Grow Your Game

I get so many questions from people asking me about the do’s and don’ts of a first date. While I am generally not a believer in hard and fast rules of dating “etiquette,” there ARE some things you should NEVER say or do on a first date . . . or on a second or third date for that matter either.

Below is a list of things you should never do and a list of things you should never talk about on a first date. Notably, every single one of these are things that were actually emailed to me by people who told me that these happened to them on a first date. Some of these are so good, in fact, I wish I could have made them up.

These are things you should NEVER talk about or say on a first date:
1. “I only wash my sheets every three weeks.”
2. “I’m looking for a woman who is just like my mother.”
3. “I am so broke that I had to borrow money to take you out tonight.”
4. Anything about your bowel movements
5. That you suffer from any form of Irritable Bowel Syndrome
6. The real reasons why your ex cheated on you and how you sucked sexually after two months.
7. How you tell your friends EVERYTHING.
8. Your credit card debt . . . and how you wish you could find someone to help you pay it off.
9. Your seven illegitimate children – wait, oops, you’re not Travis Henry!
10. Your addiction to children’s cough syrup
11. Your daily nighttime masturbation session in front of your computer watching youporn.com
12. How you love the smell of your dog’s paws.
13. Your gambling habit.
14. Your addiction to Internet dating . . . and how you’re always looking for the “bigger better deal.”
15. How everyone in the world has done you wrong
16. The trip you took to Asia . . . and how much you enjoyed the prostitutes there
17. Every ailment you’ve ever had
18. Any negative comment about the person across from whom you are sitting in the restaurant
19. Complaints about anyone you used to date.

These are things you should NEVER do on a first date:
1. Belch at the dinner table
2. Blow your nose into your napkin at the restaurant
3. Let a fart escape too close to the table as you get up . . . and then blame it on the waiter
4. Chew your food with your mouth open, and spit it into your napkin if you don’t like what you’re eating.
5. Get caught by your date masturbating in the restaurant bathroom
6. Hit on the waiter/waitress who is waiting on your table at the restaurant
7. Get up and leave the other person with the check
8. Talk on your cell phone during the date with another woman you’re dating
9. Text your friends a blow-by-blow description of how the date is going.
10. Order the most expensive thing on the menu – remember that this is a first date, not a last meal.
11. Eat six cloves of garlic then go in for a kiss
12. Walk out of the bathroom with toilet paper stuck to your shoe.

These are just a handful of things you should neither do or talk about on a first date. I probably have a thousand more of these sitting in my inbox . . . I just picked out some of the really good ones.

What are some of your favorite (or most memorable) things you’ve had a first date do or say that made you wonder “Does this person go home to the zoo?!” Share your stories with all of us!

The best place to meet women is on line. No, not online on match.com or on Yahoo! Personals . . . but rather while you’re waiting on a line.

We spend so much of our lives waiting on a line. We’re waiting for coffee. We’re waiting at the bank. We’re waiting at the grocery store. We’re always waiting on a line . . . sometimes for one minute and sometimes for two hours.

Do you talk to people while you’re waiting on a line? If the answer is no, then read on because what I’m about to tell you is one of the best time management tools you will ever learn.

As a matter of fact, Microsoft Outlook was thinking of adding this tool to their software for Blackberries. Alright maybe not . . . but you get my point.

The other night I was out with a large group of students doing a Bootcamp. We walked by this trendy Hollyweird nightclub. I looked at the line waiting to get in, and I asked my students:

DW: “What do you notice about what people are doing in that line . . .besides looking pissed off that they have to wait?”

S1: “No one is talking to each other.”

DW: “Exactly! No one is talking to each other while waiting on line to get into a bar or nightclub . . . waiting to get into a loud, crowded, place so they can potentially scream in each other’s ears.”

The best conversations you’re going to have are when you’re waiting on line to get into the bar. They will be far better than any you’ll have while you’re inside the bar.

To prove my point, we got on line there and we proceeded to have a conversation with the group in front of us and the group behind us. When it was time to enter the club, the doorman asked me how many we were, and I said that we were seven but that we wanted to wait on line for awhile before going inside.

As each group behind us got to where we were at the front of the line, we met a whole new group of people. By the time we left that line about twenty minutes later, we’d met and spoken with about forty people! In light of this, let me ask you a few questions:

· How many of you speak to forty people when you’re IN a nightclub?

· How many of you get phone numbers when you’re IN the nightclub?

· How many of you get people to text you as soon as they leave a nightclub to see where you’re hanging out and what line is cool right now?

