OK, so I've got 3 dates this week, now what?

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The answer to disappointment is to go without desire and preconceptions, and enjoy whatever transpires.

As usual, you are absolutely correct, but it's easier said than done.

The real irony is that if I were actually capable of doing this, I might actually get a second date.

I wonder what you can do to prevent dating "stage fright"?

Obviously, the old cliche of "imagining the audience in their underwear" would be profoundly counter-productive in this case!

Aww good luck. I can easily understand why they'd be interested. You've made a lovely profile, that seems to be earnest and sincere. :} I hope you'll have a great time on your dates. Good luck finding that someone special.

Hi Grisha, my strategy on OKCupid has been to write my profile in a way that targets a specific group of women that would be compatible while at the same describing myself in a way to minimise false expectations. That way you would be less like to end up on a date with someone who is not compatible and thus increase the chances that it would lead to a second date. The trick is to do this in a way that doesn't seem too negative so as to scare away any potential dates either. Admittedly, this means that I get quite a lot less responses than you do because I'm more selective and it filters out women who looking for men who are more social, etc but they will be from women who women who are more compatible. Anyway, that was also the advice I got from my psychiatrist.

Good luck.

Actually, this is yet another occasion where I recommend meditation and/or Buddhist practice. Happy, relaxed, easy going people are attractive. An experienced meditator will be more protected from disappointments, more capable of being attentive to your date, more capable of relaxed repartee, projecting a relaxed warm, approachable vibe, less nervous pre and during date... I could probably go on, but I'm very conscious of the fact that I might come across like a recruiter for a cult

That's a pretty long term solution. But here's a quick one; give a little attention to your breath and consciously slow it down if you're getting stressed.

Last edited by Moog on 04 Dec 2010, 2:54 pm, edited 2 times in total.

I certainly agree with that strategy, but I'm kind of approaching it in a different way.

Conspiculously absent (to me, at least) from my profile are the "red flags" that automatically turn me off to someone elses profile: Nightclubs/dancing, watching sports, "lots of friends", and any variation on "I love booze" (including wine-tasting: ugggh, go get liquored-up in a pretentious way on someone else's time...)

In case they didn't get the point, I've found that it comes out very quickly after a few e-mails are exchanged, in the case of gold-diggers (the female equivalent of PUAs) I've even had to be a little blunt.

So rather than load up my profile with a bunch of negatives, I focus on the positive - I'm just trying to attract attention, not "close the deal".

Also, as a man you are expected to do most of the looking, none of the dates I've gotten so far have been people who contacted me first.

In short, I consider the profile to be a light preliminary screen to weed out the obviously incompatible and to attract interest from appropriate women, expecting more than that is probably trying to make it perform beyond its inherent limitations.

Maybe try lightening/loosening up your profile?

Love is way too complicated to reduce it to a set of fixed criteria, and it might help stir up some "business"...

Good luck!