Questions and answers
"Why does this all seem easy for everyone else, but hard for me?"
So, I want to commend you because I feel like lots of people will feel that way about their dating lives, lots of people will feel like everyone else is either in relationships, or they've got it completely sorted except me.
Obviously, as a dating coach, I can tell you that whilst it might sometimes feel that way, That's actually not what's going, what's happening.
Yes, a few lucky people may meet the love of their lives, I don't know, at college or university, and then it's happily ever after.
But for the vast majority of people, they have to go through different stages of dating, getting to know themselves, getting to know other people, different forms of relationships, good relationships, bad relationships, before they meet someone who they're able to form that really great partnership with.
So, I know it's easy for me to tell you that, but to help you to really, I guess, believe that, I need you to start challenging, or creating perhaps a slightly different narrative around your dating experiences.
So a really cool technique I've got for this is you can acknowledge that things haven't been perfect so far because perhaps it would feel disingenuous for you to say, oh, yeah, things are great, and I'm totally going to meet someone, instead, you can choose to say, up to now, I haven't had the dating experiences that I want.
So use the phrase up until now, it helps because it puts things into the past.
So, it gives you space where you can say, up until now, it's been hard, so you can be, again, true to how you're feeling at this moment.
The second thing you say to yourself is right now I'm working on.
This is where you give yourself a bit of an action plan.
Because, again, when we see, dating is something that happens to us or perhaps doesn't happen to us and happens to everybody else.
That's a very disempowering position for you to be in.
Instead, if you can start to drill this down to, "what can I do better?" Or "what can I do differently?" That's actually really positive because then there are things that you can do and you can change.
The final thing I'd like you to say to yourself is, I remain open to, which is, even if you don't feel this way today, that you can kind of see that there's a possibility for you to feel differently at some point in the future.
So, it could be I remain open to forming a loving relationship, or I mean, open to being more confident at meeting people.
So just start to almost create that mental space where it could happen.
This is all much easier said than done, and obviously, it has to be combined with practical actions where you're really feeling more comfortable and more able to move a date life forward.
But hopefully that gives you at least some reassurance that definitely, and you'll see through the other questions we receive, lots of people would find top periods of time when they're dating to be challenging.
That doesn't mean that you can't enjoy dating and really make it work for you.
"Is it always supposed to be the man to start the conversation about love?"
Interesting.
So, I understand that when we're talking about man to woman relationships, particularly, traditionally, I guess we think of that's the man right.
It's like the man who asks the woman out, who sends the first message or who makes the move.
But really this is, I don't personally feel this is true to how relationships evolve.
Relationships are two people coming together and communicating.
Even if one person starts a conversation or makes a move, it requires the other person to reciprocate to make it work.
I would just say, for any of us listening, regardless of your gender or orientation, if there's something that you want to say to someone, and this is someone that you know, and you're interacting with, I would encourage you to find ways that you can start to verbalize how you're thinking and feeling, and often think of the best way of doing that. The most secure ways are where, in fact, you don't "not say" anything about what you want, but that you can have an openish conversation about how you're actually feeling.
So, I guess, Chippo, if you would like to express that you're feeling stronger feelings toward someone, you could say, you know, this is starting to feel like a relationship to me. I've sadly unsubscribed from Match, either, I'm starting to, I've got, I'm definitely starting to get the feels.
Again, when we say those brilliant I statements, this is how I'm feeling.
It's really true to you and it's a really confident and honest way of interacting with someone.
But I don't think that has to be the reserve of the guy in a relationship, it honestly will depend on how you enjoy relating to another.
"Will I die single? I want to meet someone."
Okay, so I can tell from how you've said that question that, obviously, you're not feeling great about being single right now, and I'm going to add to that, and that's okay.
You don't, whilst the direction that we want you to move in is to feel more content in your single life, and to really start to love and enjoy that process, we're all human beings, you're not going to feel that way forever, you're not going to feel that way all the time.
When you say, "Will I die single?"
You're doing a couple of things, you're getting really far ahead, I hope into the future, and you also take it to the most kind of dramatic and extreme end, really perhaps what is true for you is to express that feeling through, I really want to meet someone right now.