These are just some of the things that happened to my students and I when we were waiting on line at a trendy Hollywood nightclub.

Since you’re able to speak about the obvious while you’re waiting on line, how silly is it to wait to get inside a loud club before you start talking to people? Whatever your approach is, when you speak to someone while you’re on line you can always state it with humor. You can always say something like:

“Aren’t we getting too old to hang out on line to get into a crowded nightclub? This is the best conversation we’re going to have all night. If we met in there, I’d have to scream in your ear.”

It doesn’t matter what you say. It’s stating the obvious.

I also told my students that if you like someone you meet on line, just close them with this:

Man: “Let’s exchange numbers. If the loud music gets on your nerves, text me and I’ll let you know where we’re at.”

What you’re doing here is playing the odds. Most women when they go to a nightclub think they’re going to have fun. After about an hour in the nightclub, however, most of them tend to get annoyed. So after about an hour and a half, what you do is text her.

You: “Are you ready to continue our conversation? I enjoyed speaking with you on line about [fill in the topic you were discussing].”

That’s it! Short. To the point. All my students did this, and it worked.

It’s called being different. It’s called seizing the moment.

In addition, when you send this text at this time, you’re most likely going to be texting her when she’s at her breaking point. She’ll remember what a great conversation she had with you while hanging out on line. She’ll already have fended off a slew of drunken horny men who had no rap. So what you’re doing is rescuing her from another 90 minutes of thump-thump music and drunken horny men.

It’s all about being different and taking chances. So the next time when someone asks you if you’ve tried online dating, you’re answer is going to be: “Not on the Internet . . . but on line at a club.”

This weekend, go hang out outside a bar . . . and don’t go inside. You’ll have far less competition and have far better conversations than you would have if you went in the place. Oh and by the way, you don’t need a cheesy picture for this form of “on line” dating.

This “on line” dating also goes for all the “on lines” in your life. This is not just for bars . . . this goes for any line on which you find yourself waiting. Welcome to David Wygant’s world of “on line” dating! Welcome to the www of your life.

Check out David Wygant’s online dating program here.

There is something in the air that seems to be going around everywhere from Michigan to Los Angeles. What is up with the men who come on really strong with the text messaging, but then once the hot, sexy action by the side of the car happens they become all indifferent? Two women that I’m friends with had the same experience this weekend.

One met a guy on the third of July, and immediately he was complimenting her on how sexy she is and how much he wants her. They spent the next seven days seducing each other via one, two and even four hour text sessions. This man was perfect in every way. He gave great text . . . but no phone call.

So finally they get together on Thursday night, and the date is hot. They connect on all levels. They head up to Inspiration Point which, by the way, is a Los Angeles landmark (and no . . . Fonzie, Richie Cunningham and the cast of Happy Days are still not hanging out there ). So they’re up on Inspiration Point on Mulholland Drive, on the edge of the car, drinking a bottle of wine, and having a very sexy evening. It seems to my female friend that they’re connecting on all levels.

So, during the course of the night, she says things to him like “Let’s do this again tomorrow night.” She’s being very present and very open to what’s going on between them. He then started coming up with excuses, like “I don’t know about tomorrow night” and “Let’s see . . .” This in turn should have alerted her that this magic text man was not as open as he appeared to be.

My friend texts him the very next day. He texts back, but every time she says “Let’s talk” or “Let’s hang,” he says “Maybe Later.”

Yes, men love the chase, but here’s a woman who says “Want to join me in my bed?” This man should have chased her ass immediately over to her bed! She was like a 7-11 . . . open 24 hours a day to all possibilities. She was also creating a lot of sexual and passionate momentum.

It’s now Monday, and he has not responded to her yet again. He’s what I call an “all text no talk momentum killer.”

In order to date, you need to be open like a 7-11 . . . 24/7, no games, no BS. This man is like a convenience store that closes at midnight. The bottom line here is that if you’re going to date and date successfully, it really doesn’t matter what the other person does. It’s all about you being present and open to everything that happens in the moment.

My other female friend had about the same situation. So from Michigan to Los Angeles, there seem to be a lot of women who are open, present and trying to create great possibilities. Unfortunately, there seem to be a lot of man-boys running around with no follow through. Neither one of these women did anything they shouldn’t have done.

And guys, both these women are sexy, successful, and an amazing catch. Would you like to know their phone numbers? I’ll only give them out if you have follow-through . . .

Here’s something really interesting. I was talking to a friend of mine tonight, and I realized that men are always looking for Candy Land. Let’s break down exactly what I mean by that.

