A nerds guide to healthy dating

Disclaimer: this blog is usually about debunking singularity nerds. This is not a typical article, nor is it my area of expertise.

Introduction

This is a dating guide primarily aimed at men seeking happy, healthy, monogamous long term relationships with women. This should not be a rare thing, but it is baffling how much of this space is dominated by grifters and weirdos that seem to despise the opposite gender. I am not like those people. I like women, I enjoy their company, and I love my long-term girlfriend. If you think woman aren’t worth treating like people, you can kindly fuck off somewhere else. I think there is a large amount of people out there who are aspire to be good, healthy partners, but still struggle with dating for one reason or another. This guide is for you.

I do not pretend to be an expert here. I’m a socially anxious, nerdy guy of average attractiveness. I have only had a handful of relationships and sexual partners before I met my current partner, and I was completely lacking in romance for many years. But I did successfully go from someone who was struggling with dating to someone in a happy relationship with a very good partner, and that’s gotta count for something. A lot of the lessons in this document I learned the hard way, and I hope that it helps more people like me avoid making the same mistakes.

There is never going to be a one-size fits all approach that works for all 8 billion people on the planet. Women and men are individual people who have different personalities, beliefs and preferences. This doesn’t mean there aren’t some commonalities to take into account, but there is basically zero things you can say that will apply to every single person of your desired gender. I will not be giving you a universal formula that works for anyone: I will tell you what has worked and what hasn’t worked for me and people I know and have talked to. Nothing is ever guaranteed: but you can reliably increase the odds of a happy outcome.

Dating customs are also heavily affected by cultural factors. What’s seen as kind and desirable in one culture may be seen as rude and gross in another. So keep in mind that I am writing from the perspective of a white heterosexual westerner in a first world nation, and if you don’t match that description, you need to take those differences into account. I apologise in advance to the lonely women out there that this post will assume the reader is a lonely man: while a lot of the advice will apply to both genders, I have only experienced dating as a man.

Before I start with the advice proper, I have to point out two important things about dating: that it’s okay to be single, and that there is a heavy luck component to everything.

Being single does not make you unworthy

Relationships are a two person affair, and that means that half the equation is always outside of your control. You can never force someone to love you, and you can never force yourself to love someone else. There is no set of rules or guidelines that will guarantee you romantic success, it will always be part luck. Many factors are out of your hands, such as your initial socio-economic status and sexual orientation. The first step to dating successfully is to accept that you might never succeed, and that this is not the worst fate in the world.

It’s important that your self worth not be entirely tied up in your relationship status. Being single or sexless does not make you an unworthy or bad person, and it’s entirely possible to have a long, happy and fulfilling life without romance or sex. It’s okay to want those experiences, and to be sad about not having them, but life is finite, and there are a lot of things you can enjoy that are entirely in your control. A happy single life is much preferable to a miserable relationship. And ironically, learning to be self-reliant, self-confident and happy as a single person tends to make you a more attractive partner if and when you do try and date.

The truth is that you will never experience every great thing it is possible to experience. I’m probably never going to climb Mount Everest, or dine at the most expensive restaurant in new york, or experience being the king of a country, or walk on the moon.

Walking on the moon sounds like an incredible, awe inspiring experience. The astronauts who did so did a great thing and worked hard for it. Maybe I’m sad that I will never have this experience. Maybe I’m envious of the people who have. But not having this experience does not make me a bad or unworthy person, and it does not doom me to misery. My life has been full of fantastic experiences of my own, and it does not deserve to be dismissed because I have not walked on the moon. And I don’t resent the people that have walked on the moon, or even think they are inherently superior people to me (although I do admire them). I’m happy for them, and I hope I will get to do awesome things of my own, that may not be as newsworthy but will be no less valuable to me, personally. And if you are one of the unlucky people who never experiences a romantic relationship, well, that doesn’t make your life meaningless either. Isaac Newton likely died a virgin, and he was one of the most important men in history.

Unfortunately, there is a ton of societal pressure and stigma that paints virgins and the unpartnered as failures, which encourages desperation, which in turns diminishes your romantic chances. This makes you easy prey for bad actors: scammers will try to sell you fad diets or penis enlargement pills, promising you that if only you buy their stuff, you will suddenly get laid. Extremists in the manosphere will try to radicalize you and tell you that misogyny is the answer, either to dominate and control women or to accept your unlovability and blame women for it. All these vultures thrive on your misery and rage, and are incentivized to keep you stewing in it. Andrew Tate is out there trying to make men feel bad for having a good nights sleep, is this the type of life you want to live?

The good news for the romanceless is that getting a relationship is a lot easier than landing on the moon. Most people end up in long term relationships, and a majority of those relationships are happy. Often people will get the impression from tv shows that everyone out there is constantly going on one night stands every weekend, but the average person only has something around 4-10 sexual partners over their entire life. Being a late bloomer is no death sentence: intentionally trying to be a good partner is far more important than relationship experience. You can be happy without one, but I think most people should still try. Relationships are great, and it’s generally worth the hassle in the end.