Then, the next step to that is, I really want to meet someone right now, how can I go about doing that?
Dating isn't that different from any other area of your life, it definitely requires continual time and energy and participation from you.
I understand that can be tough, particularly when you haven't had the experiences that you want, as of yet.
So, also your life, a good balance this is your life has to or should only use that awful word should be more about than just meeting someone.
Because remember, other people don't really solve our lives.
In fact, they can arguably make them more complicated, sometimes in nice ways.
So, I would say to do this, don't go into a fear of the future, or to the worst possible, what you perceive to be the worst possible scenario, stay in the present.
Think about what you can actually do right now today, to get toward your goals, and also try to create balance in your life where it's like, yes, I would love to meet someone, and I'm also enjoying cultivating these other things in my life.
So, we don't have that huge amount of pressure and focus toward the goal of meeting someone.
But it's one of many goals.
Perhaps that might mean that some of your other goals are to enrich your life, whether it's building better social circles, taking up new hobbies, creating interests, starting to write your book, whatever it is, we also want your life to be made up of all of those other things that make our lives really significant and interesting.
"I think my profile is okay, but I rarely get a like and never seem to get a message from any ladies."
Okay, so Maurice, I think going back into what's really practical here, it's how we can get a second view on your profile. Certain things that you can do, obviously, on Match, you can now add voice notes to your profile, this is an easy way to get across much more of your personality than in a purely written profile.
So, for those of you who are doing online dating at the moment, I would suggest that you use dating sites holistically.
That is, you do the voice note and you do the written profile.
Also, you may just want to spruce up your written profile.
If you don't feel it's getting the connections that you want, and it's not representing you in the way that you'd like.
A hack that I tell probably every single one of these live sessions is actually for you to dictate your profile to yourself.
So, a lot of the time, writing is tricky.
Unless that's something you're particularly skilled at doing, it might not come naturally, if you do write a really charismatic profile for yourself. Most of us do a better job verbally describing who we are.
So, you can try verbally describing.
Also, I would suggest switching up your photos, these really are your first impression on your profile.
Of course, we want to make sure that we can see you clearly, we can see you in a variety of different settings.
Then, also think about what your first message is, again, that's just in terms of things that you can do to improve, take some feedback on that, is there perhaps a better way that you can create those first messages?
If you look at replays of other Match LiveCoaching sessions that I've done, some have been around how you can create really good messages for your dating profile.
I think I did one actually late last year.
So watch those sessions for more detailed advice on how you can improve your messaging style.
"How do you navigate dating when you don't fit the societal beauty standards?"
Well, I would say for everyone, there's again, perhaps that's what I was mentioning earlier, we can all have this hypothetical idea of this perfect imaginary person who, I don't know, looks like Charlize Theron or is like six-foot two or drives a Lamborghini.
But I think the more that we get away from those standards, and we focus on how people interact with us, that honestly is such a great pathway to meet and connect with people who are really aligned with us.
Raquel, even if right now today you don't feel like you fit social beauty standards, or the beauty standards of social media, just trust that always are going to be people out there who find you really attractive.
So, I'm not worried about that bit. What I'd love you to work on is that self-esteem so that you can start to feel more attractive or feel more of that self-worth.
Because remember, if someone doesn't like your particular body type or your particular kind of hair, they are simply not the right person for you, and there'll be plenty, plenty of people that will.
Even if you were Charlize Theron, there's going to be people who just not even into her.
So, I would say, if you can, much easier said than done, try and emancipate yourself from worrying about people that aren't connecting with you in the way you want, and say get to a place where you can trust actually, I am really attractive.
What could you also do to help you to feel more attractive, perhaps you want to get more into your body through exercise or dance or so you can feel more connected, maybe you want to have more time for self-care if possible.
I know lives are busy.
Maybe you want to look in the mirror every morning and remind yourself how fantastic and fabulous you are.
I think it's less about people not finding you attractive are more about you really finding you attractive, ignoring anybody who doesn't and focusing on the people who really show up for you in the way that you want.
"How to respond to men when they ask for my number, or to meet straightaway in the first message ?"
