthdays and anniversaries, buying flowers, compromising, going on holidays and being romantic and spontaneous. We live and learn and later regret is clearly the message.

9. Dumping someone in a callous and bad way. I have done it and I have had it done to me and I regret both happening. When young it was easy to love and leave and I never thought anything of it. As I grew older I had it done to me by someone I loved and it broke my heart. I don't think we every do get over being left in a bad way - no explanation, no reasons given. One day it's fine, the next day you're gone. Dumping via email, texting or phone should be made cardinal sins and it appears from my survey that many of us regret doing just that.

First Loves. Our Past Haunts Us Still

2008-09-19T23:30:00.001-07:00

Are we searching for Miss or Mr. Right or have we already met them before? Did your Mr. Right once exist in your former life? Were they childhood sweethearts?

First love isn’t a new topic but I realized that first love is an emotionally potent one. With this in mind I realized that first love must have a much greater effect on the way we handle our lives that we perhaps want to admit. Until we first fall in love we are in effect emotional virgins. True romance has yet to touch us. We assume we know a great deal about life already and we assume we feel the same way that everyone else does, but we do not. Only those who have been in love that first time know the world has far more to it than meets the eye. Like death of an adult or parent or someone we love we can never be prepared and first love for many of us is a happy experience tinged with lifelong sadness and oddly, an element of grief. Because unless we marry our childhood sweetheart, our very first Mr. Right and live happily ever after, most of us will go on from our first love to be single again and learn from the experience.

I am not speaking here of first dates, first kiss or first sex. I am speaking earnestly about one’s first true love, the person you first fall madly in love with and cannot live without. It could be a childhood sweetheart but it doesn't have to be. Childhood sweethearts have a huge influence though and mustn't be underestimated in the legacy they leave. However I accept here that child hood sweetheart is too specific. Personally speaking, I was always kind of jealous of those who had childhood sweethearts as that was how it was supposed to be.

First love is the first time we learn to deal with pangs of angst, stomach churning adoration, lust, love, anxiety, salty tears that know no end. It’s the first time you learn what a deep communication with another person out-with your immediate family can be like on both a spiritual and physical level. You cannot live without them, you feel alive like never before, you exist wholly for another human being. It is fantastic, it is unbelievable, it’s the best thing in the world and it becomes your life, she becomes your life, he becomes your life. And it ends. In an instant the best thing that ever happened to you …stops.

I may overplay this scenario and of course it doesn’t happen to everyone, but amazingly, most of us have had some kind of experience like this. If we haven’t then we will so be warned. I say this because this may just be the thing that governs who we are. For many of us, our first great love occurs sometime between 16 to 21 years of age when we are still young and fresh and optimistic and ready for life. In that moment we are most open to experience and we are also at our most vulnerable. In this moment we may love like we may never love again, at least for quite a while.

During that time of first true love we open up ourselves to everything that love can bring us, elation, defeat, passion, sincerity, communication and contact, all on levels we had never experienced before. Our minds store away every small detail as part of our vertical new learning in love and romance and we cannot get enough. But the issue is that it gets taken away. It may be we are making a wise decision, maybe it is we who decides too much too young. It may not be our choice and our eternally loved partner walks away leaving us with life long questions that may never be answered. But whatever happens and however the end of our first love occurs, it will and does leave a legacy whether we like it or not.

Okay I hear you ask, what legacy, or is my legacy the same as your legacy? Well no, we are all different. First love in many people often leaves us with lifelong happy memories that are tied in with other close friends, with college and school, with times and places and particularly summers. For others, first love is a series of memories of regret, bad decisions and choices from which they have learned and become stronger hopefully. For everyone who has grown older with the legacy of a first love, future dating decisions are often too closely related to that first true love experience.

The first legacy is often physical. We want to recapture the feelings of being with our first love, our childhood sweethearts, our Mr. Right or Miss Right, and the easiest way for our brains to do that is to find someone who looks like them. How often have you seen a friend partner with someone who looks like their first love. Amazingly when I thought about this, there were quite a few people I knew who were dating the image of their childhood sweethearts. So we find comfort in being with someone who resembles our first love.

Next, we find that we are left with a legacy of the need to recreate a sense of love we have had time to heighten. What this really means is that if we have already experienced true love once, we want it again. Not a little, but the same or more even, just like the first time. Secretly, we crave it. Now this is a serious legacy from our past romance because what this really means is that we may not be satisfied by many relationships that come our way afterwards. Every time we date we want it to be like the first time, full of new experience, full of innocent love, with no preconditions. Yes we already now have preconditions because we have learned from our first love. We have set a base line for the presence of love.

Next this means that we will be tough in our romantic and dating decisions. Subconsciously we relate our first love to the perfect feeling of being in love and as such we crave it. We need and want love and that overwhelming wave of romance to be as powerful and magical as it was the first time and if it doesn’t come and come quickly, then the person we date will be penalized for this. We won’t want to date people who appear to be dissimilar to the person who showed us love, we avoid selecting people who don’t show such heightened potential in the early days of meeting. In other words, new dates are not reaching a perilously high love base line we have set and it may be that no one can. We want to date our childhood sweethearts a second time.

Next, the first love legacy means that we may punish those from who we don’t receive the same amazing love feelings by letting them go and continuing our search. In the end it can mean that we have set our sights so high that finding comparable love and happiness becomes difficult. Date after date we are looking for something we cannot find. I often here people say, “I don’t know what it is I am searching for but it’s inside me but I just can’t find it but I will know it when I see (feel) it”. In other words, they know what love feels like and want it again, but until it comes instantly they won’t accept, “I will not make do”, they say. And dating becomes difficult.

Of course what we forget is that our first love, our Mr. Right, is probably now some years older, a different person, maybe even looks different. That moment has gone now. It has been lost in time, and only lives on inside of us. I think it can be a good thing if we control it and let it be part of us but not take over. It governs some of the choices of who we are and who we wish to date, it guides and helps us in some ways because it clarifies what we know allows us to be happy. Even better is that it reminds us that true love can and does exist but that we are on a search to find it once again. To find true love in first love is an amazing thing and many say that to find that twice in a lifetime is impossible.

I disagree, I think as long as we accept that we must not try and recreate our first love, we are simply clear minded healthy people who know what we are about and are wise in knowing the experience of love, both good and bad. We should remember not to let this affect the potential of future even more powerful relationships than any that came before. Your Mr. Right, is somewhere waiting, just don't let him be the one in the past.

To Kiss and be Kissed - Get your Kisses Right for Dating

2008-09-19T23:28:00.002-07:00

Kissing is not such a clear-cut subject as you may think. It depends where you are sitting when reading this article. For many countries in Asia for example kissing is a private affair that almost never happens in public. I remember a Filipino guy I worked with in Singapore who was completely amazed to the point of hysteria that two men were seen kissing in public on the London tube. He simply couldn't deal with that concept at all. I have lived in Asia for a while and it was very rare the whole time I was there to meet indigenous people who kissed openly. Indeed in Thailand it was far more common to rub noses than to ever touch lips.

Kissing is a sexual act to some degree and some societies simply do not view kissing as appropriate behavior in public. Even in the UK , overt kissing in public is often frowned upon by older members of the public, even if as a youngster its perfectly natural. Then again on a summer evening in Rome, or a city park in Paris, I would expect to see couples of every age group kissing passionately as the most natural thing in the world. It all depends on where you are you see.

In western society kissing is a pretty normal mainstream pastime and rather lovely at that. The problem occurs when we start dating and are not sure when we should kiss and to what extent. The crux appears to be that we want our first kiss with someone we like to be prefect. If we begin dating and we don't kiss its unsettling, but if we are French Kissing (openmouthed) on day 1 the romance can dissolve too quickly. So it is a matter of waiting.

There is no definite here but it is pretty much accepted that on a first date, if it goes well then you should offer or accept a small kiss on the cheek and nothing more. This will occur when you go your separate ways and says that a basic level of attraction has been built up. The desire may be to kiss the lips off your date but hold back if you can. Anticipation is the mother of desire.

Of course by your second date, if you are both displaying all the signs of attraction then it won't take long before you are kissing more passionately but again it depends on the situation, culture and person you are with. Find the right place and wait as long as you cam I was dating a girl in Hong Kong and waited two weeks , seeing her 4 times a week, before we kissed properly. Believe me the kiss was worth the wait because it happened at the top of the mountain above Hong Kong called The Peak set against the lightening of an electric storm. An electric kiss it surely was and totally memorable for all the right reasons.

One thing that amazes me even now is how many people can't kiss. What I mean by that is that there are some people out there for who kissing means the oral Olympics. Having your tonsils pinned against the back of your throat by a tongue hardened like a javelin is not pleasant. The other issue seems to be people who purse their lips and make their mouth very hard when kissing. Kissing is a soft, delicate and sensual pastime savored slowly. Follow the lips of your partner and take things slowly and gently, allowing lips to brush and move so much so that they hardly touch. Kissing should make you shiver. Concentrate on the delicate corners of the mouth which are extremely sensitive and generally let the force guide you. As many woman will tell a man, kissing can be undertaken for hours and many women prefer kissing to anything else. It can be extremely sensual and sexual so don't ignore the technique.

I remember a date once telling me that she could never kiss passionately until she was sure the man was in love with her. She felt that 'proper' kissing was so explicit that it was inextricably linked to sex. If she began to kiss properly she wanted to go to bed. This tell us that kissing on dates means different things to different people. Don't expect too much at first, a kiss to some people means a great deal more to some than it may to you.

Sometimes dates will be shy and require encouragement to kiss so once you have had a few dates do take the initiative if you feel your date is being a little too shy and requires cajoling. The problem with that though is that many men are convinced they have misread the signals and dare not try and kiss in case they are wrong. This in turn can lead to a man appearing as lacking in confidence which can be critically bad. Take it from me guys, if you are on your third or fourth date and you haven't kissed but you are getting on great you may be better taking some small initiative.

Guys should also remember that kissing does not automatically lead to any other physical contact for some time, so be patient and take things slowly.

Make sure you know how to kiss
Ensure your hygiene is spot on
Carry some gum if you need to freshen up
Floss regularly
Remember to kiss gently and sensitively
Wait until you are ready to kiss and choose your moment
Allow the passion of kissing to build up slowly
Remember that a first kiss should be memorable
take the initiative if your partner is shy
Learn the key body signals that demonstrate conclusively that your date wants to be kissed
Remember that good kissing can be as sensual as sex
Appreciate that some people do not liked to be kissed in public

Our Worst Dates

2008-09-19T23:28:00.001-07:00

I thought it may be worth taking a short survey of the worst dating experiences in the Top Dating Tips office. It is a jungle out there and along the dating path we have encountered some peculiar situations. Whilst one or two could put us off dating for life, others are simply bizarre. There are few of us who don't have some strange dating story to tell who are over 25 and some of them can act as lessons too. Whilst I wouldn't like anyone else to go through these worst dating experiences, its clear that its is part of what happens when we try and spend time with complete strangers.

The worst dates in general seemed to be when dates failed to turn up completely, made disgraceful excuses, were caught out the same night with a different man or woman, or simply lied. One guy met up with a girl who stripped naked in his favourite restaurant to show the waiters her dragon tattoo, another was punched out cold by a father who didn't like his hair!

My worst dating experience was taking an arranged flight from Toronto via Pittsburgh to visit a girl who had just spent three months phoning me asking me to visit her in New York. On landing she phoned to say that she had booked me into the Grand Hyatt on 42nd Street and would call me when I got there. Once I had checked in she called me to say that she couldn't make it to meet this weekend and perhaps I could visit again next weekend instead! $1000 dollars later I had a weekend on my own in New York visiting the tourist attractions and shopping. Needless to say we never met up again.

Here are a few examples of bad times in no particular order.

On the Rack

One of the guys had been dating a quiet girl for a few weeks when she asked him back to her apartment. She was a shy girl but he was an honourable gent so he tells us, so he said yes. When he got to her apartment they settled in for a drink on the comfy sofa before moving to the bedroom. As things got heated she insisted on tying his hands to the bedpost with silk scarves and has he was game for a laugh he agreed. Before you could say anything she pulled out a portable rack (yes the mediaeval type) and said he could so with some stretching (!! editor). In wild panic he managed to loosen his restraint and ran screaming from the apartment semi clad with her chasing after him but managing to escape. He has been quite quiet on the dating front since then.

The Bad Photo

Our office marketing guy had decided to try some internet dating so joined one of the top professional sites and posted a comprehensive profile and a photo. Then waited. In fact he waited for about a year and got zero responses from any of the many women online. He started to chat with the girls and got nowhere fast either. After 18 months he had no idea what to suggest. The girls matched his profile exactly, they had the same backgrounds and the few who spoke to him said that he was a lovely guy but never took it further. Eventually he performed a test. He simply replaced his photo with one of a male model. Within 2 days he had received 132 email replies, 17 unprompted conversations and 5 offers of a date. The moral of this disheartening story is don't believe that all women put personality before looks, sadly.

The Wrong Vehicle

One of the guys here was standing in a bar having a drink when two gorgeous girls approached him and one admitted that she thought he was lovely. They got chatting and were getting on really well when one of the two asked what car he drove. He had been driving the same car for years and admitted it was old. The girl said that that wouldn't do at all as she only dated men who drove BMWs - and left. He is still single and driving an old car. The moral of this story is get your wheels sorted out guys.

The Preacher's Daughter

One of the guys in the office was dating a girl when at college. They had been sleeping together for sometime and the relationship had progressed but he had yet to be introduced to her father. Her father was in fact a preacher and minister and devoutly religious. One Saturday morning the preacher took it upon himself to visit his only daughter by driving the 100 miles to her apartment. Our hero and his girlfriend were in bed when the knock on the door came so quick as a flash he jumped naked into a wardrobe and hid.

The father entered the room and was welcomed by his daughter who took it upon herself to chat with him about her studies for the next 4 hours in which time they ate both breakfast and lunch. Our hero meanwhile is no more than a few feet away, naked and cramped in the darkened wardrobe, having now lost all feeling to his body and freezing cold and dehydrated. Just as the father was leaving our friend fell from the closet and landed naked at the feet of the preacher with daughter looking on. The result was that within three weeks the daughter was removed from the college and the relationship was over.

The Car Door

I once took a girl I was very attracxted to out on our first date and as we arrived in the city the girl in question got out of the passenger side of my car. As she closed the door, the window dropped out and landed on her foot breaking 4 bones. We spent the rest of the day in hospital but alas no further date was arranged as she spent the next 6 weeks with her leg in plaster.

First Vacation Tips With a New Partner

2008-09-19T23:27:00.002-07:00

Going on your first vacation together will be one of the most stressful things you ever do. It is akin to death, moving house and childbirth. Expectations are high, you are both having sudden doubts as to the validity of this decisions and once you get wherever you are going, there will only be the two of you to focus on. Very quickly it will turn into the perfect vacation, or the vacation from hell and it is down to both of you as to which way it can go. Being isolated together in a foreign situation polarizes thought and beliefs and behavior. It can illuminate the smallest worrying traits in you and your partner and it will put under the microscope every fine detail of your planning skills. Once you have checked into your villa or room you will soon find out what you both truly like doing and how you both behave as a couple.

You may be thinking that you are in for a fortnight of sex in the surf with fine wines and relaxation only to discover your partner gets travel sick, has an obsession with tanning, hates sightseeing and can't hold their drink. On the other hand your partner may be the perfect companion and love and romance blossoms stronger than ever.

Many are the relationships that have foundered on the rocks of a first vacation together so some planning is involved, some adjustment, tons of compromise and a fantastic sense of humor to get through it. If you both come out of it successfully you may end up being a couple for life. If you fail, then better now than after the church ceremony.