The role of luck

In the US, according to this survey, only 31% of adults are single, and of those only about half are actively looking for a relationship:

From Pew research centre

So before you know anything at all about a women, there is already a baseline 85% chance she is not available as a romantic prospect. And of the 15% remaining, there are a ton that will be incompatible with you for other reasons, such as a lack of mutual attraction, incompatible life goals or worldviews, etc.

So the chance of any random person you see being a compatible romantic partner is permanently low. But that doesn’t mean you’re doomed. Even if you are only compatible with 1 out of every thousand women, and you’re a man attracted to women in a city of 1 million, there are still 500 women in your city that are compatible with you, and you just have to find one of them. And since equal numbers of men and women are usually single (at least in the west), they are looking for you too.

There is no magic button that will alert these people to your presence. You have to find each other. And you can’t magically know who is compatible with you, either, without properly getting to know them. You have to keep rolling the dice until you strike it rich.

But you can make the process easier: by making yourself more appealing as a partner, by increasing the opportunities you have for meeting compatible people, and by being a good date and partner when you have the opportunity. You can’t eliminate luck entirely, but you can improve your odds.

Part 1: Becoming an appealing partner:

First, there is no universal scale of attractiveness. One of the key problems with incel thinking is that they give everyone numerical attractiveness ratings, and assume that those ratings are fixed. You are a 4, and you will always be a 4, and this is an Objective Fact about you. It’s like something out of a dystopian novel.

In reality, there is no universal scale. You can say that, say, on average, shorter hair on men is perceived as more attractive. But I have a friend that was obsessed with longer hair, and would only date guys with long hair, and now has a long-haired long-term boyfriend. If her partner had gone for short hair like average, the two might never had gotten together. Maybe he was a 6/10 for society, but he was a 10/10 for her.

Every decision you make about how you present yourself is a tradeoff, that will make you more attractive to some women, but less attractive to others. This is why authenticity is important: if you try to present yourself like a stereotypical frat jock, you will attract the type of person who are into stereotypical frat jocks, which may not be the type of person you are actually interested in. And once you’ve landed them, are you going to act like a jock for the entire rest of your life? People are usually not very receptive to 180 personality shifts: pretending to be someone completely different is a recipe for heartbreak and resentment down the line.

So does this mean that this whole section is useless? Well no. Because while it’s impossible to be attractive to everybody, it’s still possible to be more attractive to more people, and specifically to the type of partner you are trying to attract. Some of these are things that you may have no control over, like height. Some things you do have control over, like your fashion. Some things you can change, but doing so is very expensive or time consuming, like getting physically fit.

Things you can’t change:

Examples of things you can’t change include your height, your race, your facial structure, neurodivergence, or mental health issues.

A standard flaw in incel logic is to fixate on unchangeable aspects that are perceived as less attractive, and declaring that that makes them undateable. This is easily debunked by going outside and looking at couples, and noticing that, for example, plenty of short guys and guys with weird looking faces are coupled up, often with women that are more conventionally attractive than them.

One of the things that leads to this is when people see online engagement farming statements like “I’d never date someone under 6’4 ”. If this was what the typical woman actually believed, humanity would die out, because only 1% of men meet this criteria. Chill out and let these people pursue their poor dating strategy in peace. Roughly 70% of adults in the US have a partner: Statistically, it is literally impossible for all of these guys to be over average height.

I think humans in general are bad at distinguishing between things that disadvantage you, and things that doom you. Balding men definitely are seen as less attractive in general, but I have a friend who went fully bald at 25 and they observed that their success with women increased markedly. And remember you only have to get lucky once: maybe a balding man will have to spend another year or two longer looking for a partner than a man with hair does, but they both still end up in the same place.

Attractiveness is a function of a lot of different properties. Think about all the people you are attracted to. Is literally every subset of characteristics they have conventionally attractive? Of course not. You are attracted to a person as a whole, not one single aspect of them. And for the record, I am both short and balding, and I have had several relationships and plenty of interest from women over the years.

The best approach to things you can’t change should be to ignore them, and focus on things you can. You can throw out a joke or two about it if you want, but don’t go overboard.

Things you can change:

There are actually a lot of ways that you can make yourself more attractive to the average person that can be done relatively quickly. I think the principle of most of them is to make it look like you are confident in your skin and capable of taking care of yourself. That means being conscious about what you want to look like.

So for example, if you are a man, choose a shape for your facial hair (or not to have any), and then shave regularly to maintain that shape. There’s plenty of guides out there if you google for them. If you want short hair, get a haircut every couple of months.

And yes, this also means you have to think about fashion. The good thing about fashion is that there is no official fashion that you must adhere to. There are a nigh infinite amount of different styles out there that you can choose from, and you should find one that fits with your personality and that you feel comfortable with. If you’re main interests are skating and smoking weed, then wearing an expensive suit will probably not be in your comfort zone, but the skating scene has it’s own fashion that you can try out.

Within a chosen style, certain things will be aesthetically more pleasing on average. There are colours that just look terrible together and should be avoided. Wear clothes that fit you. Go to r/malefashionadvice and look for fits that seem good to you. Ask a friend to assess your wardrobe. Don’t worry too much about following the yearly trends unless you’re trying to be a model, you just need to look put-together and intentional.