So, this is a bit of a hint to the guys out there.
Again, I did speak about this earlier on in our session, it may seem really efficient to ask for a woman's phone number or to ask her out on the first one or two messages.
But the emotional feeling that creates is: "you're not really interested in who I am" or "getting to know me, you're just trying to get something that you want," it doesn't create the right feeling.
So Natalie, I'd say a lot of guys are probably doing that because perhaps they feel like they're making a lot of effort with dating.
They want to get to the part of just meeting someone in real life, and they're trying to save time.
So, it's not that they're being necessarily really transactional, though, I understand how it can come across that way.
So let's just start by giving people or him those men folk, the benefit of the doubt, it may not be transactional, it might not be as probably as bad as you're experiencing it.
Instead, that could just be that he doesn't he's feeling demotivated himself and doesn't know how to go about building this connection with you.
So let's give him an opportunity to change that.
So, you could say, for instance, something like, "Well, it's great that you know what you want, wink, but I'd like to get to know you more first."
So again, we're going to keep that warm and playful tone.
For now, let's just give him a chance.
If he doesn't get back to you after this, or he says no, I just want to meet you now we can, then we definitely know where we stand.
But for you again get that balance of expressing, say, that's a little too fast for me, though I appreciate the directness. Can we get to know one another more first, and then express what you want to communicate.
Again, you can then that's where we start that dialog, and we work out, is it possible for you to connect and to relate to one another or not?
That's going to give you a truer representation, I think, of which guys are able to do that for you, then, if we just disregard everybody who asks you out on the first message.
"I am disabled. Can I say in my messages?"
Sam, just so you know, this is a topic that's really close to my heart is my mom's actually disabled, she's in a wheelchair, and has been since she met my dad.
So, I am actually a disabled dating success story, byproduct.
With being disabled, there's different ways you can go about this, and how you go about it, and how any of us go about disclosing any information that's personal and sensitive to us comes down again, to what you feel comfortable with.
For some people, if they have a visible disability, they may feel more comfortable demonstrating that in one or all of their profile pictures.
So, it's clear.
If the disability is invisible, you don't feel like being that candid.
Yes, you can say that a message is, and I would just say to get out of their head of the past and express that clearly and confidently.
So, it can be like, Hey, I think it's important before we meet that I share with you that this is something I have. This is how it shows up in my life, I'd still really love to chat, but be I understand. If that's not something for you.
So, again, adopting neutrality, being clear about it, also maybe giving an example of how that relates to your life day to day, so someone can understand more about where you're coming from, you could say that then if perhaps the disability will affect what kind of dates you can go on, you could also express that.
So, you could say actually, because of wheelchair access, I really need to look for somewhere that's got X, Y, and Z.
Or perhaps you've got a disability that isn't immediately obvious to someone.
Also, perhaps you've got something that you'd prefer to wait to see if you connect with someone more before you disclose that.
Provided you don't leave it to the altar. I think that's okay as well.
So perhaps that could be on, you'd suggest doing a video chat before you meet someone.
Or if again, it's an invisible disability, it's not going to affect your dates, and you think it requires a bit of an explainer, you can also bring it up on your first day.
So, the right answer to that is going to depend about what kind of disability it is, and also, when you feel calm, enough comfort and trust to express that to someone in a way that's clear and confident.
"How to open up to a new relationship when you've been hurt previously?"
Sophie, this is kind of similar, actually, to one of the earlier questions that I had, which is, I guess, as much as that pain in that it's really difficult coming out of a difficult relationship.
I know how that will feel to you right now.
It's about getting into the mindset where you can imagine a time, even if it's not today, where you won't necessarily feel that way.
Probably one of the most profound things I think I learned about getting past someone is, or getting over someone is even if today, you don't feel like that previous relationship still weighs heavily on you still thinking about it.
What you got to understand is you're on a trajectory of growing and changing and developing as a person, and the person that you're going to be in two, five, six, 12 months from now, is going to be a different person who doesn't feel that attachment to that person the past so strongly.
So if you feel that you're carrying some hurt from a previous relationship, keep investing in what's new in your life, whether that is new friends, new hobbies, new interests, and yes, part of that as new dates.
