6 Dos And Donts For A First Date

There are many right and wrong things to do when you go on a date. Knowing what you should be focusing on and what you need to avoid on a first date can mean the difference between a second date and having someone that never calls you again. If you know what makes a perfect date, you can then go into a first date with confidence and self assurance. You will know what you are doing and what to expect. This limits the surprises that sometimes come up and can ruin a date.

1. Be On Time:

One very important thing that you should do when you are going on a first date is to make sure that you are on time. The fastest way to make a bad impression is to show up late. If you are late, your date will think that you do not care about them or that they are not important enough for you to be on time.
Another potential result is that your date may decide that they do not want to wait for you and will leave before you arrive. They say that the first impression is the lasting impression. Being on time for a date makes a great impression.

2. Put Your Date at Ease:

Do your best to make your date feel as comfortable as possible. Everyone gets very nervous when they go on a first date with someone. If you are making your date feel comfortable, you will also find that you are more relaxed and enjoy yourself much more during the date. Laughing at your date's jokes is one great way to make them feel that you are interested in them and it will also make them more comfortable.

3. Keep Conversation Alive:

Be interesting and keep the conversation alive. You do not what to show up for a date and then have nothing to say and nothing to ask all night. You should prepare yourself ahead of time and think of interesting topics and things that make good conversation.

4. Listen Sincerely:

Show a valid interest in what your date has to say. Pay attention when they are talking to you. Let them know that you care what they are saying. Practice your conversation skills ahead of time. This will help you prepare for the date.

5. Don't Talk About Yourself:

You do not want to talk about yourself all night. This is a turn off and is also rude. You do not want to come off as being conceited or stuck on yourself. Ask questions about your date. Give them a chance to talk. It is not all about you. If you do all the talking and do not let them get a word in, chances are it will be your only date with them.

6. No Talking About Past Relationships:

Do not talk about your past relationships. No one really wants to hear about your ex. They do not want to know what the good points and bad points were. This is a huge turn off and a guaranteed way to drastically reduce the chances for a second date. This is a new person and a new start. Focus on the date that you are with and start finding out about them.

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How You Can Know When a Guy is NOT Right for You

by Evan Marc Katz

I read your blog and find all the advice quite useful. However, there is one issue I still can’t seem to wrap my head around. How do you KNOW when the guy is not right for you? You consistently state that we should dump a guy if he isn’t meeting our needs and although I agree 100%, how do we know that it isn’t partly our fault he isn’t?
Here’s my story in brief. I met a wonderful, kind, ethical, generous, loving, honest, attractive man. We had chemistry. Nothing crazy, but it felt nice and comfortable. At the beginning he did all those little things. Texts to say he was thinking of me. Calling me a pet name. Interacting with me on my blog, etc. He took his time with sex and made me feel like I was the center of the universe. He was never really a talkative guy (except about himself) and didn’t really ask me any questions, but we would at least sit and have chats at the beginning. I was always concerned about the amount of emotional intimacy he was capable of having.
When he moved in with me it all went downhill. Slowly it all stopped. I THOUGHT I was trying to communicate to him that I wasn’t getting my needs met. I would say, “it would be really nice if you even asked me how my day was, not because I care about the question, but because it shows you are interested in me”. He would say, “I don’t do small talk”. His love language is touch. I would make an effort to give him a hug while he was shaving or grab his hand in the car and always reciprocated. When I told him, “I understand that your love language is touch, mine is not” he didn’t say anything. Unfortunately at the time I wasn’t sure what mine was and now I know it is quality time.
We did the typical dance. We both knew he was moving and as he pulled away I became more insecure. I tried to pretend everything was o.k. I stopped sharing my feelings. I know I made the mistake of not being vulnerable or open enough. I didn’t feel like he was listening or that he cared. So, I ended things when he moved out of state by saying, “you used to do A, B, C and D. Those things made me feel happy and safe and secure and you don’t do them anymore. I need that. If you want to do those things then give me a call and if not, then we should just stay apart.”
In one of your blogs you stated that we should say something like this: “I really care about you, but I’m not getting my needs met here. This is too inconsistent for me and I need to feel safe.” Is this what I said or was it an ineffective communication?
I’m still conflicted and having second thoughts. Did I end thing prematurely without communicating concisely what my needs were or was my intuition correct and he had no desire to meet my needs? How do you know if HE is the problem or your issues (inability to effectively communicate, some minor insecurities, etc.) are the problem?? I guess, as a woman I always feel the need to try to fix everything and I feel like if I had just done some things differently HE would have reacted differently. But, I’m not sure that is true and that is the struggle. How do you know their TRUE nature without wasting a ton of time?
Carrie
This is the million-dollar question, isn’t it?
There’s what he’s doing wrong. There’s what you’re doing wrong.
You want to take responsibility for your share of things, but he’s not doing the same thing.
You want to save your relationship, but you’re not sure your partner is willing to do the work.
You feel sick inside because you know he’s pulling away, and the more he pulls away, the more weak, needy and desperate you become.
You break up and when the dust settles you don’t know how much blame to assume.

