Boring Date: Was It Me, or Was It Her?

How to know, if you were boring on a date, if it was her or if you simply didn’t have enough mutual chemistry and attraction.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss an email from a viewer who has been following me for almost ten years. Recently, he went on a date with a girl he met on Instagram who has several mutual friends in common. She was messaging him almost every day leading up to their date. However, she made other plans and told him she didn’t think the date was still on. She canceled her other plans, and then they met up. But the date didn’t go well, and she cut it short.

He asks if it was him or her who was responsible for the boring date and lack of chemistry. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

So I’ve got an email from a guy who he says he’s been following me for about 10 years, but he hasn’t quite read How To Be A 3% Man 10 to 15 times yet, so that’s obviously part of the problem. Because, as I go through his email, you’ll notice that he didn’t really vet this girl properly before he made a date with her. He met her on Instagram. As a matter of fact, she was friends with some mutual friends. So, I think part of his problem is he was assuming that he already had rapport and social proof, instead of creating it.

You can kind of see there’s some hesitancy the day of the date and some things that she did, and he just needs to clean up his game. Because the idea is, if you actually go out on a date with a woman, especially somebody that you’ve met online, you want to make sure that you’re going to have a good experience. And too many people make dates off of the matches, and then they meet up, the person doesn’t look like their pictures, they don’t really have any chemistry. They’re not fun to talk to, they’re boring. And then, if you’re at dinner or you’re having drinks, and you know within thirty seconds that you don’t really want to be there, and you feel like, “Well, I can’t just dip out. Let’s have a drink or two and see how this goes.” And then, you’re sitting there having a conversation with somebody that you don’t want to be having a conversation with, and vice versa.

So, the idea is to vet up front. Ideally, the best way is to meet women in person, because if the conversation flows well in person, and you’ve got a lot to talk about, you spend enough time creating rapport, they feel comfortable with you, you feel comfortable with them, especially if it’s in a social setting. How most normal people meet people they date is just in their normal daily lives. Maybe they’re out with friends. Maybe they’re at a friend’s party or a friend’s social gathering, and they meet somebody there. Those are the best type of chemistry and interactions you’re going to have, because you’re in your own social circle. Like attracts like. People that like the same things tend to like each other, versus some random person off the street or somebody that you meet on a dating app.

The idea is we want to improve the quality of your dating experiences, but you’ve got to vet people upfront, and this guy doesn’t sound like he did that. He just went off the fact that he thought she was attractive, didn’t spend any time on the phone with her, and so, he just made a lot of unnecessary mistakes that caused him, after the fact, to go, “What a waste of an evening.” And as a fifty-two year old dude, having wasted evenings is something you do when you don’t know any better. But you’ve got to learn, so I’m trying to help you guys avoid having to go through these things.

Viewer’s Email:

Hi Coach!

I can’t believe I’m finally sending you an email. I’ve been following you since I was in high school, 2013!

Damn, dude. I appreciate you sticking around all this time.

I remember following your book to the letter and I got one of my first dates! I even remember jumping up and down on my bed yelling, “IT WORKS, IT WORKS!”

I can totally picture that.

Fast forward almost 10 years later I have had an amazing dating experience, so much so, I almost settled down. But that is a story for another time. I have read your book countless times, not 15 but I think 8 or 9, not sure at this point.

Well, if you’ve been following me for ten years, you’ve only read it eight or nine times, and you’re not sure, and you’re writing me this particular email, part of your problem is you didn’t learn the fundamentals.

I would like to get your advice on a particular date I had. I want to know if it was me? Or was it her? 

Well, before I get into it, I’d say it’s failure to properly vet. You’ve got to do your research. If you’re in sales, like when I was in the mortgage and real estate business, we wanted to find out, do they have a job? Do they have money for a down payment? Do they have a good enough credit score to qualify for a loan? It’s that simple. If you’re missing one of the three, you ain’t buying anything.

