First Date Fumbling? 4 Tips for Better Conversations

Gary, you want to know my ultimate first date move? Back in my 20s, when I thought I was really cool, you know what I would do on a first date?

Is this legal to share?

This is legal to share, yes. Here's the signature Adam lodolce move for a first date. I'd show up with this, and I'd just put it on the table right here and be like, oh, I'm sorry I'm late. Just was riding my motorcycle.

That's. That's. That's smooth. Better than showing up, like, so douchey.

Welcome to the Love Strategies podcast, where we help successful women attract high value men, date with a strategy and improve their relationships. Now, whether you're single or dating or in a new relationship, we're here to help you dive into the male mind and provide raw insights found nowhere else, backed by science, psychology, and our own personal experiences. Your hosts today are myself, Adam Lodolce, professional dating coach and founder of Love Strategies, and Dr. Gary Lewandowski, a relationship scientist, professor, and our head relationship coach here at Love Strategies. Please share with a friend and enjoy. I. Honestly, I don't. I think I maybe did that once, and I. I got made fun of so hard, and that's where I was like, I. I like that girl. It's good.

She.

It was probably Jessica. Honestly.

No, that would actually really be a great sign. Right. Of someone that I know would get along well with you if you actually did a kind of a D bag kind of move like that.

Yeah. For those just listening, I brought my. My motorcycle helmet for this podcast. Well, I rode my motorcycle here. Just happened to have it.

Here's my motorcycle helmet. And then if the girl's like, really, dude? Does that work for you? Like, that would be great.

That's a good line. Totally. When a guy's trying really hard to impress you on a first date, make fun of him. I swear to God, like, I wish I had the first date with Jessica recorded because she was just, like, tooling on me in, like, a very fun, playful way. And I was like, ooh, I like this. Like, that's what I need. Give me more of that.

Because I think every. I was going to say every guy, but I think every cool guy likes just a little bit of banter, like, a little bit of, like, back and forth, like, to kind of show like, hey, we're kind of all on the same page. But I think all of this is just what I love about that opening is first dates can be weird. They can be awkward. Everybody goes into them with, you know, Worst case scenarios. And we need ways to get over that. And that's what I love about what we're talking about today.

Have fun. This isn't an interview. Interviews are lame, by the way. I like to spice up interviews too. You can make them fun too. Make it fun. You're getting to know a person, you're having a good time, you know, and you're really there to see if you find each other attractive. That's really a first date. What is really the purpose of a first date? Really? You're not going to know if he's the love of your life. You're not going to know if you're going to be even exclusive with this guy. Really, all you're gonna get is like, do I like him? Would I go out with him again? Most of the information you're gonna get if it's an online meetup, like you're just meeting him from the first time from an online dating app, really what you're gonna get is, is he in real life, similar to what he portrays himself online? That's pretty much it. Like you're not gonna get that much more. A little bit of banter and that's it. So have some fun with it. You know, the second and third date, that's where you go a lot deeper. But this should be a good one.

I think that I love, like that is the premise of the whole entire thing. Because it should be about having fun. The fact is though, when people go out on their first dates, it's intimidating. Yeah. Because we are worried about like, are they going to be attractive? Am I going to be attractive? What am I going to say? How are they going to respond? What should I ask? What should I not ask? Right. And if you're not really thinking about how to approach those questions, there's disaster at every turn. Like you could screw it up royally all over the place. And so, you know, it's a natural fear to worry about those things. But that's not a strategy. Like, if you think it's going to be awkward, you're going to be right. But if you think it's going to be, go well and you're going to be confident. You're going to learn great things and it's going to be kind of a fun experience. You're also going to be right. And so what I like about what we're doing today is I've heard so much information about first dates out there. When it comes to coaching this thing where it's basically like, don't worry Just act yourself. Don't worry, just have faith it's going to go well. Just be yourself. And it's like, no. Yeah, no, like, no. Like that's well intentioned, but it's, it's misinformed. And so rather than just giving you, giving you like these platitudes and things that sound good but just really don't work, we're giving you four specific concrete strategies of things you can do on a first date that's going to make it go a whole heck of a lot better.

Yeah. And just on that whole be yourself thing, again, great, well intentioned advice, but it's just not very helpful. What does that even really mean? Just be yourself. I get it. Like be authentic, all that stuff. But say be authentic, that's better. But just be yourself means just be who you are against such useless advice to be such lame advice.

Well, it almost sounds like, just wing it, it'll be fine.

Right.