Part of opening up could also be to open up in a way that's sufficiently slow and safe for you.
So, it might be that you want to take you express to someone that you want to take things slowly, and you just take your time getting to know someone.
It could also be that you expressed to a person like, hey, look, I really like you. But, I'm still getting back into this whole dating thing. So, this is I'd like to do a coffee date first, or I'd like to do a video date.
With match, you can actually do your video date through the match platform.
So, you don't have to exchange contact details.
So think about a way that's going to be the slow and steady way.
You can keep engaging in this area of your life, and you don't need to put any pressure on yourself to be jumping back in or anything like that.
Just trust that you will get back into it in your own time.
"How can I get chats to turn into meetups people hardly want to meet in person, I don't want an online only relationship?"
Well Becky, I hope you heard the start of this the presentation I gave because that was really relevant to the question that you've just asked.
First of all, think about when you're suggesting meeting up.
Is this a good moment in the interaction suggest meeting and as I said, my gold standard for it's a good moment is there's been some kind of an emotional exchange, you've been able to say, that made me laugh, that made me smile.
That's kind of that's really interesting. I hadn't thought about this that way.
When you get that level of emotional connection, that's telling you that you have gone past a really superficial and transactional level in the conversation, then I'd love you to have confidence within yourself to suggest meeting up in person.
When you say that, whilst it may feel that no one wants to meet up in person anymore, what you're actually doing is creating an incredible filter, where the people who are really closely aligned to you who do you want to meet up, it's great, you're gonna go on some awesome real life date.
If someone isn't quite ready for that, but still likes you and is able to communicate, they can then say, hey, let's do a video date, or let's go into the live chat room on Match.
We can talk some more, they could provide some alternatives, which you can build toward.
If someone disregard your suggestion, or really, or grows code or the concept or there's never any change in the status quo, then the answer there is simply that for whatever their reasons, which I promise, are really unlikely to be to do with you, this person at this point in their life is just not able to really move forwards with the dating process, and that's your filter.
As long as you can stay proactive, you can keep engaging with people.
Trust me, there are a lot of people out there who want to meet in real life as well.
So see everything is a filter to get onto the dates that you want.
"I'm self-conscious about my height, and I should love myself, but how do I get over the feeling of judgment?"
Zach, I'm going to say we all know that we should all love ourselves.
But that's not always easy to achieve consistently. So don't feel bad about not being some sort of perfect person because none of us feel that way about ourselves all the time.
So, kind of give yourself a break on that part.
Then you're going to have to get into a good mindset where again, this becomes your filter where you're like, actually, if someone is emotionally aware enough, if someone is looking for the right things and the partner, if someone is, then they're going to be open-minded to getting to know me if someone has a laundry list where you know, I need to be the clone of Bradley Cooper before they date me, then they're just not for me, and that's okay.
You may also find that combining doing online dating with also some real life dating might be helpful here because often when we're in person with someone, it enables us to use all of the power of our personality, whether it's eye contact, body language, the tone of our voice, you may also want to add things like voice notes to your profile, or do video calls with people.
Anything that helps you to build your connection with someone will help someone to understand basically why you're so awesome.
So, just accept that no one feels 100% confident all the time.
Instead, really focus on practical action steps you can take and again it is your filter.
"How can I make myself stand out from the rest in my description whilst appearing honest, feminine and intelligent?"
So, when we're writing a description about ourselves sort of on a profile, it can be quite easy to sort of accidentally make ourselves sound like other people.
So for instance, when we list values like honest, feminine, intelligent, they don't necessarily resonate with people as much as when we describe ourselves in a slightly different way.
This is the way of writing a technique of writing your profile I call showing, not telling.
So, rather than saying, I am honest, or I am intelligent, you want to demonstrate that by describing how you interact in day to day life.
So, you could say, for intelligence, you could say, you'll always find me at least halfway through to books, or I enjoy conversations where that I can enjoy conversations where I don't realize that hours are passing me by, or I'm always trying to, or I've got a mind that loves learning, if you can teach me something new I've never read or learned before, I really like that.
So think about how you would describe being intelligent and how you would interact with someone.