Men are always looking for women who play certain types of roles. Certain men are attracted to women who dress a little sluttier. Certain men are attracted to women who dress more conservatively. Some men like women with tall, skinny bodies. Others like women with round, bigger bodies.

But every woman signifies Candy Land in some man’s mind, because men look at women like candy. They like to look at women, they like to stare at women, and they like to admire women. So women who understand the art of flirting, understand that in order to meet a man, they have to bring men into Candy Land. They have to dress a certain role and a certain part.

If you’re a man who likes conservative looking women, you have to dress the role. It’s really important to dress the role of the person you’re trying to attract. But that’s only part of it. If you’re dressing a certain role, you’re going to attract a certain type of person.

You also have to become that role, which means the way you dress has to reflect who you really are. If you’re trying to be a rocker dude, and you’re really not into the whole rocker scene, then wearing those clothes just because you think these kind of guys get all the action, is just not you.

You have to find out who you are first. You have to figure out who you are and what you’re all about. After you’ve done that, then you have to figure out what type of image you’re going to project, so you can figure out who you’re going to attract.

Attraction for women is just as visual as it is for men. Women will look at you and they’ll envision what you’re all about. They’ll think about who you might be. They might be trying to see what your vibe is . . . they might see how confident you are as you walk across the room, or they’ll look at you and look at the way your body moves. Women will be watching you, looking at you, and summing you up to see whether or not they want to talk to you.

So . . .

The way you dress is step 1

The way you walk is step 2

The way you project positive energy is step 3

The way you react and talk to other people is step 4

Once you’ve worked on all of this inner stuff, step 5 is walking over with authority and striking up a conversation based on something that’s of strength, i.e., based on something that’s actually happening in the moment.

If you’re a man, and you want women to notice you in Candy Land, you need to basically play a role too. You need to become the man you’ve always wanted to become . .. And you can’t do that from pick-up lines or memorizing routines. The only way to do that is to embrace who you are, be proud of who you are, and don’t play any games.

One of the biggest problems people have when it comes to approaching someone they’re attracted to is actually overcoming the fear of the initial approach. I suspect every single man on the planet with very few exceptions has at some time felt the familiar fear associated with the idea of approaching a girl they’re attracted to.

Perhaps they’ve spotted her on a train, perhaps it was simply in passing down the street like the girl in the red dress in the movie Matrix. Whatever the situation was the symptoms were the same. Sweating, blushing, the fear of being judged negatively some people will actively search for signs of disapproval in others convincing them that they shouldn’t bother speaking at all, either way most people end up deciding to avoid the situation altogether and move on with their life. They leave the situation as a chance meeting that was never meant to happen. It registered as a blip on their life a small fraction of time, an event that has passed with no more meaning than the next one or the one after that. Each of which of course will be treated in exactly the same way.

These symptoms are what many people within the field of dating refer to as “ Approach Anxiety”, though they were not defined by dating and seduction experts. The roots of Anxiety and it’s symptoms where defined a lot earlier in our history by the psychological community at large including such greats as Sigmund Freud himself.

What we’re going to look at is the symptoms of Approach anxiety and then hopefully the possible solutions enabling you to approach anyone you want at any time.

Anxiety is a state which affects us on a psychological and physiological level. It’s symptoms include a number of different components including perceptual or cognitive components, physical components and even behavioural components. What this means is that we can not only use proven psychological methods to identify the state of anxiety but we can also use the proven solutions to remove it as well, enabling us the confidence to approach anyone we want at any time.

First, lets look a little bit more at anxiety itself. Anxiety is far from an unusual state to us as humans. In fact anxiety is a very normal reaction to stress it is designed to help us observe and deal with difficult situations. Amongst other things the state sends a burst of adrenaline to us to help us cope with the problems. However anxiety often becomes excessive, and rather than giving us the skills to handle the problem it can instead prevent us from even attempting to solve the problem. As soon as an anxiety affects our ability to make action. It becomes known as a phobia. In the case we are specifically looking at, if it were to prevent us from actually approaching someone we were attracted to then it would fall in the category of being a phobia.

Anxiety over meeting or interacting with people whom we do not yet know is a very common stage of development in humans. In fact in infants it is a very normal part of growth and is known as stranger anxiety, symptoms vary but a typical part of growing up. Sometimes this fear can persist into adulthood and then it can develop into social anxiety or even a social phobia. In adults excessive fear of others which inhibits the ability to interact with strangers is called social anxiety.

