How to Improve your Date

[Dean Raymond]

Warning: Longer Post

Do you go on a lot of dates, but the girl doesn’t want to see you again?

I've seen a lot of guys asking what to do if they go on a date with a woman and afterwards she does not want to see them again, I thought id write a post to answer some of the main points that I keep seeing and offer some advice.

When having a conversation on a date, is your mind continuously churning out 'what do I say next' type thoughts? 

Do you get nervous at the thought of getting physical with or kissing your date? Before I cover the three main things that are likely causing your dates to not want to see you again, I would like to give you some quick tips that will help you prepare and make sure that the ideal foundations have been set to ensure that you have better future dates.

State: the head space and emotional state you are in both before and during a conversation with a woman are hugely important factors in coming across well and creating a good first impression. Having access to your peak social capability requires you to be in an optimal mental state. This is the basis for strong communication skills and good interactions. If you are feeling positive, alert, and clear-minded – it will help you to be more expressive, humorous, and interesting during your date.

Get excited by visualising the date going well and imagine her company being fun and pleasant. This will help to nullify the nervousness that is typically felt in the anticipation of a date.

Listen to some feel good music before you leave the house, or on the way to the date.

Move your body and get the blood flowing. This will help to get more energy into the body and out of the head, which will prevent you overthinking and becoming anxious. Have a little dance to the music before you leave the house or park a short distance from the venue that you are meeting and walk a little faster than usual.

Priming: If you haven’t met before in person and have only spoken online then ideally you should try to establish some degree of chemistry and shared experience with the woman before your date takes place. Sending voice notes or having a phone call before the date is a good idea, as it will give her an idea about what to expect and will also give you an indication as to whether you may have chemistry or not if/when you meet.Texting alone doesn’t really give her a clear insight into what you may be like, nor give her any overview of your character.

If you can have a quick, fun conversation before the date then it can build a little rapport and excitement before the meet-up even takes place. You will have already set a narrative that you are at least normal, and the date will likely not be awkward. This helps to prevent the woman from getting cold feet and cancelling. Sending funny photos and gifs can also help to brighten up the text conversation but keep it relatively tame until you have learnt more about her humour, beliefs, and boundaries. The last thing you want to do is ruin the conversation by sending something which offends or irritates her.

Outcome dependence: if you’re trying too hard and feel an excessive emotional need for the date to go well - you’re outcome dependent. This can be felt by a need to brag about something, an exerted attempt to come across as interesting, or just a general agitation which makes you act out of character.

When you’re outcome-dependent you’ll give off a needy and desperate energy and will struggle to resist saying things as a means to try to impress. This can be detected by women through your behaviour and is very off-putting or even repelling. This is an emotional state that is caused by an expectation or goal, that you are placing too much emphasis on and are defining in your mind as the metric for which the date would be a success. I.e If during the date she tells you that she likes you, or you end up kissing her at the end of the night then you’ll feel it was worth it. Thinking like this is to get way too far ahead of yourself and will create unnecessary tension within.

Outcome dependence can weave into your behaviour to make you come across as awkward or nervous and can sabotage your natural expression. Once you are in this state, it can be difficult to shake off.

Solutions: remind yourself that any one date is not that important and that you shouldn’t be getting excessively uptight or needy over a woman that you don’t even know yet. Also remind yourself of your best personal qualities, the things that YOU have to offer, and how she is also lucky to be meeting you. This should take the needy edge off in the way you come across, as you will visualise and realise that you would be a benefit in her life if you were to get together.(Note: The pre-requisite in this exercise to be effective is that you are actually working on improving yourself and achieving goals that you have set for yourself - which you should be doing anyway).

Try to adopt the mindset that you are going on the date merely to have a nice time and find out if the woman is up to your standards. Be interested in getting to know her – not because you are lonely and just want to be with someone, but – because you want to know if she is suitable to be your partner. Eliminate any need or expectations that the date will lead to anything, and just try to be in the present moment and experience the woman for who she is. This will have a powerful effect in making her feel more comfortable and allow her to be more relaxed in expressing her authentic self, which will not only help create chemistry but will also allow you get a clearer picture as to whether she is a truly compatible with you or not.

Be the buyer, not the seller.

Overly logical and one-way conversations:  many guys get stuck in an interview-type conversation by asking a lot of boring questions when they go on dates. This sets a foundation for a more serious and logical interaction rather than a spontaneous and humorous one. It also doesn’t help you or your date to feel comfortable, as this kind of conversation can dry up quickly and cause you to run out of things to say, which can pave the way for those dreaded awkward silences that women avoid like the plague.

Women respond to how you make them feel, not what you make them think and so all the ‘impressive’ conversational topics in the world won’t work in your favour unless you know how to weave a light-hearted and fun vibe into the conversation.Pay more attention to the tone, passion, and delivery of what you say rather than trying to come up with highly intelligent and ‘self-proving’ comments. This is a date after all, not a job interview!

