Dating Tips by Tat - 01

Welcome to the first installment of “Dating Tips by Tat”.

How may this blog be useful to you?

• Do you want to improve your chances of finding the partner you’ve always wanted?
• Do you want to gain some useful techniques on approaching someone of the opposite sex that interests you?
• Do you want to learn to flirt more effectively ?
• Do you want to gain rapport quickly upon meeting someone new?
• Do you want to learn how to get her interested in you?
• Do you want to find out if she’s interested in you?
• Do you want to overcome the fear of rejection when wanting to ask someone out?

If you’ve answered yes to any or all of the above questions, then you may find my blog useful.

From being single to being married

I’ve had a wonderful fun filled bachelor life but I have finally decided to get married and settle down (whatever “settle down” means). But after 30 odds years of dating and being in and out of relationships good and “could have been better”, I’ve learned quite a few things about dating and the opposite sex. I want to share what I’ve learned with my fellow Singapore denizens (for you single guys specifically but also for you single ladies and even for some of you that are already married) by offering some useful tips and techniques to have more fun and success in dating.

I believe that there’s no such thing as failure, and instead take a temporary setback as an opportunity for feedback. So with the ending of each relationship I’ve endeavored to learn something from it and to improve myself for the next one. I will also say that, for me, getting married is not the same as commitment. I’m getting married to have a family and raise children. I was already committed to my then girl friend before we got married. I know of many uncommitted couples whose marriage end in a divorce while I can also point to unmarried committed couples that have been together for more than a couple of decades. But then, that’s a rather alternative European and Californian perspective on “coupleship”.

Dating can be useful

The reason I make this distinction is because getting married and being married does not mean that you’re in a healthy relationship. But good dating practices set the foundation for a mature, positive, nurturing relationship (those words themselves sound so mature!) that is necessary for a successful marriage. Good dating practices (it’s actually effective communication skills supported by skillful acts) will also increase the odds that what you get is what was advertised! So how do you know that what is told to you is what you’ll actually get? You may be assuming that your observation skills are sharp and that your partner is always accurate and truthful, but in reality, we see only what we are looking for and will want to only disclose what we expect the other wants to know. Understand that communication is not all verbal and that we all have histories that are the make up of who we are.

Human beings have histories whether they’ve been married before or not or have been in serious relationships or not. It’s imperative to discover their history as it will not always be provided voluntarily (that type of volunteering of negative history is only appropriate at the right stage of the relationship, otherwise, it’s just plain bad marketing!). Thankfully, there are polite and stealthy ways to probe for history. But more more about that in a future blog entry. Good communication skills, a keen eye, and deft listening, will go a long way to help both parties discover both history and present needs and wants of their dating partner in order to establish if any compatibility and chemistry exist between the both of you.

If you’re looking for a trophy girlfriend or trophy wife, you won’t need any help from me. It’s easy to get them. But it’s just as easy to lose them too. In the end, you’ll be alone and miserable. That’s an outcome I do not condone nor will I abet.

How is dating is like selling and buying?

Successful dating requires good selling skills. You heard me right, selling skills. Of course, the product you are selling is yourself. Don’t worry if you think that you are shy. I used to be frightfully shy, but I worked through it. You can too. I’ll repeat, you are selling yourself. The reason that ‘s important is because you and you alone provide something no one else can replicate or take away, and that is your character. I’ll blog a lot about this particular unique value and how to present it in a positive way to your prospective “buyer” (target girlfriend, potential wife) in future blog entries.

But unlike sales, you are also a buyer. The opposite sex is out there wanting to sell themselves to you (if you are their ideal buyer). You need to get versed on not buying into the hype but finding out what’s real before you get in too deep! But like all products in all markets, there are ideal targets and not so ideal targets and cultural differences matter. So you will have to know the product that you are selling (it’s YOU!). Sounds simple eh? No lah! Knowing the product is where most people, both men and women, fall short. How can you sell a product you don’t know about? Can not! And yes, I will cover the stages of human development as well as the hierarchy of human needs but you can read up on it too. Just search for “Mazlow’s pyramid of human needs”. To make it interesting, I’ll stack it up against the metric defined as the order of human consciousness. Big words for big ideas to be covered more in-depth to help you understand where YOU are coming from.

Doesn’t sound easy does it? It’s not supposed to be. Cultivating a mature, healthy, supportive relationship is the hardest thing any of us will ever be engaged in during our lifetimes. And yes, it will be scary and challenging at times, but the reward of truly relating to someone in a deep, meaningful way easily outweighs the risks of getting into it in the first place.

But some background on dating

It’s a relatively new social phenomena actually, this dating as we know it. Courtship as a term you may have heard in movies or read in books is not the same as dating. Courtship was established by nobility to grant court or an audience to viable suitors in hopes of a marriage to cement noble ties. This was strictly along class lines and its primary purpose was to preserve or gain wealth and acquire or maintain social stature. It was, in plain terms, a contract of convenience and not one of romantic love. And it was, more often than not, pre-arranged by parties other than the betrothed (I’m not saying that pre-arrange marriages are bad). If by chance, romantic love came into the equation, it was by some blind luck and this did not happen often. That’s what mistresses were for as well as concubines in some societies. After all, it’s a fundamental need to love and be loved, contract not withstanding.