Also, for the love of god, be clean, shower regularly and wear deodorant. Remember that in a relationship, someone will be spending hours with you and eventually living with you full time. They don’t want to spend that time stinking the place up.

You should try regularly do some form of physical exercise. If you don’t enjoy the gym, there are plenty of other things you can try, like hiking, running, cycling, Bouldering/climbing, etc. This will make you more healthy, build up self confidence, and make you physically feel better.

If you can’t do all of these things, don’t beat yourself up over it. Remember, attractiveness is about the whole, nobody is perfect in every way, and plenty of people who are unfit or have bad fashion still end up with partners.

Things you can change, but it takes fucking ages

I think it’s probably true that being more muscular make you on average more attractive to women. But becoming buff is a lot of work, and compared to the things in the previous section, will only marginally increase your chances of finding a partner. For example, I’ve seen women say they prefer a “dad bod” and worry that a muscular man is a sign of being an unfaithful “player”.

Does this mean that getting buff is a waste of time? Not at all. Getting buff doesn’t only affect your physical attractiveness, it also does other stuff as well. You might feel more self-confident and comfortable with your body. The exercise you do will benefit you healthwise and make you feel better overall. You might enjoy going to the gym and make social connections there.

The key question to ask when considering whether to get buff is: “if it turned out that this had zero effect on my attractiveness, would I feel like I’d wasted my time”? If you find the gym to be boring and tedious and are blasé about having muscles, then the answer is no and you should probably do something else with your time. But if you’re like, the gym is fun, I like my bod, and I’m getting a lot of kudos from the bro’s, then whatever! It’s okay to have “being attractive” as a motivation to do something, but don’t go nuts with it.

Other things I’d classify here is things like losing weight (downright impossible for some people), managing your mental health disorders, and improving your social skills. This also applies to things like getting a good job, learning how to cook and clean, learning to manage your finances, etc. All of this is tough, all of it will increase your compatibility with romantic partners, and all of it will be useful for your own wellbeing even without a partner. Try to be financially secure, in a good place with your mental health, have good exercise and diet habits, have interests and hobbies, be able to socialize well, and be responsible and independent. You don’t need to have this all figured out before you start dating, but someone working towards these goals will always be more appealing.

How to have an attractive personality

Talking is the vast majority of what people do on dates. And for good reason: when you have a partner, that is the person you will spend the most time talking to over your lifetime. So it’s vitally important that you learn how to hold a conversation. You don’t have to be the worlds most charming person, but someone should be able to discuss their day with you without getting actively irritated.

If you struggle with this you should look up online guides for social skills. In general for a conversation you want to be able to flow from topic to topic, and jump in on things people mention and explore them. Both you and your partner should be opening up about interesting things: don’t be afraid to both offer up stories and to ask questions.

Confidence is consistently rated as an important trait for attractiveness, such as on this survey. This means that it’s always a good idea to work on your self-esteem and self-worth: think about all the good qualities you have and can offer to a partner. Remember that rejection is not necessarily a reflection on who you are: most people are not romantically incompatible.

Confidence is related to the two tips put forward by Manson in the book models: be vulnerable but not needy. Be unashamed to put your beliefs and interests out there. If you’re the yo-yo champion of your city, don’t be like “oh, it’s a stupid hobby, but I can do this yo-yo thing, it’s dumb”. Even if they don’t like yo-yo, a healthy person will think it’s cool that you have passions and skills. And if does act rude and dismissively about your cool hobby, or if they have a weird hangup about it, that’s their problem, and it’s better to find out early. If you have to hide your personality or be ashamed of yourself to be with someone, you will be miserable. Of course, this doesn’t mean being a dick or dominating the conversation.

Be a kind person. Imagine you’re on a date and you just act like a total prick to the waiter in order to get a free drink. This is an “assertive display of dominance”. Universally, the women I know will also write you off as a prick and not go on a second date with you. All over the internet rudeness to others is listed as one of the number 1 turnoffs in a partner. Now, humans are variable, so there may be people who are really attracted by you being a dick to service workers: these people suck, and you will be miserable if you date them. If you want a kind girlfriend, be a kind boyfriend.

Humour is also important: you don’t have to be the funniest person on the planet, but being able to make a partner laugh tends to make them like you.

Lastly, if you want to be romantic with someone, you should learn to flirt, ie to subtly hint interest in someone in order to raise a bit of sexual tension. I’ll write more on this in part 4.

Part 2: Developing a friend circle and social hobbies:

Yes, I know this is a dating guide. But I often see people asking for dating advice, and then casually dropping in that they have zero friends and don’t do anything but sit at home and watch anime all day. These people do not have their priorities in order.

If your ultimate goal is to find a partner, then having friends helps a lot with this goal. One of the most common ways people meet their partners is through mutual friends (this is how I met my GF). They let you practice social skills and learn how to make jokes and be entertaining. They can take pictures for your dating app, and help buzz up your profile. If you get rejected, they can have you around for beers or boardgames, cheer you up and take the sting out of it.

