They don’t teach you about dating, sexual intimacy and relationships in school. Most of the population is learning through trial and error, the media and yes, pornography. So as a columnist who studies and observes relationships, I thought it’d be helpful to share some insight on dating. Do note, I am a textbook Type A personality and am writing through that lens. You should consider the personality type of the apple of your eye when thinking about your own approach.
1. Speak your intention
Being coy and beating around the bush typically equates to lackluster results and skirting around the chance of rejection Nothing great in life ever resulted from being passive. Good and mediocre maybe, but never great. Whether it be business or romantic relationships, great results have always began with an intention, and subsequently the investment of energy and effort required to actualize that desire into reality.
Speak your intention. Hints and passive questions are a waste time. If you’re interested, own it. If you want friendship, state it.
2. Stop hedging and make an investment
Hedging is a strategy where one reduce’s the potential loss on an investment by counterbalancing the loss in some way. It’s an attempt to avoid choosing only one thing, to remove chances of future disappointment, problems or making the wrong decision. While hedging your bets is common in financial investing, you also see the same approach occurring in dating. An example is to have tons of options around, investing 35% in person A, 15% in person B and so forth. There are back up plans for back up plans so you never really risk hurt, rejection or needing to commit because you have so many people on the go. This strategy might work if you’re looking for unattached, uncommitted fun. And it may be a safe way to see which one out of the myriad of options ends up taking spot #1. If that works for you, then all the more power to you.
The thing is, many keep options around for the wrong reasons, one of those being pure boredom and a need for constant attention. In addition, hedging is a strategy often used by those with people with avoidant attachment styles, because it averts intimacy. In such cases, the options are just distractions that stop you from developing true love and intimacy with someone.
If you meet someone who you feel is worth exploring potential with, then give it a try. Invest in the person. Give that relationship a real chance. It may last a month, a year or a lifetime, who knows? All that matters is when you look back in life, you know that you tried and gave it an honest shot. And that’s all we can do, try. And if it doesn’t work, then you move onward and forward.
3. Make a decision
4. Ask someone out properly
In this age of hookup culture and “hang-outs” courtship is becoming a lost art form. If you are interested in someone, a Facebook poke or an Instagram happy face emoticon is not enough, unless you want to stay in the friendzone.
You may be afraid of rejection – but that looming fear of “what if” will hinder you from getting a date. Take a chance and ask the person out on a date. But do note – there is a way about asking. “We should hang out,” or “We should grab a coffee sometime,” is not asking someone out on a date. The ask is important because it implies intention. If you’re interested romantically, asking something along the lines of “Would you like to go for dinner next Friday? I know a great place <insert suggestion> that I’d like to take you to.” Why is this a winning ask? First, unless it’s business networking, typically people who have just met and want to only be buddies do not ask to take you out for dinner. Second, you are showing consideration by recommending a venue and third, you are being assertive in your ask and have provided a date in the near future. Overall, position the ask so it makes it easy for the person to say “yes”.
My Beautiful
Solid advice! As a woman who is new to dating after a while, I’m afraid of #2 – dating a man and not knowing how many other women he’s seeing, wondering if I’m just a low percentage backup plan.
I’m not sure how many actually are hedging their bets but I do agree that if you are doing this it’s a bad thing. I guess it ties into #3 as well.
Either way, great advice, keep up the good work!
#1 is probably the best single piece of advice anyone can be given about dating.
Kira, a few dates usually reveal if a man has “other options”. If he’s not talking to you about exclusivity after a month, you can be assured he is indeed seeing other women, or else wants you to think he is.
My personal policy is I don’t sleep with someone until I’m confident they’re being exclusive to me, and I usually get there by engaging step #5 and talking about it. If this scares them off–“NEXT!”
As a single twenty-something female living in urban America…yes. I just have to say “yes.” Dating and the cultural landscape for romance had changed, but no one seems to want to address it like they want to talk about new technology advances or the implications of the earth getting warmer. But it’s SO important to give others the respect of communicating emotions (or the unfortunate lack therof) and intent. I appreciate your honest discussion here–I think so many, even the smartest, most ambitious and most “attractive” people I know, fail to acknowledge that maturity and a straight forward approach in dating makes things easier on everyone…and then we as females don’t look so “needy” or “emotional” as society likes to label us as. If we had more answers – and we all just straight up *talked*, I think we’d all be happier.
Honest and straight to the point, yet personable enough to make it easy to read. I found it perfectly applicable to college females. Thank you a million times 🙂
Being “new” to the dating scene after so long and trying online dating. While it is not something I do, it seems to be quite common for both men and women to “hedge their bets”.
I don’t take it personally, it is just not something I will do. Heck, I have a hard enough time understanding and getting to know one woman, let alone a few at a time!!!
But I have gal friends who are also doing the online dating thing and we “trade stories” and many of them are “getting to know” more then one guy at a time. Or if not at the same time then serially!
I need to work on all of these points (except #2). Great advice 🙂
I totally agree! Being honest is very important, but don’t forget to respect the other person also.
A male in my early twenties I still find it a respectful gesture to ask a woman’s parental figures if I could date their daughter after the “getting to know each other” stage of a relationship. I try to bring it up with the woman I am pursuing a relationship with respectfully and carefully and ask if she is comfortable with that. Is this something you only do as a teen or preteen asking permission to take their daughter to a dance (or something of that sort) or is it still considered a respectful gesture to parental figures and to a woman around my age?
Personally I’d want that to happen to me, and where I’m from it’s actually part of our culture although these days it’s incredibly rare. And yes of course it’s still considered a respectful gesture 🙂