To Get A Date, PLEASE Stop Being Boring
This isn’t going to be a long article, but it is a necessary one to write. In my experience as a dating coach, and also just interacting with people in general, I have to say that the biggest reason many men and women are dateless is that they are so boring and disengaging that it is almost unreal.
A client of mine literally had a conversation on a dating app that went like this:
Him: Hey! Your profile looks cool. Are you an artist? It looks like it from your photos.
Her: no
Him: Oh, so what do you do then?
Her: stylist
Him: I am in banking, but I always need a good stylist though!
Her: Oh
Him: Are you usually this boring or just that way on dating apps?
Her: WYM?
Seriously. What in the hell? Was there an actual human typing there or just a very poorly programmed bot?
And, I’m not just picking on women. If anything we guys are the worst. We think “hey beautiful” or “wyd?” counts as a good opener. Many guys also think that punctuation is optional, as is talking about anything except themselves.
Notice I haven’t even gotten to actual dates yet.
On dates, a lot of people are boring too. If I were to identify the biggest mistake people make while going on dates, it’s that they follow stereotypical dating advice and end up being horribly boring.
Does anybody wake up and say “Today I want to pay a lot of money to eat with a stranger and exchange information related to the boring details of our lives?”
No! But, that is essentially what most first dates are. It’s an information exchange over food that is about as interesting as the PowerPoint presentation your boss puts up at work meetings.
Maybe this all describes you. So, you may ask, then what is the secret to being non-boring, since I do want some positivity to come from this article?
Basically, it’s to generate emotion through engagement.
If you are generating emotion (even bad emotions, but I suggest focusing on good emotion) and engaging a person, you won’t be boring.
Being engaging means taking an interest in the person, expressing it sufficiently (use sentences for goodness sake), and encouraging follow-up questions and comments. For example, if they just texted you about their raise at work, being engaging means asking them how they got it. Or what they plan to do with the money. And, offering a congratulations in addition to this is engaging too (and likely to generate a positive emotion).
Replying only with “cool” is boring and encourages zero follow-up, as does opening with “hey.” Also, immediately mentioning you just got a raise and then changing the subject to your raise isn’t engaging either. It’s disengaging to steal someone’s thunder by making everything about you immediately.
Generating emotion is one of the biggest pieces of advice we give guys on a date, and can be done through good engagement.
Make your date feel something rather than simply exchanging information. Make them leave feeling excited, happy, and sexually excited, and you’ll get a first or second date, guaranteed. I have interacted with women where they didn’t know my real name, my real age, or what I did for a living (because I was jokingly coy about all three) and they STILL wanted to see me again. Why? It’s the same reason you will be hooked on a movie after the first 10 minutes. You feel something, and even with little information, and you want to know more. Imagine if a “movie” was just a PowerPoint laying out all the facts of the movie.
It’s beyond the scope of this article to tell you how to effectively generate emotion, but if your date is laughing, smiling, and feeling sexual tension, you’re doing a hell of a lot better than if they are frowning and not flirting.
One easy way to generate emotion even if you aren’t good at quality engagement is to plan a naturally emotionally charged date, like a concert, rock climbing, or running a 5k together. Those are far more likely to generate emotion than a dinner alone.
And, remember, people communicate a lot over text these days. You can be funny and engaging over text (and dating apps) too. In fact, people expect it.
So, for the love of God, stop. being. boring.