Lower your vacation stress levels with the following tips:

Your first vacation together may be better as an extended weekend in another city and a fortnight in the sun
Make sure that selecting the first vacation is a joint exercise that is shared and is fun
Don't rush into having a first vacation together. Timing is essential as vacation time is limited
Make sure your expectations are realistic in advance of the vacation. If you are expecting heaven in the surf, you could be opening yourself up to disappointment
Ensure you have a high tolerance threshold and are open to many suggestions
Be relaxed but prepared when making vacation arrangements
Ensure the destination is one you are both more than comfortable with. A one-sided vacation plan will remain so
Do NOT go on vacation too soon after meeting. You need to have become used to the person you are travelling with. This is essential if you are not to have a roving eye round the pool
Do communicate in vast amounts before departing to ensure you are both on the same wavelength about what this vacation is all about
Do retain your romantic outlook from the moment you depart to the moment you arrive back. Just because you are on vacation does not mean you switch off
Do ensure you are personally well packed and prepared prior to the trip and do not rely on your partner making all the arrangements
Ensure the room you have booked has a double bed and not twin beds
Ensure you know something about your destination before setting up. Forearmed is forewarned. Surprising your partner is as necessary on vacation as at home.
Ensure that you know about any doubts or worries you partner has prior to the vacation and ensure they are reassured throughout
On vacation do show each other special attention throughout. The rest of the world doesn't matter whilst you relax together
A vacation should NOT spring unpleasant surprises so make sure you partner knows any dark secrets well in advance. If you are allergic to sunlight , make sure that is known in advance
If you can't swim or ski start learning now and assist your partner if you can
Be careful about too much alcohol on vacation. It can lead to many arguments
Flirting on holiday is a complete no go area. Don't even think about it
Do join water sports or classes together. Teach your date to ski if you are better than them, and make things a partnership
Do recognize that just because this is your first vacation together does not mean you live in each other's pockets 24 hours a day. Give each other some space when you sense it
Communicate, communicate, communicate
Select restaurants that are romantic and that are suited to both tastes. If necessary, compromise
Lose every selfish bone in your body
You are not joined at the hip so be prepared for some individual expression
Jealousy and possessiveness will not help your vacation so be open-minded and humorous
Be relaxed and entertaining and forget about home-life for a while
Don't go clubbing when your partner is tired. Spend relaxing times together and be considerate
Whatever happens you will display some hidden traits and so will they, take it all as part of the vacation experience. Things are not the same on vacation as at home
Make sure that you do only the things you can both afford and don't put your partner at financial risk by provoking them to spend more than they can afford
Pay for your first vacation separately out of your own funds if it feels right
Remember why you are going on vacation together in the first place. To spend time with each other in an ideal location to have fun together
Do not criticize how much your female partner has brought with her by way of clothes and shoes. I she needs 28 sun dresses and 15 pairs of shoes that is entirely fine
Your first vacation together is not a honeymoon
Finally, it is your responsibility as much as theirs to ensure you have so much fun it is the perfect holiday so never ever start blaming him/her for things out-with your control
Do not use a vacation situation to get too intense. Lay back and enjoy the sun

Beginning A New Relationship The First Four Weeks

2008-09-19T23:27:00.001-07:00

Gosh, it doesn't get more unstable than this. You feel sick, you can't eat, you don't know what you are thinking and feeling, but you are thinking excessively. You feel happy, you feel sad, you feel unsettled, you worry, you are ecstatic. You want to panic and wish you had said no. What's happening to you? You are in your first four weeks of dating someone.

The first thing that can happen with a date is that you feel trepidation before the event. You may have had lots of dates and expect little but are pleasantly surprised. You may have been building up to the date and its gone really well and you are surprised, pleasantly. You may actually feel unhappy and irritated that a first date went well because now you have to give some thought to the situation. Initially then you need to decide if you are going to take it further or whether last night's promises and optimism has changed in the cold light of day. For almost everyone, however good or bad you will feel some trepidation, even if you are walking on the moon.

For many, the days after a first date that went really well will make you feel great. You feel desired, attractive and you realize that someone really likes you who you are attracted to. But - until you have secured a second date you will still feel like you have got it all wrong and that you are mistaken. When that second date is finalized you will again feel great and this is a real test because this time you will be analyzing each other more thoroughly and testing each other in verbal interplay and emotional content in your conversation. Your reliability and your wit will be tested as well as many other extremely subtle facets of your character. At this stage you most certainly should not have had sex!

After the second date is where panic can set in. If you really like this person you will panic and worry that you can lose them before anything has even got going. On the other hand you may like them and panic that it could all be too much too soon and wish to run without finding out. So this is where disaster can begin to intervene on a perfect future. You can quickly come across as overbearing and possessive, even though you haven't got into a relationship yet. So stop calling and stop pondering and ensure you carry on as best u can with a routine. In other words, back off and be cool. Take your time and stop panicking. If you are going to go out, then you will but don't rush it.

If, on the other hand, you are simply not sure about looming intimacy then again take your time and be cool. The pleasure in the first few weeks of dating is in its turmoil and its passion but also in savoring every moment. In a long term relationship these are days hard to repeat so take in the atmosphere of knowing someone new and enjoy the encounters as they happen. A new relationship doesn't have to lead to marriage and commitment so stop thinking too much and simply enjoy your dates as they happen.

There will be many dilemmas in the first few weeks such as your first kiss, where you should go on dates, whether you should phone, what happens if they didn't call when expected, concern things are over already. The you will move on to whether you should invite them in for coffee, what happens if you want to go to bed with them or what happens as your emotions increase. Once again it is about trying to keep the basics in perspective. Your entire day-to-day life can be affected by beginning to like someone and fall in love so the only thing that gives you any structure is your regular daily pattern. Because of this it is crucial to keep as many things regular as possible. Try and sustain your daily regime, including clubs, hobbies and trips to the gym. However one of the beautiful aspects of this initial period is the breaking of that regime to find small intense emotional moments with your new friend.

People often ask me when a date becomes a relationship and I have answered that more fully in a different article but to my own mind the first 4 weeks are crucial in creating a basic foundation on which you can both develop into a relationships. You will have progressed from first date to hopefully the nth time. If you live close by you may have stopped counting by now. I can understand that circumstances may prevent regular dating for some, but I do think that if you are wanting a serious relationship to develop, proximity is helpful. In 4 weeks of dating you should have been dating plenty of times and be getting to know the beginnings of each other.

Where dating is very very slow then there is a danger it will never actually fire the main engines for lift off so I actively encourage people to make the most of the dating opportunities presented. You see, when you really like someone, you want to be with them, you want to spend all your time with them to get to know them and understand them and learn to fall in love with them. For this to happen you have to meet very regularly to build up that level of intimacy otherwise you may be wasting your time.

The first 4 weeks are critical as they are the testing time. If you get through this initial period you have a chance of building into a relationship. In my view it is too soon for sex if you are serious but too long for just a couple of meetings. It is the perfect time frame to know whether you are fairly compatible above and beyond the initial physical attraction. A month of dating is a month of happy events and phone calls and memories. If in that period things aren't working out, then you can walk away with no harm done.

You may feel sick and you may feel unsteady, but when we all look back and try and describe what being in love is like, most of us tend to remember the first four weeks when we met and use those feelings to describe how beautifully unsettling everything truly is.

The Second Date: Dating Tips For Meeting Up Again

2008-09-19T23:26:00.002-07:00

Once you have had a successful first date and have made contact again to establish a second meeting it is amazing how many people start questioning the situation and worrying unnecessarily. When people arrange a second date confidence levels should be high because you have already established a mutual attraction and interest level so don't forget that he/she has already indicated they like you a lot. The first date may have been short and sweet but the desire is high on both sides and so it is now that you need to develop the situation into something more concrete.

1. If you are going to blow the situation it is now. You got over the first major hurdle but now she or he will be paying particular attention to seek confirmation about certain assumptions they have already made. If you presented a false image first time round you will get caught out now. If you told lies, you will have to be extremely careful about what you say.

2. If we establish that you weren't creating a facade on the first date and were being yourself then the second date is to establish more of the same but on a grander scale with more detail. This is the perfect opportunity to move your dating away from the dinner table or bar and into a weekend day out.

3. It is still too early to offer dinner at your own apartment or theirs but you need more time now to get to know each other and the phone won't assist you. You need human contact and interaction with your love-interest. I therefore recommend you establish if possible a Saturday or Sunday lunchtime to meet so that you can combine a coffee or light lunch with a walk in the park or on the beach, maybe throw a ball about or go to a sporting occasion.

4. A second date is too early for theater or movies because you must communicate a lot at this stage. Therefore you need a place to walk and talk and start to feel comfortable in each others' company. Book shops, browsing, a market, antique stalls, a sport, a club, a shopping trip. The options are endless. But as you both feel you need to seek out some further intimacy a lunchtime meeting can extend throughout the afternoon and into evening, depending on how you feel about one another.

4. A weekend afternoon lends itself to ebbs and flows, you can talk openly at a cafe table and then walk and feel how it is to walk next to your date. There may be the opportunity to hold hands or create spontaneous entertainment or even a small first kiss. The afternoon will lend itself to distractions for the first time with the things around you which will inject interesting equations into your communication dynamic.

5. Once again keep in mind an end time for this date. Allow things to flow but don't leave things so open ended that you appear hanging around as if you have nothing better to do. You have both just compromised your special off-duty time to be with each other but if you have plans for the evening then once again you appear busy and interesting. This is always essential to successful dating.

6. Once again, although your conversation on this second date will have more substance and credence to it, you should still shy away from discussing anything about ex relationships and sex. The enigma factor remains and whilst the desire and interest factor on both sides may be very high, too much too soon can easily spoil everything.

7. It is on this occasion that you will establish once and for all whether you both wish to continue establishing a basic relationship. Though we won't use that word at this stage as it is too early, it is in fact what is happening. You may tempt each other in a restaurant by feeding each other food, which is a sign of showing you can provide for each other. You may playfully tickle and touch and do the many subtle things that demonstrate attraction, but it is a situation that builds slowly. Therefore I recommend that you try and keep relaxed.

8. It is likely that you will be feeling a little uneasy because of your high interest levels and sense of attraction. You will feel an urgency to feel something more definite or concrete but this will not yet establish itself and therefore you must simply think of your second date as a dawning of your knowledge of each other and a time for fun. It is a moment to be savored.

9. If you haven't told your date you are attracted to them then you must at least tell them that you are having a great time. Using words is important but do NOT go over the top. The love word comes a long time later whatever you may be feeling. Yes love at first sight does happen, but you do not need to say it. However you should compliment your date and allow them some feeling of security by making them feel comfortable if possible. And they should do the same for you.

10. The second date is about fulfilling the promises established in the first date. It is about setting out future possibilities by getting to know each other and having fun. There is nothing more to add at this time because from now on you will do more of the same and continue to do so until your dating starts to become a relationship.

11. On the other hand, the second date also allows you to uncover some truths about your date you may have missed on the first date. It is a time for building the basics and therefore you will be able to establish if there is a way forward or whether this is the time to stop. If you don't wish to carry things on then there is nothing lost, you simply owe it to your date to be honest one way or another.

Are You a Dating Enigma, or Too Available?

2008-09-19T23:26:00.001-07:00

Here is a truth, most people are too available. Far too available when dating. Think about the things you aspire to, good clothes, expensive Italian car perhaps, Tiffany jewelry, Rolex watches, a 100 foot yacht. Whatever. The fact is, the things we most want or desire in life are often the least accessible. Things are seen to be worthwhile because they are rare. Rarity is the key ingredient here. The less we can get hold of something, the more we want it after the initial need or feeling of desire is created.

The unobtainable is oh so sweet, from the catwalk supermodel to Brad Pitt, we can dream but we cannot have. And that, my friends is the point of this article. When you date stop being so available, stop being at the end of a phone, stop being available 24 hours a day and start being elusive. Why? Because for the reasons I have just said. Create the need and then remove it and the desire factor goes through the roof.

The problem with following this brief piece of advice is that it is extremely difficult for mere mortals to do. When we meet someone we really like we stop playing games, we want to be with them, we want to see them 24 hours a day, our waking hours are devoted to our next meeting. The problem is, our date may not see things the same way and soon boredom can set in. Worse, by being too available we cheapen our own attractiveness, we become far less rare, far more common and sadly far less desirable.

So what we need to do is train ourselves to be enigmatic and elusive and stop being so available. A friend of mine worked in a bar in new York and was always attracting girls but he never appeared to get anywhere after the first couple of dates. He is a lovely guy and probably one of the most reliable men I have ever met. He wanted to know why women seemed to lose interest in him and stopped calling so we performed an experiment. He was asked not to call the women he dated, maybe once but after that let the women chase. They would leave messages, he didn't reply, if he did it was a while later. So they would pop into the bar to see him but he never offered to make new arrangements first though he maintained their interest levels and very soon he discovered that the girls were now chasing him! The point here was that he had become elusive, he had an air of mystery now, he was someone the girls wanted to get to know. He was a challenge.

It has happened to me on numerous occasions that I have let myself become too available. I had to learn the hard way. I met a beautiful girl whilst working in New York City and it appeared to be perfect from the moment we met, so much so that I threw my dating rules out of the window and we spent almost two full weeks together. Then all of a sudden it stopped. And she wanted to call things off. The fact was that I had become too available for her, I was there whenever she wanted, I had altered my routine too soon, too quickly and too much for things to work out. Of course I was available for all the right reasons but it had completely the wrong effect. I lost the girl.

So when you meet someone you like, by all means get started down the dating path but ensure that you keep to your regular schedule and don't be available every day. If you are free both days a the weekend, one is for you, one is for your date at first. If you are free Tuesday and Thursday for dinner, let them know which is better for you. If they suggest Tuesday, you suggest Thursday. Don't call so frequently (which is extremely hard to do) and don't always answer your phone (yes really) and make sure that you can bring plenty of separate activity information back to your date when you do meet up.

For all the crazy forced separation, the dates you will have will be all the more spectacular. For many of you reading this you will think I am crazy or have misgivings about trying to do this and I bet that many of you won't listen when you meet the person you are crazy about. The fact is, the less available you are to a degree, the more likely you will succeed in getting your Mr. Right. Create the demand, become the diamond and then become as difficult as a top jewelers to get into, but sustain the desire factor - that's the way it works.

Romantic Dating Tips: How to be Romantic

2008-09-19T23:25:00.002-07:00

Romance is at the heart of any dating experience. If you don't consider yourself romantic then you are wrong. I don't know of anyone on this planet who doesn't have the ability to fall in love. Therefore if you can fall in love, you can be romantic too. Romance is not in the grand gestures , it is in the small details. Women will often say that it is the small things that matter. The small gestures but it is down to both men and women to start being romantic. It is a two-way process and both parties get an immense amount of pleasure from showing they care about someone. Yes we would all love to have a romantic picnic on a deserted Caribbean beach with the person of our dreams but romance begins closer to home with tips such as these:

Understand what romance means and why it is important and learn what romantic aspects there are to your own character. No one has a heart made of stone, however tough their exterior.
Understand that romance is not the sole domain of women and that men who are romantic are far more successful when dating
Romance has nothing whatsoever to do with masculinity. In fact, being romantic can enhance your masculinity and reputation with girls.
Not all women are naturally romantic either but that doesn't have to be the case.
The key to being romantic is thoughtfulness. So start being a little less thoughtless and selfish.
Communicate with your partner on every level and anticipate their desires and needs.
Look at your partner when they are talking and hold their gaze
Learn that mood, location, situation and ambience can heighten romance with dramatic effect
Phone just to say hello, I love you and surprise your partner
Learn to say, I love you and mean it. Don't say it ever, if you don't mean it
Send them notes and small cards telling them you are thinking of them
Be spontaneous and do little deeds that show you are thinking about them
Start going for walks together, whatever the weather
Put your partner first, particularly as a surprise with a spontaneous trip away
Think creatively and plan a surprise weekend away
Buy flowers any time of the year, nice ones not just roses
Remember birthdays, anniversaries and landmark days such as the day you first met and plan something
Listen to the clues your partner gives you, such as things they like and books they read and buy little gifts
Keep being romantic. In a good relationship, romance never ends
Compromise. Putting yourself first is not romantic.
Write him/her a letter and let them know that you love them and you mean it. People send far few letters these days. Use good quality stationery too.
Watch romantic movies together and invest quality time doing the things you share and both enjoy
Make cards rather than buying them. It shows thought and inspiration.
Take your partner on a picnic to the park or beach and prepare in advance without involving them. Initiative illustrates romance nicely
Don't be a cold fish. Learn how to hug, cuddle and make physical contact. Touching without sex is far more romantic but don't always hug without kissing!
Kiss your date and learn to appreciate the finer qualities of kissing for its own sake
Dance together when the occasion arises and show them special attention
Hold hands and do anything make your partner feel close to you
Hold and hug your partner in bed, especially after sex
Talk chat and converse about anything and everything
Allow your partner to breathe and do separate things to heighten the sense of romance when you are together
If you don't cook dinner for your date, start learning my friend. A surprise dinner with candles is romantic
Buy small gifts spontaneously that show great thought in what they enjoy. But not too many otherwise it has the opposite effect
Remember that romance is often about giving of yourself, even if it is simply your precious time when you could have had other plans. Making your partner a priority is vital
Do things that make you both laugh. Laughter and romance go hand in hand
Remember that romance is in the small details and does not need to be expensive in any way. I'd rather receive a handmade card any day than an expensive gift
Anticipate your partner's wishes and desires to show them you are listening to them and that you care
Expect rightfully that romance is a two-way process though the romance you provide is simply giving of yourself

Dating: Memories of The Best Dates We Ever Had

2008-09-19T23:25:00.001-07:00

The best dates we have ever been on are the ones that were the most fun with the best company. They may not end in blinding love or marriage but they may have lived on with us because we enjoyed them so much. There was something memorable about them. Lots of dates are mundane, dull, meaningless repetition of standard question and answer sessions punctuated by some forced humor and and attempt to keep things genuine whilst knowing the moment you exit the cafe, you will never see that person again. Personally I have traveled all over the country on dates and some have been truly awful and the odd one, spectacular.