And it's like you wouldn't do that for an important job interview necessarily. You would go in prepared. You'd go in with some questions, some things you want to find out about, which I think is exactly the right mindset for this. And so that actually perfectly brings us to the first strategy to use on a first date. And it's so simple, which is instead of worrying about being interesting to the other person, focus on being interested. Focus on drawing out of them information things that are cool about them. Because you're going to walk into this first date not worrying, will he like me? How can I be impressive? No, no, because why? You already know you're awesome, you're great, you're confident, you're walking into that first, of course they're going to like me. And it's something that you say in the little love steps. Aaa always assume attraction. And if you walk into your dates always assuming attraction, that's starting off in the exact right place. You talk about, you know, having that first date and the woman that came back to you and kind of teased you about your motorcycle helmet. That's a confident woman.

Yeah, yeah, totally, totally. It's, you know, when you, when you've always said like, be interested, not interesting, like my initial response to that has always been like, I don't know, but maybe you should be interesting. But the more you said it, it's really resonated with me. And now I'm repeating it to our clients all the time. Because I think back, I used to do like some of these dating shows. I was like a host on a few different Terrible reality TV dating shows. And there were some dates I would, like, be in a van watching, and I'd give them coaching afterwards. Like, literally, I'm in a van in, like, Adam.

Adam's creepy dating van.

Yeah, I was in, like a creepy dating V with, like a camera, and, like, they're filming me, like, reacting or whatever. But there'd be some dates where people go on the dates and all they're trying to do is be interesting. They're trying to talk about themselves. I've done all of this. And then the other person's like, oh, that's so great. I've also been to Italy. Oh, my God, it's so great. Oh, I've been to Germany. And then it's going nowhere. And then there's some dates. I just remember one date in particular. They sat across from each other and be like, tell me about you. Like, I really want to get to know you, the person. Obviously, there might have been some better questions there that went deeper from there, but it's more of an energy. And if both people are interested in one another, it makes for just such a better conversation. That's where the clicking happens. That's where the connection point is. It's not where both people are just trying to impress one another. That's no one cares. No one cares.

And when you're interested, it's other focused. And what do you eventually want in your relationship? You want two people who are not just focused on themselves, they're focused on each other. And so let's start dating in a way that is very close to the relationship we want to have. And here's the craziest part about this whole thing is if you go in, we want the other person to like us, like we're human. Everybody wants that. Of course. So rather than trying to impress them, be interested and guess what's going to happen. You are interested in them. You ask them questions. You're genuinely caring about what they're saying and getting to know them. Guess what is going to happen 100% of the time they're going to like you.

Right?

We like other people who are interested in us. We like other people who show us attention. It takes. And then the best part about this whole thing is it takes all the pressure off of you. You're not trying to put on this dog and pony show to be impressed. You. You're just there to be curious and ask questions and learn about somebody.

I have a question for you. Have you ever had this happen? It must have happened to you with our Clients. Because this has happened so many times to me where a client would be like, I went on a date with a guy last week. I wasn't really that into him, but he didn't end up calling me this week. Like, and that's weird. Like, why didn't he call me? I'm like, because you weren't interested in him. Like, have you ever had that happen? And they're like, well, what the heck? Why didn't he call me? Why didn't he follow up? I'm like, you were probably the whole time not showing any interest. Why is he gonna call you? Have you ever had that happen where. I've had that happen all the time, but it hurts their ego. And I get it. I've had that happen to me too. Where you go on a date. You're like, I'm not really that into her, but why didn't she follow up with me? I'm just curious. It's probably because I wasn't that into her, and she could tell. Humans can tell. So just be interested if you are interested.

Well, and this is a weird tangent, but every single time that has ever happened, when a client describes it, what happens is they become now more interested in the guy they weren't interested in before because he wasn't interested in them.

Of course.

And what does that tell you about exactly what we're mentioning here, which is don't go in trying to care so much and show how much it comes off as needy. And it. In some weird way, guys want to win you over. They want you to be a little, like, I don't know, and then kind of bring you back in and, like, show you how amazing they are. Like, let that happen.

Yeah. Yeah, I love that. Gary, you want to take us to the second one?

Yeah. And so the second one very much dovetails from this being interested piece, which is when we get to know people, we want to get to know them as soon as possible. Like, we want to have. We want to have the puzzle figured out. We want to know how this thing ends. And so part of what we'll do is jump to conclusions, but we want to make sure we're not doing that because the other person that's sitting across from us, what they don't want is to be stereotyped, to be seen as boring or typical. They want to be unique and stand out. And so we want to be very careful to oversimplify them, to pigeonhole them or kind of turn them into a caricature of what they are. Right. And what I mean, by that is, here's an example. So you find out that the person you're with is an accountant.

Oh, no, not an accountant.

