Don’t worry so much about what other people think or do.

I know it’s common.  Deep inside, we all want to be liked.  So we look to other people, our family, our friends, our peers to gain insight into our own selves, to validate us, to tell us that we are alright.  We spend a lot of time worrying about what other people may think of us, how they may judge us.

I remember feeling that anxiety the most when I just turned 30.  I’m 32 now, as of a few days ago.  Back then, I started comparing myself a lot to my friends.  What have I achieved so far in my life?  How are my friends doing?  How come I’m not where they are at?  Shouldn’t I be married already?  How come all my friends seem to be settling down already?  Is something wrong with me?

I think it’s natural to self reflect from time to time.  It can be healthy to want to know how people perceive us.  It’s a sign of maturity in self-awareness… Sometimes, it can be a decent quantifiable gauge of whether we are going in the right direction.  But sometimes, it does get out of hand.  So today, I want to remind everyone:  please please please don’t let people’s perception of you dictate what you do so much.

In dating, this is even that much more important.

It was endearing, really.  I felt like a big brother.  I was listening to him, smiling inside. He was so eager to ask me questions.  He has never met a guy who did dating coaching before.  I was waiting on a friend to be done with his work so we  started chatting.  He was Asian, just like myself.  I looked at him in quiet amusement.  He was 19, decently good looking, with high cheek bones and his long, black, straight hair pulled back behind a bandana.

As soon as he learned of what I did, he opened up to me about his situation.  He was seeing a girl.  It’s been a couple months…  But everything seems to have gone too fast, he said.

- What do you mean, “too fast”?, I asked.

- …like the second date

- Who’s to say that’s too fast?  Based on what?

- Well, I feel that’s all that we might do.  I talked to my roommate a long time last night.  He and I agreed that I’m the rebound guy.  I’m OK with that.  But how do you know if you are JUST the rebound guy?

- So what if you are just the rebound guy?

- I dunno…  What does she want?  My roommate and I talked all night.  We kept on wondering what she wants.

- Why is it so important for you to define the relationship?

-  Shouldn’t you?  I think it’s important.  Don’t girls like that?  Well, I want to know.  What if I wanted to be more than the rebound guy?  When I met her, she just broke up with her boyfriend.

-  OK and…?  [...] Do you like her?

- Yea… I do.  But she’s going to Spain in a few weeks.  Does that count?  How does she see me?

- Well, what do you want?

- Hmm… I dunno.

-  Do you want more?

- I dunno.  I dunno yet.

- That’s your problem right there.  Why are you so worried about what she wants when you don’t even know what you want.

- I dunno.  I never thought of it like that.  My roommate and I… we just kept on going in circles wondering what she wants.

- You can only know what you can do or who you can be once you know what you want.  Think of it this way.  If you are going on a business deal, you want something from the other person.  What do you bring to the table?  What do you have to offer?  If you don’t know what you want, there’s no negotiation you can have with what the other person wants.   So going back to your original question, as of right now, you can be whatever you want!  You just need to know what you want first.

- Yeaaa!…. it makes sense.

-  And with her, the only thing is… you might have to change the nature of what you do with her just to make sure she sees you the way you want her to see you.  For example, make sure that when you hang out with her, you don’t go straight to the bedroom.  That way, it will allow her to see you in a new light and it will allow you to discover different sides of her as well.  That’s how you develop the connection that will create the potential for a relationship, assuming that’s what you want.  Just one thing though, don’t be too nice.

- What do you mean?  Why can’t I be nice?  Why is it that everyone says that?  I’ve noticed that when I date girls I’m not totally into, I’m not super nice.  But with girls I like, I tend to be really nice.

- Again, that’s because you worry too much about what other people think of you, here with what she thinks of you.  You want her to like you.  It’s not that you can’t be nice. Just don’t put her on a pedestal.  Let me put it this way.  If you met a fat girl… scratch that, even a hot girl that really really really liked you and was super nice to you all-the-time.  How do you feel?

- It’s weird.  It’s awkward.

- Why?

- I dunno.  It doesn’t feel natural.

- Exactly.  That’s because no one wants to be on someone else’s pedestal.  It doesn’t feel right.  When you are being too nice, it’s not real.  People know that.  It’s not the real you.  It’s not genuine.  So if you want a a chance at a relationship with her and you base it on you not being real or genuine…

- It’s not going to work.  It’s not gonna be sustainable!

- [smile]  You got it.  Don’t worry though, this will pass with age.  As you get better with dating, you’ll worry less about what other people think so you can be more of yourself.  Right now, I’m sure that’s why you and your guy friends probably talk about who does what with who. You want to be liked by them and without knowing it, you try to outdo each other.  You aren’t really trying to impress girls, you are trying to impress guys!

- Yeah, that’s true!  I don’t know why we do that.

- Again, that’s because you worry too much about what people think of you.

There’s something very different that  happens to you when you are sitting in a recording studio.  I don’t know what it is… but you feel you want to share something with the world, that you have something you want to broadcast.

So guys, you can thank my buddy Evan for inspiring me to record a little audio for you today.

The topic of the day is:  FLIRT!  That’s right.  If you secretly dream of having that James Bond like studly-ness, you have to get in the habit of flirting.  Obviously, it takes practice to get good but you won’t get better until you keep doing it.  The more you flirt, the better your lines become… and the more fun you are having.