But even if they don’t help you find a partner, they still alleviate the loneliness, they still make you happy, they still take care of you when you’ve had a hard time. Friends are some of the best parts of life, and they are way easier to make than romantic partners.

So how does one make friends, especially once you’re out of school?

I think this is a nice guide, but I’ll give my own guide as well.

Friendship making is actually a little similar to dating, in that everybody is their own individual, and not everybody is compatible with being friends with you. You can’t guarantee someone will want to be friends, but you can create opportunities to make friends. Fortunately the requirements for being friends is much lower than for dating, so it’s usually a much easier task.

The primary key for forming friends is repeated exposure and interaction. This is why most people found it easy to make friends in school: you see the same people every day, and if you’re in the same classroom you’ll often have reasons to interact with them as well. As you get exposed to your fellow classmates, you start talking and talking and talking, and eventually share bonds and become friends, sometimes for life. And this type of situation will continue into adulthood with your university classmates, your neighbors, and your coworkers, who are often all prime candidates for friendship.

However, the downside to high school is that the only thing you have in common with the people around you is that you go to the same school. So if you are an atypical person, you might have found high school to be difficult, as there was nobody you could relate to. Once you’re an adult, though, you have much more freedom as to who you hang out with, and you can choose to be exposed to people with similar vibes and interests.

Go to hobby groups, sports groups, or volunteer groups. You should choose a hobby that you actually enjoy, that attracts the type of people you enjoy hanging out with. Then, just get to know people over time. If you’re lucky, over time you’ll get to know more and more people and friendships will start to form.

Ideally you want activities where you aren’t the only new person there, and where there are “regulars” that come frequently. You can become a regular by just going to the thing every single time it’s on. Once you’ve gotten to know some people well enough to know you’ll get along, you can suggest joining them for other activities, like drinks or boardgames or a birthday party. There you hang out even more, get to know each other better, and then bam: you’ve got a friend group formed.

This won’t happen in every group you join. Sometimes the people in the group don’t really vibe with your personality. Sometimes people treat it more as a functional thing and aren’t looking for new friends. Sometimes it’s cliquey, so the old-timers are reluctant to let new timers in. You will always have an easier time befriending other new people, such as people who have moved recently to your area.

Part 3: Meeting people, choosing them and asking them out:

How to meet people and date them:

In the next few sections I will explain a few ways to meet people. But before I do, I want to be clear: meeting people is useless unless you actually ask some of them out. I will go over some of the acceptable protocols as we go on, and you can also read this guide specifically on this subject.

Online dating:

Online dating, as far as I can tell, is the most common way for new couples to meet.There are advantages and significant disadvantages. Generally, men outnumber women on the apps by a 2 or 3 to 1 ratio: If you’re a man, prepare to get very few matches. If you’re a woman, prepare to get a ton of matches with people who are totally incompatible with you but swiped on every woman on the app. On the internet a lot of people are vocally unhappy with the miserable experience they are having on dating apps (which seems to be getting worse), but remember that people having a great time with the apps are generally not posting about them on reddit.

Generally, you want an app that has a lot of users of your desired gender. For heterosexual dating this generally means Hinge, Bumble and Tinder last I checked, but it will depend on where you live. You can also consider specialized dating sites: perhaps religion is very important to you, and you only want to date people who feel the same way. Then it might be worth a specifically religious app: there will be less people overall, but the people that are there will be much more compatible with you on average.

When setting up a profile, there are many, many guides out there, like this one, but I’ll try my own summary as well. Your goals are:

1. present yourself as appealing and attractive.

2. Present your authentic self and filter out people who aren’t compatible with you.

If you ignore the first part, you will struggle to get any quality matches. If you ignore the second, you’ll end up wasting your time with chats and dates that were doomed from the start.

These are photo based apps, so you want to have good quality photos of you, and you want to look good in the photos: generally that means a photo of you (alone) where you are smiling, dressed up nicely, with a pleasant or interesting setting in the background. If you want to stand out from the crowd, blurry bathroom selfies aren’t going to cut it.

You should have more than one photo, and the photos should be taken on different days, wearing different clothes, in different settings that communicate some aspects of your personality (such as you having friends). This all signals that you have a full and interesting life and are probably not a catfish. You should have at least some pictures that show your entire body: if someone is going to reject you for being short or fat, it’s better it happens before you invest your time and effort into talking to them.

When setting up a profile, you also have to consider who you’re trying to attract. A topless pic of washboard abs might do well with people who are looking for casual flings, but it will also turn off a lot of people looking for relationships. Think about your ideal partner, and what type of profile you think they’d swipe on. I once had a friend who exclusively swiped on Tinder guys with topless bathroom ab photos, and then got confused as to why none of them wanted long term relationships.

You need to think a lot about the text in your profile as well. The photo might get your foot in the door, but if your description is bad you’re still getting kicked out. Every sentence in your bio should communicate something about who you are as a person. Knowing whether or not you like pineapple on pizza tells me jack shit about you. Someone who reads your profile and looks at your pictures should be coming away with a reasonably accurate impression of what you are like as a person. You should especially not be giving off the impression that you are angry, bitter or resentful on dates. If those last two sentences conflict for you, you should work on your mental health before proceeding.