Your ex-boyfriend – for whatever his charms – was selfish, insensitive, and tone-deaf to his girlfriend’s needs. That’s his personality.

You don’t know what you can learn from this experience.
You don’t trust that you won’t make the same exact mistakes again.
Does that sound about right?
This stuff can make you even sadder and crazier than you already were, which is why, right now, I want to take away all of that confusion forever.
There is a very simple answer to your question and I’m going to give it to you right now.
Is it possible that you can stand to improve your communication? Of course. Anxious people often vacillate between feeling like a doormat/silently seething and blowing up with “protest behavior” at a man’s minor transgression. I can’t tell you whether you did that.
What I can tell you – and, frankly, what any objective third party can tell you – is that your boyfriend failed the most basic of boyfriend tests:
He dismissed your emotional requests. Per relationship expert John Gottman, such requests are called “bids” and couples that “turn towards” their partners’ bids have much stronger relationships. Your boyfriend turned away from your bid.
You asked him to consider your love language. He told you he didn’t do small talk.
You wanted to escalate your intimacy. He chose to move out of state.
And yet, somehow, you’re still beating yourself up inside and trying to take the blame.
Maybe you drove him out of state. Maybe if you were a better girlfriend, he would have wanted to give you quality time and words of affirmation.
That’s bullshit.

He will be that way to his next girlfriend and to his eventual wife as well.

Your ex-boyfriend – for whatever his charms – was selfish, insensitive, and tone-deaf to his girlfriend’s needs. That’s his personality. He will be that way to his next girlfriend and to his eventual wife as well. I can only hope that she reads this column, recognizes herself and gets out before she, too, thinks she’s at fault when her boyfriend isn’t carrying his weight.
This question is the central question of Love U – my comprehensive coaching course that helps women understand men, set healthy boundaries, and create lasting love. When you’re done, you will never again wonder what you did wrong to drive a man away. To the contrary, you’ll feel more confident than you’ve ever been before, and know when it’s time to cut off the guy who fails to make you happy.

Click here to learn how to gain confidence, set healthy boundaries and create lasting love.


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Love Languages

We all know that love is a universal language, but it still feels so complicated at times.


As a self-help book junkie who, right now, has a simple desire to decode the magical feeling of love on a more practical level, I downloaded Gary Chapman’s book, ‘The 5 Love Languages: The Secret to Love That Lasts’. I raced through it in two days flat, completely absorbed so I could answer the questions honestly…

I found out a lot about myself, and what my love personality is. Like, I feel loved when people spend undivided quality time with me and that I also love love cuddling. There was more, but the real benefit I felt from reading this was that it helps my boyfriend understand what I mean when I say I feel like we haven’t hung out (even though we live together!).

The takeaway really is that, though love might be universal, everyone has their own personal love language. What do you think yours is?

The 5 Love Languages.

by Amanda

Why Trying To Solve All Your Partner’s Problems Will Ruin Your Relationship

It doesn’t take a couple’s therapist to tell you that the likelihood of cheating or divorce is directly proportional to how miserable the relationship is. Relationship-killers are built on two pillars.
Both involve poor boundaries. Both can create Facebook posts that paint a picture-perfect relationship, when in reality, the relationship is like living in constant turmoil.
The first pillar involves doing “everything” for the other partner. You take care of your partner’s problems, you give your partner everything he or she desires and, sometimes, you support his or her dreams at extreme cost to yourself. You do everything you’re supposed to do.

But then what happens? You find out your partner has cheated on you.
Romantic sacrifice is the religion of our time. Show me any romantic movie, and I’ll show you a needy, desperate character who treats him or herself like horse sh*t, simply in order to be loved by someone.

