Let’s talk about dates. Bad dates, specifically. I’ve been lucky enough to avoid the worst of the bunch myself, but I’ve heard some hilarious stories from other girls. One guy ordered an appetizer of hummus and pita chips for himself and his date, then proceeded to wipe the bowl clean with his fingers and lick it. Another put one of his own teeth in his food in an attempt to get it for free. Yet another got so drunk that he passed out on a girl’s bed and wet his pants.
Ouch. Seriously, what were those guys THINKING?
Now if you’re the kind of guy who is looking to improve his dating experience, I’m pretty confident that you’re not going to pee on a girl’s bed or start pulling out your own teeth. You’re already miles ahead of those guys. But you can still give a bad date and make a girl never want to see you again. Believe it or not, but dating is a skill, and if you don’t know what you’re doing, you might trip over your own feet without even realizing what you did wrong.
I’ve been there. But I’m also a dating consultant, and I like to make it my mission to ensure that no girl ever has to suffer through a miserable date again. So if you want to be the guy girls go home and brag to their friends about, here are nine tips to help you improve your dating skills:
1) Get out there and talk to more people.
The first and most important part of improving your dating skills is improving your communication skills. If you can’t communicate with a girl, what are you going to do on a date? Talk to the table napkin? Not gonna happen. So get out there and learn how to talk. Talk to everyone. Talk to the lady who does your dry cleaning. Talk to the guy who rings you up at the grocery store. Men, women, young, old, talk to everyone. The more you talk, the more social you become, and the more social you become, the more it becomes second nature and the easier it gets to talk to a perfect stranger. Eventually, talking to a girl becomes the easiest part, even if that thought terrifies you now.
2) Improve your social circle.
Now that you know how to talk to a girl, you need to know more girls, and that’s not going to happen if you play GTA5 by yourself in the basement every weekend. Start to invite people over to your place for parties. Organize social gatherings. Use every holiday as an excuse to get people over. Use every birthday. Throw a party just because it’s Wednesday. Word will get out that you’re the cool guy to be around, and your friends will want their friends to know you. This has two benefits: girls you get to know through your social network will have fewer reservations about going out on a date with a guy who is pre-approved by their friends, and you’ll gain even more social skills, improving your actual date experience.
3) Find a ladybro (a female best friend).
Friendzoned? No problem.
Contrary to popular belief, men and women CAN be friends. It’s important that you don’t cross boundaries and try to turn a best friend into a girlfriend, because sex changes perspectives, but having a female friend is one of the best tools you can have in your dating arsenal. Why? Because she’ll give it to you straight. You can always ask your guy friends for advice about what to do on a date, but nobody knows a woman’s mind like another woman. Have a disastrous date where you can’t figure out what went wrong? Ask your ladybro. Meet a girl who is completely different from everyone you’ve ever dated before and want to know how to make this date different and special? Ask your ladybro. Having problems with a girl you’re seeing? Ask your ladybro. Your ladybro is your friend, so she wants to help you out, but she thinks like a woman and can tell you things the rest of your bros don’t even think about.
4) Learn your city like the back of your hand.
I know what you’re thinking. What on earth does this have to do with dating, right? More than you might think. Have you ever had that experience where you’ve taken a girl out to go, say, bowling, but she looks like she’s bored out of her mind and you’d give your right hand to be able to salvage the date? I know I’ve been that girl. So how handy do you think it would be to be able to pipe up and say “I know this AMAZING go-kart place just down the street!”? Or what if you take her to Red Lobster but it turns out she’s vegetarian? Wouldn’t you love to be able to reroute to the nearest Olive Garden without even having to scramble over your GPS? Knowing what’s in your city and where it’s at helps you avoid situations where the girl and the place just don’t match, AND it gives you major brownie points to be able to keep a date going when you’ve finished the coffee, you like the girl, and you’d like to continue somewhere else. You can always have a backup without having to have a backup.
5) Date outside of your comfort zone.