Once you match with someone, check their profile to ensure their aren’t any dealbreakers. Then you message them, ideally with a conversation starter related to something on their profile. If they are receptive they will message back. You can then chat for a while to establish some sort of rapport and show that hanging out with you will not be actively unpleasant. If they are receptive and you find them promising, it is expected for you to ask them out fairly quickly. People will be annoyed if you don’t ask them out after some texting, so do it.

The truth is that you can never know from text and photos alone whether you will click in person. Attraction depends on a lot of things, including invisible things like pheromones. I often used to chat for ages before organizing a date online: this usually resulted in me getting very invested and nervous, but then when the actual date occurred things fizzled out quickly.

Path 2: “chance encounters”

This path is about how to go about asking people that you are not likely to see again anytime soon. I call this “chance encounters”, but there are ways of increasing the number of encounters, and of increasing the chance that these encounters actually yield something worthwhile.

The most controversial of these is that of “cold approaches”, where you meet and ask out people in everyday life, in a context that people do not usually associate with dating. I’m going to devote a little time to discuss how to do this in a healthy manner, but I wouldn’t recommend even trying this for a lot of people. Statistics show that only 30% of adults are single, and only half of those are looking for a relationship, and of the remaining a large percentage probably won’t be immediately attracted to you. So if you approach people at random, expect a lot of rejection to occur. This type of approach get’s publicized with a lot of videos online by manosphere types trying to sell you shit: these are often either staged with paid actors, or heavily edited (such as deleting all the dozens of approaches that didn’t yield anything).

If you are prepared for rejection and decide to try anyway, I think the main piece of advise is to get good at talking to strangers in general, not just attractive women. Next time you’re waiting for a bus and you see something weird happen, point it out to the guy next to you. Say hi to the old guy you see every day in your elevator. Make small talk with whoever’s in line with you for coffee.

Note that there’s plenty of people who like small talk with strangers… and plenty who are irritated by it. This will give you practice at another important skill you will need when talking to prospective partners: learning to read when someone has zero interest in talking to you. Are they wearing headphones? Don’t talk to them. Are they visibly in a hurry? Don’t talk to them. Do they reply to your questions with curt, one word answers and then give you a death stare? Stop talking to them immediately. It’s not morally wrong to talk to or ask out strangers, but it is inconsiderate to not back off when someone is giving you a very clear “no”. (See my “not being creepy” section below for more tips).

When it comes to actually asking someone out, I would not recommend going up to a random person and asking them out immediately. This gives off the impression you are only interested in them for their looks. Yes, this is obviously part of it, but remember that asking someone out is an invitation to spend at least an hour or two stuck in conversation with them. Why would they say yes to that for someone they have talked to for literally zero seconds? Instead, strike up a conversation, about something in your vicinity, and get a feel for each others personality. Then if you feel like it’s working, you can give them your number.

A lot of this advice carries over to places such as pubs, clubs and concerts. In these places, it’s socially acceptable to try and meet strangers, so you can relax a little. It’s also likely that the people there will be sticking around for a while, so if you hit it off with someone you have more time to get to know them and establish a connection before asking them out. But remember that not everyone is there to meet people: often people will come in groups and not be interested in outsiders cramping their fun. The principles above still apply: learn to read a no, and politely depart if you sense someone isn’t interested in talking to you.

The absolute best places to meet people are things like singles mixers, pubcrawls, or parties hosted by friends, where getting to know a lot of people is expected of you. This takes most of the awkwardness out of the approach:

Imagine you’ve taken my advice, and have become a regular at a dancing event, where you’ve made a few friends that you have drinks with every now and then. One of them, a girl called Belinda, invites you to her birthday party. You only really know her and her boyfriend at this point, but decide to give it a chance anyway, put on some nice clothes and head out. You are starting to chat to a few people when all of a sudden an incredibly cute lady around your age walks in and sits down in your vicinty. You introduce yourself, and find out she also knows Belinda but not many other people, and over the course of a few pints, you feel the conversation flowing really well between you, and realise that you both seem to have some common beliefs and interests. The party starts to move to another venue, and you encourage her to kick on, but she says she’s tired and decides to go home. Dissapointed, you say your goodbyes and ask for her instagram details, which she readily supplies. The next day, you message her on insta, talk about having had a great time, and then ask her out on a date, which goes well, and becomes a second date, and then a third, and then so on.

This is not a fictional story, this is how I met my girlfriend. She’s awesome, and I’m going great. This is not an isolated incident: I have had at least 3 or 4 long term couples meet at parties I hosted: one of them is married now. Having mutual friends is an automatic plus: you probably have stuff in common, and have both been “vetted” by at least one person. If you are invited to a friends party, you should go!

Path 3: friends to lovers

A decent chunk of couples started out as friends initially, and then after a period of time decided to get together. The advantage of this is that you can get to know someone pretty well, so you’ll have a much better sense of whether they are compatible with you. There will also be cases where there is not much initial attraction, but that changes over time with familiarity as you realize how well you mesh together. There are even a group of people called demisexuals who don’t feel attracted to people at all unless they already have an emotional connection to them.