I know how much Adam loves accountants. And so you want to find out things about them. And so a very typical question that someone would ask about, like, you find out the other person's accountant is like, oh, you're an accountant, so you must be into numbers, right? Fair. But it's like the most obvious limiting thing and whatever, accountant. And they're going to answer, yeah, kind.

Of like numbers, debits, and credits are cool, right?

Like, okay, now that's fine for small talk in an elevator. Fine. But on a first date, you want to make them more unique. You want to make them stand out, and you have to help, and you ask better questions. And so instead of saying, oh, you must be in the numbers, you say, what's the biggest misconception people have about accountants? Ooh, now they get. Cause they're going to have one guaranteed. Oh, most people think that we're just into numbers, but no, we're. Whatever. It's. I don't know enough about accounting to know what they would say, but they're going to have something, right? And so very similar. Like, if you don't want to make it about the job, you just ask somebody, like, what's your hidden talent? Right? Like, that allows them. It's. You're setting the stage for them to be unique, to be different and not like everybody else. So try to find. When you're having conversation, try to find all the ways they violate expectations. They're contradictory to everybody else. How are they? And then you say things like, you know, what's really special about you? And then you point something out. You know what's really what I find really unique? You know what surprised me about you? Every one of those prompts, as soon as you say it, they're gonna perk up, be like, I don't know what surprised you? Like, they're now curious. They're dying to know what you're about to say next. And then you get to share some insight that they're like, huh, wow, that's not the typical thing everybody else says. And talk about making a first date easier. Just that little bit of, like, being interested in that way. Golden.

Damn, Gary, you got game, bro. I wish I could have seen you on a date. Oh, I wish I could have been in the van watching Gary on a date. Just like, oh, what's the biggest misconception about accountants? And they're like, oh, it's like, very sensual and he's like, yeah.

I stay away from your dating van. It sounds bad.

Get into my van. My love van, baby. Come on in.

Spray painted on the side. Free love advice.

No, it's too funny, man. Oh, I wish I could have seen it. Too bad it'll never happen. But are you getting tired of the guys who don't want to commit? And are you ready to attract that long lasting relationship? Well, for podcast listeners, we have a very special training that is available@he commits.com. when you go over there, you can go ahead and reserve a seat. We are going to walk you through the five secret strategies that make men commit. I want you to discover your power and make guys beg for your affection. Go to he commits.com and you can dive deep into that content. All right, back to the pod. All right, advice number three, which is this is true when you're just meeting a person for the first time as well as a first date. Let's skip over some of the facts. Fact based questions are so boring. And I get it. Like early conversations, they can be a lot about family, you know, relationship history, hobbies, where are you from, what do you do, yada, yada, yada, blah, blah, blah. And then what happens is we then take in that information and we try to play the Ph.D. gary role, the psychologist, the armchair psychologist. And we try to extract and infer from that information. We try to extrapolate from there. He likes dogs, so that means he must be outgoing. Oh, he is divorced, so that means he's not ready for a relationship. And when we start to take a fact and then infer more information, we are just filling in the blanks. We're fibbing ourselves, as Gary will say. And when we go in these fact finding missions, what we are really doing is we're being the interviewer, we're being the reporter. And it's just not romantic. It's not fun. I mean, all of us have been on a date, I'm sure, where the person's just drilling you with questions, just everything. And they're like simple, easy, basic questions. And it's like, this is so not fun. Like, I don't get. This is just.

Isn't fun.

Oh, where are you from? Oh, I'm from Sharon, Massachusetts. Oh, okay. Do you have a brother? Yeah. Great. What about, you know, do you have parents? Yeah, I have parents. Like, alive. Okay. Like, it's like one of the. It's just like this isn't interesting at all. So instead maybe dig deeper, focusing on learning how they think, what they feel, how they're motivated, and the why behind everything. Rather than asking him what he does for a living, ask him why he does what he does for a living. Why are you an accountant? Why do you find that interesting? What about accounting kind of just lights your fire? Oh, nothing. Let's say he says nothing, all right? I know a lot of accountants. He goes, nothing, but, well, there must be something that draws you to it or drew you to it in the first place. There must be something that excites you about your day. Yeah. You know what? Actually, there is an interesting thing. I really like meeting with the team and doing some forensic accounting. Whatever boring thing they do, you know, there's something there. Pull. We've lost all accountants as subscribers at this point. But rather than focusing on facts, focus on feelings. Trying to elicit the feelings of how they feel about what they do. If someone is like, like, for example, I am very big into kite surfing. Gary. You know this. I'm going on the water, hopefully this evening maybe. But whenever someone finds out I'm into kite surfing, they'll be like, oh, where do you go kite surfing? I'd be like, oh, I go in South Boston. I go in the haunt. Oh, really? Interesting. I have almost never had anyone ask me, like, what does it feel like to be in the air when you're jumping? Like, no one's ever asked that. And it's like the one question, like, if someone asked that, I'd be like, exhilarating. You know, it's so wild. It's so crazy, you know, swimming with the sharks. There's a 15 foot shark sighted the other day. It's like, it's wild. And then guess what? Like, I'll light up and I'll bring out emotion because I'm now connecting with that question. So notice the difference. Where do you go versus what's it like? How does it make you feel? Changes the whole dynamic of the conversation.

