Dating: 5 Simple Tips

For most men and women, dating isn't exactly fun or stress-free. The dating process can get complicated because it’s easy to get trapped by your own insecurities or to cross paths with an unkind or rude date who spares no punches in making you feel less-than. These simple tips will help make dating easier and keep you feeling comfortable so that you protect your own ego en route to finding the partner who’s a good match for you!

Tip 1

Keep realistic expectations. Don’t approach a date with the mindset that you will meet “The One.” This is magical thinking. Your date could possible turn into that terrific partner but it will take time to get to that realization. Again, be realistic!

Tip 2

Plan dates around activities that you like to do. Feel free to suggest activities and environments that suit you – the worst that could happen is that your dates says “no.” The bottom line is that you can be most yourself when you feel comfortable and at ease. If you’re an outdoors person, go for a walk in a park or walk around an outdoor mall. If you like quite or intimate places, check out a restaurant that serves the type of cuisine you like. Being yourself = engaging in activities that reflect your interests.

Tip 3

Don’t schedule the usual dinner and a movie. The reality is that you might not want to hang out with your date for four hours if there’s little or no click between the two of you. Suggest an activity that takes about an hour, and give yourself permission to call it an early night if you’re not feeling the connection. Don’t fall into the guilt trap – nobody ever qualified in a textbook how long a date should take! You are a co-writer of the rules.

Tip 4

Don’t go out of your comfort zone in the early stages of dating. You don’t have to meet your date’s family or his or her huge group of friends if you’d rather get to know your date first. Nobody wants to be judged and surveyed, and meeting groups of people all at once is the surest way to invite this kind of uncomfortable attention.

Tip 5

Never agree to plans that you don’t think you’ll follow up on after the date is over. If your date really likes you, he or she may try to set something up for next time: “Let’s go there next time – you want to?” Let yourself feel free to say “maybe” but don’t fall into saying “yes, sure” when you don’t mean it. Finally, at the end of the date, don’t feel that you have to say “I’ll call you tomorrow or next week.” In such cases, it’s more honest to say “Nice to meet you and have a good night.”

Remember that dating is risky business and that it can be unpleasant, but keeping these simple tips in mind will make the journey a little smoother!

P.S. Check out my book DR. SETH'S LOVE PRESCRIPTION for more romantic advice!

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

When Dating: Stop the Sarcasm!

One of the main ways to turn someone off is to come across as too sarcastic too soon. Sure, a little humor goes a long way, but sarcasm carries darker edges than your average, run-of-the-mill sense of humor.

When you're dating someone new, keep your radar tuned to how you're coming across, and watch out for letting too much sarcasm out of the bag. Sarcastic men and women love to tell themselves that sarcasm is a natural, harmless extension of their sense of humor, but the truth is that sarcasm is a defense mechanism. People develop this skill in order to make themselves feel more secure and powerful in interactions with others.

In short, feel free to let a little sarcasm show once you know someone well, but short of that, control your sarcasm in dating like the unruly child it is!

Relationship Quote of the Day!

Damn, this one is good...

"Relationships are like glass. Sometimes it’s better to leave them broken than try to hurt yourself putting it back together." (Author Unknown)

Demi and Ashton's Divorce: Can A Huge Age Difference Work?

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Well, even if you don't read the tabloids or watch any number of - let's admit it - trashy television shows that track the lives of celebrities, you've probably heard by now that Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher are calling it quits. This separation begs for a little water-cooler chatter: Can a marriage really last if there is such an enromous age difference between each member of the couple?

As a rule, the answer is...No. Of course, there are exceptions and you may even be able to name a couple or two in real life who have managed to maintain a happy, long-term relationship. But please trust me when I say this: THESE ARE THE EXCEPTIONS.

I'm 38 years old, and I can assure you that the ways that I spend my Friday evenings at this point in my life, for example, are pretty damn different from how I spent them when I was, say, 25 years old. To give you a full picture, as I write this, I've got one of my dogs seated on the couch next to me and a fire that's burning in my living room fireplace. When I was 25? Child, please. I can assure you that I was somewehere that was loud, packed with people, and brimming with all the energy that comes with having the rest of your life ahead of you.

When it comes to a couple, such as Demi Moore and Ashton Kutcher, I'm hard-pressed to believe that there aren't major differences in the ways that a 49 year old and a 33 year old choose to spend their time, or the kinds of energy levels they have. A difference of 16 years? Come on, let's everyone be honest.

Sure, it can work for a very rare few, but I wouldn't recommend such an enormous age difference for anyone looking for lasting love.

Stop Right Now: Idealizing Past Sexual Encounters

Yes,it's probably happened to each one of us: a brief romantic encounter that we carry with us for years. Perhaps you met that person on vacation, or may have met him or her while traveling on business in another area. You may have been twenty or you may have been forty. The point is that the memory of a fling can be powerful.