Crazy girl by Nick Sachos.
Have you ever been in a situation where one of your guy friends tries to set you up on a date and you decline, insisting that she’s not your type? Don’t lie, you know you have. This is one of the oldest excuses in the book for avoiding talking to a woman, and that’s all it is: an excuse. Maybe she’s an outdoorsy girl and you’re not an outdoorsy guy, so you think you won’t get along. So what? By limiting yourself to the limited number of girls who fall into your “type”, the only thing you’re doing is limiting your options and having fewer learning experiences. Get out there and date more girls, but also date more TYPES of girls. You’ll have more options, more experience, and the opportunity to learn how to handle different situations. You never know, you might find something you didn’t even know you liked.
6) Don’t rely on canned lines and material.
I’m not even talking about bad pickup lines from the 80s. This goes beyond dismal lines like the late Robin Williams’s “Are you retarded? Because your parents sure are special.” I’m talking about one of the numerous “prepared openers” you’ll find on spammy men’s-help sites all over the internet. Canned lines might seem like a good idea at first. They might even be really clever and insightful, and at one point in time they might have worked. But how many other men do you think saw the same thing you did? Chances are, you’re going to run into girls who have heard it before, and if not, a girl who is paying attention will still be able to tell you didn’t come up with that yourself. They might think you’re an amazing guy, but the moment you treat them the same way every other man does, they’ll get bored and will write you off with extreme annoyance. I’ve been known to brutally cut down guys who try this with me. Instead of relying on rote memorization, refer back to #1 and improve your conversation skills as a whole. Do that, and you won’t need to rely overused material that’s only going to make her roll her eyes at you.
7) Arrange dates a MINIMUM of three times a week.
Get some dates son.
The last thing you probably want to do after returning to work on Monday is take a girl out on a date that night, so I’ll let it slide if you don’t want to have a date every single day of the week. Sometimes a guy just needs to rest. But there’s no reason you can’t go out Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. Date three different girls if you want to. If you like one, date her twice. Three times. Four. But however you get it done, you’re never going to improve without practice. If you’re new to dating, just returning to the dating world, or are inexperienced, it might feel strange at first to take multiple women out on dates, but just because you went on a date does NOT mean you’re a couple, so feel free to practice, practice, practice.
8) Keep a dating journal.
Stefan from Vampire Diaries keeps a diary. And he always gets the ladies.
“I’m not a sixth-grade girl,” you say. “Why do I need to keep a diary?” I know it seems strange, but think about improving your dating skills in terms of conducting research. You need to figure out your style, your preferences, your skills, your faults, and what’s going to work for you. That’s research, my friend, and the best research is always written down. You don’t have to make it public. You don’t have to share it with anyone. But it’s a good idea to write down things that went right and things that went wrong so you’ll have something to refer back to later. Try keeping a dating journal for a couple of months, and as your skills improve, go back and read it. When you look back upon your earlier adventures, you’ll be able to see how things unfolded much more clearly, and it will help you understand yourself.
9. Find out what went wrong.
Find out what went wrong.
I know you’re probably going to call me crazy for this, but if something just doesn’t go right, if you can’t salvage a bad date, or even if the date was good but the girl just wanted to stay friends, you need to find out where things went wrong. You could always guess and try again in the future, but how long is that going to hold you back if you keep making the same mistakes? You can ask your ladybro for help, but if it’s possible, try to find out straight from the source (the girl who rejected you). Yes, yes, I can hear your cries of protest, but the most honest source about your shortcomings is the person who had to deal with them. She might be harsh. She might be cruel if she had a really bad time. But most girls love being able to vent, and if you ask her for honesty, she might give you insight that not even your ladybro can give.
Still have questions about improving your dating experience? Need a piece of advice? Went on a bad date and want to know where you might have gone wrong? Email us or drop us a line on Facebook, and I’d be glad to help you out. All inquiries will be kept anonymous.
Written by Cindy Young