Dating, Relationships & Social Distancing

How to handle dating and relationships during social distancing to keep the mystery, attraction and romance growing.

In this video coaching newsletter, I discuss four different emails from four different viewers who are in different dating and relationship situations impacted by social distancing. The four different emails deal with guys in all three of the most important pickup, dating and relationship phases, and the skills and techniques required to increase and maintain attraction.

How to keep the mystery and romance growing and getting better no matter whether you’re stuck together under the same roof or forced to live apart for an unknown period of time. My comments are in bold italics like this below in the bodies of their emails.

Let’s discuss dating apps. I live in Florida, and presently in my place in Orlando we’re quarantined. So, what do you do if you get a dating app match? I’ve personally had quite a bit of experience with this over the years, because I’ve dated a lot of women internationally and maintained relationships for multiple years with women that live in different countries. That presents unique challenges, because you literally go from living together, being together 24/7, to now you don’t see each other for a month or so. In the past, usually about 30-90 days is typically the time period I would go without seeing women that I was dating internationally, just based on different situations.

Obviously, when you’re together you’re spending a lot of time together. You’re sleeping together, you’re showering together, you’re waking up together, you’re going to lunch together, you’re going to dinner together, with the exception of when I would have to go off and do something for work. When I had an office to go to, I would be able go and do something that kind of creates that particular distance.

I this particular case, under normal circumstances when you have a match on a dating app, you’re going to probably talk on the phone, maybe FaceTime for a bit, see if you connect and then meet up for a drink. Typically, things go from there.

So, what do you do right now? All the bars and restaurants are closed, so you can’t do anything. You can’t physically get together. I know in some places around the world, you literally could be arrested if you’re out and not being quarantined. In some places, depending on how bad things are, you’ve got to deal with the authorities. So the next best thing to do — the dating app process is the same thing — the goal is to get them on the phone, ideally.

Especially now, you can FaceTime or do Skype video dating or maybe some of these other messaging apps that you want to do video conferencing with. The most common are typically going to be FaceTime or Skype. There are some apps where you can do group calling and stuff like that, video chats. What you’re going to want to do is you’re going to want to treat it just like a date. The only difference is you can’t physically be in person. So you want to be creative.

I was talking to a buddy of mine who just split up with a girl he’s been dating for several months. I pointed out to him that he had gotten himself in the habit of going over to her house and going, “Hey, what do you want to do tonight?” He literally abdicated responsibility in the leadership role. He went from inviting her to do things, to “hey, what do you want to do,” and leaving it up to her to decide. She typically would get bitchier, and that would create problems.

The reason she’s bitchy is because he’s not acting like the leader. These things can happen slowly over time. You’re on your game in the beginning, but when you’re living together or you’re staying at each other’s house all the time, people just naturally start to fall back into their old patterns.

So with online dating, you’re trying to get to know them a little bit, but you’re also trying to maintain the mystery and the interest, and you don’t want to be texting all day long back and forth. You still want to use the phone to set dates. The way you’re going to go about it is you’re going to do a video date.

I’ve had thousands of online dates at this point. For me, I’m typically using a desktop computer that has a webcam or my laptop. If you’re trying to use a phone and you’re holding it all the time, if you’re going to have dinner or do something where you don’t have your hands free, you can put it on a stand. I like using the laptop or a desktop, because typically we’re doing other things on the computer as well. We might start talking about something, and she might share a video or a song or something like that.

If we’re on a video date where we’re having wine together or tea, or having dinner together, it’s literally the same kind of thing you’d be doing on a date. It’s not like calling up randomly out of the blue like, hey, we’re just going to chit-chat for awhile. No. Treat it like the dating experience. All the same rules apply that I talk about in my book, “How To Be A 3% Man.” The goal is you want her to do 70%-80% of the talking, and you’re going to ask questions. And you want to plan these, especially if it’s someone you just met on an app. I wouldn’t do more than initially one date per week.

At some point, you’re going to be able to meet up for the first time and see each other. But right now, it was just announced yesterday that basically, at least in the United States, we’ve got another thirty days (until April 30th) to where we’re quarantined and we can’t go anywhere. So the goal is, say you’ve got 3-4 weeks, and you meet somebody today, you’re going to do one video date per week, and then by the time the four weeks have gone by and you had one date a week, you probably spent a couple of hours having conversation.

The idea is, when you make the invitation to get together, you’re going to say, “hey, let’s have dinner together,” or “let’s open up a bottle of wine together,” or “let’s have coffee together,” or whatever. You want to be doing the kinds of things that you would do if you’re out for out to dinner, out for drinks or whatever, but you’re doing it digitally, because you can’t physically be together in person. I would just simply do no more than one a week.