In order to go this path, you just need to make friends, in all the ways I’ve covered in section 2, so I won’t rehash that here.

Unfortunately a lot of people go about this route the wrong way. The wrong way to go about this is to pretend to be friends with someone in the hopes they will get with you, and to ditch the friendship if it’s clear it’s not happening. Similarly bad is trying to treat the friendship as an audition, to do lots of unreciprocated favors for them and then get mad when this is not rewarded with a relationship. If you see women complaining about “nice guy syndrome”, this is usually the type of behavior they are complaining about.

There is no faster way to mark yourself as a loser than to complain about “the friendzone”. Being friends with someone is a good thing, even if you’d prefer something more, and rejecting someone you are not attracted to is ultimately the best outcome for everyone. This complaint implies that not being attracted to you is some sort of moral failing on their part, which is just childish.

Do not wait around for someone to leave their relationship, or try to “steal” them, even if their relationship is bad. Nine out of ten times this is going to lead nowhere, and the mental effort could be better spent on people who are actually potential interested in you. Similarly, if she says she’s not ready for another relationship, she may mean it or she might be saying she’s not ready for a relationship with you. Either way, don’t pursue.

If you like them, if you’re compatible, and if you think there’s a chance they like you too, then ask then just ask them out on a date, the earlier the better, and make it clear you’re happy to be friends otherwise. Don’t declare that you’re in love with them (even if you are). It will not change the chances they reciprocate, and it could make things super awkward for no reason. Just ask them out, and use the word “date” while you are doing it so there is no ambiguity about what is going on.

It’s also okay to take a step back from the friendship in order to let feelings fade. You are not a bad person for catching feelings, but it’s usually not their fault either. If you’re honest and communicate well, the friendship will usually recover.

How to ask people out without being a creep.

A lot of men are extremely scared of coming off as a creep or making women uncomfortable. This is not unreasonable, because a lot of women have had extremely creepy experiences with men. But these experiences generally do not consist of people politely asking them out and then leaving when they get rejected. No, they are situations where the man makes them feel in danger, trapped, exploited, or otherwise incapable of leaving a situation.

Don’t ask anybody out in any situation where there is no easy way for them leave. For example, do not ask a women out if you are in an elevator together. Remember, woman do not know if you are a safe guy or a secret predator. They do not know if turning you down will result in you freaking out and stalking or attacking them, and if they are currently trapped in a metal box with you, this is going to raise heckles.

Do not ask a women out when they are working. They are often paid to be polite to you, so you are probably misinterpreting signals anyway. But if you ask them out while they are working you are putting them in a situation where turning you down in the wrong way could affect their job.

A similar principle explains why it’s creepy to hit on your underlings at work, or your students if you are a professor. You have serious institutional power over them, and could negatively affect their career if they say no.

This still leaves a lot of places and situations where asking someone out or chatting to them is perfectly fine. There seems to be a weird idea out there that “never ask people out” is some sort of core feminist position: this is just not true. Asking people out only becomes not okay if you refuse to take no for an answer, and continue pursuing them despite them indicating a lack of interest, which could be explicit (saying “not interested”, or “I have a boyfriend), or implicit (constantly avoiding eye contact or trying to turn away, shutting down conversation with curt, one phrase answers).

How to plan dates

Making plans can be quite exhausting, especially if you’re doing it in a back and forth over text. There’s no right way to do this, but I would say there is a wrong way: putting zero effort into the organization. Thinking up plans and organizing takes effort, and you’ll have to do it a lot in a relationship, so you don’t want to give the impression that you are unable to do successfully.

I think the best option is for the asker to put forward a time, place and activity as a suggestion, but make it clear that they are flexible.

“How about drinks Friday night at <insert good bar here>”?

What activity should you do? Like everything else, this is all person and culture dependent. A conservative upper-class woman might only be interested in people who buy them an expensive dinner in a fancy restaurant, while a punk feminist might find that setting stuffy and awkward, and prefer to go to a music show.

The important thing is that it’s a place you both enjoy, and ideally have something around to help get conversations going. If you don’t like drinking, don’t go for drinks!

I will say that if you have only met someone briefly or only online before asking them out, it’s generally best to avoid first dates that commit you to spending several hours together. It’s not uncommon for people to realize incredibly quickly that you have zero chemistry and nothing to talk about: you really don’t want to be locked in to spending another couple hours on a doomed date that you don’t enjoy.

Part 4: Actually going on dates and being in a relationship

Who is worth dating

Before you start dating, you should have a good hard think about what you want in a partner, and what you need in a partner. If your only requirement in a partner is “has the required private parts”, things are going to go badly for you. To date, you need some level of self-respect, and that means not dating people that make you miserable. It is better to be alone than in a bad relationship.

To start with: do not try to date someone who is partnered and monogamous, who is of an incompatible sexual orientation, or who has told you they are not interested in dating. These are about the strongest default “no’s” there are: if you ignore these and go after them anyway, you are being a dick. Now, to be clear, it’s not impossible that someone will change their mind about these and date you, just highly unlikely. But if she does, it’s up to the other party to make it clear that things have changed, not for you to try and change her. Have some self-respect and move on.