Yeah. And I think, you know, just to circle back quickly to something you said earlier that I think is really important is when you focus too much on facts. I think what I. One of the mistakes I see women make a lot is they're. They're very good at gathering facts. They gather a lot of this information, and then they like to make a lot of inferences from it. Right. And so it's, oh, are you a firstborn? Yes. And then they kind of move on from there, but then later they do this, like, post game analysis of like, oh, firstborn. That means he's Blankety, blank, blank, blank, blank. It's like maybe, but. But also maybe not. Right? And so you just want to be really, really careful about those things and then those deeper questions. You know, one of the pieces of research that we know is that there's. There's these 36 questions that actually my research advisor from grad school developed. And it's Basically the exact 36 questions aren't that important, but it's 36 questions to help find love. And the whole idea is just ask better questions, ask deeper, more emotional, more meaningful questions, and you're going to get to know people better.

Yeah, I love it. Gary, you want to take us home with the final piece?

Yes. I love that I get to do this last one because I love talking about this. And I will try not to talk about this for 20 minutes, but tell me more. Why?

Why do you feel that way?

So so much a conversation isn't about what you say. It's much more about how much you listen and how well you listen. And so the fourth key to not have this be a whole long lecture, the key, most important thing is the power of paraphrasing. And so what that means is when other people talk and explain what is going on in their life or something, you have to be ready to repeat it back to them or call back to that at a future point. Not necessarily in like a English major thesaurus challenge where you're swapping out all the words, but it's like, oh, remember when you were talking about your childhood pet? That's a paraphrase in the sense that they told you a story about their childhood pet that meant something to them. You then refer to it later. You're showing, not just telling them you're listening, you're showing that you're listening. And everybody then, when you have listened, knows that you care. And that is people want to be, feel, seen, heard and understood. And so being a good listener is going to help you do that. Right? So one of the best examples is someone tells you a long story about their job, whole long thing, they say all these twists and turns and plots, and then the copy machine, and then my boss said this, and then they did this. You don't have to recount every last little plot twist. Your job as a paraphraser, this is going to force you to be a really good listener. You figure out what was the key piece of that, and then you recount that piece back. Is it about how their boss treats them? Was it about the stress of the situation? You focus on that and say, you know, when you were saying about how your boss asked you to do this thing, it sounds like that person might have unrealistic expectations. And, gosh, that's got to be frustrating. That's a level of listening that most people, frankly, just don't bother with, because most of the time, we're just listening, waiting our turn to talk. And so not only this is. I mean, there's two huge benefits to this. It forces you to just really actually listen instead of waiting your turn to talk. So that's a major benefit. And then it forces you to show them that you care. And there's probably nothing more important on a first date than leaving the impression that you actually care about the other person and value what they have to say.

I would just say, genius. I love that. The final benefit to that is it takes the pressure off of you to do all the talking. Like, I would when I was coaching men. They'd always be like, what do I say? How do I tell a story? What do I do? I'm like, just listen. Just ask questions. Get her talking. 80% of the. If each person is trying to get the other person to talk, 80% of the time, that's a good conversation because you both are trying to get. You're trying to extract emotion from the other person. And thus, one plus one equals, like, four in that scenario. And so worry less about what you are trying to say. It takes the pressure off of you. And you just go in, ask good questions, be interested. Don't try to be too interesting. Have a little bit of fun. Get out there, go on some dates. I challenge all of you this upcoming week. Try this stuff. It works. Let us know how it goes. Thanks, Gary. That was really fun.

Yeah, good luck out there.

So now you've reached the end of the podcast. Thank you so much for being here. And because you have proven that you are serious about attracting love, you wouldn't be listening to this podcast if you didn't feel that way. What I'd love for you to do is go to loveapply.com where you can apply for a complimentary love strategy session where a professional love strategist on my team is going to speak with you directly and be able to see whether or not our executive love coaching programs can be transformational for you and your love life. There's absolutely no fee whatsoever. All you got to do is head on over to loveapply. Com, schedule that session, and you could be speaking with someone on my team over the next couple of days. All right, thanks. So much. Talk to you soon. Bye.

Bye.