The Secret to Dating Well: An Insider's Guide To Ace The First Date

Think back on your last five dates and ask yourself what adjectives your dates would use to describe you.

Would they say you were engaged, present, interested?

Perhaps you spent time telling your friends and family how he came across on the date.

I wonder how you came across? Were you interested or interesting?

If you want to know the secret to dating well, it’s maximizing your opportunities to be fully engaged and present during the date - whether you want to see him again or not.

Showing sincere interest in another is an act of generosity. If you’re coming across as indifferent on a first date, I think it’s a big mistake to withhold interest.

My client, Amy, is a very together and beautiful woman. She has lots of choices in men and is rightly selective.

When she met David on a first date, she immediately dismissed him because she didn’t consider him to be her “type.” She created an impression that she wasn’t interested in him by offering up very little about herself and asking even less about him.

Amy missed all kinds of opportunities with David. Each of us has gifts and things we’d never know about another because they’re right below the surface - worth exploring. Would you want to be written off at first glance?

David is a self made highly successful entrepreneur. More importantly, he’s a consummate gentleman, respectful and kind.

We all have blind spots, but, we don’t see our own blind spots. I know Amy to be very caring and engaged in her career, and yet she didn’t seem to be focused on the date. She didn’t demonstrate interest in who David is.

When there’s not a lot of romantic spark and a woman doesn’t want to lead a man on, she has the tendency to not offer up enthusiasm and curiosity. To withhold interest strikes me as self-centered. The result? A missed opportunity for both of them.

The way Amy has been approaching dating hasn’t provided the result for which she’s been looking. For her to quickly reject a man who’s as accomplished, sincere and well put together as David….well, it makes me wonder how many other stellar men have fallen through her filter.

Dating is an opportunity to practice being fully engaged and interested, to give the gift of your attention and presence. Make a new friend, a new business connection, practice listening, sharing stories, connecting and contributing to this other person. Only good things can happen when we do dating this way.

Your date is your host. If you’re being less than a gracious guest then your powerful feminine self is absent.

Go on dates to have fun meeting someone new and interesting. Then decide how a man can fit into your life whether he’s going to be a friend, a date or a potential mate.

There’s no way to know what a man’s status will be after one date because you don’t know him well enough. Unless he’s confessed to robbing a bank, I advocate going on a minimum of three dates before deciding whether to continue dating him.

My challenge to you: look for what’s right in the people you’re meeting out there, rather than looking to see what might be off or wrong, which might cause you to pull back, withdraw and come across as a DUD on the date.

Have you been interested or interesting?

Post a comment below and I’ll meet you there.