You must understand that women respond on an emotional level and so having a conversation where you say all the ‘right things’ may not move her or appeal to her in the way that makes logical sense to you. Conversations should be emotionally uplifting, and not insight negativity or argument. The things you say and words you use during a conversation create a subconscious picture for the person listening, so you need to hit on topics that insight positive and soothing focus.

Talking about things like religion or politics is generally recommended against in dating advice but if you turn these topics into an emotional experience or something that creates deeper realisation, then they aren’t bad topics at all.I.e., explaining about the liberating deeper messages in religion, or expanding on how politics are driven by the desire for power which is more addictive than a drug.

Another mistake guys make is to talk about themselves too much and change subjects as soon as the woman has finished sharing her part of the conversation. This is usually because the guy is nervous, but it isn’t ideal as it creates an impression to a woman that the man is both not paying attention to what she is saying and/or is also not interested in her view on the matter. Part of feeling comfortable with someone is feeling valued and appreciated.

Solution: be passionate about just simply listening to the woman rather than impatiently waiting for your turn to speak. This will make her feel like you are valuing her company and enjoying what she says.See if you can learn something about your date’s knowledge, experience, or energy.

Also, look up a book called “Second circle” by Patsy Rodenburg… This is a great book in helping you understand how to create a connective and sharing an experience with other people.

Lack of romantic chemistry: ever had a woman say to you after a date that she “just didn’t feel it”?

Some of this will have been because the conversation wasn’t stimulating enough - i.e., you didn’t make her laugh enough, didn’t talk about her passions enough, and generally didn’t connect with her at a deep level.

The main reason however will have been down to a lack of romantic chemistry. Simply put, she didn’t feel romantically excited by you.

This will usually be because your communication with her was more likened to a friend than that of a man she would consider as a potential romantic partner. Women are inundated with men offering to take them out on dates, treat them like a special prize and have a ‘nice’ conversation with them. This is not the reason that they are going on a date - they can have a much more personalised conversation with their friends and family, so why would they want to do that with a guy that they have only just met!?

It’s the romantic undertone in the interaction that will determine how much a woman enjoys your company. She came to indulge in a man-to-woman chemistry, to feel the excitement, to flirt and to be around someone that allows and encourages her to express that flirtatious impulse that she has to restrict and inhibit in her usual work/family life.

Solution: when the girl arrives tell her she looks amazing, give her a kiss on the cheek (if she appears open to this and isn’t standoffish), and lead her to the area where you are going to sit.If possible - try sitting side by side rather than across from each other. This will make the date feel like you are sharing an experience together, rather than two strangers filling in the gaps and awkward silences from across the table.

The traditional idea of dating where you sit opposite each other whilst eating dinner and asking questions is not an ideal setting, as it puts both of you in a very unnatural position and makes you feel like you have to perform. When you meet someone new – the physical boundaries are set very quickly and so initiating light touch and flirtation early on will be important in setting the romantic frame with your date.If you withhold from getting physical for too long it makes it much more difficult to initiate touch at a later date.

A woman’s comfort levels to touch increase gradually, so you can’t neglect to get physical throughout the whole date and then expect it to end with a smoothly performed kiss. Perspective: She's meeting you for a date so she will be expecting you to lead physically and make things happen.

There will (or should have been) some kind of acknowledgement that you find each other attractive to have even arranged to meet and so this needs to be in your mind during the date.This will be a case of recognizing the signs and using courage, as a woman will rarely initiate the kiss herself.

If you still are having trouble or feel uncomfortable conveying flirtatious energy, then try to imagine the woman you’re on a date with staring into your eyes, biting her bottom lip, and coming onto you in a provocative fashion. That should help put a glint in your eye which your date will read as a flirting signal and cause her to become excited. Also, don’t forget eye contact. Eye contact is one of the best tools for increasing romantic tension with a woman.

Bonus: date location and event. Try to plan a date that will be either stimulating, interesting, or calming, rather than static or boring. Also, don’t arrange your first date as something where you are stuck together and have to commit a set amount of time to, just in case you find out that you don’t get on. So booking the cinema or buying tickets to the theme park is not an ideal first-date scenario.

Crazy golf, going to the aquarium or to a museum, coffee and conversation in a tranquil setting are all good examples of good, non-committal date settings.

You could also arrange it so that you go to two or three different locations on the date (if you feel that you will likely have chemistry). I.e., you go bowling and then for drinks at a nice bar afterwards. The more variance of experiences that someone has with you – the more connection is created between the two of you.

The point is that your choice of date needs to create a feeling that you are on an adventure together, and includes a variety of positive tones and experiences, but also allows you both to be able to cut the date short if either of you are not feeling it.

I'd be interested to hear your feedback/thoughts