Archive for the ‘Date Night’ Category

Winter is such a great time for cozying up with a new love. It’s cold outside, so you hold hands. It’s toasty inside, so you cuddle up under a blanket by the fire. Being cold is romantic, take advantage of it.

Make note when your date offers his jacket or rubs your hands to warm them up. Make note when your date lets you stand under the umbrella or drops you off in front while he drives looking for a parking spot. Take the opportunity when you’re sitting together under the blanket to play footsie. Sip hot chocolate, make soup, bake something. Cold weather can suck, but it’s the best time of year to start a relationship.

It’s not too early to begin making dating resolutions for 2012… resolutions you’re guaranteed to keep. So let’s begin, shall we?

1)   Stop having dates that are absolutely perfect.
2)   Make more of an effort to sweat the small stuff.
3)   Work less at understanding your date’s differences of opinion.
4)   Savor the art of not listening.
5)   Try harder to hold grudges.
6)   Don’t move out of your comfort zone.
7)   Come with a lot more baggage.
8)   Savor the greener grass of your friends’ relationships.
9)   Look at your significant other’s heart as half empty vs. half full
10)  Always try to have the last word.

There, that wasn’t so hard, was it?  And my last New Year’s wish to you… May you fall off the wagon on numbers one through ten.

People often like to ask, for example, “What did people do before the internet?” I’ll tell you what they did. They led perfectly rewarding lives. They ate at the dinner table. They stalked crushes only in their minds and also in trees, which, as a bonus, allowed them to not be so overweight that they have to shop for groceries using a computer because if they tried to walk to their car, their legs would rub together so much it would start a fire and kill them.

Of course, things were never as ideal as they seemed in retrospect. People still murdered other people, and sometimes their pets. People also had to meet members of the opposite, or same, sex out in the real life world. Yet people still got together. Babies were still born. Is dating better now because of online dating, or is it just more convenient? Dating is now equated with ordering a pizza or paying taxes. Maybe in another twenty years, online dating will be used on a format equated with using the bathroom or sleeping. I don’t even know what that means. It’s the future. Anything can happen.

Online dating has been beneficial for me, though. I have met nice ladies based on information I was able to review beforehand. This removes the need for pointless small-talk. However, pointless small-talk is very much needed on dates with people you don’t like. However again, online dating already has helped to get rid of undesirable dates. In conclusion, online dating has made dating better. I’ll let you know after Wednesday night if I still believe this sentiment.

Let’s face it, too much silence or awkward small chat on a first date can be a little boring, not to mention uncomfortable for some. One of the most frequently asked questions I get as a dating coach is “how do I keep the conversation going?”, and this isn’t just about a first date…this technique applies to avoiding awkward silence practically anywhere.

A common mistake people make when they “run out of things to say” is to go about with interview-style questioning that usually results in a) your date feeling bombarded with questions and b) a lack of conversation flow. Neither of these things is particularly appetizing, so here’s how to avoid them:

• Stay interested, aka, listen. You want to know the biggest conversation killer? Not paying attention to what the person is saying. How can you respond if you’re not actually listening (hint, you can’t!) so pay attention. I read a quote recently that went something like “the best way to get someone interested in you is to be interested in them” and I don’t mean for you to fake it, either. One of the most amazing things about my job is hearing about people and their stories. Takeaway message: everyone is interesting, when you start to listen.
• Take (mental) notes (of future topics). When someone is telling you a story, they’re constantly dropping hints about their hobbies, interests, passions, etc. For example, if I said “so a few weeks ago while shopping with my friend Samantha, I got a new lens for my camera and it takes such great pictures…” you could ask a few questions that aren’t going to come off as a non-sequitur like “your friend Samantha, how did you meet?” but you could also keep in mind that I mentioned a camera and camera lens (hint: I’m into photography) so later on, when the conversation hits a slow point you could easily ask “you mentioned buying a camera lens, what kind of photos do you like to take?”
• Bring it full-circle. There’s a difference between “relating to someone’s story” and trying to steal the show with your own bigger, better version of it. But, non-competitively bringing it back to something you can share about yourself is a great way to connect with someone.

See you guys next week!

Have a question for the dating pro? Mel can be reached here.

I have never been in less of a mood to write a post than write now. On top of compulsively eating 2,000 calories in one meal… there is nothing on top of that… that is it. I feel like crap.

I spent half a year on a rigorous diet losing a lot of weight. Tonight, while on a date that deteriorated from wanting the girl to not hate me to wanting the girl to not kill me, I simultaneously ate without realizing what I was doing. Before I could even walk out of the Starbucks, I had managed to make the girl I have been dating for a month literally and physically hate me, I somehow had inhaled enough food to feed myself until Valentine’s Day when I will inevitably eat myself to death, and I somehow also ruined an elementary school recital. I will now explain those first two things only.