Remember that before the suffrage movements during the late 19th century, women had few opportunities for employment in which to earn a living wage. They did not even have the right to vote back then. A women’s right to vote is a recent thing in the scope of modern industrial civilization and a women’s right to fair wages is still in dispute to this very day. So women depended on marrying a dependable provider if she wanted any chance of living a decent life or rearing children. If she did not get married, she became a burden to the household. So the marriages of the past were based on what’s termed the exchange theory of relationships. In my mind, this amounted to something closer to a life of indenture servitude for women. Life was spent in the kitchen, doing laundry and looking after children. In return, they got a roof over their heads, a few square meals, and some level of security in life. In most parts of the world across many varied cultures, relationships have not evolved much, if any, beyond this fundamental basis.

Sigh. Ok, that may sound a bit too anthropological (my fingers hurt typing so many syllables), so let’s get back to lightening it up a bit, shall we? In a bit, but now we know how it used to be. So where are we now?

The way going forward

When women gained the right to vote and the right to earn a somewhat fair living, men were thrown into a role re-defining tizzy. No longer were they the sole bread winner, but women wanted decision making power too! Some women did not even want to get married once they got this new-found independence. Men had a right to be a bit disgruntled, and yes, a bit fearful too.

So how now to find a suitable wife? The good news was that now they could meet women in the workplace but introductions were still the cultural norm as the way to meet a woman you did not know. The bad news is that men were still very chauvinistic! So men were still stuck in the “old ways” while women were becoming liberated and empowered.

Introduction by a third party was and is a good thing. It also provides a modicum of accountability. You can always blame your friend for a date gone awry. But these days, introduction to someone attractive but unknown to you or your acquaintances is not easy to come by but also not totally out of the question. Yes, it’s possible to get introduced to someone you find attractive on the spot even though you nor your wingman know her. That’s a dating trick that I’ll defer to a later blog (wink wink).

So men had to be bold and approach women in all kinds of places and introduce themselves and to share their intentions (we are very transparent in that area but it’s not a bad thing). But only the very bold and confident were successful in this approach. Sadly some of these confident and bold men came across as cads or players. They are the ones that coined the term “nice guys finish last”, much to the detriment of the male species. So were all the jerks getting the beautiful girls? Maybe, but then the “nice guys” penned the term “dumb blonde” to get even. Neither is productive but they sure make for entertaining stereotypes and archetypal themes for movies and books. Maybe they deserve each other. But no, everyone has the chance to be really happy in a relationship. Thankfully there are venues for meeting the opposite sex that are less “competitive” and where conversations can be initiated in a more natural and inviting manner suitable for all personality types.

Invitation to battle without strategy or weapons

I was raised in a traditional chinese family and if your parents are like mine, they did not teach me anything about dating. It’s not part of our social makeup. We Chinese are descendants of a feudal society where arranged marriages were the norm. Traditional matchmakers ply their trade to this very day as go betweens and facilitators. Are the dating agencies cropping up today any different? If not, how can we assume that they will be more successful? I make a distinction between successful and effective here because creating matches and setting up dates can be effective, but the success rate is not high. Dating without a strategy and the skills to execute on that strategy is like going to battle naked!

Introductions are useful as an initial step but all the hard work comes after that and the responsibility falls squarely on the shoulders of the individuals who come together as a result of that introduction. I also do not feel that matching based upon likes and dislikes is a good indicator of compatibility. People change as they grow, it’s simple as that. We don’t remain who we are so compatibility is a moving target. More in-depth profiling may help but it also narrows our options. But neither does anything to improve the “relating” skills needed for a successful date, and ultimately, a mature supportive relationship that leads to marriage.

Strategy and planning

I want to share with readers a strategy for getting what you want out of life, be it in the professional arena or in your personal life. The tools of the trade to getting there are the same. First, you must know who you are before knowing what you want. What does getting what you want mean to you? So it’s really a game of communication. Asking the right questions of yourself and others, sharing thoughts and ideas, having the requisite skill to converse in a precise and unambiguous fashion, and equally important, listening with patience, intent, and without judgement. So with that, I’d like to share with my readers the nitty gritty of how to conduct fun and insightful conversations with people you meet or someone you have a romantic interest in. Here are some, but not all, topics that will be covered in future blogs:

• Learn to boost your confidence level
• Learn techniques to introducing yourself in an non-intimidating way that invites conversation.
• Learn techniques to uncover compatibility issues early on so that you do not waste your or the other persons time
• Learn techniques to know if the other person is or is not interested in you
• Learn techniques to asking someone out on a date without fear of rejection
• Learn how to keep a conversation going

But most of all, my hope that you’ll find the product that you’re selling much improved and an attractive buy to those you encounter and interact with daily. It’ll take some getting patience as you’ll be getting out of your comfort zone, but I’m willing to share my experience and wisdom with those that are willing to abandon preconceived notions and become willing to receive in order to get the best out of themselves.

I’d love to hear from you.

Peace