If you aren’t asexual, you should be dating someone you will be physically attracted to. If you are looking for a long-term monogamous relationship, this will be the one person you sleep with for the entire rest of your life: you don’t want it to be with someone you feel nothing for. This is not just about physical attraction, but also about their personality and the chemistry between you. You might be initially attracted to a supermodel, but upon talking to them for five minutes find them mean and grating, and the attraction will disappear. Don’t ever feel the expectation to confirm to conventional beauty standards either: what is attractive for you is what matters, society can stuff it. Attraction can grow or change over time, so it’s okay to go on a few dates with someone to see if sparks start flying over time, but if they don’t take off after a few dates, it’s probably best to move on.

Now, the converse is also true. If you aren’t asexual, you should want to date someone who is attracted to you. So if someone rejects you because they have zero attraction towards you, they are doing you a favor and saving you a lot of time and keeping you from a miserable, sexless marriage. Never get angry at someone for rejecting you.

Next: you need compatible life plans. If one of you desperately wants kids, and the other one desperately does not want kids, it’s highly likely that the relationship is going to blow up eventually. Similarly if you want to end up in different countries, adopt wildly different lifestyles, have totally incompatible political beliefs, there is a pretty good chance of explosion. Now, sometimes people change their minds over time, but it’s not worth staking years of your life on the hope that this will happen. It’s important to discuss these things early.

These are examples of dealbreakers: the things that, on their own, guarantee incompatibility. It’s up to you to define what your own dealbreakers are: Things like “not physically violent towards you” are no-brainers, but people might have differing feelings about whether religion and politics are dealbreakers for them.

You can also think about “red flags”: warning signs that don’t necessarily end a relationship on it’s own, but are warning signs that you might not work out for each other. Someone living in their parents basement may be a red flag: it potentially signals a lack of ambition and purpose, but it may be they’re have a serious life plan, and it involves saving rent money.

Potential red flags and dealbreakers should be raised before things get very serious. You should know someone’s stance on things like kids and religion well before you make major life decisions together.

At a lower level, there are general preferences. Maybe you find a German accent sexy, but you aren’t going to lose sleep if a great partner doesn’t have one. Maybe you prefer a partner who doesn’t snore, but if you meet the right person you’d be fine to just wear earplugs.

Don’t make the mistake of setting your standards stupidly high, and only date people who are perfectly conventionally attractive, intelligent, rich, likes all the same things as you and has all the same opinions as you on everything. Differences are interesting, you aren’t trying to date your clone! Nobody is perfect, and it’s not nice to expect perfection of people. This can be a symptom of believing that your happiness is singularly and entirely determined by your partner, which is simply not true.

You get to decide what is most important about a relationship, but it’s good to be intentional about it. For myself, it was the following questions:

1. Is this person kind and empathetic?

2. Do I enjoy spending large amounts of time with this person?

3. Do I feel like I could enter into an equal partnership with this person?

4. Are we sexually compatible and attracted to each other?

5. In this relationship long term sustainable?

I would not date or ask out anyone who was a “no” on any of these questions. A large part of the process of dating for me is trying to learn the answers to these questions, which for my current partner is a “yes” on all counts.

General behaviour on dates:

The goal of going on a date is to:

1. determine whether the two of you are romantically compatible

2. to have an enjoyable and interesting time together.

These are not unrelated to each other: If spending time with someone is unengaging or makes you fall asleep, you’re not compatible! This means that a lot rides on your social skills and ability to have an interesting conversation.

However, I don’t recommend trying to make the date enjoyable for the other person by ignoring your own personality and desires. They’re gonna see the real you eventually, and nobody likes a relationship built on false pretenses.

Don’t be afraid to put your good qualities first, or your potential match might assume they don’t exist. But on the flipside, if there’s anything about you that might be a dealbreaker for a lot of people, you want to reveal that fairly early as well. People rarely change their dealbreakers, so at a certain point keeping them hidden will just mutually waste your time.

At the same time you are presenting your own personality, you want to be finding stuff out about your date as well. Don’t be the guy who spends the entire date talking about himself and assuming that the date went well. Be aware that there are different communication styles, with some people liking to volunteer information without asking, and other preferring to wait for questions. If your date is volunteering a lot of info, you should match that: if they are asking you a lot of questions, ask questions back.

How to flirt

If you want a relationship to turn sexual, you have to give off indications about this at some point, aka: flirting.

I was always pretty bad at flirting for anxiety reasons, so I’m not going to be much help here. From what I’ve read, flirting is about creating anticipation and sexual tension, like a “will they won’t they” scenario in tv shows (but hopefully not dragged out over multiple seasons). Each of you gives out subtle hints that you’re interested in each other, either verbally or nonverbally, and it should eventually become obvious that you’re into each other.

Unfortunately there are many situations where one party thinks they’re being insanely obvious and flirting ridiculously hard, but the other one is completely clueless and assuming nothing is going on.