Being everything to someone is actually toxic. When you show someone that no matter what happens, you will always make it better for him or her, you are teaching that person that there are no repercussions for his or her actions. You show that person that he or she is not responsible for the problems in life.
If your partner can’t get a job and spends the next three years lounging on the couch while you work three jobs to make ends meet, what lessons are you teaching him or her? It doesn’t matter what you say to your partner. If your actions reinforce that you’ll take care of him or her no matter what, what makes you think your partner is going to change?

Imagine that you had a cat who scratched your eyes out each time you picked it up. If you don’t enforce better behavior, then why would the cat ever stop scratching you?

So, why do we do this? We do this because fixing someone’s problems is an easy way to avoid revealing our true needs, as well as a way to avoid unpleasant conflict. By solving our partner’s every problem, we feel needed. While we think we are making ourselves irreplaceable by being Mr. or Ms. Fix It, we are actually making the intimacy replaceable.

Solving problems is easy. Cultivating intimacy is not. When there’s no friction or discomfort, there’s no need for growth. Neither partner grows, and the relationship starts to taste like stale Doritos: cheesy and manufactured.
Pretty soon, our partners take us for granted. After all, when we try to parent them to success, they never reach success. They never learn the value of the struggle and pain that is required to become a healthy, mature adult.

Believe it or not, a loving and healthy relationship requires that partners say “no” to each other on occasion. It requires conflict. It requires each partner deciding what is and what is not allowed in the relationship. It requires you to stick to those spoken commandments and follow through on them, even if it hurts your partner.
When our top relationship goal is to always feel good, no one feels good. So we avoid conflict, and pretty soon, the relationship falls apart. We’re left staring out the window, wondering what went wrong.

Healthy couples understand that good feelings are a byproduct of getting the more important things right: needs, trust and values. Sometimes, developing these things requires discomfort.
Oftentimes, when people seek someone to solve their problems, they are really seeking someone who can emotionally support them during the hardships. Kids don’t want you to take their crayons and draw outside the lines of their coloring books in the same way adults don’t want you to take their lives and solve everything while they take a back seat.

Pretty soon, they’ll become bitter and frustrated by the lack of control you give them over their own lives. Pretty soon, they’ll resent you and leave you.
The goal of a relationship is to not have all of your life’s problems fixed by your partner, nor is to fix all your partner’s problems. The goal of a relationship is to have two individuals unconditionally support one other as they deal with their problems themselves.



Source: http://elitedaily.com/dating/solve-partner-problems-ruin-relationship/1404836/   by Kyle Benson 

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10 Things Guys Think You Lie About on Your Dating Profile

10 Things Guys Think You Lie About on Your Dating Profile


By Lodro Rinzler

Our guy expert, Lodro Rinzler, reached out to men across the country to ask what they were worried about when looking at your online dating profile. Here's what guys think women might lie about online:

Your Looks

The number one thing the guys polled think a woman might lie about on her online dating profile is her looks. I am using "looks" as an umbrella term here that covers everything from your height to your weight to your body type to you using a photo of yourself from five years ago. Also, please note that a picture of just your face tells us that you either don't have a nice body or you don't like the body you have. Be confident enough to show your full form.

Your Age

"I've definitely gone out with women who say they're 25 but are actually 29," said Eddie. Sometimes a woman may change her age to initially attract a man, but it's such a silly lie to chose; was Eddie's date going to pretend to be four years younger for the rest of their relationship? Since so many men have had this experience, don't be surprised if a guys casually glances at your drivers license when the bouncer asks for it at the door.

That You LOVE to Travel

Many women will put that they "LOVE to travel" even if they haven't gone on any real trips or vacations in three years. I don't recommend saying this on your profile because a) everyone says it so you don't stand out from the crowd at all and b) even if you do love to travel, if you haven't lately it might get real awkward real quick when he starts grilling you about all your recent vacations.

The Amount of Time You Spend at the Gym

One of the gentlemen I reached out to, Dave, told me, "I think women will exaggerate the amount or frequency of exercise they do." A woman may want to show off how important it is to her that she takes good care of her body, but if you list that you go to the gym every single day a guy may think you're exaggerating.

That Impressive Book/TV Show/Movie You Mentioned

One person I reached out to, Sam, said, "I think women will leave off interests that might be considered too girly or immature—any kind of guilty pleasure TV show or magazine, etc. and try to list more intellectual things like books they've read, even if said book was required in high school ten years ago." If you love Portrait of an Artist as a Young Man, put it on the profile, but don't be surprised if your date expects you to actually remember it in detail.