I know this from experience — especially when you’re dealing with long distance with a woman from another country, and you’re trying to decide whether or not to fly her to see you or to hop on a plane and go fly to see her — you want to make sure you jive really well. You want to make sure she’s reliable. If you set a Skype video date or a FaceTime video, does she show up on time? And how does it go?

If the conversation doesn’t flow on video, it’s certainly not going to flow any better in person. So, this will help you save time and obviously down the road, save money. You won’t have to waste any money taking this person out, because you can screen them and prequalify them by doing the online dating.

It’s exactly the same things I talk about in the book. The phone sets the date, and the date happens digitally. It’s not like, “hey, let’s just have a chat for a bit.” It’s like, “let’s have dinner together. Let’s have some wine, maybe have some dessert.” Obviously everybody, at least right now, has access to go get food and everything. So, if you care about the other person, you’re interested, and they care about and are interested in you, they will do these things along with you. And if they’re not, they won’t.

Be the first one in the interaction to say, “Hey, it was really great chatting with you. We’ll have to do this again soon. Talk to you later.” And if she starts texting or messaging you, plan again for the weekend. Now, the other thing you’ve got to keep in mind is that you’re also supposed to be doing this with your friends and your family members, because for the most part, we really can’t get together with other people right now.

I know the other thing that’s going to come up. Guys are going to be like, “What do I do when she’s like, ‘oh, you’re just home, you’re not working?'” Tell her, “Well, I’m working at home, but it’s not just you I’m talking to. I’m talking to my mom, my dad. I’m making time for my friends to catch up with them.” The normal lunches and dinners and get-togethers you would have with friends and family, now you’re having to do all that stuff online, so you should have a pretty busy social life. You’re just doing everything digitally.

It’s the same thing with dating. The only difference is, you’re not getting together in person. You’re going to see in a couple of these emails, the guys are fumbling the football a little bit, and they’re a little bit sloppy, because they’re like, “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know what’s next.“

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First Viewer’s Email:

Hi Corey,

Your work is fantastic and I appreciate everything you have done for me and others like me. You’re one of a kind!

With covid-19 and social distancing in effect for some time, I wonder if you could write a quick article to instruct us on how to keep the ball rolling with women we’ve met but can’t take on dates given the current situation.

Well, obviously if you’ve been dating and hooking up, you already shared your dna, so to speak, so I would continue to having her come over to visit. Hang out, have fun and hook up. But if you’re not going to, maybe you’ve got older members in your family, and you really can’t be getting together with other people — some of us are limiting bringing people into our ecosystems — so there are some considerations there we have to think about.

Is there any way to use texting to keep in touch and maintain or elevate interest, or is the only option to wait things out and resume dating when the world eventually returns to normal?

You’re not going to do it over texting. You’re not going to do it over the phone. You’re going to do it with video dating. Your videos are like dates. The same rules with the phone and texting apply. You’re just simply going to use the phone to make a date. I would say, “Let’s do a Skype video date. What’s your schedule? When are you available this week?”

I have four women that I met before the world was put on hold, and I’m trying to figure out if there’s anything I can do, or all us guys can do, to maintain the momentum. 

Any thoughts on this would be greatly appreciated as I’m sure your followers would jump all over it 🙂

Thanks very much Corey,

Bob

You can do it if you’re not getting together with older people. For me, I can’t really be getting together with a lot people I know and care about because a lot of them are older, so I don’t want to be spreading any cooties around if you know what I mean. So, you just have to bite the bullet and do it digitally until we can get together.

If you get into the same habits of texting and messaging on the phone 24/7, you’re going to have the same problem you would if you had met the girl and things were normal, and you talked and texted her out of liking you. It’s just not going to go well.

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Second Viewer’s Email:

Hi Corey,

Hope you’re doing well during these crazy times. Let me just say thank you for the work you’ve done and for providing access to your materials online.

Although I have only been following you for around two months now, I have been implementing what you teach and have already seen some great results. In particular, I met this girl around a month ago now that I have been dating ever since. From the moment we met we had a great connection, and on our first date she even told me so saying, “I feel like I have a strong connection with you,” and even “I never do stuff like this” when we were making out at the bar we went to. 

It’s nice when you really click with somebody. It makes it pretty easy and effortless. If they like you, they’re going to make an extra effort to make sure that you like them, because they’re seeking your approval as well, versus going on a date with a girl who really doesn’t give a damn and is really not into you, but she appreciates the free drinks and the free food.