Social anxiety disorder or social phobia as it is often referred to is an fear of negative public opinion about oneself or a fear of public embarrassment. The fear is often associated with all social interactions however in a good deal of cases it can be specific to certain situations for example the idea of approaching someone you’re attracted to in the street. The experience of social anxiety is characterized by physical components such as sweating or blushing, perceptual components such as the belief that one might be judged in a negative way or perceiving signs of disapproval and finally behavioral components by simply avoiding a situation.

Clinical psychologists and researchers continue to this day to define the problems and definitions of shyness, social anxiety and it’s related assortment of phobias and problems. Many share similarities though also have distinct differences which causes difficulties in defining them. Esspecially the difference between anxiety and the positive feeling of anticipation. However for our purposes thankfully we don’t have to look too deeply into the categorization, what we’ve been concerned with is identifying whether we are suffering from “approach anxiety” the fear of approaching and then looking at the possible remedy’s to remove it and enable us to approach people we’re attracted to at any time.

So if you’ve been reading this and the symptoms do sound similar to those listed above and you have decided that when you see someone you’re attracted to you often do feel unable to approach whatever the reason may be, it may be useful to look at the possible solutions to social anxiety as a means to overcome the problem.

There are a number of different methods to remove anxieties. These range from exposing the subject to their fear directly right through to some more experimental methods of hypnosis. Many psychologists agree, that one of the best ways to remove an anxiety or phobia is by a type of behavioural therapy known as Systematic Desensitization. This type of therapy has its roots in pavlovian therapy or classical conditioning and was developed by a South African psychiatrist by the name of Joseph Wolpe.

This method is essentially a two part therapy. The first part involves teaching the subject relaxation skills so that they can control their fear and anxiety responses. These Can take the part of breathing excersises or focus games. Something you can try is to simply regulate your breathing to match a slow count of ten. By taking slow concentrated breaths and monitoring your own breathing patterns whilst exposing yourself to a fearful situation you can begin to slowly relax, even in the midst of a phobia.

However this technique does only work for mild exposure to a fearful stimulus. This is where the clever part comes in.

The second half of the therapy involves exposing the subject to fearful situations with an ever increasing hierarchy of fear. Starting by exposing them to the smallest fear stimulus and then slowly escalating it until they are ready to face their fear in full! The question still remains however, how can you use this method to help you overcome your fear of speaking to someone you’re attracted to?

There’s a simple five step method I’ve identified to guide you through the process:

Accept
Exercise
Identify
Overcome
Understand

Accept

Accept you have a fear. You realise that you want to improve yourself and do something to help you meet your ideal partner. You have a fear whatever it is and you’re looking to get over it. Buying this book is the first step towards wanting to do something, but it doesn’t mean anything if you aren’t willing to action the processes you’re learning. In this way Accept could also translate into action. As you need to actually do the things you accept you want to change.

Exercise

Develop an exercise to help you get over your fears. Focus your mind on your breathing, take a long slow count of ten while slowly and steadily breathing in and out. Concentrate on your own breathing, he sounds of your breath and the motion of your lungs instead of the fearful situation to hand. This will give you something to help you focus when you’re exposed to a fearful situation.

Identify

Identify your specific phobia or anxiety. What situation scares you the most? Meeting a stranger online? Talking to someone in your current social life? Whatever scares you the most identify the problem and then take steps to designing the best way to gently expose yourself to the fearful situations. For example lets say your fear is approaching in a coffee shop. You want to start by choosing the least fearful situation imaginable.

So perhaps begin by triggering a longer conversation with the shop worker. After this you can move on to perhaps talking to an older person in the same line as you. Then you can move on to talking to someone of the same sex. Eventualy you will move on to someone who you’re not attracted to of the same sex, until finally you’re speaking to someone you are attracted to of the opposite sex. Even if initially the entire conversation only lasts 10 seconds. Eventaully you will work it up until you’re incredibly comfortable talking to people in any coffee shop anytime.

Overcome

Once you’ve managed to build up the fearful situations to a point where you feel you can’t take it much further simple rely on focusing on your breathing instead of the situation at hand, until you realise that you actually can’t be hurt in the situation. Once you make this realisation you should find yourself calming down. Then you can begin to push things further again. You should be able to repeat this process for any of your fears to be able to overcome all of them.

Understand

Finally you should come to the realisation that fears truly are just that. Fears. None of them are actually dangerous enough to hurt you. And beside the odd bruised ego. You should come through every situation completely fine. Esspecially if you follow the advice in this book on how to approach someone you’ve never met before in the correct way. Eventually you should come to the understanding that situations similar to those you’ve already encountered aren’t to be feared and your phobias and anxietys will be a thing of the past allowing you to continue developing your social skills.