The best dates are the simplest, the least forced, the most natural. The best dates can happen with a complete stranger out of nowhere, or are planned weeks in advance by making special plans to win your date's heart. I remember chatting with a person on an Internet dating site on Saturday evening and within an hour of first chatting we had met for a drink. That Saturday evening in Chicago was tremendous fun, the person fantastic company, 4 hours of laughter and great food. We swapped life stories and details of the smallest things about our lives and for those briefest of hours everything was fabulous. Due to travel etc., we never met again but the point is that a perfect date can really be that unplanned.

I think it's true that when we plan something too far in advance we can get carried away and build things up to much higher levels than is really justified. If I know we are going on a date three weeks on Saturday I will start planning, however much I try not to. What will I wear, how will I wear my hair, what will they be like, will anything come of it. And so on. Before you know it, a simple date has turned into the planning of Woodstock.

In other words, simple spontaneous dates are the best. Formality too tends to wreck the best dates. Somewhere too formal doesn't allow both parties to relax and can be oppressive and stifling. The worry of getting everything right, ordering the correct dishes, selecting the right wine, even paying the check. Particularly the right clothes. A self assured dating partner will allow things to flow more smoothly and put you at your ease but the point is, the best dates involve somewhere far more relaxed. It could be a diner an a walk in the park, a beach bar and a stroll on the beach. So always choose something where both people can be comfortable, kick off their shoes and just chill.

The best dates are ones that begin with few expectations and open into something much greater. A short meeting over a coffee ends up being a day long passionate conversation. A lunch hour one afternoon ends up taking over the whole day, even weekend. They are the best dates. Not expecting your date to be anything special and discovering that they are amazing, that is a good date too. Two people who end up becoming a couple will always remember how they met and what they did so it is always important to put some thought into every date you go on.

I think if you date continually for the sake of it then you will have some idea of your idea of a perfect date and how it would go. Even if you haven't met anyone fabulous lately you can still imagine what best dates should be like for you. There are a great many clichés surrounding dates, from sunsets over blue lagoons to romantic restaurants in Rome. They are things we can aspire to in our fantasies. But having great dates means being open minded, being open to new people, new ideas and very good conversation. I often observe friends with their lists of questions that they reel off as they go through the motions on a first date and wonder why they get nowhere.

My method always involves meeting and greeting my date like I have know them years. In this way I put myself and them at easy. I love to talk so I always try and get us both to chat about anything and everything over a glass of wine. If it flows naturally then great, if it doesn't then its fine as I always set a mental time limit at first. My favorite best dates have always been with charming individuals who are interesting and interested. They have always been brief encounters the first time where I am dying to meet them again. They are instant adrenaline shots, they are eye opening meetings that me salivate with anticipation. I put some of that down to trying to date the kind of people I get along with but also being extremely receptive to new ideas.

Your best dates with differ from mine probably, but the point is, treasure best dates as excellent memories and experiences. You have met some great people and you are going to meet a few more along the way before your dating is done.

Ridiculous Dates and Time Wasters We Despise

2008-09-19T23:24:00.002-07:00

I was thinking the other day that I have been on some ridiculous dates in my time. Some have been a waste of my time and some have been utter fiasco's that barely require repeating. I got wondering as to how they happened in the first place and my answer was that I had let my guard down and had began to date people who weren't really compatible at all. Maybe it was because of recent abstinence from sex, or perhaps due to a need for company and affection - but in these circumstances I find myself agreeing to all sorts of idiocy.

Be assured that when you are dating you will meet your fair share of eccentrics, wasters and fools. You will meet those who will simply waste your time, show you little respect or have no idea why they are there. You will meet those who will make excuses and leave and a few who will not turn up at all. And on almost all occasions you do well to realize that it has very little to do with you. It takes all kinds to make a world and you will meet all kinds when you are dating.

The thing to remember when dating is that you are almost certain not going to hit the jackpot first time. It does happen occasionally particularly when younger (but for other reasons); but as we grow older we have harder criteria to meet and match with. Dating is a lottery, that's for sure. People will date you to see whether they can date you. They don't really want it to go anywhere, they simply want the sense of achievement from you saying yes. And that applies to men and to women.

I have met some real losers in my time. People who hadn't got a clue what they were doing. People who had probably last been to dinner when the menu was written in Latin. I have met the socially inept, the downright arrogant, the rude and vicious, the loud and raucous and the occasional stalker. And looking back I probably wouldn't have changed a thing except to say that I wish they hadn't cost me so much money and wasted so much of my time. The real ridiculous losers who I wish I had never dated are the ones who wasted more of my time that I can remember. The ones who kept me hanging on whilst they sorted out their own frail mental well-being. The ones who were 'confused' about their feelings and weren't sure if they could commit. Oh please. The most ridiculous people I have dated though without a doubt were the people who told lies and thought I would be too stupid to spot them.

Here is a lovely list of some ridiculous dating scenarios I have encountered over the years. I am sure yours are better or similar to mine but it just goes to show my friends that we are not alone! I have not included names to spare the not-so-innocent but you know who you are.

A girl I met in New York and temporarily dated for a few weeks decided to spend three months phoning me every day when I was in Toronto. As she was a great girl I was extremely flattered but very wary as she had not been able to give any commitment previously. Anyway after being harangued for three months I relented and agreed to a romantic weekend back in Manhattan with her as she lived in New Jersey. She duly arranged my flights via Pittsburgh to La Guardia and booked me into the Grand Hyatt on 42nd Street for 3 nights. On landing I phoned her on a her cell phone to see where we would be meeting and she said that this weekend was not so good as she was busy ! She said she may be able to meet for dinner on Sunday evening! Today was Friday. So I spent three solitary days in New York by myself seeing the sights and walking for miles. I never did get an explanation but lets just say that I decided she was insane.
I met a very excitable girl on a dating site who seemed to be really lovely. After a couple of weeks of chatting I agreed to get the train to London where we could meet for dinner. As I was pulling into the station after a 6 hours journey beginning at 5am my phone rang. The girl asked if I had arrived and we had a short chat. On arriving at my hotel the girl called again to say that she wouldn't be meeting me as she had heard an echo on my phone and believed that I was a married man calling from my London apartment and disguising the fact that I was married !! This was based on no evidence whatsoever. After reasoning with her she did turn up to meet me in a bar. Well I presume she did as I had long since gone home. Ridiculous.
When living in Hong Kong I dated a very lovely local girl from Kowloon for a couple of weeks and we danced and dined out and laughed and went sightseeing. We never kissed or touched as is the Chinese way and kept things on a platonic level. One night in a thunderstorm on the Peak above central Hong Kong we kissed for the first time and she announced that she had decided that we would be married and that she intended to see me every day from now on. Without asking she attempted to move into my room, brought her things and refused to leave. What began as a kiss within hours turned into a comic case of stalking unparalleled in my experience. The phone had to be kept off and my movements varied. Weeks later I left Hong Kong and never went back. Be careful who you kiss!
I remember dating a girl who believed she was the worlds greatest liar. She would come out with lots of amazing stories about who she had been with and where and it was clear every time that they were made up. In fact it was so obvious that she was lying that even her friends would cringe. She would always get very angry if any questions were asked but the ridiculous thing was that she really did think I believed her. In fact she was so much of a liar that to this day it is impossible to speak to her due to still trying to convince me of untruths.

You could make up excuses for these kinds of behavior but its always best just to smile and put it down to experience. Life isn't so serious when dating and most of the people you meet are lovely. It is the eccentricities of people that make me laugh. But the ones that hurt are the ones where people tell lies to fool you. Like the girl I dated who went to visit her sister in Barcelona. She told me it was for a few weeks and each week would say she would be back shortly. After three months she had not returned and it transpired that she was now actually living in Barcelona and dating a guy from the US. However she found it easier to keep me hanging on than tell the truth. These are the people we can do without.

Be Cautious as Follows:

Don't put yourself out on a limb for a new date
Don't travel unnecessarily unless you are sure
Don't believe everything you are told initially
Don't trust everything you perceive at first
Women can be as manipulative as men can be
Do laugh about your dating mishaps later
Have a sense of humor when dating
Try and be philosophical about the ridiculous nature of events
Don't spend too much money when dating initially
Don't expect too much when dating a lot, just relax
Put life and people down to experience
You will kiss a few frogs before you find a prince
Make sure you are prepared for what you are getting into
Always get photos of people you met on the Internet first
Don't let people waste your time and never be too accommodating
If people have wasted your time don't give a second chance and walk away

Advice for Dealing with New Relationships

2008-09-19T23:24:00.001-07:00

When we are actively dating we sometimes forget what the end game is all about - relationships. We can forget why we are dating in the first place and what we hope to achieve. The result of this is that when we finally meet someone we like and spend time with them and start falling in love, we panic. This doesn't just apply to the archetypal male, but to women too. Yes getting involved is scary stuff. Remember this why you are dating in the first place. The end result of dating is a relationship, maybe a long term one, maybe a relationship even leading to marriage. Therefore take your time and get it right.

We can argue all day about when dating becomes a relationship. Maybe after 3 months, maybe after sex. Maybe after meeting their parents, even after moving in together. For some a relationship begins at engagement, for others it occurs the moment the other party agrees to see them again. It doesn't matter. One day, we all accept that today we are in a relationship. Okay what should we do to sustain it?

Communicate

Talk to each other. Talk a lot, and keep talking. The first thing that goes wrong in any relationship is a change in communication. Simply put, people stop trying and relax. People in relationships stop communicating (gradually) and this quickly turns into taking your partner for granted. Fact. When your better half comes home from work talk to them about whatever they like, even if you are tired. And the 100% rule of thumb is always always ALWAYS look at your partner when you are listening and talking. I have seen this more than I can ever describe, one person in a relationship talking, the other repeatedly saying yes whilst looking somewhere else. If you want your relationship to remain fresh, interesting and inspired, communicate on every level.

Enjoy Yourselves

Have fun in relationships as though you were on a first date. Being with someone is fun, exciting, interesting and loving. Just because you have been seeing each other for a while makes no difference at all. Fun is fun, whatever the age, you should be laughing and having great time even if you have been together 40 years, so coming home and stating that you are tired and dreary every day won't wash. You were not like that when you began to date so keep it alive by constantly finding ways to have fun together. Laughter heels a lot of ills and at the end of the day, you are together because you enjoy each other's company. That should never change.

It Takes Two to Tango

Relationships are not one sided affairs but a commitment and agreement between two people to want to share their space, time, company and lives together. If you are not married you are not obliged to do this with anyone at all so if its not working out don't hang about. If it is working out then make sure that you both keep putting into the relationship and investing in your joint well-being. As long as you are both involved in your relationship it will work. The problem arises where one feels it is simply too one sided. So always take a rain check every now and again to ensure that you are both as fully committed as you should be.

We are Not the Same

Accept that you are not the same people, neither clones of each other. You have separate interests , hobbies, emotions and moods. Be empathetic and sympathetic to each other as well as giving each other the regular space they require without too much questioning. Just because you have come together for your common good doesn't mean that you don't need an afternoon off occasionally and neither does it mean that you love each other any less. Ensure you retain your space and special time and activities and retain your self identity as needed. If this causes a problem you guys need to talk.

People are Human

No one in this world is prefect. No one, not even me! Ha ha, seriously, when we meet someone we like and we begin our relationship we may well have set high standards and that is fine, but human beings have lots of strange quirks and foibles and ways of doing things. Not everything will meet with your approval and mot every element of behavior will be perfect. We don't like in an ideal world and we don't live in fantasy land. Difficult relationships are absolutely normal and understanding that is the key. We all begin by dreaming that everything will be perfect and then something happens that upsets us. Take this in your stride. Accept it and move past it. Loving someone is about everything in life, not just about idealistic romance.

Arguing May Be Healthy

One of the problems in relationships isn't just the lack of communication that can develop, but the retention of problems inside that are allowed to build up and then release uncontrollably. If there is a problem we should talk about it. Personally I hate arguing and it is not part of my ideal relationship view. However there is a great deal to be said for having a good shout and a good argument. It releases frustrations and discontent and quickly brings things to the fore. We release our frustrations and suddenly we are communicating. Stress is released and we feel better. And in any relationship the best thing about an argument is the afterwards where we feel emotional, sorry for getting angry, and we make up in the most passionate of ways.

Keep Having Sex

How many times have you heard that married people don't have sex. We don't have the room here to discuss the vast reasons why, but boredom and complacency often creep in. Lack of creativity, over familiarity and routine are all concerns and causes. A married friend once told me that he and his wife don't have sex for 6 months and when they finally do it feels like they are new lovers again. This last for another 6 months then they stop again. A cycle that has gone on for 7 years! Sexual compatibility is very important in a relationship. If you don't match in the bedroom you are kidding yourselves and ultimately you may have longer term problems. To keep a relationship going well, make sure that you do not neglect the bedroom - and anywhere else for that matter!

Don't Change

Keep dating your partner and keep the romance alive. Love them like you just met the,. Surprise them constantly and buy flowers when you want to. Little notes and gifts are important as is attention and time spent with each other. Whilst you may both have regular commitments that is absolutely no excuse not to call spontaneously or to make breakfast in bed for your partner unexpectedly. Whilst people naturally do change over longer periods of time, it is down to both of you to keep the passion alive and to do so you do need to make the dating effort. So my advice is keep dating your partner and make them feel freshly loved.

Relationships Take Work

Yes, don't fool yourself. You parents may have been married for 40 years but that doesn't mean that I has been easy. They will often say that relationships and marriages take a lot of work. What they mean is a great deal of understanding, compromise, negotiation and overcoming of problems and difficulties along the way. Making time for each other is essential as are shared experiences, vacations and simply being there. Making your relationship a priority in your lives is also absolutely essential. Often this will mean putting yourself second and taking a back seat. It may mean that your choices aren't a priority and that you won't always be first. Solid relationships are about compromise and acceptance so don't underestimate what that means. Nothing worth having ever came for free.

Romance in Dating: Does Romance Exist?

2008-09-19T23:23:00.004-07:00

A few months ago I had a notion for a few days that maybe, just maybe romance had gone and vanished for good. Maybe I was having an off day, who knows. But it gave me the notion to think about the subject of romance and put pen to paper (well keyboard actually).

Is love and romance dead do you think? I don't think so at all. After pondering the question I came to the decision that romance must be alive and well and living in all of us, it may just be hiding. Well most of us anyway. It is a question that women may be accused of asking more than men. But I know a lot of men who would ask the same question. Listen to me when I say – romance is not dead; even if it can appear to be dead some days. The question is, why do we think its has gone?

The answer of course does depend on what you mean by romance. Romance is many different things to many different people. It can mean kissing in the rain, it can mean holding a door open, showing respect, buying flowers, moving a seat, supporting an arm, making a Valentine’s card, creating surprises for your loved one, even helping them when they are in need, but it generally relates directly to affection and togetherness. Romance is the art of demonstrating your feelings in an outward fashion and making someone feel special. You won’t be romantic to someone you don’t want romance with, so it is a coming together of two like minded people that allows romance to flourish.

Why do we think that love and romance have gone? This is most obviously demonstrated in a passionless world where sex has become main stream. Sex of course is not romance. Sex is exactly that, sex. It may be part of romance, it may be integral to love and a relationship, but romance is something altogether different. Romance appears to have vanished in our lives because people are so busy, so directional, so needy for the things that assist them in functioning. In other words, our lives are quite selfish really. We may not like to admit it, but we do first, what helps ourselves, and then secondly we help others. With romance, your own needs are subjugated by your own free will to allow for the benefit of your chosen partner.

Men are often accused of not being romantic, and being too practical instead. That may be true yes, but it is not fair on men to say that all the time. The practicality of men often belies their romantic nature. By fixing something up, be repairing , mending, doing, helping, that’s often a man showing consideration , effort, attention, affection and yes, ladies, romance! The problem is, the lady doesn’t always see it that way. Covered all day in oil in the yard is not romantic, except perhaps in a movie or two. Arguing with a waiter or in a shop is not assisting, it is being belligerent and rude and therefore not romantic in the least. However do try and understand that a man thinks that if he is assisting or helping, he is being considerate.