That's going to be a much more unique way of putting yourself across and simply listing the values of honest feminine intelligence.
So, think, how does that honest, feminine and intelligent woman interact with the world around her?
"Why do I keep meeting the same type of person but in a different body? Can that really be a reflection of who I became?"
So I think what I hope what you're trying to express their Raphael is you feel like you're having the same dating experiences, over and over again.
What that suggests to me as a dating coach, is that right now you've got a sort of a story about what's going on in your dating life, maybe that's people don't really like me, or people aren't interested in commitment or people always or never, people are always unsure of what they want, or people are commitment phobic, When you have that kind of idea in your mind that that's what's going on in your dating life, then as these experiences show up for you, it's really easy just to file them onto that category.
Instead, I guess, I'd ask you to challenge yourself to think about other interpretations of what could actually be happening here.
So, rather than thinking that all of your experiences have been the same, it's about going my assumption around that is probably not I probably not seeing the full picture here, then you also to create that feeling of change in your dating life may just want to do a bit of a switch up doing something like rewriting your profile, adding a voice note to it, going to a different in real life venue to meet someone doing a different first day.
Whilst it might not change the kind of person you're interacting with, it may help you to feel like you're starting dating with on a from a new kind of blank sheet.
I think that will help you to let go of this idea that all of your dates are the same.
"How do I avoid losing hope that I'll find the right person?"
Now, this is really challenging, and it is hard, right?
Because I can say, I tell you to go on to dates and have the intention to have fun and to be curious and to learn something about someone.
But it is hard to go on dates, dates, dates, and not get to that point of meeting a person that you really connect with.
I would say it's so difficult to have that trust within yourself and within the dating process that this is going to happen for you.
But perhaps you want to develop some really good self talk around this.
So, every time that fear comes up of am I never going to meet someone.
Just say that, again, keep it in the present, and say to yourself, look, I'm taking all of the actions that I can take to meet the right kind of people, I'm going to stay proactive, and I'm going to stay open to the possibility that this can and will happen for me.
So try changing up how you're talking about things.
Also, even if you go on a date, and they're not ultimately the right person for you, instead of just seeing that as a bust, or were they the one no they weren't.
That's a really big pressure of expectation to put on your dates.
Instead, reflect on what that person did bring to the table is actually much more valuable for you to think they weren't quite the right person for me. But I really appreciate their intelligence. I like their humor, or I think I really advocated and ask for I want it really clearly in this interaction, which is a good step forwards.
So not all step forwards in our dating lives are going to be we get to the horizon of meeting that right person.
Sometimes it's also about not going into your dates with this kind of, it's a win if they're the one.
It's not a win if they're not the one.
That's really a, as I said earlier, a huge expectation to put on your dating life.
Instead, focus on these small wins of things that you're doing right.
Again, bring it back to the present.
Keep reassuring yourself as well that you're on the right track.
It'll come down to, I think, how, again, just slightly changing how you're viewing dating.
"How can I address my nerves on a first date?"
This is such a good question.
I think it's so relevant for so many people.
When it comes to nerves, the most important thing here is your mindset.
We kind of tend to feel nervous when we feel like we're being judged by somebody else.
That could be that we feel like, "Oh, gosh, it's on me to impress them, and if I don't impress them, if I don't do this perfectly right, they're going to reject me."
So, you need to start seeing the whole dating process as slightly more of a two-way street.
Perhaps to do that, you can go into that date with a few things.
First of all, you can perhaps reflect on some standards you have. Which would be what behavior, what I love to see in this other person? What would make me really excited to see them again if I saw them doing this on a first date? Maybe that's they asked me a really interesting question, or we had a laugh together, or they planned a really good date for me.
So, focus before that date on your standards.
Then, going back to right what we said at the start of the session, when we focus on, what do they want? What would they like to talk about? Do they like me?
It's a really easy way for us to start to feel really anxious about the dating experience.
So, flip this around. On my date, what would I like to talk about? What would help me to connect with someone? What would I find attractive in another person to talk about? What activities for dates do I find rewarding and enjoyable?
Bring that focus right back to you, and that will also help you to feel less of those nerves on a first date.