In writing this article, I am reminded of a popular song by Carly Simon entitled “Better Not Tell Her.” She sings the song to a man with whom she had a brief rendez-vous, and this man happened to be involved already. Ms. Simon advises him about how he should handle his return to his wife after the affair affair is over, as she sings “Just leave out the white nights, the moon in your window, the break in your whisper, she won’t need to know.”

The problem with such a rendez-vous (independent of the glaring infidelity!) is that this song reminds us how we can all carry fleeting flings into our normal lives. The reality, however, is that these flings shouldn’t be romanticized or idealized because they are completely unreal. In the context of a brief affair, two people don’t truly know each other and the setting is often one of relaxation and abandon.

The goal in love is to learn how to have a vital love life in the context of a fairly normal daily routine. Men and women must learn how to have intimacy within a long-term relationship. Brief flings from the past often interfere with intimacy at home because they provide a false belief that this abandon is real love. No, this is not real love – this is lust. How about trying to reinvigorate that sense of lust ion a long-term relationship? It can happen, though it might take a little bit of effort!

4 Rules for Surviving Dating: How to Find Lasting Love

This past weekend, I ran into a friend at a restaurant who has just begun dating someone new. My friend shared with me later just how anxiety-provoking this new relationship has become. After a few weeks, they’ve officially entered that awkward phase where uncertainty is king, and I’m sure each member of the couple is spending a great deal of time talking about the relationship with their respective friends. Oh, the drama that new love brings!

The beginning of a new relationship is scary because you don’t really know the person you’re dating, so you can’t be sure what you’re going to get. In other words, you’re investing in a relationship based purely on faith, or your hope that this new person will be good for you. But let’s all admit what a risk it is to start falling in love! Can you imagine taking a thousand dollars and putting it into a stock that you don’t know much about? If you only knew a few details about the company you were investing in, you’d probably decide not to invest in it. Why? Because it would feel too risky.

Yet in relationships, the pull toward a new lover is so strong that it feels as if you really don’t have a choice at all. If you like the person and want to get to know them better, you have no choice but to proceed. The stakes feel so high because you can end up attaching pretty quickly to someone new, even though you don’t know that person well enough to know if it’s truly safe to trust him or her. The reality is that the process of attaching happens much faster than the process of getting to know someone on a truly deep level. If only we could slow our hearts down so that we could protect ourselves better from potential hurts, right?

But wait – I suddenly got so caught up in writing about new love that I almost forgot that we actually do have control over how quickly we attach to someone new. Sure, hormones are at work and there is the undeniable thrill of the first touch or kiss with someone you’re crazy attracted to, but that doesn’t mean that we, in turn, have to carjack someone, head to Vegas, and get married in a cheesy chapel on the first night.

Though the urge may be strong to spend all your time with your new love interest and jump in the sack to seal the deal and – finally - alleviate your intense curiosity, we’re supposed to be adults now, or highly developed individuals that come fully loaded with frontal lobes that allow us to plan and make good decisions. The real goal becomes slowing down in the midst of the sexual-emotional storm of new love to gather our thoughts and proceed with a healthy caution.

Below, I will give you a few pieces of advice to help you control your anxiety and start a new relationship more cautiously.

Rule # 1: If you breathe the words “The One” in the first couple of months, odds are that you’re headed for trouble. Don’t even let yourself think this way. You need to relax and keep your expectations as realistic as possible – knowing full well how hard that is to do.

Rule # 2: Don’t jump into bed too quickly. For those of you (I’m guessing more than 95%) who aren’t waiting for marriage to consummate the relationship, don’t get horizontal until you’ve had, at least, several dates. Trust me: this way you’ll figure out how emotionally compatible you are before you let you sex and hormones take over.

Rule # 3: Your friends and family should not meet the person you’re dating until a solid month of dating – and dating with no red flags. If you’ve been dating a few weeks but have noticed some areas of concern, take an extra month to get to know your new love interest better so that you can figure out if he or she will truly make the grade.

Rule # 4: Use what mental health professionals call “self-talk” or what everyone else calls “mantras” to keep your eye on the bigger picture when the burgeoning intimacy makes you anxious. Tell yourself little things (either mentally or on notes you leave around your house) to soothe yourself, such as, "Focus on whether you like him, not whether he likes you," or "If it's meant to be, she'll call; if not, I'll have more energy to look for someone else."

No, relationships aren’t easy for anyone and the uncertainty of falling for someone is hard for everyone to manage. But slowing down and giving you time to sufficiently interview the person you’re interested in will be the best insurance policy you could invest in!

PLUS: Check out Dr. Seth's book, Dr. Seth's Love Prescription, today about how to stop repeating the same negative patterns in your romantic relationships today. (Click the book cover to the right to buy a copy today!)