As you listen to this podcast, look over these hints to help you on your way to flirting mastery!

1. Be playful.  The essence of flirting is to be playful.  I would go as far as say:  be mischievious.  There’s nothing more fun than talk to someone and realize that they mean more than they let on
2. Use role plays set in the imaginary future or past.  I know you don’t know the person yet, but suggesting or implying that you already have a prior bond (like childhood friends, former lovers, common activity buddies, etc) has a way to just get people to feel like they already know you
3. Allow yourself to be a little suggestive in your voice tone and eye contact when you want to imply more than friendliness
4. Don’t be afraid to be bold and to push the girl’s buttons.  When you push someone’s boundaries, you’ll quickly find out what kind of girl she is and you’ll discover who she really is.
5. It’s OK to use sexual innuendos when done at the right time and if you are going to use them, learn to use metaphors and imageries
6. Tease her and challenge her to something spontaneous or adventurous.  A little bit of competition can only turn into a win-win situation
7. Misinterpret some of the words you hear her use
8. Be a little full of yourself.  Nothing is hotter than a man with confidence.  One way of doing this is to imply that she already likes you.  At times, I have been known to pretend that she’s the one hitting on me.
9. Feign playful disinterest or light skepticism when she does something funny or say something important to her.  It’s good to show that you have your own differing opinion from hers too!
10. Occasionally play coy once she starts being suggestive with you
11. Know when to be real and have a genuine conversation and when to spike the conversation emotionally with your flirting

Flirting is an art.  You will find your own style the more you do it.  So get out there, put your gadgets away and go make someone giggle!  But before you go, don’t’ forget to add your own tips in the comments section

“Why can’t I meet someone?” laments a girl.

“I can never meet someone I am attracted to”, says another.

“I can’t get a girlfriend,” one man says.

“No one ever asks me out,” chimes another woman.

People like to blame circumstances for their inability to meet who they like.  And even when the truth is staring straight at them, they give themselves excuses to their own excuses.

“I’m just too busy”

“All men are assholes anyway.”

“I’m fat right now”

“I’m too shy”

“I just need to get really buff and all the girls will want me”

“Maybe after I’m done with <insert whatever your current goal is>, I’ll have time to meet THE ONE for me.”

It’s actually pretty saddening if you think about it.

If you were to look at your dating life through those lenses, who wouldn’t think that something is wrong with you?  This is why it’s so natural for many of you to get sucked into the next best dating advice in your favorite Cosmo or Men’s Health magazines.  Everyone wants a quick fix.

When it comes to men, we are naturally problem solvers.  I see it even more with the men who turn to pick-up advice.  They see a problem, their inability to meet women, and they want a fix NOW!  They want to believe so hard in the magic of instant pick-up that they’ll listen to the first snake oil salesman that makes half a decent sense.

But here’s the simple truth.  Before you turn to dating advice, before you hire someone to teach you how to date, even before you email me for tips, ask yourself this:

1. What am I doing to meet people?  In this case, people you’d be sexually attracted to.
2. And consequently, what am I doing to set up dates?

In sales, there’s a simple rule that all great salesmen live by:  activity.  If you don’t have activity, you will never find your next deal, your next close, your next paycheck.  In sales, activity is measured by the number of meetings you have with prospective clients to basically market your services and products.  And from… let’s say 10 meetings set, you’ll actually run 5 or 6 (the others will flake on you) and maybe 3 will end up doing business with you (the rest won’t be interested).

But even before you can get a meeting with a prospective client, there’s a lot of things you have to do!  You have to prospect, you have to build a name for yourself through networking, you sometimes have to cold call if you aren’t good at prospecting, you have to set up seminars and workshops… etc.  Anything and everything that you can think of to make yourself be in front of people, you’ve got to do.

So relating back to your dating life, how are you building activity?  Take a hard look at what you are doing.  I know we are all creatures of habits… so are there habits you need to change?

How many people are you meeting a week?  How many people are you getting phone numbers from?  How many people are you genuinely attempting to connect with on your favorite dating site?  Then out of all the people you’ve contacted, how many people did you actually set up a time and day to meet with, to go out with?

If you  haven’t managed to go out at least twice a week with the intent of meeting someone new, or at least talk to someone new, you haven’t done enough to justify your whining about your dating life.  Without talking to someone new, without meeting a “qualified lead,” no matter how you slice it, you are not going to have that date.  And as such, you are not going to get that girlfriend, that boyfriend or that super duper hot hook-up.

I know some of you will actually tell me that you are already having lots of social activity in your life, yet you still can’t find that elusive boyfriend or girlfriend.  For you, I’d want to ask you this:  how many of these outings are one-on-one outings?  If you aren’t having one-on-one outings, you are not going to have that quality personal time with the person you need to have to get that that boyfriend or girlfriend.

As much as we like our friends, wingmen or wing women to be with us, dating is a single’s sport, not a group sport. (Yep, I’m looking at you Asian people.)

What dating advice can do best for you is give you pointers on how you can improve your ratio of people you’ve gotten phone numbers from to people you actually have a date with… and from there, improve the ratio of people you have dates with to people with whom you have a real romantic connection.

So… until you try to have that level of social activity, there’s really nothing wrong with you.  You don’t need dating advice.  You don’t need a dating coach.  What you need is to build up hobbies, social activities and a lifestyle that allow you to meet more people.