I thought, for some reason, that it would be funny to jokingly insult this poor girl incessantly. I have no idea why I did it, but I feel terrible now. I really like this person a lot and cannot honestly find one fault in her. However, this didn’t override the fact that stupid petty jokes (that didn’t make sense) kept coming out of my mouth. It all coalesced in the car, after she had left me for the night, and the food and drinks I had ingested had finally reached my colon. At that point I got home and started writing this. That was about ten minutes ago and now I’m writing this part. Now I’m going to bed.

No.

The answer is no and I’ll put it right up front in case you want to stop reading without getting the explanation.

I often, I think even on this blog, mention the importance of the third date, not for any other reason than it means you’ve been over the possibly awkward first date, liked each other enough to go out for a second, and clicked enough to go on a third.

If you are only friends with females, and you are not a female, that is very weird. I am just now today learning this. Though I have a lot of male friends, most of them don’t live in the same city as me because I moved back after college. Therefore, most of my friends here are not male. That explanation really does not explain why I have a lot of female friends. It only explains why I don’t have a lot of male friends. I think I attract female friends because I am a giant woman. By giant, in no way do I mean I am a tall or heavy female! What I mean is I’m one of those guys who is too sensitive and nonthreatening and stuff. You know? I always apologize for things and don’t mind going to any movie, even if it has Kate Hudson and isn’t Almost Famous. However, not even I was able to force myself to go see Bride Wars.

Anyway, I have been dating a girl for about a month and everything is going great. However, she mentioned early on that she was a little trepidatious about my closeness with other females. Is it not normal to go to dinner and a movie with a person of the opposite sex if you are not dating them? It’s not? See, I am still learning the rules. Apparently, it’s not. No, apparently, that is the strict definition of ‘date’. That actually explains the time that married woman refused to go to a friendly dinner and a movie with me.

Going on a date that does not go nearly as well as we have hoped is a frequent occurence for online daters.  Heck, it is why blogs such as this even exist!  To help people vent, share, and discuss their problems.

So what do you do when you are on a date, the end of the night is here, and you know you will never ever see that person again.  The walk to the car or door can be beyond awkward.

Some guys walk girls they are not interested in back to their car or door to be polite, meanwhile the girl misinterprets this for her date trying to sneak in a kiss. 

Other guys DO walk their dates to the car with the hope of a kiss, meanwhile the girl is fearing for her life!

And sometimes neither party is interested and you both just want to go home as fast as possible.

So what’s the solution to avoiding the awkwardness that these last minute walks bring?

The answer….

There is none!

My two cents…

Say goodnight…

and  RUNNNN!!! =)

After a countless number of first dates (47), I had decided that I had to do something about my self-esteem before my self-deprecatory comedic nature led me to laugh with my friends about how much of a loser I am until my thin veil of happiness melted in a fit of unbridled rage against people that formerly would have identified me as a friend.

I needed an ego boost. I am not happy or proud of the way I tried to do so. I decided to accept a date with any woman. I arrived at the restaurant early because I was still nervous. As I sat there looking at the wait staff who had to have reluctantly agreed to all wear horrible Halloween costumes, I figured that nobody in this restaurant except for the old man drinking by himself was truly happy. The date was pleasant. We had good conversation and the food was equally pleasant. Though I was not attracted to her, and her voice reminded me of my step-sister, who I like, but I do not want to date, she was very nice. The day after the date, I received a text that I had previously sent out 47 other times. It said she had a great time and wanted to hang out again this weekend.

I knew exactly how she felt at that moment, and I know exactly how she would feel if I didn’t respond. It is one of the worst feelings I’ve ever experienced. It’s just complete rejection after pouring your heart out for an entire evening to a total stranger. You stand by your phone waiting for that buzz that never comes. You can’t eat or sleep, and getting up for work is even more of a chore. I had to send her something, but I did not want to go out with her again. Next week, I will tell you what I eventually said, and how she responded.

I had another date last night. I decided to meet a girl I met online at a Japanese-fusion restaurant, because apparently that is the progressive thing to do. This date was unlike many of my more recent dates. Prior to this date, I had been rejected by at least ten other girls on other dates that ended in exactly the same manner. Basically, I ended up crying by myself in a restaurant three hours after my date had decided to leave.

This time, it would be different. First, I would arrive early so that I could begin drinking at least an hour before my date arrived. This provided several advantages. First, I wouldn’t have to worry about arriving on time, because I knew I would arrive at least an hour early. This would allow for plenty of time to drink. There’s no reason to be nervous for a date if you’re already completely hammered, and the only thing that you care about is whether the next drink from the bartender is over $2. Second, I wouldn’t have to worry about being nervous because an hour’s worth of booze will have already stolen any of the rest of my innocence out of me.

By the time my date arrived, I was only 50% sure that she was actually there. I stumbled from the bar to meet her at the front of the restaurant. I introduced myself as “Marty McFly” and instructed her that she only had thirty minutes until the lightning hit the clock tower and sent us all to 1955. She had only a few minutes to get into my DeLorean and hit the gas until it reached 88 mph before she was transported to the future where hover boards and Biff Tannen were the only surveyors of our lives.