If you feel like you are bad at flirting, you are not doomed. You can try and look up guides online about body language (avoid advice by pick up artists), but there’s an easier way around the problem: just use your words. Saying things like “those earrings make you look gorgeous”, and “Can I kiss you?” makes your intentions clear, but also raises anticipation and tension.

As usual, there are no-nos: don’t go super sexual out of nowhere. Talking about sex can be good flirting, but only if both parties are steering into the conversation. Likewise, do not get overly familiar with someone physically too quickly: physical intimacy should develop over time and with both parties accepting each step: do not try and grab someone’s breast before you’ve even held hands. If there’s any doubt on this front, just verbally ask for consent.

When should things progress:

Often people will ask questions like “when is too soon to do X, Y, Z”, “should I kiss on the first date”, “when should I get married”.

The answer, in general, is “whenever both of you want to do it”. Everything is massively culturally and personally variable, based on your values and what feels comfortable to you.

For example, if sexual compatibility is incredibly important to you, you might want to have sex early on to test those waters out: on the other hand you might be very religious and want to wait until marriage. Neither choice is “wrong”: the only wrong thing would be to pressure yourself to do something you don’t want to do. Sometimes you and your partner will have timelines that don’t match: it’s up to you to either find a compromise that works for both of you or to accept that this is a dealbreaker and move on to someone compatible.

That said, it’s still worth understanding the norms about dating timelines in your area. For example, where I live it would be unusual to not have kissed by the end of the third date, to not move in together after 3 years of dating, or to be together for 10 years without getting engaged. Conversely, it’s unusual to move in together or get married after only a few months of dating. To be clear, there are plenty of successful couples that don’t follow the standard timeline, but if you’re outside of the norm, it’s expected to have a conversation with your partner about why that’s the case.

How to be a good long-term romantic partner:

I don’t have much long term relationship experience, but the following is what I’ve learned from others, and what I intend to apply in my current relationship.

Dating success is not just about getting dates or getting laid. Great hair and suits can get you into a relationship, but if you’re bad at being a partner, you will quickly find things fizzling out. And even if you do stay together, you could end up a decade into an unhappy sexless marriage, with both of you hating each other guts but too afraid to leave each other.

I think the most important thing is honest communication of what you need and want from each other. People have different wants and preferences, and you cannot expect a partner to know what yours are without telling them. Person A might want flowers every week, while person B might find flowers annoying to maintain and a burden. Your partner doesn’t know if you are person A or person B unless you tell them. (If you ignore the somewhat dodgy origin, this is what “love languages” are referring to).

However, you can still save yourself from a lot of conflict by being proactive about your own responsibilities. For starters: if you and your partner live together, and both work full time, you should each be doing an equal share of the chores. What this looks like will be up to you to negotiate: perhaps one of you enjoys or is more skilled at cooking, so they can take that one and you can do other chores.

Note that equality doesn’t mean that you have to make a spreadsheet and account for every little thing each person does and ensure it’s exactly equal. And in a long-term partnership, sometimes one party will be ill or in a bad place, and the other might have to pick up more to compensate, with the knowledge that the same would happen if the situations were reversed. The important thing is that both people feel like equal, fair partners in the relationship, and that any building resentment is addressed quickly, rather than being left to fester.

This need for reciprocity and communication should be extended to the bedroom as well. A lot of men are super insecure about sexual inexperience, but everyone’s sexual needs are different, as long as you are willing to learn what your partner wants you can do well. Also, any man insecure about his genitalia should remember that lesbians exist and have very satisfying sex lives: learn to use your hands, mouth, and toys to close the orgasm gap and you’ll automatically be better than a depressingly large amount of men.

In general, keep the romance alive, keep doing things together and going places together, and be kind to each other. Every relationship is unique, and will have it’s own strengths and weaknesses that you can work on together.

Some resources

I don’t endorse everything everyone in the following resources says. They are just things that I generally agree with.

On reddit, r/incelexit and r/bropill (in the weekly relationship threads) are both great resources for individual dating advice questions from a healthy perspective. I’ll also recommend r/socialskills as a resource for the people who are lacking in those.

I like Dr Nerdlove as well as captain awkward, which have long archives of questions about everything, and generally advocate for a healthy approach to dating. I don’t agree with everything written on their blogs, but they are generally pushing in the right direction.

I endorse this post from Ozy, which is a summary of the book Models by Mark Manson. I can’t endorse the book itself because I haven’t read it: some of the advice seems controversial but overall there does seem to be good stuff in there.

Conclusion

The search for a life partner can be long, arduous and painful. The most painful part is that it’s ultimately all down to luck: there’s never a way to guarantee or force another human being to fall in love with you.

But there are things you can do that can allow almost everyone to have a very good chance of finding love, eventually. I hope that with this guide I can make that process a bit less harrowing and awful for those that struggle, and increase those chances as high as they can get without sacrificing your wellbeing or joy in life.

You don’t need a life partner to be happy, but having a really good partner is fucking great, and it’s well worth the effort I put in to achieving it. And the journey was not a waste: I have enjoyed my time with many dates and met many cool people, and the quest has been a motivating factor in a lot of improvements in my life, pushing me to a very happy place.

Good luck out there!