Perhaps because she is somewhat structured, she made me wait until the third date to sleep with her, but the last two dates we’ve had a lot of fun. I had a sixth date planned for Friday, but because of the quarantine/social distancing orders and my concern for my the health of my family I thought it would be best to cancel.

I gave her a FaceTime call on Thursday and said I needed to cancel because of the coronavirus situation. But I also said “I like you, and under normal circumstances I would’ve liked to continue seeing you. Perhaps we can just FaceTime occasionally to stay in touch.” She understood, and we then had an hour-long FaceTime convo.

Yeah, that’s a fuck-up dude. I would not have said that because you’re basically like putting everything on pause. All you really needed to say was, “I need to cancel our physical date, because of the coronavirus. I’ve got older family members. Instead of getting together in person, let’s have a video date.” You could say, “Let’s get salmon and vegetables,” so she gets salmon and cooks the salmon, and you do the same thing. You have the same meal together. Have some planning where you plan out what you’re going to do together. Because you basically pressed the pause button or the stop button with what you communicated.

I’m not quite sure where to go from here. For one, I’m worried that I showed my cards a bit saying I would’ve liked to continue seeing her, even though I’m not sure how else I should’ve handled the situation.

Again, I just would have made a Skype or a FaceTime video date, and make it like a date, as if you’re going to pick her up and take her somewhere. Obviously, you each have to get your own food and wine, or whatever you’re going to be drinking.

I think I was doing a good job up until then of keeping my feelings unclear. Did I screw up?

Well, base it on the critique I just mentioned.

One of the other problems is that I have been following your advice and using texting only for setting definite dates. After a date, she has tended to reach out the next day thanking me and saying how much fun she had, and I will respond to set up another date at the end of the week – textbook. But how do I get her to keep reaching out to me/facilitate this shift to FaceTime dates, especially when she’s conditioned to not expect digital communication from me?

She’s a centered person and seemed as comfortable with radio silence during the week texting-wise as I did, but I am very interested in staying in contact with her and maintaining interest, so that I can meet up with her again after this is all over.

Thank you for your help.

Bob

Again, it’s the same process. Use the phone, make a video date, and make it an event. Make it an actual date. Because, like I talk about in the quote, if you care, you’ll take the time to get some food. If you care, you’ll take the time to get some wine. If you care, you’ll take the time to have some coffee, or tea, or dessert or whatever. Or maybe you’re just going to get together to eat dessert together.

The point is, you tell her these things in advance, as you’re planning the date. And then also, if she feels the same way, she’ll do these same things. If she shows up with no booze, no wine, no nothing, and you’re sitting there with a three course meal, then you know that she probably really didn’t give a shit about it, like “I’ll just talk to this guy and that’ll be it.” But if she cares, she’ll be like, “Yeah, let’s make this an experience. Let’s make this fun. Let’s co-create a great digital date together.” That’ is what you’re looking for.

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Now we’re going to talk about dating and being exclusive. How do you maintain the mystery if you live with your girlfriend? We’re going to talk about couples that don’t have kids.

So things to keep in mind, is when women are in love with you, they want your attention all the fucking time. I know in some places, parks are closed, and some places parks are open, but they want you to maintain social distance. So obviously, it’s nice to go out, get some sun, maybe go for a walk, you go for a run together.

Also, all the fucking gyms are closed, so everybody’s losing all their gains, so you cant go to the gym. If you’ve got weights at home, awesome for you. Going out and doing something together, riding bikes, going for a walk around the neighborhood — it depends on your area and what you’re still allowed to do or not. Anything you can do together.

If you’re living with somebody, go some place, shut the door and work on your work, because as a man, you still need to focus on your mission and your purpose in life. So that’s important. Also, like the video I did years ago called, “How To Communicate With Women Effectively,” that would be really good.

Here’s another thing that’s interesting about all this social distancing. Now you’ve got a lot of couples who didn’t necessarily spend a lot of time together, and now they’re spending a shit-ton of time together where both of them are home. So that’s creating a lot of problems, and a lot of people are recognizing “I don’t really like the relationship I’m in, I don’t like the person I’m in a relationship with, and I don’t like the person I’m living with.” They’re coming to that realization because they’re stuck together, which in the long run will be good, because if it doesn’t serve you or the other person, it’s going to dissolve anyway. But if you really, truly, genuinely care for one another and love one another, do fun dates in your house.