When considering love and romance, romance is about effort, about winning favor, about deserving love, about respect. One only needs to read Chaucer’s The Knight’s Tale to read a full description on the concept of romance. What I am arguing is that if you want to be romantic, you need to understand what it is to be romantic. Does it mean you need to watch French cinema, read romantic novels, listen to romantic music. Maybe yes it does! Our world can be a soulless world, and more often that not romance is missing from our daily lives. But it needn’t be so. I argue that if you are willing and able to relearn romance for yourself, then you can begin to practise it. Romance is not a definite art from. Just because the person you're with buys you a rose, doesn’t make them any more romantic. But maybe it is a romantic gesture if it is spontaneous.

The largest arrangement of red roses, the most expensive seat at the opera, the most luxurious car in the lot are not romantic, especially when they are regularly provided. Romance is about small thoughts and expression, about giving and feeling, about caring for someone and wanting to show someone how special they are. It’s about the details, about the small things in life that you put a lot of attention into especially to make someone else’s life better on one way or another. Now that is romance.

Valentine’s day is a commercial day we know but I often think it is sad on 14th February each year when I see so many people pacing along after work clutching expensive roses and cards. It is nice to show you love someone, but if this is the only day in a year you do so then where did the romance go? Every day is a day to buy and send flowers, every day is a day to make someone a hand made card, a scribbled note, asingle flower from the garden, a note on the pillow, a surprise breakfast, a surprise outing, even just a phone call when it's needed. That, my friend, is romance.

Family Gatherings: Being Single at Weddings

2008-09-19T23:23:00.003-07:00

Last week the phone rang. One of the worst kind of phone calls, the one that keeps you awake at night. The kind of ring tone that makes you stop dead in your tracks and breathe deeply to overcome that instant feeling of dread. I couldn't explain it. I just knew. 'Hello, I hope you haven't forgotten that it's your uncle Trevor's wedding next Saturday and will you be bringing anyone nice with you?' And I could hear myself let out a silent scream. I was sure I had frightened the next door cat but in fact it was inaudible. How do they do that, how do they manage to remind you and make you feel as if you are an aged spinster or hermit in so few words.

I'm a single guy. Admittedly I am 37 and single and still never married and much that my mother weeps over the lack of grandchildren, she put son a stoic face when yet another family gathering takes place. Generally I am sure she makes gentle excuses to friends about how busy I am with career and how I am doing so well whilst at the same time wondering if I really do like the opposite sex. But nothing is more uncomfortable than being placed in the arena of family life where relatives near and far get you all to themselves to quiz you as if it was the final question in Who wants to be a Millionaire. Perhaps I am The Weakest Link! And nothing is more ideal for such a situation than a family wedding.

Now you and I both know that we are going to be asked one thousand times before the big event who we are bringing with us. To announce nonchalantly that we are coming alone is generally treated with silent disgust so it's back to the almost-melted phone to try and fathom out how we can cajole into being our invited guest. The dread in fact started a few weeks earlier when the actual invitation arrived.

The invitation sits staring at you and eventually has to be dealt with. Of course there is the possibility of simply turning up at the wedding ceremony alone and just freestyling it with enough beer, champagne or wine inside you sink the Titanic however you won't get away that easily my friend. Apart from a cast of thousands watching you with sideways glances and nudging winks as you enter on your own, there is the empty chair next to you to contend with as well as the place next to you at the after-ceremony dinner. Because however cleanly you explain that you won't be bringing anyone, they will set two places anyway. Almost to show you what you are missing to everyone else.

Okay so let's get on the phone and round up an ex. An ex partner is always good for weddings as everyone already knows them and you are comfortable enough to find them your ally in your hour of need. They will of course accompany you to make you feel severely uncomfortable, quaff as much free drink as they can and flirt with the best man or bridesmaid outrageously, as well as getting admirably drunk and dancing just to shame you. Of course the family loved you ex which is why you should never ever invite them. The wedding gives them ample opportunity to drone on about how you made such a loving couple and mistakenly how it will be your turn next. They will ask prying questions like why you guys ever split up. The fact that they never saw how your ex used to eat banana fritters in bed at 5am or leave the basin full of hair has nothing of course to do with it. Secretly of course, your ex wants you back and will turn the evening into a dialogue about how you should both get back together and give it another try. Avoid.

The second option is to bring along a friend of the opposite sex. Big mistake. What will happen on this occasion is that your prying relatives will decide that you are a match made in heaven. Add a couple of bottles of champagne into the equation and before you know it, you will have slept with your best friend and woken up with the hangover from hell and all your relatives will have matched you up for the next ceremony and feel wrongly proud of their matchmaking abilities. Don't go there.

Okay so at this point its time to think about bringing the person along who you have dated three times but don't really like. She or he will do nicely as you don't really see yourselves being together but you can pretend and your guest will be impressed. Wrong. Your relatives will smell the sense of fear on your guest and make a B-line to them to reassure that you are a nice boy or girl really. The family will trawl our endless tales of when you were three and were sick down your cousin's neck at a christening. If your burgeoning relationship wasn't doomed before it is now. Your relatives have just been replaced by the cast of the Adams family. Your guest will be able to see what they would be marrying into and well meaning relatives will revel in making you squirm. It should be an Olympic sport.

Right so it's decided then. Go it alone and take the consequences. You will deal with the empty chair next to you scenario later. Great. Not great. If you do announce that you are coming alone there is the great difficulty of where you are going to be seated. As you are a single number the seating plan has become troublesome. You could run the gauntlet and be placed with Aunt Rose and other assorted relatives. But you won't be given that chance. No, you are more likely to find yourself on the 'weirdo table' behind the pillar at the back. It's always the way. How come all the single strange folk are placed at the furthermost outpost of a wedding dinner. Here you can dwell like long lost inmates of One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest whilst pointed whispers from distant tables are carried over on the breeze of the quartets' music in the corner.

On the other hand, a fate worse than death means you will be seated next to second cousin Edwin(a) who everyone has decided is now your perfect match.. You and I know that hell needs to freeze over before you'd ever go near this person but fate, my friend, is no longer in your hands. The full battle force of relatives have taken over and are watching in glee as you try and stay as far away from your proposed match as you can whilst seated directly next to them. They will squeal with delight as they announce loudly how you make the ideal couple and why you had never seen it before. Pray and pray some more. Then run.

At the wedding reception, you have not yet realized that this isn't just a wedding celebration but a gladiatorial spectacle with you feeding the lions. This manifests itself at the outset by every well meaning elderly couple interrogating you about if you are single, why you are single, whether you eat properly and if you have any friends. They usually look incredulous when you say that you do actually cook for yourself and they then usually respond by asking what you cook as if once again you have just descended from space or are 3 years old. You will have to repeat this conversation with approximately 15 separate elderly relatives smelling of Lavender before heading of outside the marquee to take up smoking again.

The final insults are so numerous we should make a list. As a woman you will be expected to catch the Bride's bouquet before enduring a marathon' its your turn next' dialogue.. During the service the wedding vows will remind you of why you are still single and probably now always will be. Dancing after the ceremony with awkward gangly teenagers will make you realize you are only a stone's throw from old age and death, and all the while you will wondering if your own wedding is going to be like this whilst secretly promising that you'll only get married on a desert island with no family whatsoever.

Going home at the end of it all to a silent house is one of the biggest feelings of relief you will ever feel and your single home will never look more inviting. Put your feet up and have a coffee and next time that phone rings..don't answer it.

Dating and Sex: Good Advice About Sex on Dates

2008-09-19T23:23:00.001-07:00

Always a difficult subject this one. You can't get away from it, dating and sex are inextricably interlinked. If you are meeting people romantically at some point you will want to go to bed with each other. For those who are religious, sex will remain within the boundaries of marriage. For many others sex is initially a test of compatibility - a big one. If you don't get on well in bed, you won't be going much further. Modern generations are sexually demanding, they know how to give and receive pleasure and expect the same in return.

If you have certain sexual outlooks and preferences you actively seek the same. There is no stigma about this, the fact is, we are guided in our choices by our sexual view of the world. If we are shy or sex does not play a big part in our world then we may actively seek someone similar. There is no point dating a stallion if we don't enjoy sex. Then again if we are shy, maybe we are seeking a teacher. Marrying someone as a virgin is often now seen as too risky in the bigger scheme of things due to the risk of sexual incompatibility.

The importance of sexual compatibility cannot be underestimated. For years to come you want to be stimulated by your partner and you stimulate them. The desire needs to be there otherwise your relationship may feel that it is lacking. A special closeness may be lost. Let us be clear however, we are not necessarily talking about penetrative sex. There are many forms of sexual behavior and I refer only to our compatibility, in whatever form it may take. If we are to share each other's bed, so we need to want to be in that bed next to the person we choose. Therefore, for those who say that sex is not important, then their partner must feel the same way too.

I once took a survey in our office of whether men liked to give oral sex to their partners. Two of the men said that their girlfriends did not like it and they themselves did not enjoy giving it. The girls in our office were astounded and laughed saying that this cannot be true. They argued that the women probably did enjoy it but it was the men who did not enjoy giving that pleasure. I don't have the answers in this example except to suggest that the women were probably right and that here we were seeing a one-sided view of sexual compatibility in the two relationships mentioned.

Another issue worth mentioning is the ease in which sex frequently occurs in the early dates. This is a great shame. Certainly from a woman's point of view, however emancipated you may be, your greatest weapon and gift is your body. A man who is attracted to you will want to sleep with you, yes. However if you really want that man and would like to build a relationship it is absolutely essential that you do not sleep with him in the early stages. Desire over a longer period will capture the feelings and interest of a man. His emotions and feelings will become heightened the more elusive you are sexually. There is absolutely no gain to be had in having sex on the first few dates unless your aim is purely sexual too.

I cannot spell this out too strongly. If you want to win a man's heart, do not sleep with him immediately. An honest man will tell you that if you have sex with a girl on a first date, you may enjoy it, but you are almost certain not to want to date her because you were simply too easy. Men are hunters, then enjoy the chase, and the longer it goes on, the greater the respect and the more likely you will win his heart. Within limits - too long and you may lose him! he is a man, not a saint. I admit that this sounds like a sermon, but it is a tactic that works. If you simply want sex then fine, but if you want a relationship, hold off.

Guys, if all you want is sex, then do the lady a favor and go and pay for a magazine. You will tell her whatever she wants to hear to get her into bed. You can be slick, calculating and tell amazing lies but the following morning you will simply be seen for what you are, a lizard. The fact is, if you are a guy and reading this hopefully you are looking to date properly and are not looking for cheap thrills. In which case great. But do your dates a favor and back off from pressuring for sex in the early stages. Being sexy does not mean wanting sex. And another tip guys, leave the sex talk for later, especially in the early stages of dating. It comes across as sleazy and manipulative.

And finally. The first time you sleep together will be amazing if there is great anticipation and build up but can equally be an absolute disaster. Frequently it is the latter. It takes time to get to know each other in bed so take your time and never base the quality of sex on that very first time. Things can change and get a whole lot better. This is where your communication skills will be at their most important.

Okay so some basic points to think about:

Never sleep with someone on the first date
Do not chat about sex on the first few dates, especially if you are a man. Retain your enigma factor
Never ever speak about sex with your ex when dating
Never admit to how many people you have slept with
Date people you are physically attracted to as a start
Sex is generally important, let's not pretend otherwise
Being sexy is different to being available
Kissing does not mean sex
Have sex the first time where you are most comfortable
Remember that if you want to leave it is best not to sleep with your partner at your apartment
Always practise safe sex, there is no excuse
Good sex is a good start, bad sex can get better though
Avoid people who are selfish in their sexual needs unless you share them
Never do anything you are not comfortable with
Never ever be rushed into sex when dating

Establishing Trust: The Basis of Dating and Relationships

2008-09-19T23:22:00.003-07:00

To paraphrase the opening lines of one of my favorite movies, Casino, spoken by Robert DeNiro; "When you love someone, you trust them, there is no other way. You give them the keys to everything that's yours, otherwise what's the point". For me, those words sum up a lifetime of dating and relationships for the very essence of any relationships is quite simply, trust.

It is a word that we mention regularly without really thinking about what it really means. Well we kind of know but rarely do we talk about its importance. Trust is when we implicitly rely on the truth about our situation and what we are told and what we are led to believe. We give trust and we take trust at face value. We believe in the person we are dating, in the person we love and we do not question it. Trust is unspoken, it is not denied, it is part of everything we place our faith in. When we talk about 'head-games' we are often referring to trust or a lack of it.

Trust is the foundation of our dating experience because we want to be able to rely on someone and be relied upon. It is a tow-way faith experience where both parties have a support system that has undeniable truth at its core. In the first hours of our first date with someone we really like, we attempt to establish that trust. We ask questions and receive answers and we rely upon the basic truth in the picture that unfolds.

I often hear people saying that trust comes in time and that there will be no true love until trust is created. The issue I have with that is in its inherent lack of faith. When someone says they want to build up a level of trust they really mean that their trust in someone previously had been badly damaged and that they are cautious and have barriers that they need to remove over time. Totally understandable in this day and age. However by not trusting in the beginning you are denying the possibilities of truth at the early stages. You are skeptical and unforgiving to avoid hurt. Do you believe that love at first sight requires months of trust building afterwards?

Caution is inherently valuable when dating and being careful with what we are being led to believe is wise, but only up to a point. To not be believed takes away the romance of an occasion. Love is often about spontaneity and risk and to this extent we often find that powerful kind of emotional love when we are younger. As time goes by we are adept to trust people less due to a history of deceit and being lied to. It is often said that we get harder as we get older. That is a shame. How then can we hope to regain that level of innocent and powerful love and romance we may have experienced when we were, say 18 years old?

Think about the opening quote I made, and ask yourself how open you really are to new people,situations and emotions. Have yo reached a point where it would be impossible to go back and be immediately trusting, or do you think that with the right person you could throw caution to the wind. By analyzing yourself in this way, you can interpret how a future relationship might develop. Where a previous relationship has been abusive, trust will of course take time to build up but at the same time you can be cautious and semi-open. To do this you must date wisely and you must select potential partners well. This is why I often emphasize how and why you must plan your dating carefully.

To find a future relationship that has romance and passion you do need to open up your heart and you do need to find a level of trust in someone fairly early on that will allow your potential partner to feel that sense of romance and passion too. Someone who constantly feels that have to prove themselves will quickly get tired if they are genuine and will ultimately move on. None of us want to be seen as untrustworthy so keep that in the back of your mind.

When you date it is very natural to ask lots of questions and note the answers, even if they are hidden deep within happy conversation. Cross checking on the first few dates is natural too and often the path to quickly building that trust. Few people are expert liars and this is because it requires an stupendously good memory. Most people who try and mislead you will be caught out by the second or third date. This is why you should never sleep with a person too soon either. So taking your time when dating will allow trust to build because you will feel confident in what you are being told.

The other thing to bear in mind is that the specifics of trust are not written in stone. There are few people in this word who haven't told a little white lie. Dating can be a powerful and emotional experience and people want to make a good impression. Therefore on any first few dates you can imagine that some minor details may have been exaggerated. This does NOT mean the person you are dating is bad. But you do need to satisfy yourself of the truth and decide accordingly. Where you do need to be cautious is when you are kept in the dark about more key details such as career, area they live in, friends, and family etc. A person who is open and truly honest will be able to talk for hours about anything that crops up. Evasive behavior should always be treated with caution.

Once a relationship has developed then you will have already covered the foundations of trust, otherwise you will not have got this far. But caution still prevails which is why people like relationships to develop slowly as they grow older. Your levels of trust in someone may well be gradual until you reach a plateau where you can then make some major decisions to take your new relationship to another level. Such as moving in together or making vacation plans.

The key aspect of trust in any relationship is trusting your own judgment. It has got you this far in life so why start worrying now? If you truly believe you are right then go with it because as I said earlier, putting your faith in someone always involves risk. If you are unable to take that risk, your new relationship cannot grow. Buy a calculated risk is different than throwing caution to the wind, which is why you must be patient. Chemistry plays a major part in successful relationships and therefore you will know when things feel right.

Whilst I agree fully with the opening sentiment and I personally do trust from the very start because that's the kind of person I am, my own rule about trust when dating and in any relationships is a very basic premise: "If you suspect something, you are very probably right."

Third Dates: Cooking Dinner For Two

2008-09-19T23:22:00.001-07:00

At some stage you may want to invite your date for dinner. This is not just the domain of a woman as I fully expect men in equal measure to offer to make dinner. Remember that romance is in the details, not in the grand gestures. Offering to make dinner will not be a first date scenario because inviting someone into your home can only occur after a degree of trust has been established. Neither will offering dinner in your home be an open-invitation for sex though that can and does happen due the environment and proximity of a bedroom.