And so, no matter how much you talk to them, you’re mostly wasting your time. Because some people, they don’t have credit, or they don’t make enough money, or they’ve got too much debt, or whatever. They’ve got to fix those things. And so, what we would do is we would tell people to go fix those things and get back to us. And 99% of them never did those things, and the 1% did. They would actually clean their credit up, pay their bills off. And then, when they got their stuff together, then they would come in and buy. But most people don’t.

Story:  I have a pretty active social life I meet all kinds of people here in Richmond. Being super extroverted and in my masculine core is also a good plus. I work out, I rock climb, and I’m currently pursing my masters in product innovation! I’m very happy with who I am and certain of myself. While on Instagram, I saw a girl I thought was gorgeous on one of my friends’ pages. I slid in her DMs and invited her out on a definite date with me.

So, just because you’ve got mutual friends, this is almost like a blind date with somebody you really don’t know. And I would say, part of his first mistake is assuming that he’s already going to have rapport and chemistry with her because they have a mutual friend on their Facebook. It could be somebody that he follows and she follows, and they don’t really know each other.

Each morning and afternoon she would continue to ask me questions such as, “Where are you getting your masters? What are some red flags you look for in a girl?” I would quickly tell her, “Let’s save it for when we meet on Thursday at 7:00 at such-and-such place. I’m super excited to talk more in person, beautiful.” She would whine and say, “You always say that! But okay!” and smile.

What I would have done, I would exchange phone numbers. Because I’ve done this a lot over the years, especially on Instagram. The first thing I always do, I’m going to give her a compliment and tell her exactly what I think about her. And then, I’ll invite her to join me for a video date. Because 99% of the time, especially with Instagram, they don’t live in the area. At least in my case, they’re literally out of the state or out of the country.

So, if you’re going to hop on a plane and fly to see somebody, you need to know what they look like, if you’ve got chemistry, if there’s enthusiasm, if you enjoy talking to them, if they enjoy talking to you. There’s got to be enthusiasm, and too many people ignore that. You want somebody that’s excited to be with you, not somebody that’s just kind of tolerating you and going, “Well, I guess this is better than sitting at home and looking at the four walls. I guess I’ll go out and do something.” Bad, bad way to go.

But you should always do a phone call. Especially if they’re not in the area and you’re going to have to travel a distance to see him, you better do a video date. If not, you’re just kind of stupid. I’m sorry. It’s just stupid to do that. You’re setting yourself up to have a bad time.

So, the day of our date comes, and I do not call to confirm! I drive to our date and I text her a meme saying, “Excited to see ya!” She was CONFUSED. She thought the date was cancelled, because I never told her I was on my way or texted her at all that day.

Well, you did send her a meme.

Mind you, I never texted her first at all! Ha! She says “Usually, guys text that they’re on their way. At least I just showered, took off my makeup and everything!” She then quickly FaceTimed me.

You should have done the FaceTiming before. So, when she’s asking you all those questions, I wouldn’t have set a date with her. I would have gone for a FaceTime date, “Hey, we should chat on FaceTime. Let’s do a FaceTime video date.” I say it just like that, “video date,” so it’s clear that my intentions are romantic, not platonic.

She tells me how nice my smile is and asks me what I’m wearing. I remained centered. I say to her with a smile, “You first,” as I stick a Skittle in my mouth, and she giggles. She starts apologizing about how she already invited friends over, but she’ll cancel on them to hang out! I told her, “How’s about this, I grab a bottle of wine and I come over, and we sit and talk and listen to some Miley Cyrus?”

Ooh, Miley Cyrus, how exciting.

She says that wouldn’t be a bad idea.

Again, you have no rapport, you’ve never talked to this girl, and now you are going straight to her house. It’s possible to pull that off if your game is tight. But when you have no rapport, you haven’t talked to a girl, and on top of that, she’s like, “Oh, are we still on?” But yet, she’s been texting you and messaging you every day up until the day of your date, that doesn’t make any sense. And the fact that she made plans with other people shows you really weren’t that high of a priority. So, she was just going to happily not show up, and blow you off, and stand you up. Again, because you didn’t properly vet.