The second approach to remove anxiety is a little more drastic.

It is commonly known as flooding, the best way to explain it would be a comparison to the previous method. If you were attempting to overcome a fear of spiders then systematic desensitization would take the form of slow exposure to pictures of spiders, then eventually moving images until eventually you became so comfortable around the images that you were capable of holding a real spider and eventually you would get over your fear.

Flooding would involve throwing you into a bathtub full of spiders, and when you eventually calmed down due to your body becoming exhausted from the fear you would find that the fear disappeared as you observed that mere exposure to the spiders hadn’t actually caused you any permanent harm.

Right now I’m sure you’re thinking that being thrown into a bathtub full of members of the opposite sex doesn’t sound that bad. However unfortunately for the majority of you reading this you don’t actually have a fear of the opposite sex. Your fear is rather one of approaching them. So in that case the “flooding” solution would in fact be to make the approach so unbelievably uncomfortable that once you did it and realised nothing bad happened, doing it normally would be a walk in the park.

In the past I’ve made students wear funny costumes, speak in funny accents, and even begin the conversation using expletives. Though I’ve found the best way is to just wander up to someone and ask for their hand in marriage. It’s a scary situation enough, incredibly awkward but socially acceptable enough to not give you too much trouble with passers by who may over hear. The other benefit of doing this is that if the person says yes, you’ve saved yourself the trouble of having to move on to the next person, and you can finish your quest there after the one approach!

Whichever method you choose to use remember that your chances of success are zero unless you actually begin the conversation, so get over that fear, go out there and start getting the girls you want!

Yesterday I received about 200 emails from people who saw an article I wrote for Yahoo! Personals, and they asked me “Why does everyone on the Internet seem to be 29 or 39 or ‘fit and trim,’ yet when I walk around I can’t find all these young, fit and trim people?”

There was a survey done a couple of years ago that said that the majority of people dating online are 39. The number one problem on the Internet is that people who are 45 say they’re 43. People who are 41 say they’re 39. Because when people search on the Internet, they tend to search in such tight age parameters that they decide to deduct a few years.

Then there’s another group of people who deduct a few pounds. They’re like a boxer in a heavyweight division, but they really want to fight a welterweight like Sugar Ray Leonard . . . so they drop a few classes. The problem is, when Sugar Ray Leonard shows up for the date, he says “I’m not fighting this person . . . You’re a heavyweight and you’re going to kick my ass!”

Not only that, every single person I talk to says they don’t look their age. What age do you look? I was on the phone the other day with a 55 year old woman who said she doesn’t look her age, but when I see her . . . I see age 55. If 50 is the new 40 and 40 is the new 30, then what is 10 . . . the new 1? And is 0 the new -10?!

In today’s society, there seem to be a run of people classifying themselves as something they’re not. People classifying themselves as “athletic and toned” don’t work out and haven’t since high school. This doesn’t qualify as “athletic and toned.”

The only people who tend to tell the truth online are the ones who describe themselves as “curvy” and “voluptuous,” because they know who they are and they don’t want to misrepresent themselves. On the other hand, it seems like the women who are 10-15 pounds over their ideal weight describe themselves as “hard bodies.”

I have no issues with people who want to better themselves and emphasize their strengths. But if you lie about your age, weight and serial number, you will get exposed when the person you meet is expecting someone different from you to show up to your first date.

Don’t forget you want to be the prize inside the box of Captain Crunch . . . and not be Captain Crunch. You also don’t want to show up on the date with someone who says they’re “athletic and toned,” when their body in truth is more like Frankenberry.

You can’t convince someone to like you based upon what you want to look like or the age you want to be. Bottom line: If you desire deeper connections with people, you need to immediately do these five things to your online profile:

1. List your real age.

2. Post current pictures that show what you really look like (whether you’re bald, chunky, overweight, underweight, or whatever else . . . it’s who you are!)

3. Check off the right body type. They will find out . . . so why lie?

4. Increase the age range of the people you’re searching for by two years. You may meet a few people out of your age range, but . . . you never know what will happen!

5. Write a good profile so people get a sense of who you are of the entire package (not just the physical side of you).

As my lawyer says, misrepresentation without representation will lead to trouble. And if you’re looking for a good lawyer, I know of a few. If you’re looking for a good online profile, I know the man who can write you one.

One last thing .. . embrace who you are. Everybody has plenty of people who are attracted to the exact person they are. You don’t have to be a certain type. There are plenty of people looking for your type.