No, offering to make dinner can be a daunting affair and planning is essential if things are to go well. The first mistake people make is in trying to be too impressive. Most people can cook something of merit if they put their mind to it, but reaching for an experts guide to Filo pastry is not going to win your dates heart unless you know what you are doing.

On this occasion, do not experiment on a new dish unless you are prepared to practice prior to the occasion on a friend or two. We saw in Bridget Jones how she made blue soup with string and the same disaster will befall you my friend unless you start thinking in advance. If you are currently single, when was the last time you offered to cook for friends? It is all too easy to meet in a restaurant and is not on the same planet of romance as cooking personally. So if you are single why not sort out at least a couple of really nice dishes now so that you can prepare when the time comes. The benefit of this is that you get a social occasion this week into the bargain.

The first issue you have is getting the day right. Mid week can be fine but have you got the time to prepare adequately? Cooking dinner will generally take a little more than the usual 15 minutes meal for one in the microwave from the grocery store so get your thinking cap on. Maybe Saturday evening would be better. After all, it is not your first date and your date has agreed so you have more of the day to begin preparing.

Okay so let's agree that you have gone for a night when you can prepare with enough time not to panic. The next thing is to set the scene. Candles are essential but a room that requires a miners lamp is not light enough so don't make your date struggle to find the table. Quality candles are the key, long burning ones at that. However avoid scented candles as they can spoil the aroma of your cuisine miracle.

The table should be set properly with perhaps a small vase of flowers and certainly napkins and decent cutlery and glasses. You should be seated opposite your date and never to one side or the same side because I am assuming you would like to look at each other across a candlelit table. The music you select should be a shared taste but of muted background variety so as not to intrude on the conversation, but enough to fill any pauses in the chat, should they occur. Classical, jazz or gentle ambient are perfect sounds.

Make sure your kitchen and apartment are organized, clean and tidy and always clean up as you prepare the meal. A kitchen that looks like it has been hit by a missile doesn't instill confidence. It is essential when preparing that you have asked your date in advance what they don't like so that you can best avoid the embarrassment of a meal that someone doesn't like. A first meal can be stressful on both sides and shouldn't be - so damage limitation in advance is necessary.

Once you know what they don't like to eat you can avoid such foodstuffs and give some good thought to what you can manage to prepare. Once again we come back to the age old advice that the effect is in the effort made. Try not to recreate their favorite dish unless you really can because you invite comparison. Neither should you be too adventurous. If you are trying to prepare something that even a 5 star hotel chef would baulk at then you are inviting disaster. You may both laugh about the burnt offerings afterwards but that's not the point of the occasion. Something with no imagination like spaghetti Bolognese or Pizza is best left out of this equation.

Modern cook books display everything from fancy pastry to fusion cookery and again they are danger areas for the unpracticed so think carefully. You should go for a simple fresh starter, a main course that is not too heavy and an interesting desert, with an alternative of cheese and fruit. You need to be able to adapt the meal if necessary. Your efforts will be highly appreciated. Neither should the food overtake the purpose of the evening which is spending time with each other, so when your date arrives you should be able to produce the food in its intended format without looking like acting like a demented chemist .

Most food can be prepared in advance and simply requires warming in the oven or is completed whilst your date enjoys a glass of wine with you in the kitchen. Cooking is sociable so don't order him/her from the kitchen area with a grimace whilst shouting "too many cooks spoil the broth". On the other hand try not to invite attempts from your date to give advice. Which is why you should be organized before they arrive.

So, make sure you select three dishes you can prepare, a starter, main course and sweet dish and do one thing at a time. Some dishes require you to do than more than one thing at a time so be orderly and read the recipes in advance to understand what it is you are doing. By washing up as you go you will feel more in control and can keep the kitchen semi-clean. Your dishes should compliment each other and even better you may wish to work on a theme, like Mediterranean cookery, Cajun or something that is of interest to you both. Try and avoid hot and spicy unless you are a risk taker.

Always allow a third more time than you anticipate and give yourself enough time to get ready before your date arrive so that everything is the way you want it. You may want to try and relax before your date arrives too so do pour yourself a glass of wine and get the music on. Anticipate the evening ahead and try and think ofd things that may arise and prepare ahead.

You may wish to ask a friend round in the afternoon to assist and keep you company whilst you prepare. That way the pressure is off and you can both work to make sure everything is perfect. Don't guzzle litres of the cooking wine whilst you prepare as being drunk when your guest arrives will ruin everything.

Choose a selection of red and white wines as well as anything you know your date likes to drink. Also have some good quality mineral water that you can serve chilled at the table. Cooking for your date will not be the cheapest thing you ever did but you are trying to make a good impression so invest wisely.

Never ever pretend that you are a better chef than you are as this will become clear in the first moments of the first course that you aren't. Also don't try and offer too much food, three courses are fine. If you are even thinking of getting in an outside caterer or pre-prepared food to pretend it is your own creation, please leave the room now and don't come back! Don't start apologizing about your cooking once you both settle in. Be confident and enjoy the occasion. Take your time and don't rush the occasion. A good meal can take anything from 45 minutes to 3 hours depending on the pace and the conversation between courses.

You may be thinking that I am portraying things far too formally. This is because I am mentioning things that you may encounter. Dinner for two can be a meal on a tray in front of the TV. At the same time it can be as formal as you like. But the key thing is to ensure the evening is a relaxed affair whilst portraying any cooking competence you can. You will often see couples in restaurants feeding food to each other. This is because in nature we want to provide and demonstrate that we can, so feeding each other is a natural way of sublimely demonstrating our abilities in provision.

Eating together is one of the most intensely personal things you can do, it is about sharing and a great way to get closer. Food can be a great stimulator and provide a great sense of occasion. This is possibly why a meal for two at home can lead on to other things.

In summary, you should offer to cook for your date and you should prepare carefully. Whilst not every time you eat together in future may be on the same level of effort, this occasion will be well remembered. You are at a crucial stage in your developing relationship and so why not make the most of it. Even better, it is their turn to cook next.

Happy dining !

Confidence: To Date You Must Not be Shy

2008-09-19T23:21:00.001-07:00

Most of us are shy in one way or another or at one time or another. It is natural. Shyness is when we fear the consequences of our actions and are paralyzed to the extent that we cannot do what we would like to do. In dating, this becomes an acute issue due to having to put ourselves well outside our comfort zone. We wish to retreat into our shell and protect ourselves rather than take on the 'dangers' of opening up to a stranger.

Shyness takes on many forms, from not being able to ask someone on a date, to not being able to accept. We may find it hard to talk about ourselves or to talk to others. We may be too shy to make an approach, we may be too shy to make a first move or even later, to initiate a kiss, or to respond. Once again, let me stress that this is pretty common in the dating game and leads to many miscommunications, bad signals and stress that we really wish to avoid.

Sometimes when we are shy it is simply easier to avoid dating and say no to someone. It is easier to not approach the person we like and make excuses. When you see someone you like at the bar you clearly want to introduce yourself but hope they make the first move. You can get Dutch-courage from having a few beers or wines which will allow you to become more confident. So overcoming shyness is often a matter of confidence by degrees.

Being shy as a woman is often an attractive quality, and the right kind of confident guy will take you gently out of your shyness and open the situation up. For a man however, shyness can be a debilitating issue that has to be dealt with in order to succeed. The first question to ask yourself is what is it you are shy about? Almost always the first reply is fear of rejection. A man wants to be successful in his approach and for many guys, they learn that a girl saying no is all part of the game. They learn to deal with negative responses and realize that it is a numbers game. Some will say no, others are dying to meet him.

But for a shy man, he has yet to get to that level of confidence. He is scared of girls saying no as he is highly selective. He sees a good-looking girl, maybe the only one he is attracted to in the bar, and he wants to meet only her. He fears she will say no and pre-empts the negative response by assuming too much and then withdraws into shyness by making mental excuses as to why it is not worth taking the gamble of making an approach. In doing so, he has defeated himself at the very first hurdle. This pattern can last not for weeks or months, but for years. It is a situation that must be overcome.

One of the things that can help guys is associating socially with more confident male friends and through this getting the feel of overcoming shyness by being surrounded by confident guys who are busy approaching girls. In doing so he will receive some of that confidence and try to move out of his comfort zone. That is why you often see men acting more confident in a big group. It is almost like a team-mentality.

The next reason why men are shy is because they don't feel good about themselves and haven't yet addressed the issue. They may not be happy about who they are and the way they look. Once again it is related to confidence but can easily by addressed by following the tips elsewhere in my articles. In this scenario the man is not yet prepared to date and in doing so has disallowed himself the opportunity of being able to approach a woman. You MUST feel good about yourself to overcome the shyness that protects you.

Some guys are shy because they simply aren't that good at chatting a girl up or are not very good looking. They prefer for the signals they receive froma woman to be sent to them as loud as a car horn before they will even consider doing something about it. And even then they will question themselves as to whether they really read the situation right. Once again it is about changing a few things and feeling better about yourself. If you are overweight, start losing it. If you are out of shape, get to the gym. If you aren't dressed well, start saving up and buy a few new clothes. Even of you are not very good looking, you are certainly not isolated from dating. Some of the funniest men alive are some of the ugliest men I have ever seen and they have an army of adoring female fans.

Some men are shy because their approach stinks. As soon as they meet a woman they like their conversation dries up and they freeze. They come across like a blubbering fool and retreat fast. Once again this is addressed by a little forward thinking and some Practise. A man can chat up women everywhere. He can chat to them over the counter in a store, or in a diner or anywhere he finds women. Over time, talking with women will become far more natural and will open up more possibilities. So start practicing.

Often the answer to shyness in this sense is to have things to say. You don't need to be a superstar comedian but you can be and often are amusing with your friends. You simply have to learn how to bring that humor out when talking with a girl. Most men don't listen to a girl when she is talking, they are too busy thinking. If you listen closely, she is telling you everything you need to know about how to act, react and what to talk about with her. So start listening too.

Shyness is often about a lack of self-worth. You will think up excuses as to why the person you like won't like you in advance. Maybe they are already attached, maybe you don't think they could like someone like you, perhaps you think they aren't approachable. How on earth do you know if you don't try? And furthermore, what have you got to lose? You can argue that in being shy you can be rejected and this will make you feel even worse and retreat into your shell even more. However, what happens when someone says yes? The world becomes a different place my friend.

Shyness can become a debilitating illness, it can restrict you not only in dating but form taking risks in many aspects of your life. It can prevent you from becoming successful, or from enjoying sports and adventure and even living your life. We all have shy days but it is time to look ahead. It is always easier not to do something than to do it, but you will get out of life far more if you challenge yourself. Dating is often about just that, challenging yourself. Begin today by smiling at people you are attracted to. Nothing more. Once you are confident in doing that then start chatting to people in stores over the counter and make conversation. People like to be talked to.

Once you are used to approaching strangers and smiling then use the same technique in a bar or at a social event. Learn to introduce yourself, even just ina friendly way. Get used to talking to new people. Learn about your best qualities and work on the ones that aren't so great. Over a short period of time you will see that approaching people isn't so hard after all.

As a guy remember the lesson that women like confident men. As a woman you are already way ahead of the guys as it is their task generally to come over to you. Open yourself up to these approaches and although you may say no, allow men to talk to you and allow yourself to be flattered too. After all, you may go home alone, but you will also know that that was simply by choice.

Be Prepared To Date: Dating Preparation is Essential

2008-09-19T23:20:00.002-07:00

A strange topic to discuss you may say. No I think it is a very important to discuss preparing to date. If you are going to involve yourself in other people's lives by asking them to dinner and wanting to get to know them then the least you can do is make sure you are ready to this. I have encountered people who a little while into a relationship suddenly announce that they are not ready, or that it is all too soon, or they were unprepared. Maybe you have heard that too.

It is easy to dismiss such instances as people on the rebound, or making excuses but the fact is, about 33% of all people on the dating scene are not really prepared for dating and are free styling it. Some people may be on the rebound from a previous relationship, they may be looking for an escape route, or most likely they are panicking because of the new set of emotions they are facing, often unexpectedly.

Being prepared to date means making sure that mentally you are ready to meet new people and accept into the bargain that you may get on well and even fall in love. Prepare to be scared, prepare to be frightened, prepare to open yourself up to emotions and prepare to fall in love guys. Because if you don't , you are wasting your time and worse, the time of other people.

You do not have the preordained right to play with the emotions of people, and you don't have the right to hurt their feelings. When someone accepts a date or asks you on a date, it is because they like you and want to get to know you better. If you are not able to open yourself up to this level of interest then you are not ready to get involved an begin dating properly. I reckon that at least a third of all dates are mistakes. They are time spent with people who simply don't want to open up and love or be loved which is why you must choose your dates carefully.

Please make sure that when preparing to date, you are really and truly over a past relationship. Dating people just to feel better about yourself will only hurt others and make you feel worse. Getting over a previous relationship can take some time and though very different, has many of the same attributes as bereavement. Be careful not to begin dating again too soon in the hope that it will pick you up. Whilst a new love can get you over your ex, you must already be some way down the line from the ex before you can let go of the past. The danger here is that you can begin comparing at every turn and ultimately panic when the new relationship goes too far too soon. Take your time and be ready first.

The danger with trying to date too soon after a previous relationship has ended is that dating should be great fun. To be on top form and be in great humor you need to be feeling very positive. This is truly essential to date successfully. Consequently when not over a previously partner, the hammer makes you feel guilty and you immediately find your mind wandering to times gone past. In turn this comes across in dates very quickly and it will be obvious to your new date that all is not well. No one dating wants to date people with emotional baggage so it is essential that you move on as soon as you feel able.

Take some time before beginning dating people to work out things about yourself. What are your strong point and what are your weaknesses. What do you think people will pick up about you that you could maybe improve. What do you like talking about, how are you when chatting on dates, how organized are you, how do you come across to others and so on. Preparation means making sure you come across well to people. This is particularly important if you have been out of the dating game for some time. It is crucial that you do everything you can to feel confident and good about yourself and even more important to be ready to handle some rejection. You are going to have to reject and be rejected before you reach the promised land.

Make sure you are over your last relationship
Make sure you want to have a relationship
Make sure you are prepared to be honest about your aims
Make sure that you are emotionally ready
Make sure that you are able to tell the truth
Make sure you are able to handle some rejection
Make sure your perspective is right
Make sure you are being serious
Make sure you know what your dating aims are
Make sure your confidence levels are reasonably high
Make sure you are looking your best
Make sure you are of positive mind
Make sure you are prepared to wait to meet the right person
Try not to compare new dates to your ex
Be prepared to take a fresh approach to dating
Remember that on all occasions dating should be fun

Remember that when getting into the dating scene you need to be strong and have your wits about you. You need to be on form and in positive mood. You need to be ready to have fun and be entertaining and able to give of yourself. To do this you need to be emotionally prepared so do what you can for yourself before walking out onto the dating field. Be prepared to date.

Dating and Relationships - A Question of Compromise

2008-09-19T23:20:00.001-07:00

Compromise is undoubtedly the key to many problems we face. We are so set in our ways that only our way will do. And so arises the great problem in dating and relationships. If only we could compromise, then we would be better placed to find common ground and work things out. I often hear people saying that they will never compromise on who they would choose to date, what their standards are, what is acceptable for a partner and so on. It makes me sad because who said they themselves were so perfect anyway? Who said they had a right to be so choosey and demanding? Well they did and they do have that right. The dangerous outcome though is that they could be single for a long time yet and unhappy in their personal lives because they are simply just too rigid. Fact.

Now I know that some of you are going to hate this idea of compromise. After all, appearing to compromise in the past has meant you have had some tough relationships and tough times with people. Why should you compromise, it is your life after all. Very good argument. You don't have to compromise at all. Not at all. The problem arises then in building relationships with new people. We may have high standards with our friends and we may have higher standards still for prospective partners but are you going to find perfection? Are you truly perfection yourself? Come on be honest with me, speak to me. Exactly how perfect in every way are you? Exactly! Good so now that I have your attention, lets look at compromises.

Here are six aspects of compromising that we may encounter when dating:

1. Compromise on Perfection

Oh yes, you have the perfect image of someone in your head and its not just about looks. You have an image built up from dreams as well as experience and you are willing to hold out for that, however long and whatever it takes. I have a shock for you babe, life isn't perfect and neither are people. Your idols aren't perfect in their private lives and neither are you. So why set such rigid rules about the people you are going to date.