I smile, and then she says, “Actually, you won’t kidnap me, will you?” I laugh and say no. This is where I think it went wrong. She starts thinking a little too long, then says, “Actually, let’s head to a bar I live nearby.” I agree and walk down to it from our original spot, (not good).

So, she’s changing the plans.

I enter and I see a girl seated at a table with her jacket still on. I come up to her, say “Hi,” and she didn’t even get up to give a hug. I had to extend my arms out and she sort of patted me on the back!

Oh, you can just see, that just sounds and looks awkward.

I think she was very nervous, which isn’t uncommon.

Yeah, you hadn’t met her. You really had no rapport, dude. You were not following what’s in the book.

We begin talking, and I’m a great conversationalist, but she told me how she’s boring.

Yeah. Again, this could have all been headed off ahead of time with a phone call or a FaceTime chat.

(Not the first time a girl has said that!) I ask for her story, and she doesn’t really communicate it. I ask her about red flags, she doesn’t really say anything.

Yeah, it sounds like she doesn’t really want to be there. Maybe when she saw you in person, she’s like, “Oh, I’m not really into that dude.”

I tell her my story, where I’m from, where I grew up, and she didn’t really seem interested.

Again, all you would have had do is spend a 10-15 minute phone call, 10-15 minutes on FaceTime video, or Skype video, or some other kind of video chatting app, a Zoom, call, whatever.

She laughed a few times, but not like most girls who are on dates with me do. We get a few drinks, and she says, “I have to get up early tomorrow. I don’t want to be abrupt!”

But she is, because she ain’t feeling it. Everything, from the moment he arrives, she ain’t feeling it.

I told her, “Sure, let’s call it a night.” We head back to her place, and I usually go for the kiss quite naturally, but instead she tried to give me a Christian side hug and then complimented my jacket and ran inside.

Yeah, she was like, “I want to get the hell out of here.”

Corey was it me?

Well, yeah, because you’re the leader. At the end of the day, you’re the man, you’re the guy driving the fun bus, and you let somebody who is basically an unknown person get on your fun bus. You’ve got to vet. You have to vet the people that you allow into your inner circle, especially like this.

Did I not give her the space to feel heard and understood? Did I step outside of my masculine somewhere during the date? Or was she just not ready for the night, and we should’ve canceled, and I should not have spoken to her again?

Well, again, if you’d had a FaceTime chat or talked in the phone for at least 10 or 15 minutes, you would have a pretty good feel for how the conversation would have gone in person – ideally, better with video, because then you see you can see her facial expressions. You can see if she’s excited to talk to you or not.

She mentioned how she doesn’t go on many dates, and she’s from a small town. How could I have turned this into a fun night of hanging out having fun and hooking up if the girl doesn’t seem to want to talk?

Again, you should have vetted her properly on the phone before making a date.

What part of the formula you’ve created have I missed?

You’ve got to vet.

Guess it’s time to re-read your book even more times.

You think?

She texted me in the morning saying how she had a great time, but I don’t believe that. Any help suffices!

Best,

Bob

Well, if you’re a glutton for punishment, (because she did reach out to you the next day), you could invite her to do something else. But do you really want to go out with a girl like that? I wouldn’t be excited about that. She could have apologized and said, “Hey, I was a little off last night. Sorry, my mind was somewhere else.” But I, personally, would not go out with her again. Chalk it up to a lesson learned.

So, if you’ve got a question or challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen and book a coaching session with yours truly.

“Boring dates with boring conversations are usually the result of a failure to properly vet dating prospects before making a date. If you meet someone online, you should have a phone call or, if possible, a video call to make sure there is plenty of chemistry, attraction and enthusiasm. If your conversation is not fun and exciting, there’s no point getting together for a date in person. Otherwise, you will waste time going out on dates with boring people, people you don’t like, people who don’t look like their pictures and people you have no chemistry or mutual attraction with. Failure to properly vet your dating prospects is like going out on blind dates arranged by total strangers who don’t know you.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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