Your Level of Independence

Lots of pictures with you and the girls is nice, but when a woman keeps posting about being fiercely independent and not at all clingy on her dating profile a fella might raise an eyebrow and grow suspicious. It's a bit like saying "don't think of a pink elephant." Why bring it up if you don't want a guy's mind to go straight there?

How Easy Going You Are

Similarly, when a woman says how she is a laid back, easy going, go-with-the-flow sort of person a man may begin to question if, in reality, she is actually very sensitive/easy to trigger. Best to leave those qualities out of your profile and show, don't tell.

Your Interest in Sports

If a woman says how much she loves a sport, a man might be suspicious about whether she is just trying to appeal to how much he loves that sport. If a woman says she loves a specific team or calls out a particular player as her favorite, he tends to be less skeptical.

How Successful You Are

"I think some women want to project high aspirations even if they aren't successful right now," said Eric. Men are guilty of many of these ten things too, but perhaps I'd say men more often inflate their job title or position. We may be suspicious of how successful you say you are because we lied on our own profile about this one!

What You're Looking for Romantically

If you say you're looking for something casual a guy may not take that at face value. Many of us (us being all genders) have had that casual hook-up buddy that after a few months all of a sudden wanted more. Sometimes you may think you want one thing (to be casual) and end up wanting something else (a real relationship). There's nothing wrong with that, unless you're purposefully trying to trick someone. If a guy has had that experience, he's likely to be wary of you stating that you just want to be friends-with-benefits.

At the end of the day, both genders tend to stretch the truth on the items above, but they also tend to be part of the most generic profiles. If you want to stand out from the rest, talk about the things you love to do now, like eat brunch or binge-watch Netflix, so you'll attract someone you're compatible with.

Source:  http://www.marieclaire.com/sex-love/advice/a10115/what-guys-think-girls-lie/

By Lodro Rinzler

40-Year-Old Men Want to Get Married, Too! (On Not Being the Old Guy In the Club)

40-Year-Old Men Want to Get Married, Too! (On Not Being the Old Guy In the Club)

by Evan Marc Katz

I couldn’t be more sympathetic to women who are struggling in love. You’re burned out with online dating. You’ve wasted years on unavailable and abusive men. You’ve focused all your attention on work and let years pass. You desire love, family and stability, but are too afraid to open your heart once again. You believe that all the good ones are taken. You believe your time has passed. You believe it’s not in the cards.

I spend lots of time offering advice to women on how to reframe this negativity and date with confidence and optimism. But what about the men? That was the question asked in this viral New York Times piece about a demographic that no one talks about:

Remove the gender and their complaints sound virtually identical.

Men in their late thirties and early forties who want to settle down and can’t seem to find the right partner.
Remove the gender and their complaints sound virtually identical.
These men were waiting for the right partner and the right time and may have missed their ideal window of opportunity. Now, they’re forced to make compromises – same as the compromises I routinely ask women to make.
Spend less time working. “But I have a demanding job that pays too well!”
Go out with someone older. “But I can’t help what I’m attracted to! But I want time to have two kids!”
Make a greater effort to date. “But I’m tired! I have more obligations on my time!”
For every realistic excuse out there, there is someone who is ignoring it. These are the people who make love a priority and make smart adjustments to their lives in order to achieve their goals.

The fact is that most of us don’t take actions that are aligned with our goals.

Predictably, there was backlash to these men who’d dare admit that they’re lonely and express regrets. Women, in particular, lashed out at them. “Women have it worse! Women have to compromise more! Now you know what it’s like! You deserve to be alone, you picky, patriarchal narcissists!”
The fact is that most of us don’t take actions that are aligned with our goals. I lament that I’m 10lbs heavier than last year and I’m still sitting here typing instead of going to the gym. Why? Because it’s comfortable, familiar, and far easier than doing something.
I hope that all the men and women who want to get married and have families find each other, but I know that’s just a pipe dream. Because the men will complain the women are too old and the women will complain that the men are emotional toddlers.
So who is invariably left standing alone? Those who assume that all members of the opposite gender is the same and also primary cause of all dating problems.
Your thoughts, below, are always appreciated.

Source: The post 40-Year-Old Men Want to Get Married, Too! (On Not Being the Old Guy In the Club) appeared first on Dating Coach - Evan Marc Katz | Understand Men. Find Love..


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