If you are setting perfection against looks, are you prefect too? If you are only attracted to a certain kind of looks or behavior then I can't argue with that but demanding that someone MUST be 6 feet tall instead of 5'11" is a recipe for dating disaster and speaks volumes about a lack of perspective. I am not asking anyone to compromise on what and who they attracted to but I am asking them to see with both eyes.

Once you move into the realm of relationships you will find that people are far from perfect. There is no one who sees a person the same after ten years as the way they saw them the first 5 minutes they met. That's because as we learn about someone our perspective changes. It is not to say we love any less, but we compromise and begin to accept people with their imperfections. If you cannot accept this you may be better off out-with a relationship.

2. Compromise on Expectations

What do you seriously expect when dating? Do you expect to be hit by Cupid's arrow every time you meet someone. Are you waiting for love at first sight? Are you hoping that every date will lead to marriage? These are important questions because they govern your initial reaction to every new date, they govern how you behave on a date and they govern what will happen at the end of date. Dating is about fun as much as romance and by compromising and accepting that you will enjoy dating much more. After being on 50 dates you may well argue the point that you have a right to expect that eventually you will meet someone you can match with. You are right to be frustrated and I know what you are feeling. The fact is that dating takes time so expect to kiss a few frogs before you meet your prince.

3. Compromise on Dates

Approaching dating too seriously badly affects the outcome and your response every time. You may not enjoy dating because of your seriousness and may get dating fatigue. Not everyone you meet will be your perfect match but neither may they be bad people, not extremely pleasant and stimulating, or even sexy. Remember that opposites can and do attract. My advice is to loosen up and enjoy dating for what it is, meeting new people. You most certainly will know it when you are hit by Cupid's arrow, and you don't have to compromise on your perfect match, just compromise on your expectations to dating before you begin. Learn to get pleasure from every new experience.

4. Compromise in Relationships

Being part of a two-people team means exactly that, being a team. Being a partnership means listening to both arguments, both sides of a case, both points of view. The word 'relationship' means compromise. It seems to me these days that a relationship has become all too often a power struggle where one person is trying to get the upper hand, to dominate, to get their own selfish way. The second party becomes subjugated and weakened and stops being themselves. This is a modern disgrace hidden in too many relationships and it makes me tired to see it.

A relationship is not a power struggle and both partners should be equal. If your partner likes to play power games and feel empowered because of it, they have psychological issues that in themselves can cause relationship issues further down the line. If you are not willing to compromise in a relationship, then ask yourself why you are with that person. Your partner does not exists purely as part of your own support system. They have their own needs too.

5. Compromise on the Little Things

It is always the little things that are the most important. It may be the smallest of things that matter to a person, such as leaving the toilet seat up, not tidying up before going to bed, not making the bed, not calling to say hello, not buying flowers. To the other partner, these things may appear petty and not important at all. The point is they do matter and both partners should ensure they listen to their partner and learn what is important to them and what is not. It is not possible to be perfect I know, but it is possible to listen and do the things that make your partner happy. In the same way we hope that they will do the same for you. So keep an eye out for the little things in life. You may have to compromise your own routines to include them, but that is a small price to pay for happiness and love.

6. Compromise on the Outcome

Dating and relationships are open ended affairs. Until you stop seeing someone then there is no end, only the future. Compromise on your view of the future by being far sighted and open minded. You may believe that true happiness will only occur when you have a midtown loft apartment in Manhattan together, or a yacht in a Greek Island harbor and are sailing the seven seas together. That is the beauty of ambition and dreams. But make sure those dreams are shared.

I have seen couples split up at retirement after many decades together because their retirement dream was never spoken about or shared. The point is, as a couple, your ambitions and goals and future should be a shared vision from early on if they are truly to work. You need to be singing from the same hymn sheet and that means you need to be compatible from the outset. You may both have to compromise first to get to that shared vision but it doesn't make it any less worthwhile.

Advice About Dating - The Nature of Dating Advice

2008-09-19T23:18:00.002-07:00

Dating advice is often given by the most well-meaning of people. Unfortunately they are often the least qualified people to give it. How many times have mothers mentioned that there are "plenty more fish in the sea" when we announce our partner has finished the relationship. Most advice we receive is well meaning but also unhelpful. This is primarily because when we need advice the most if is usually from the wrong sources. When we need to talk, our friends just want us to get "better", be more positive etc.

The best dating advice often seems to come from people who have been in the same situations as ourselves and have gained some comforting wisdom that we can equate to. The more we understand and agree with what is being said, the more common and shared the experience the more it is something we will choose to take in. The problem when seeing dating advice is that there are not too many places to turn. Sure there is Relate for marriage counseling and there are professional agencies and "experts" to help those of us who are getting divorced, but there is almost nothing to help us when we do what everyone does - date.

I personally feel that the best dating advice available to us is from single people, those of us who are at the sharp end of the dating equation. When you are trying to find someone to take to dinner, or accompany you to a function, when you have weekend after weekend to fill and yearn to spend time in stimulating company then it is to single people that you must look for inspiration.

Strangely we seek out those who are in couples for support in times of crisis, perhaps because they have "made it", they are where we want to be, so we trust their judgment. But what brought them together is not necessarily of help to you. And believe me, people in relationships soon forget what it was like to be single. I have heard some of the most useless dating advice of all from couples so I recommend that if you are currently single and playing the dating game, compare notes with like minded people. Couples will drive you crazy and remind you too often how smugly nice it is to be happy.

When dating, the thing we should always remember is that advice is simply what someone else thinks might assist you. The person giving this advice may not necessarily have any idea of your true state of mind of your particular circumstances. How can someone know what you should say or what you should so, or where you should meet apart from the usual practical ideas. But then there is an equally and opposite forceful argument.

Your friends who are not dating are often able to see things from distance that you sometimes cannot. One good example of this was when I was in a two year relationship with a particularly nasty person and I was continually advised to run away as fast as I could. I was being used and abused and chose not to see it. I ignored the advice that may have saved me. Friends may be single and not currently dating. They may have just been through the dating treadmill and are full of good ideas. Therefore whilst we can discount the happy couple's advice, don't cut off the advice of friends fully.

Trust your own instincts and trust your judgment. Once you are in a relationship you will need all the judgment skills you can muster anyway. Personally though, I get tired of people working out set formulas about how we date. I get tired of lifestyle gurus who often have no idea what they are talking about. To some, dishing out the same old dating advice and garbage is a way of making a living. The fact is, if you are out there calling people, meeting for lunch dates or evening dinners. If you are making calls and waiting for your phone to ring, if you are having plenty of ups and downs then you are as much a dating expert as anyone and have as much right to your views on the dating scene as anyone. That is why I like to hear about single people's experiences.

Dating advice is not a fixed theorem with a fixed set of answers. Dating advice is varied, unique and individual and comes from the heart. This site is owned and written by me, as a single person who has been on hundreds of dates and has had some really lovely relationships. Dating advice is simply my way of sharing my dating experiences and views on the world with you guys.

Single Parents and Dating

2008-09-19T23:18:00.001-07:00

This is a complex subject and I can't do it justice here but I offer some thoughts. Dating single parents should not be the problem it is and things are starting to move in the right direction at last. Being a single mother or father has never been easy when looking for a new partner. You are seen to be carrying a lot of baggage that a single person doesn't really have to take onboard if there are lots of single people around without children. That's the basic truth. In other words you are second choice to someone without kids in the largest section of single groups.

To be realistic, a proportion of eligible people are lost to you if you have children, for many reasons. For a start you will not trust everyone you meet and will have some specific criteria your new partner must match with for the safety of your family. Then some people will not want to have children for personal reasons and so they would not make suitable partners. Then others just wouldn't be suited to your family environment, maybe through career or outlook. Also worth noting is that many people do look for people with children for a variety of reasons, maybe because they have children too.

Yet its important to remember that we can easily see single people as having the whole singles market to themselves when in fact there are limitations on all of us. We may be short, or bald, or fat or thin or many things that some people don't want. In which case no one has it easy in the dating game.

The main problem with being a single parent attempting to date is one of image. Not your image of yourself, the image that other people have of you. You may not be a Valium-chomping, shopping bag- carrying, crying baby-cradling single mum, but its possible that others see that image in their head. Tag that along side the thoughts of a ready-made family with instant serious responsibilities and one can see where the problems may lay.

The fact is, being a single parent is a lonely business. Your social life is very restricted unless your ex has a lot of regular responsibility and custody of the children. You tend to stay in in the evenings and tend to your children as more than you do to your own needs. Soon enough you have become isolated and when you feel ready to date, its tricky to know where to begin. Worst still even if you do get a night out occasionally will you be able to meet anyone who wants to date you when you have children. And will you want to date them?

I went to see About a Boy last year starring Hugh Grant and I could identify with his character in that there are many single mums I know who are desperate to find a nice guy to date. But that doesn't mean to say it is easy pickings for any man that strolls along. I have found single parents have very definite views about who they would like to meet and who would fit into their lives. Being available simply isn't enough.

Many of my friends are single parents and the most common complaint is that people don't seem to be interested in them once they admit they have children who live at home. It's almost like it is too much hassle for a prospective date. However my single parents friends are the most caring, organized, gentle and forward looking people I have ever met. Most have weekends free due to their ex partners having access rights and so it is not as if parents are tied as a single person may believe. Some of my friends though pointed out that they have met single potentials who don't really understand that they have parental responsibilities and there is a fair amount of criticism of single people not having the necessary levels of understanding. The fact is, if you date a single parents you do need to make adjustments.

I asked a few single male friends of mine what they thought and they said they would not discount single parents if the number of children was manageable. What they meant was that if you have one or two children that appears to be the acceptable level of take-on future responsibility. However one of my lovely single female friends has 4 children and she felt that that was somewhat off-putting for many prospective partners. She went on to say that she now viewed having a relationship would happen once her children grew up but not before.

The focus should be on you as a person and your domestic situation shouldn't matter. This may reveal why some single parents feel it is necessary to conceal their domestic situation until a little way down the line. "It's not like I am lying, it is just that I am not going to be too specific" said one female friend. Revealing that you have a child later on once you have hooked your mate doesn't appear to cause too many problems but I would be very cautious of that approach as it smacks of deceit and trying to hook someone.

With the deterioration of marriage in modern society and more people living together it is a major fact of life that there are a lot of single parents out there. They have already demonstrated their domestic skills, their fertility, their organizational abilities and their ability to cope under pressure. Therefore you can argue that a single parent is almost top pick amongst out ever increasing pool of singles. Single parents have a lot going for them and I often now believe it is simply a case of overcoming the initial years of isolation and getting back into the dating game with a degree of confidence.

Things to feel good about:

Coping as a single parent is a huge skill

You have proven your domestic abilities

You have proven your organizational responsibilities

You are a great home maker

You are a great mother or father

You are caring, kind and responsible

Single people often desire to be like you

The Internet has revolutionized dating from home. Now you can chat with people you like 24 hours a day and build up a relationship online before meeting when appropriate. Furthermore you can select what type of people you would like to meet through the online search facilities so that you can zoom in on the kind of person who would fit in with your parental lifestyle. Things are looking up.

Make dating easier for yourself with these tips:

If you are finding meeting people difficult think about the inherent safety of using an Internet dating agency like LoveBrowser.com. You can chat safely from home and make new friends.

Do decide what your dating goals are. If the date is for company and fun enjoy yourself. If you are looking at your date from the point of view of prospective father or mother then be clear about that

Do ask lots of questions and be straight up about having children. Never pretend you don't just so that you can get a date.

If your children are old enough to understand, do tell them that you are dating.

Take your time before introducing a prospective new family member but make sure that you do keep your kids well informed

Do stick to your dating criteria and don't be swayed just because you are having a good time.

Don't forget that if your date doesn't have children they don't necessarily want to chat about yours constantly. That's natural.

Don't talk about your children in detail until you are very comfortable with the person you are dating.

If someone cannot grasp your role as mother or father and the commitments that entails, dump them swiftly.

Make sure that your prospective partner understands the shared responsibilities of being part of your family

If you find that your date doesn't take to your children you have probably been dating the wrong person for you.

If you don't want further children later be clear from the outset. If you have 2 children and you are 39, enough may be enough.

Do allow your children to have a view of your date but do not let their views influence your own judgment. A child may be jealous of losing attention.

Instant Love: More Than Just A Date

2008-09-19T23:17:00.000-07:00

How do we know when the person we have begun to date is more than just another date on our ever-growing list of nameless faces and faceless names? After all, surely we need some identifying features to root out the wheat from the chaff. Is this person we have seen 6 of 7 times just good fun or do we really think they have the qualities to become relationship material? To answer your own question you need to know who you are looking for and what characteristics are attractive to you and then try and stick to them. If you are dating the right kind of people for you and not just filling gaps in your diary then this may get you off to a good start.

Much of what determines your commitment to your date in the first few days and weeks is a combination of intuition, extra sensory perception (feelings) and what you care to see with your own eyes. If you are desperately lonely and want to meet anyone then anyone will do and this article is irrelevant. If, however, you are more choosey which I suspect deep down you all are, then you will want to tray and detect and then reassure yourself that you haven't just made an awful mistake.

The first thing you should do after the first couple of dates is take a step back and be honest with yourself as to how you are truly feeling. Have you been swept off your feet, are you relieved they are nice, are you blown away by their good looks, can you handle the first few peculiarities you have spotted in them and although they are cute now, will they be in 40 years. Can you see yourself with them 10 years down the line. Can you picture them older. Do they make you feel alive because before you were bored or do they make you feel alive because they are dynamite.

Do you hang on their every word, wait for the next meeting with baited breath? Do you find yourself abandoning your old routine and new horizons opening up. Can you still eat or has your appetite gone. Have you been shopping to may yourself look fresh and hot. Do you find yourself getting in at 4am from a date and do you find yourself having any sleepless nights with your mind full of excited thoughts.

Do you find yourself anxious and panicking. Do you find yourself questioning the intensity of how you are feeling. Are you finding your feelings fully reciprocated. Is there a clear sense of communication between you. Do you actually have similar opinions and tastes or do you care? Do you want to spend all your time with them now or do you find that you are worried your current lifestyle is being compromised more than you would like. Are you doing the calling or are they and how does this make you feel?

In other words, start analyzing the situation as you see it and be bold. Be critical and look at where you are finding yourself being led. If you are happy and content with all the major questions then keep going because you may have just chosen well. If you find on the other hand that you have some small niggling doubts then don't push these thoughts away as they aren't going anywhere, they will just become amplified over time.

The main issue is one of whether you trust your new date and whether you believe what you are being told. It is amazing how many girls I meet how say that strangely they haven't been allowed to see where he lives, or are not quite sure what he does for a living or how much he earns or where his parents live. This isn't an enigma factor ladies, it is a sure sign that all is not quite right. There may be some perfectly valid reasons why things are concealed from you in the first few weeks so don't push things too far. You may not yet have earned the right to know everything about your new love. At the same time, you should feel that the possibility of finding everything important out is imminent. Evasive behavior is exactly that - untrustworthy and your alarm bells should ring.

Trusting your imagination is very important. If you can see yourself with that person in all kinds of situations then you may have chosen well. It is important to creatively imagine how you think you will be together in various scenarios, from being on vacation, to being married, to maybe having children to being older. In doing so you get a sense of how things might work out or might not. If you really can't see yourself with them long term then maybe better to cut your losses whilst you can.

Conversation is critical in establishing if things feel right. Sex does not disguise any problems eventually although sex is a good temporary fix. If your relationship is based on sex then its great whilst it lasts but I doubt that it will last. People say that opposites attract and that is true in that you bring different experiences and opinions to the relationship but the foundation of being a great couple is on a deeper, more critical level of respect and understanding. I find that couples with similar outlooks on life do well together because they have built a support system for each other which requires little explanation. It is called a common understanding. This sometimes explains why couples from certain regions, places, or faiths have better success than the melting pot luck of a big city.

Ultimately if you compliment each other and you find that your new love brings to the relationship most of the essential qualities that you really do hold most dear then you are in a strong position for relationship success. If there are some basic flaws but you are having a good time anyway enjoy yourself but know that the person you are with is for now and not for the future.

First Impressions: Look Good When Dating

2008-09-19T23:16:00.002-07:00

In you stroll, looking hot in that new dress or suit with the Manolo's or Jimmy Choo shoes. You know you look good after all, it cost you a fortune. You are feeling confident due to the way you are looking and you know he wants you. Go get him girl. Does that ring true? Well maybe, maybe not. On the other hand, in you stroll, black Armani or Hugo Boss suit, Italian leather shoes, handmade shirt. You are feeling good, you are feeling successful, you are feeling confident. Yes, my friends, in this fatuous day and age we are what we wear.