There’s a game I’ve talked about before called Vertellis. There’s a lot of card games, and they have a lot of great questions that you can ask — things you wouldn’t think of normally. But it’s nice, because you can use these cards, whether you’re doing online dating or at home, and make it a fun experience. If you’re home, don’t just order a pizza. Make a dinner together. Go and grill out together in your backyard.

Put some thought into the dinner and what you’re going to do, whether it’s a board game or one of these card games where you can ask questions to one another. Because at the end of the day, when human beings ask questions of each other, it communicates that we care, and it makes the other person feel rapport with us. Then, they’re naturally going to feel obligated to want to know more about us. So you’re going to have to do something to get together.

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Third Viewer’s Email:

Hey Coach, 

Thanks for everything you do. I’ve been a follower for several years, have read and listened to the book over a dozen times and am currently living with my girlfriend of two years. 

While I believe I have the fundamentals down and am still refreshing content when I can, I’m anticipating being quarantined (asked to work from home) with my girlfriend will present unique or exacerbated challenges in maintaining polarity, getting enough space, etc. 

Well, you’re still going to be the leader. You’re still going to come up with dating ideas. We all have Google maps. Maybe it’s a matter of just hopping in your car, driving around somewhere, and go to some secluded place and having a picnic on a lake. I know also, the beaches are closed here, so there’s not a lot of options outside.

If you’re the man, if you’re the leader, you have to come up with creative things you can do — board games, checkers, chess, Vertellis. If you’ve got kids, play some games with your kids, maybe video games. You’ve got to come up with fun things to do at home together with your girl, or you, your girl, and your kids.

But the important thing is, if you have kids, you absolutely must make time for each other. That means when your kids are in bed, you and your girl stay up and have some quiet time together. Maybe after the kids have gone to bed, you each have a glass of wine together and maybe a dessert, and just talk — just like a normal date. Because a lot of people that are in relationships that have kids often make the mistake of, they stop dating and courting each other.

I know you’re living together and everything’s about the kids, but you’ve got to make time for each other. The courtship never ends. A woman who’s happy, who’s in love with you and who cares about you is going to want to be around you all the time. And if you’re not seeing those things, then I would suggest you get back into “How To Be A 3% Man” — especially the “It’s All In The Numbers” chapter with the Attraction Level table. Go through it, and start looking at the actions your girlfriend or your wife is showing you and displaying. And based on that, you can take corrective action.

If you’re in a relationship and you’re living together, the best way to develop more intimacy is to actually sit down and take the time to talk to one another. You need one-on-one time. You can’t have kids screaming and running around the house when you’re trying to talk something out. You need to make time for the two of you to be together, even if you have to stay up late or you have to get up early. You have to figure something out. Otherwise, it’s going to have a negative impact on your relationship.

I anticipate understanding how to communicate effectively and leading in the relationship will be more paramount than ever right now, but I was curious if you had any pointers for us under these unique circumstances.  I’m confident we can get through this challenge just like any other.  

I wish nothing but health for you and yours. Thank you again for all you do. 

Bob 

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Fourth Viewer’s Email:

Corey,

Breaking no contact during COVID19.

Dude I want to check in on her.  But in the middle of no contact.  What do you think?

Thanks,

Bob

She ain’t checking in with you. She obviously doesn’t miss you. If you’re going through this, and you’ve got a girl (or girls) that you’re hoping to rekindle things with, you’re in not contact, and you haven’t heard from any of them… Because this is the time where women are going to want safety and security, especially if you’re like me who has a lot of guns and ammunition and likes to shoot. If you know how to handle your weapons and your girl knows that, she’s going to feel pretty protected. She’s going to feel safe around you.

So, if you’ve got all that going on, and yet you still haven’t heard from the ex, that should pretty much tell you that she really doesn’t care. You’re not the guy that she’s turning to. Therefore, since you’re not a priority in her life, don’t be a priority in hers. So no, you don’t break no contact. No contact means, you tried everything, you told her where you’re at. You want to work things out, she said no. You’ve got to say, “It’s been great. I wish you all the best. If you change your mind, definitely get in touch,” you walk away and you never look back. This guy is walking away, but now he’s looking back and wanting to run after her.

“When you care about someone, you do the little things to make them feel loved and appreciated. Taking the time to plan a date and come up with something fun to do shows that you care. Taking the initiative to plan a birthday party, anniversary celebration, a random get together or some other special event to celebrate someone, shows that you care. When we truly care for others, we do things through our actions that show we care. People who care about you show you through their actions. People who don’t, won’t.” ~ Coach Corey Wayne

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