youcantdate.com

A few weeks ago I was reading Outliers: The Story of Successby Malcolm Gladwell. It’s an interesting book in many ways, but of course now I want to talk about how it applies to dating.

Basically the book tries to find out why certain people have become outliers; exceptionally successful. For instance, it goes into the success of the Beatles, ice hockey players and classical musicians. Next to individual cases, the book also goes into the question why certain groups of people are especially successful – all the mayor players at computer companies, Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Steve Ballmer, are about the same age.

The most important thing they all have in common, is the amount of practice they had. The magic number that comes up time after time, is 10.000 hours of practice before anyone can become a real world-class expert. This number comes back all the time – from concert pianists to programmers.

The fact that you actually need practice, is something we seem to forget in dating. You either ‘have it’, or you don’t, and that’s it. But really, that’s nonsense – anyone can learn this, you just need to go out there and try.

“But…”, you may say – there’s definitely people to whom it seems to come naturally; they have a certain talent for making contact and flirty conversation. But think about it – how did they learn that? In my experience, these kind of people usually were brought up in some kind of circumstance that made them practice earlier on in life. Maybe their parents had lots of friends, so they met lots of new kids all the time. Maybe they travelled a lot; had long holidays or lived in a neighborhood  with a lot of different kids.

In the book, Malcolm Gladwell keeps finding these circumstances which helped someone get a lot of practice in the area in which they became successful.

So, if you want to get better in dating and meeting people, go out and practice. You will need to get out of that comfort zone and away from the computer. Find ways to meet more strangers, and practice small talk and create a conversation that is engaging for the other person.

Finally – this is a fun book to start practicing small talk:

Today I want to tell you about the thing I like best in the whole dating game, or even, what is one of my favorite things in life. And for once, this is something that is actually easy to accomplish. You may even say… it’s all you need to learn.

All too often, a pickup attempt seems forced. Or just meeting someone, calling them, asking someone out. It seems you have to do all the work, all the convincing. And at other times, it may be the other way around: someone else seems to be really into you for some reason – but you’re just not interested. Well, allright, you may go on a date, but on a certain level you’re just going trough the motions.

But every once in a while, you meet someone and it just clicks. It almost makes you believe in magic: everything just works. Talking goes effortless. You feel at ease, comfortable, but also you’re “on”. You’re funnier, more eloquent… better looking even than before. And the same seems to be happening for her: she enjoys talking to you, and she doesn’t seem to be able to stop smiling.

This, I think, is what you should aim for. Pickup is lame, and reading books on dating (or websites) is even lamer. I mean, come on: don’t you agree? But the whole point is, is to feel more comfortable, go out there and meet more people. Improve your chances of finding the girl that really suits you, where everything just works.

And wow: that makes stuff just so much easier. Stop chasing that one girl: she’s not into you, forget it. Just tell the other girl chasing you that: “sorry: it’s not going to work”. Maybe having a relationship is supposed to be hard work at times; meeting people shouldn’t be.

So there you go: search for a perfect match, search for chemistry. It should be effortless. The only thing where you really need to go out of your comfort zone is in going out there and meeting people, but not in learning pickup skills.

Once you get into the pickup community, and start reading the methods of Mystery, Mehow, David DeAngelo and Neil Strauss, there’s a lot of new concepts and jargon words that are thrown your way. Acronyms like AFC, PUA, IOI, IOD, words like ’set’, neg, recalibration, takeaway – it seems they’ve tagged and pigeonholed every possible situation and technique.

Making social interaction – and especially picking up girls – into a science is a geek thing, obviously. It is trying to simplify and categorize human behaviour. The systems and methods they come up with are bound to be incomplete and inaccurate.

However, one thing is for sure: to become better at relationships, picking up girls, going on dates, you’re going to have to change your behavior. You probably know what kind of stuff you’d need to change – be more comfortable in a bar, be comfortable talking to strangers, be friendly, be in the moment. Meet more people, get to know people quicker, be more observant – there’s so much to improve.

What I like about the pickup-artists methods is that they are outrageous. They’re out there, they’re different and those guys have balls. They usually started out as shy guys, and through a lot of practice – and a lot of failure, they’re now very successful.

In this website, I’m using the pickup artists material in three ways: one, to take some excercises and ideas to get you out of your comfort zone and start interacting in ways you wouldn’t normally do. Two, by paying attention to certain patterns in social interaction, you start paying more attention to people. Whether you label this stuff and go all geeky, or you just try to be in the moment and let your subconcious make the next move, it doesn’t matter. And third: to keep this stuff fresh. There’s not a lot of people who are so insanely serious about this stuff, and to keep your focus and to keep improving, you need new input and some progress at least every week.

When changing and improving yourself, the only approach that works is small steps to big goals. Big steps will often fail and leave you disappointed in yourself. Small steps to small goals don’t make an impact, even if you reach the goal.

To reach a new goal, figure out if you’re lacking a skill, or the guts to just do it. Critical in getting better at the dating game is being able to have a friendly conversation with a stranger. I’m going to go out on a limb here and assume that you can talk. So it’s not the lack of skills that’s holding you back. What needs to change here, it that you have to overcome a very basic fear, and create a new habit.