Now I am not saying that we need to spend a King's ransom on the latest designer gear, fashions, style and hand crafted luxury wear from Italy or wherever. But I am suggesting that when we dress well we feel good, we believe we look good and we feel we can do anything we choose. So when dating, its important to look good because if you do, you will feel good too. Good style means a good level of confidence.

Forget arguing about body shape and expense in your defense against my argument here, it doesn't wash. You can look stylish and classic whatever your shape within reason and whatever your budget. Black will always be classic and well tailored clothes will always look a cut above the rest. I cannot walk down any high street or through any mall these days without being inundated with a sense of style. Everywhere we look there are shops desperate to dress you well. The fact that you don't choose to go in them is not the point. Therefore turning up for your first date in a comfy sweatshirt or sports top may make you feel relaxed but it shows absolute contempt for your date who has spent the best part of the last two hours getting ready for your squalid self. Get a grip man.

Okay so whilst my female readership doesn't need a lecture in self presentation generally, my male readership often does. The first thing I want you to remember men is that a woman will judge you by looking straight down at your shoes. You may not see what the fuss is about but she may as well be looking straight past your shoes, all the way down to hell. The fact is, the truth is in the detail. You have washed and scrubbed up well, but casting a more detailed glance over you and the small discrepancies are soon revealed. Missing cufflinks, tie all over the place, missing shirt button etc. All mean that deep down either you are a deeply wild and windswept sex god or you are a disaster in the making who has no idea of style and presentation. If you can't dress yourself buddy, what makes you think you can undress her.

But shoes are the biggest giveaway because men think of them as practical necessities that are comfortable rather than looking at the style involved. It is obvious what is classic and in fashion right now, simply turn your eyes and look through the window of the nearest ubiquitous show store. Once you have bought them, ensure they match the rest of the outfit. No don't mix brown with black and if shoeshine cream is as rare as diamonds in your apartment then get back to the shop and sort it out. Good shoes mean that you have attention to detail, she has seen and she has noted!

Men often make the mistake of thinking that the woman is relaxed and kind of a casual gal so he doesn't need to go mad when meeting up. He can be smart but casual. I have news for you, most men are casual, not smart but casual. It doesn't happen in my experience. Men have no idea at all what is like to get ready as a woman. The fact that you look subtle and classically understated is lost on a man. He thinks it took you 5 minutes to get ready. He has no idea. Which is why he threw on the white shirt that needed an iron and a pair of casual trousers in such a carefree fashion.

Do not believe GQ-style magazines, however marvelous they are. Whilst there is a small core of very well dressed men out there, they are not the norm. Take your average guy shopping to the mall on a Saturday afternoon and see how long he lasts. Whilst men have a better idea about appearance and do know some label makes and names, they are still eons behind women. But all is not lost. A man with a career can sort himself out in a few easy steps, he simply needs to get his wallet out.

Every man over the age of 25 should have a black, classic, single-breasted, good-quality suit together with the same in navy blue. He should have a casual jacket and a collection of plain colored well made cotton shirts. He should have three pairs of good quality leather shoes, in black and brown and they should be modern and in good condition. A man should have a good quality masculine watch. This is very important as it is possibly the only piece of jewelry a man may ever display. Okay a watch is a timepiece and a necessity but it speaks volumes about you. Some women have expressed a liking for men with large masculine sports watches, but whatever you do wear, it should be a classic as it will speak volumes about your taste.

You should always carry on you a good quality leather wallet that is not stuffed with receipts, preferably in black which you always wear within a jacket pocket, not stuffed into a pocket of your trousers. Whilst you may begin to think I am trying to describe James Bond, you are not far wrong. You can do far worse than to watch a Bond movie to get a sense of class and style. Neither am I suggesting that you alter your image from that which is really you. But as we are discussing first impressions, then you will need to think carefully about the way you do present yourself.

I can only think of a handful of men in my lifetime who do smart but casual well. For many men, it means jeans and a crumpled shirt with the sleeves rolled up. Take a good look about you and think long and hard about your current image and get some feedback from female friends as to how they really perceive your look. You may get a nasty shock. If you are pleasantly surprised then you are on your way.

Finally, though I have spelt this out before, I will do it one more time. Looking good is important, as is feeling comfortable. However along with this you should smell good. For men, Aftershave and cologne of a high quality are essential, and the less mainstream the better. For a start, if it is not one of the perennial brands then your date may not have smelled the scent before and will find it unusual and possibly attractive. She will most certainly notice. This is all part of making a good impression. It shows you have made an effort for her and you care. More than one Aftershave is good, a lemon based on for day wear and a heavier woody cologne for the evening with a hint of musk. But always consult and test because many Aftershaves do not suit some types of skin. So spray and then walk round the store before deciding.

Looking and smelling good is not a one-off situation. For second and subsequent dates you need to keep up the good work so I am not recommending your first impression-making attempts are not really you. I really am suggesting you take a long hard look at your current image and begin to change things for the better if necessary. And certainly for the long term. Finally, remember that your efforts will be appreciated even if nothing is ever said. In one short phrase, first impressions count.

Dating Essentials: Making Eye Contact

2008-09-19T23:16:00.001-07:00

Here is a fact, people don't make eye contact. They should and they do look at each other, but they look away when the other person looks back. Look at the commuters on a subway platform or in a subway carriage. They look at anything except each other. They use devices such as ads and books and papers so that they don't look at each other. Why? Because when we look at each other and make eye contact something very personal happens. It is as if we can see inside each other and see what they are thinking. It is the opening to a conversation. Looking at strangers is a personal introduction.

Good, I am glad we have that out of the way. Because if we accept that we need to look at strangers to introduce ourselves, why then do we find ourselves not able to look people we find attractive in the eye? Well the answer may lie in the fact that we are scared when looking that we will instantly see disapproval for our glances and will be rejected. Being rejected affects our self-confidence levels so by not looking we protect ourselves.

We can glance from afar, even stare and appreciate, as long as they are not looking back. We can check out legs, hair, breasts, chest, ass, anything we can see, but we will then store that image instantly so that we can appreciate without getting caught. The instant the look back, we look away, and allow any form of appreciation in return. This leads to the glancing and return-glances scenario that forms the basic ritual of demonstrating interest.

Usually, one person , let's say in a bar, sees someone they like and will check them out. Eye contact is made for the briefest instant and is followed by looking away. Glances will be made in either direction until eventually, if the feeling in both parties is mutual, the gaze will be held longer and this is then followed by a courtesy smile. Now, at this stage, approval being made via eye contact, it is time to do something about it. But in most cases, nothing happens. Why? Because the fear factor sets in and the man (usually the man) is put off by making a proper approach because she is in a group. A confident man will return the gaze and then move in.

The problem arises, that a man believes he has mistaken the glances and eye contact as accidental and will make mental excuses for this and then not make an approach. And the moment is lost. She may look at you once again as she moves on to another destination with friends. But unless you meet again in different circumstances you have lost because you showed yourself as having no wish to move in. Consequently you come across as a timid person. Fail.

So, men and women need to start knowing how to look at others and then know how to interpret eye contact correctly. First of all you need to begin by looking people in the eye and get used to it. Its no good looking oat the ground and then follow up with sly glances when they are not looking. Look at people and learn to smile at them. You may only be making new friends but who cares, get used to looking and being looked at. Being shy is not the way to a persons heart. Think of the expression "love at first sight" It's never going to happen if you don't get caught looking. As a man, should you look at a woman's breasts and get caught. Sure you should. Don't make it excessive, but if someone looks good, its nice to be appreciated, even if its just momentary and fleeting.

An old friend once told me that she found it difficult to look at men now she was single because an ex boyfriend had been so possessive that she had always looked at the ground when they were out. It took her years to learn to make eye contact with strangers again. So I can appreciate difficulties with eye contact. Shyness is another debilitating factor. Many of us are shy by degrees and making eye contact isn't always easy but we should start practicing. Many are the people who had admirers but never knew it, simply because they never looked.

Another strange phenomenon is the common anxiety in people that when people look at them, they think it is an aggressive stance, not a friendly introduction. Men are often accused at staring at each other followed by the aggressive opener "what are you looking at !" Men with low self-esteem can view women in a similar vein by thinking that if a woman is looking at them, there must be something wrong. Women can feel insecure in the same way by men making eye contact with them.

A very interesting scenario occurred in the summer of 1996 when I was in a bar in Manchester, England and a gay friend of mine could instantly tell me which of the barmen were gay. I wanted to know the secret. Well he said that if you meet a girl you like, you will hold her gaze for a second or two longer than if you were talking to a man. As gay men were looking at you in the same way you look at a woman, he said, then the gay barman will look at you in a similar way by holding your gaze. I have tried this many times since to prove his point and it really does appear to work. What we learn from this is that eye contact is the way to instant attraction indication.

Then of course we have the physiological aspects to eye contact. Pupil dilation and the following of the eyes. On a date which is going well watch the eyes of your date carefully. If she or he is attracted to you, their eyes will dilate (get bigger) and they will hold your gaze as long as possible. But in the instant attraction scenario with a stranger across a crowded room, remember that the quick occasional glances will indicate initial interest so act upon it.

In summary, get used to looking at people and make deliberate eye contact with people you like. Try it in a shop, store or anywhere where you meet strangers. Try and hold the gaze of someone with a nice smile and watch the reaction. You will be surprised. I keep coming back to the same key ingredient in dating. Confidence. Eye contact means confidence and the more you practise, the better you will get. Finally, always remember that not everyone you meet will be attracted to you, so expect some glances never to be returned. Making eye contact is fun.

Mysteriousness Is An Essential Factor For Dating Success

2008-09-19T23:15:00.002-07:00

Think about how many times you have heard the expression "mysterious stranger". Think about how many times you have heard someone say " I really want to get to know you more". People are attracted to mystery. Being enigmatic, in other words, not knowing what makes a person tick. Not knowing their thoughts. Not knowing everything about them provokes instant challenge. A mysterious stranger is an attractive person. You want to know more, you want to gain their attention you want to be known to them. Someone you can read like an open book lacks that essential quality and is therefore less attractive at first glance.

To be successful and attractive when dating it pays to keep something in reserve. A busy person is an attractive person because their life appears to be full, but you don't actually know that. You simply wish to know more. And in trying to know more, you find an interest level that you didn't find in those that offer you everything on a plate.

An enigmatic man has an air of mystery. An enigmatic woman has the same. Your desire quotient is increased significantly if you don't allow everything in your head to spill out to anyone within earshot. Mystery is a challenge and we know that challenge is inherent in many dating scenarios. By being a challenge to someone who wants to get to know you and by making them work for it, so your chances of success in the dating game are so much higher.

People often say that they meet someone when they least expected it. This is partly because by being busy with their every day routine they didn't notice that someone had taken an interest in them. This is often in part because you are busy. You are promoting an air of desirability because there is a mystery to you. Your life seems full and they are interested. They want to know more about you.

It is worth noting however that enigma and mystery are very different from being stubborn and moody. Not knowing about your life and what makes you trick is one thing. Being downright secretive is something completely different.

Here are some key tips to being enigmatic and mysterious:

At work or with friends, don't bore the office with every opinion you can muster.
Always keep something back when relating a story - why and how and when are details for later
Don't announce every plan you make. Keep some things to yourself for a while
Do not phone people, let them call you
Don't always return calls and never instantly
Keep your private life private. It is not open for general discussion and debate
Don't be too available but don't explain why you are not available either
Keep people guessing
Making interested parties think they are no the only person interested in you ups the ante and increases your desirability
Don't reply to emails and text messages at weekends
If you are using a dating service, don't reply to emails and messages at weekends
Be busy without giving details of what you are doing
Break plans occasionally without giving too much away
When you do meet up be entertaining and fascinating without giving every detail away
Never discuss ex partners and refuse to be drawn on the subject
Use an evasive enigmatic smile to answer questions to great effect
Even when people beg you to know more, keep them guessing
Never be too available, your diary is always semi-full as far as anyone is concerned
Mention you were with 'some people' but say little else on the subject when relating a tale
Let people do the running and don't do the chasing unless necessary
Have different groups of friends who you don't mix together
To be highly effective, create the desire initially then ration it afterwards. They will treat you like a drug, craving more due to the great times they have when they do eventually get to see you
Learn key expressions like "oh I have been really busy", "wow its been crazy", "I have lots of plans this week", "my diary is really full" and "Oh I have been doing so many things" without giving more away
Be a challenge and never be an open book. Make people work to get to know you

Being mysterious takes practice and takes time to get right. Once you do so and are comfortable in not being in constant communication with people they will soon desire to know more. It is a fine balancing trick however because if you are too evasive, people will tire of you and move on.

Confidence in Dating: Why You Should Become More Confident

2008-09-19T23:15:00.001-07:00

I once read the results of a survey in a leading woman's magazine that said the number 1 most attractive quality in a man was confidence. Not arrogance, confidence. It took some time to sink in as to what this really meant. Did it mean grabbing the girl in matinee idol pose and whisking her backwards whilst I kissed those luscious lips of hers? Did it mean turning into a caveman never taking no for an answer? Did it mean turning up at the door of the girl next door and whisking her off to Paris for the weekend, though we had hardly spoken? What did they mean by confidence? The quest was on it find out.

Every woman I have asked will answer in a different vein so the answer isn't all things to all men. Confidence, it appears, is in the eye of the beholder. Even worse, confidence can easily be misconstrued so one has to tread carefully. The point is not confidence itself, but its easier to define by its opposite, fear. Fear in men is not attractive. Fear defines a man as not knowing his own value, lacking a feeling of self worth, not being sure of his abilities, lacking in presence and determination. This I may add is very different from justifiable fear that we all face.

Okay, back to confidence. Men are attractive when they are confident said one friend. Another told me, "ooh a confident man makes me go weak at the knees". So I pressed them further. A confident man it seems is one who carries with him a self-assuredness that is most definitely not arrogance. It is a state where a man feels sure of himself and his abilities, knows what he is about, knows himself for what he can do,, what he may be able to do, what he may fail at but does not fear to try. A confident man is in control of his destiny, his future, his career, his day. And to many women that is very attractive.

After all, a woman is looking for a partner, one who will not only match with her mentally and physically, but someone who can drive her onwards, someone who has ambition and vitality, someone who can pass hi self assuredness on to her. A man who is confident is sexy because he is comfortable with himself, he is in control and he is able to make decisions, good decisions. He is confident in the choices he makes and in choosing you (maybe really you selected him), he passes this feeling of being special on to you. Being selected by the right man can be very sexy indeed.

If you are going to date the beauty in the corner and father her children then running away is not a good start, neither is feeling bad about yourself and failing to be able to hold a decent conversation. Far too many men decide in advance of an approach if they are worth of a woman's attentions or not. All too often they believe they are not. Except where alcohol is involved. Men in bars exude confidence, but they also exude beer breath as well! No the fact is that guys who lack confidence prejudge most situations and inevitably take themselves out of the dating fray before it ever happens, hoping, strangely, that the woman will make the first move.

The fact is, the confident men more often than not get the girl, because the confident man has something about him. I know plenty of good looking handsome men who are afraid to approach women so its not necessarily about looks. No, its about something within. Confidence is about self respect and self understanding. It comes from understanding what you yourself are about and when this happens a sexy man reaches out. Often lack of confidence in men is because of physique and yet it is an issue so easy to fix. 12 weeks in a gym will change a man's life. A fit man is a confident man. Dress is also something that instills confidence. No man has an excuse for not dressing reasonably smart these days as fashion for men is everywhere.

Ultimately we all lose confidence from time to time. People can take our confidence away at work or at home, in partnerships and on our own. Ultimately though these are passing phases. If a man can do one thing for himself in the dating game, that is to learn about his own confidence levels in an honest way and then go about doing something to increase them. Feel good about yourself guys and someone will feel good about you.

Dating is A Challenge and We Love Challenging Dates

2008-09-19T23:14:00.001-07:00

For some people, dating is a challenge. It is a conquest, a crusade and a sport. As you are neither a competitor or a prize, don't allow yourself to be come a victim to such players. Dating is an affair of the heart and should be treated as such. It is fun to date but it is also serious business. However, when we date, it is true that we do like a challenge, we like to get the guy, we like to get the gal. It makes us feel good about ourselves to date someone nice and so it would be unfair not to talk about challenge in dating.

We often like to go for someone just out of reach, that is a challenge. As humans with ambition, we like to reach and strive upwards. Therefore, dating someone we view as slightly out of our league (for a million reasons) is all the more attractive. This could be someone wealthy, or in a good job, or someone who is simply not usually our 'type'.

It is interesting how we are able to adapt ourselves to this level of interest in people we may not usually consider, when we are dating. Generally we will stick to people in our own social strata as we are more comfortable here and we will date those people who we generally have done in the past. After all, it is where we feel subconsciously that we belong.