If you’re totally comfortable chatting away with random strangers, whether they’re old people, smart, crazy, ugly or stunningly beautifull, then go ahead and skip this post. Also, if you’re afraid to get out of the house, then this post is also not for you… you may need to consider professional help first. If, however, you’re like most people and enjoy a random chat now and then, but also feel some level of anxiety and fear when approaching strangers – it’s a good thing to start working on this first.

Good news: you know all there is to know to make conversation. You can talk and you can listen. Learning small talk is not like learning a martial art, or riding a bike. It’s not going to take years and years to master. It’s just going to take some practice and a lot of a ‘what the fuck’ attitude, to just get comfortable at speaking to strangers.

This is going to be cool. These little exercises are going to be super simple, but really entertaining. You’re going to meet new people, learn little things, and become a much cooler person. Trying these things out years ago, and focussing on getting comfortable with them – I certainly had lots of fun – and I still have, and it’s so simple to do.

Ok. Small steps to big goals. Goal: get comfortable with starting and having a random conversations with random strangers. Decide for yourself: where are you considering this skill? Do you say ‘Hi’ to people who look friendly on a bus? Do you often have a chat with strangers while you’re in a waiting room? When you’re on a plane, do you talk to the person next to you? Do you greet them? How many strangers do you talk to on a typical night in a bar? I’m not talking about the level of social interaction where you would, hypothetically be comfortable with, but the stuff you actually do, on a regular basis.

Once you know where you are now and where you want to be, think of small steps that will get you there. For example, let’s say you’re just usually walking with your iPod on, minding your own business. And in a pub or restaurants, you order your drinks and food and then just stick to the people you know. What would be some small steps to improve this?

Well, here’s a suggestion. Start by, every now and then, taking off your iPod. Look around and notice the people around you. Now, on your way home, smile and do a little nod to at least five random people. Then, the next day, do the same, but add a friendly ‘Hi!’. It’s simple stuff, right, but it’s like a warming-up. Connecting to people is on your mind, and you’re changing your habits in a small but significant way.

Now to actually start having conversations. What would be the easiest way? Find some people who are easy to talk to… what about… retail store clerks? They’re paid to talk to you! Go to some stores, and talk to these people: ask questions. First about the stuff they sell, then about store things: when do you guys close? Is this a franchise? Don’t be afraid to ask stupid questions. Have some fun! Be like David Wygant: walk into a Victoria Secret store and go like “You got any man’s stuff?”. Enjoy the mantra: “I don’t give a shit”.

Go on like this, make your own challenges, have some fun. Go to Starbucks and ask them where their coffee comes from, how long the training is to become a barista. Go to a store that’s open late and ask if the girl has to work the entire day.

Once you got this stuff down, and are having fun with this, move on to… semi-strangers. You know, collegues that are in some other department and you’ve never spoken to. People who are in your year in college but you’re not sharing any classes with. Friends of friends which you meet at parties.

An easy way to start a conversation is to start with statements, as mentioned before. The best way to do this, is to make observations – and don’t care they’re obvious. It’s best when they’re obvious! “That’s a sweet dog!”, “What a nice little plane”, “Boy it’s cold!”. Start with generic observations, and then try some more personal ones – “You look bored”, “Wow, your sweater looks like knitted vomit” – have some fun.

At some point, you will offend someone. You may freak some people out. You will make a fool of yourself. This is all ok – have a laugh about it. When you learned how to walk, you fell down, when you learned how to write you misspelled a lot (and some still do…). You can’t learn this stuff without failing miserably a few times. Accept it, laugh about it, shrug it off.

You’ll notice that once you start a conversation, the rest is easy. As I said before: talking is something you can do. Granted, some people will be easier and more fun to talk to then others, and in the skill of having an interesting conversation, there may be a lot to learn. But overcoming your fears of random banter – thank me later – is going to be a critical step. This is something you’re going to enjoy and have fun with for the rest of your life.

Many people, when they’re unhappy about a certain part of their life, start focusing on details. Switching to Diet Cokes if they’re fat, drinking green tea when they’re stressed or stop buying latte’s when they’re spending too much.

These kind of things may feel like action, but they won’t amount to anything – and are thus an utter waste of time and energy. It’s true that you must start with a single small step, but it must be a single step on a real, bigger, bolder course.

The real fixes are either silver bullets or quick fixes, or ‘real’ proper solutions. You may have a tendency to dislike quick fixes, or be too lazy to really change your ways and implement a proper fix. Me, I don’t care about the distinction because it’s useless – a fix is a fix. Whether you lose weight trough changing your diet and exercising, or trough the quick-fix of a stomach reduction, as long as you shed your chubbiness, it’s fine and dandy.

When looking at the dating game, it crucial to look at the big picture. To get better at this, it will require effort and energy, it requires you to stop being a victim, to stop being in control, to move out of your comfort zone. Now you better make sure that you apply this energy in the right area, in bold moves toward you goals.

What’s the area you suck at most? Instead of thinking Diet Coke / green tea, I urge you to think of a real fix of your problems, and then take action. More concrete ideas and suggestions in later posts.