Yet every now and again a challenge presents itself. You see a guy who you really fancy, someone you could really go for but someone who may not normally go for a girl (or guy) like you. As a guy you see a girl who would not take a second glance at you. The challenge is set. Challenges are healthy because they take us out of our comfort zone and allow us to grow as human beings. They also give us confidence, especially when we succeed in our challenge.

Who doesn't want to date a supermodel or a male superstar? Its a natural part of fantasy to strive for what we perceive as perfection. Reality may be different but it doesn't prevent us from taking on challenges occasionally. However it is fair to say, that in reality we won't date the superstars and even if we did, we would probably not enjoy it half so much anyway.

When I was younger I had always wanted to date a rich girl and I was lucky to meet a great girl called Nicola who had very wealthy parents. It was not that I was very poor but I was attracted to and interested in her lifestyle and everything about her lifestyle. Not for possessions, but just because her ways of doing things were different to my own.

The first weekend I was invited to her parents house in London and soon discovered that her world was out of my league. We went to a party and I was expected to cover the cost of champagne. Even the smallest things were way out of my price range and soon I discovered that however much I liked this girl I really didn't fit in and couldn't afford her world unfortunately. There were her ways of doing things that I knew nothing about. Forms of behavior and social etiquette that I was new to and I found every function stressful. In the end we parted amicably and I wished her the best. The point of the story being that to date a girl like her was challenge, but once I got there, she was a date too difficult to sustain.

For girls the challenge is in dating a cool, good-looking bad-boy. He could be the ski instructor or the life guard or the surf instructor. No woman has managed to capture this man's heart so she thinks she is the one to do it. He is enigmatic, he is trouble with a capital T, and he is oh so Mr. Popular. All the girls love him because he is a maverick. So why do the girls love him, because he doesn't care, because he is full of confidence, because he doesn't need a woman. This raises the interests levels of certain women. They rise to the challenge and aim to be the one who will tame him.

Why is it that you are ALWAYS more popular when you have a partner? It is of course because you are attractive by design. You have a partner therefore the people around you see you as being more attractive and successful in relationships. After all, if they have you and you respect them ,then there must be something about you after all. The challenge is set, they want you also, because they want to challenge themselves to see if they can get you. They may not want you but they certainly want to know that they could have had you! Its a real irony, but you are at your most desirable when attached and at your most wanted. The moment you are single, people want to know why.

Insecurity in some promotes challenge. By having conquests and sleeping with many partners one gets a false sense of attractiveness, self confidence and being wanted. The fact is, its just sex, nothing more. When a guy is young her will challenge himself to get certain girls into bed. He will aim to seek confidence and self understanding through self-set conquests. It is mainly a sign of immaturity, but it affects people of all adult ages.

Challenges in dating will always be with us, they are a natural part of our psyche in us wanting to obtain something and someone we feel is out of our reach. When dating make sure that you are not someone else's challenge and be a little cautious. If you yourself are seeking a dating challenge then at least have the respect to date the person properly once they finally say yes to your charms.

Key Tips To Successful Dating

2008-09-19T23:13:00.001-07:00

What is a successful date? Does it mean it leads on to relationship and romance? Well you that would be cool. But it doesn't have to mean that. A successful date can be one where you got on very well, had a great time and things ended on excellent terms. Not every date we go on will end this way, but they should if we plan our dating a little more carefully.

My main concern is that we often just accept dates from the next person who shows and interest and we hope that we get on okay. The problem here is that we are being passive in our dating game. We are receivers without a game plan. Our dating is bound to be far more successful if we are the ones going out and choosing who we would like to date from a selection of those who are compatible.

To do this successfully you first have to have an idea of who you are most likely to get on with and be truthful when you do it. If you insist on dating everyone, 50% of the people you meet won't be compatible straight away. In which case you will have half of all your dates as a complete waste of time. Stop doing that and start analyzing what kind of people you get on with. Okay I could say the following@

I like people who are aged 29 to 36, single and never previously married, no children but would like a child sometime. Should be Christian to an extent, well educated, reasonably tall and have long blonde hair. They should be receptive to the idea of marriage like winter sports and live within 100 miles of my home.

Okay if I do this then I can be accused of many things here but this is just an example. The effect though is to set some criteria by which I can date and from which I am likely to see some successful dating. If I don't make a dating profile then its open to all comers. That's okay. Maybe you simply don't care and want to meet anyone you can., In which case spread your net widely. The problem is though that you are not going to please everyone and once again 50% of your dates will be a complete waste of time.

Recognize that none of us are compatible with everyone. Reclines your minimum dating requirements and then ensure you match the requirements you set. There is absolutely no point in setting the following if you don't match yourself.

I am looking to meet a guy who is 6 feet 2" or taller, must be athletic and a professional sportsman with an income of over $200k a year. They must be extremely attractive, own their own house and sports car and be able to surf.

If you are five feet 1", out of shape and maybe overweight with no career and a low income and cannot swim then what you have done is just describe your ideal fantasy figure not your probable dating criteria. I am not for one second saying you won't be attractive to the character you have described but to date successfully you must establish ground where you are most likely to be compatible and will easily match.

The next thing to consider when looking at successful dating are your expectations. If you are expecting instant love at first sight followed by a perfect romance and children then that's great. The issue here is that it may not happen that way. I wish it would but it doesn't. So being realistic and expecting little is often the best way to date. If you do then one of these days you are in for a nice surprise. Greet every date with optimism but don't go over the top. If you make a new friend then you have done well. Don't expect Cupid at every turn. It will happen but maybe not just yet.

Successful dates are simple dates. They are casual and fun. Believe me when I say that desperation comes across as though you have a placard over your head announcing it. Never ever be desperate to date. If you are then this is the time to take a breather ironically. How many times has someone said that you meet a person when you least expect it. Its true, that's why. So successful dating is when its part of your monthly routine but not the be all and end all.

Successful dates are when you are at your most casual and most upbeat and most relaxed. Successful dates happen when you are focused but in a good mood. Put the rest of your house on order and your dates will naturally take on a new glow because you will be far more positive and organized.

To summarize:

Successful dating involves setting realistic match criteria
Successful dating involves establishing dating boundaries
Successful dating means being prepared and upbeat
Successful dating means keeping things simple and fun
Successful dating means dating the right people for you
Successful dating means being realistic about your expectations
Successful dating means being patient

Dating Tips For More Confidence

2008-09-19T23:12:00.000-07:00

To date successfully as both a man or woman you need to increase your confidence levels. Some things you can change quickly, others you will need to practice. Nothing will be achieved without trying that's for certain. If you never leave the house because you don't feel that great about yourself then unless you use Internet dating services only, no one will come to you. Follow these tips to increase your confidence levels whether you are a single man or woman:

First of all establish whether you are truly ready to meet someone new. If so then proceed. If not, withdraw and take your time.
Make a list addressing all the things you are not comfortable with about yourself. Be brutally honest
Establish which things you think people may not like about you and make a list. Get a second opinion too.
Start by addressing the way you look and the way you dress
Change the things most easily changed which you think you can do better. Do not worry over necessarily about what friends think
By changing the most basic aspects of your looks, lifestyle and regime you will instantly feel more confident. You will have a new you.
Ensure you are comfortable with any changes you make
Make sure you are in shape or attempting to be. If you are dieting or exercising remember to be patient as these changes, though dramatic, will take a little while.
Your confidence will grow as you feel better about yourself and others will sense it.
Start to change the routines that drag you down. If you associate with people who criticize you, lose them fast.
Start doing the things you wish you had always had the courage to do. Maybe a hobby, sport or society. You will never look back.
Learn to enjoy the smaller things in life and give yourself time especially for these things. If you like to cook for friends then start having dinner parties. Don't wait for others.
Stop accepting second best. Start putting yourself first as priority number one.
By looking and feeling good about yourself and widening your horizons your life has already changed for the better and your confidence levels are on the up.
Now start to be selective about what kind of person you really like. But by the same token talk to everyone. The more people who are interested the higher your confidence levels.
Start dating. If someone has asked you out, accept.
Set yourself some life goals as well as romantic goals. Other people love to associated with driven and goal-orientated people. Confidence breeds confidence.
Be proactive and ask someone out yourself who you like. Just do it and accept freely that some people will say no. But many will also say yes.
Learn to like and love yourself for who you are and what you want from your life. Do not allow negative family comments to influence you in any way.
Make conversation with the nice people you meet along the way.
Become sociable and look good at every opportunity. Be your own best advert.
Remember that your confidence levels will become sky high by people saying yes to you. This will happen when you select the right kind of dates for you so keep a realistic approach to dating.
Walk away from anything you don't like and instill a positive mental attitude in everything you do.
Stick with it and just keep going. Don't go back to what there was before. That's over.

Top 10 Dating Tips

2008-09-19T23:11:00.002-07:00

I thought I would bring you the top 10 dating tips I have gathered along the way in the hope of assisting and enlightening those who need assistance. If you are new to the dating scene, a regular or just simply someone trying to meet someone new there should always be time for top dating tips, advice, information and things to consider. None of us are dating experts otherwise we would have a magic formula to present to others. And no, looks are not the magic formula otherwise all supermodels would be blissfully happy - which they are not my friend. Good looking people the world over struggle when it comes to affairs of the heart. Think of all the major figures in history who have fallen in matters of romance.

The truth is, there are no magic formulas, no perfect tricks of the trade, no cunning ways of trapping Mr. or Miss Right and no top dating tips that wave a magic wand. But there are some essential facts that you should always bear in mind along the way. Dating tips are just that - tips, they are not promises written in stone and different things will always work differently for different people. However, I have noticed that there are some threads of advice that keep cropping up and therefore it is worth reiterating my top 10 tips here.

My Top 10 Dating Tips

Get prepared for dating. If you really want to succeed in the dating game, decide who you are looking for, do your research and be ready to commit to dating. Half heartedness won't work. Also prepare for some let downs along the way but don't take dating too seriously either.
Get your act together. Begin a regime of looking your best. Join a gym, read health magazines, get fit and start a diet. Get your hair cut or styled and begin a new regime of good grooming or beauty treatment. Though it will not find you a date in itself, you will feel a million times more confident about yourself.
Go shopping and treat yourself to new clothes and even a whole new look. Get your image right, one that you can manage and live with, but one that flatters you. Don't go overboard and look like someone you are not but maybe its time to throw out those tired jeans, old sweaters or cardigans and spruce yourself up. People appreciate appearance.
Have a good think about what your dating goals are and timescales. Do you see yourself married within 2 years? If you do then approach dating accordingly. If you are more laid back and don't take dating too seriously then ask yourself some honest questions about why you are dating and what you hope to achieve. If it is purely sex then ask yourself if you are about to be honest with those you hope to date.
Sort out your confidence levels in advance. By following the first four tips you will feel better and be more focused. Do all the things that will boost your confidence from avoiding negative friends (often the married ones) to attending the right kind of social functions. Couples at dinner parties in suburbia is not necessarily where you need to be right now.
Choose those you have a good chance of dating, don't aim low but do aim realistically. In other words, your dating is based on the whole package you present as well as just your personality. If you are looking for a glamour girl or boy and want to date someone trendy and gorgeous then good for you, but be prepared and be realistic about your chances.
Work out in advance where in your neighborhood you are likely to meet people and join clubs, societies, sports events, drama groups, anything where you are likely to meet potential partners. The kind of partners you are looking for. I know its a cliché but you will not meet people by staying indoors.
Take time off from dating occasionally if its not going well or causing dating fatigue. Dating is an ongoing process and so recharging the batteries and keeping the confidence and optimism levels high is an absolute must. So date in phases if necessary.
Enjoy dating for what it is, dating. It is meeting people and socializing and spending time in the company of stimulating individuals who may or may not bring you a sparkle. The fact is, most people are interesting and whilst you may not be out there looking for new friends, you may well find one or two fabulous people along the way.
Never ever make yourself too available. People like mystery and enigma and the thrill of the chase when dating. In keeping with this do not sleep with your dates early on if you want them to progress, so keep sex until later. The longer a person is made to chase and fall for you within reason, the more likely that love may blossom. Peak too early and you have little left to offer and emotions may never have had the time to develop.

Dating Rules

2008-09-19T23:11:00.001-07:00

The problem with the dating game is that there are dating rules to follow and most of them we forget as we grow older. You see, when we are young our fellow friends at school and college reinforce the way things should be done when dealing with potential dates. Yes you should wear that, no you never say that, yes you should do this, but no you never do that. Then we grow up. For a time we are completely aware of the rules of dating and we practice those rules every time we meet someone. But then we meet someone perhaps, fall in love and have a relationship. Little by little the things we learned over our formative years when dealing with the fairer sex are lost and are in fact unlearned.

Then one day we are unwillingly thrust back onto the dating scene only to find that we start behaving like 12 year olds. We call our dates too often, we are constantly available, we wear the wrong clothes, laugh at bad jokes like a fool, date the wrong people and generally get it all badly wrong. Then we get hurt or taken for a ride. Of course there will be some of you reading this that are the very epitome of dating sophistication, but the truth is, when you lose your heart you also lose your head. If you are going to date well then give these key do's and don'ts of dating some serious consideration. Dating rules are very important if you want to win and keep your perfect match.

Dating Rules - Do's

1. Do try to look your best and be punctual on dates

2. Do have fun when dating. I know the subject of Mr. or Miss Right is serious but dating is fun too so keep it that way.

3. Do flatter and compliment your date on the way they look and the things they wear. People tend to go to a lot of effort on a date (hopefully) so being told that you are looking good is a nice thing to hear.

4. Be interested and interesting. As the Pet Shop Boys once said, I was never bored because I was never being boring" or something similar. You get my drift.

5. Do tell someone if you are not interested in dating them again. Being lied to and hopes kept alive is an evil and malicious act (yes I mean it that strongly). If you don't want to see someone again then let them know that in the nicest possible way you can.

6. Do date the type of people you like and are attracted to, whatever your friends may say. Approval by your peers doesn't prove a thing.

7. Do stay positive even when dates don't end well. It is most certainly true that you will date a few frogs before you find a prince. Along the way you will meet some nice people too and make some good contacts possibly.

8. Dating is a creative diversion, it requires concentration and energy so when you are dating keep some plans in the forefront of your mind and allow dating to take you to places you always wanted to visit within your own city.

9. Do make dating happen for yourself. People will not come and ring your bell from nowhere. Dating requires positive action so go out there and meet people, as many people as you can. Practice your chat and flirting on shop workers, bar attendants, anywhere and everywhere. Being nice to people is very sexy and great fun.

10. Do surround yourself with positive like minded people who are also dating. Think about the girls from Sex and the City and how they assist each other in dating and matters of romance. Negative friends who don't condone the dating scene or don't understand it will only help lower your own expectations and make you feel negative.

Dating Rules - Don'ts

1. Never call someone more than once a day unless they reply. Desperation and instability are huge turn offs.

2. Don't date the people who you usually find dump you. You may be generally attracted to bastards but that will not get you anywhere except hurt.

3. For men, never ever be late for a date, even if you have a very good reason. Women should never be kept waiting and should never have to seat themselves - ever.

4. Never tell lies to your date or pretend anything about your life that isn't true. If this is your perfect match for God's sake do not allow it to be ruined by some silly lie told early on.

5. Never be too available. Being available every night of the week and at the end of every whimsical phone call or possible rendezvous means you are making yourself uninteresting and a possible doormat. Be busy, be unavailable generally and be interesting.

6. Don't give away too much about yourself at the start. People love enigma and mystery. Revealing to your new date your inner most secrets on date number two will quickly ruin everything. A small bit at a time people.

7. Never check other people out when you are with your date. You may think you are subtle , your date will be heading for the door. Have the courtesy of concentrating solely on your date when you are with them.

8. Don't be rude or get drunk on a date. Courtesy and manners will get you everywhere.

9. Don't ignore your personal safety when dating. Have a cellular phone and keep it charged, tell your friends where you are going and be safe. Date at first in well known public places and never ever be pushed into anything you are not happy with.

10. Don't give out personal information like home phone numbers and addresses on a first date. Keep them until you are sure of your date and the future possibilities.

11. Don't have sex on a first date if you ever want to see your new date again. If you like them and are interested in them, sex on a first date will usually ruin everything. Its too much too soon and is not the way of romance. Believe me I am 100% certain on this.

12. Never date a married person. They will not leave their husbands or wives for you (except exceptionally rarely). Married dating is the sure fire way to misery, lies, deceit, lack of self respect and loss of romance. If you are married, separate first. If you are single, don't be a shoulder to cry on, you deserve far better.