The Basics Archives - Page 5 of 12

Starting From Zero

January 13, 2014 by Dr. NerdLove 236 Comments

One of the common complaints I hear from readers is that they have absolutely no dating history or experience and don’t know where to begin. And in fairness, while I do have a number of articles in The Basics that cover the dating fundamentals, sometimes it can be hard to know just where to begin. After all, when you’re starting from zero, it can be a little intimidating. You’re looking at trying to do something fairly massive and just the sheer scope of what there is to learn and to adapt and adjust to can make it seem like there’s just too much to overcome. And when you pair that with what are likely life-long held self-limiting beliefs about who you are and what you’re capable of doing… well, it’s a recipe for paralysis at best. You feel like you’re standing at the foot of the Matterhorn and trying to figure out just how the hell you’re going to make it to the summit… only with no gear and no preparation and at least one arm tied behind your back.

So at the urging of several readers1, I want to talk a little about how to go about getting started making your own transformation from the ground up.

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And a hat tip to long-time reader and commenter Gentleman Johnny, who suggested the article [↩]

How To Get Better at Dating… Quickly

September 23, 2013 by Dr. NerdLove 196 Comments

Improving my dating life was a long, hard slog. Like most of you, I had more than my share of issues to get over – I had to let go of my Nice Guy tendencies and some deep-seated problems with being willing to accept that women were sexual beings. I also had to toss out 90% of what I thought I knew about dating and start over from scratch. But as so many people had before me, I made a lot of mistakes. I dove head-first into the pick-up scene and immediately tried to be a master PUA, with a goal of getting laid – or at least a handie in the bathroom – every night.

As far as life-goals go, "Look like a Boris Vallejo painting" isn't too bad... — Yeah, pretty much what I was imagining.

Considering I was coming from “Barely able to look women in the eye,” with nothing but a handful of pre-scripted lines and a head full of half-baked attraction theory, calling it ambitious would be an understatement… and frankly, it was a disaster. I had a vague idea of where I wanted to go but no idea how to get there. As a result… well, there was a lot of unintentional comedy in the first few months. The only reason why I hung on as long as I did was through sheer bloody-minded stubbornness; I was going to master this or die trying.

It’s only in retrospect that I was able to realize that I was going about it all wrong. The will was there but my way of trying to learn was actually holding me back. And to be perfectly frank, I see people making the same mistakes I did.

So I want to help people learn from my hard-won experience. I want to show you how to get better at dating, quickly and efficiently, while avoiding all the mistakes I made.

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The Art of Cold Approach Pt 2 – Daytime Approaches

July 26, 2013 by Dr. NerdLove 543 Comments

On Monday, we broke down the basics of a cold approach – the opening, building rapport, qualifying and making the move. This is going to be the outline of most of your attempts at meeting people, whether you’re looking for a potential date, a potential sex partner, a new friend or a networking possibility.

The next step is to learn how to tailor your approach to fit the circumstances. After all: most of us don’t meet people exclusively at bars and clubs. The basic cold approach is good for large, active social settings – parties, bars, nightclubs, gallery openings, street fairs, concerts, etc. – but less so when you’re dealing with day to day interactions. If you approach someone in the grocery store the way you’d approach them at a party, the odds of getting weird looks, uncomfortable silence and the occasional rutabaga upside the head are fairly high. Similarly, a long indirect opener that might work at the bar is going to seem weird as hell at the bookstore. If you’re hoping to get a phone number, you don’t want to roll up on somebody at a coffee shop like the Big Bad Wolf.

"Hello little girl, what's your rush? You're missing all the flowers..." — “Hello little girl, what’s your rush? You’re missing all the flowers…”

So if you want to meet someone during your daily routine or outside of the traditional meat markets, then you have to change how you go about your business.

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The Art of Cold Approach Pt 1 – The Basics

July 22, 2013 by Dr. NerdLove 528 Comments

Now that Nerdi Gras is over and we’re all coming back down from the sensory overload and What-The-Fuckery of all of the panels (Age of Ultron? Seriously? SERIOUSLY?), it’s time to get back to the business of improving your social life and meeting new people.

While there are many, many ways of doing this – online dating, joining an amateur sports team, taking continuing education classes or finding like-minded groups on meetup.com – there’s a truth that they all have in common: you’re going to have to learn the art of the cold approach. Cold approaches are when you’re meeting someone you have no social connection with; unlike with a warm approach, you’re meeting a complete and total stranger without even the “friend-of-a-friend” buffer to ease your way.

It can be intimidating. It can be ball-shrinkingly terrifying at times. You’re going to feel like you’re putting your entire self-worth into somebody else’s hands.

Don't mind us. We're just quietly judging everything about you. — Don’t mind us. We’re just quietly judging everything about you.

And it is totally worth it.

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The Hardest Lessons To Learn

July 12, 2013 by Dr. NerdLove 50 Comments

As we reach the height of summer, it means that we’re approaching the climax of con season. Rooster Teeth Expo, Spill Dot Con, Anime Expo and CONvergence all occurred over the previous weekend, and the geek-gasm will be reaching it’s peak with the celebration of Nerdi Gras at the San Diego Comic-Con all next week. And, as tends to happen every con season, the letters are filtering in telling me that many of you have ignored my dictum about trying to hook up at cons.

"I REGRET NOTHING!!!!!" — “I REGRET NOTHING!!!!!”

To be sure, I do believe that love can bloom on the convention floor, but all too often people don’t understand that conventions are social and emotional pressure-cookers; by trying to compress everything into a solitary weekend (or a seeming eternity if you’re going to SDCC) you’re making everything seem more intense. Cons are hotbeds of nerdcrushes, online couples meeting for the first time in meatspace and, of course, veritable hordes of geeks who’re up all night to get lucky… or at least get into the Hentai room after the cosplay contest. Take a bunch of geeks, shove them into a hotel room with bad food, little sleep and near constant stimulation and you end up with a perfect recipe for drama and broken hearts. And drama there will be, because libidos will be running wild and so will tempers. It can be an incredible rush – everything you love under one roof, games, comics, anime, SEX… it’s like the ultimate nerd-high.

Of course, with every high comes the crash. When you throw that much sexual energy into a confined space, you end up with a crash course in some of the hardest lessons in dating in rapid succession. Everyone eventually has to go through these eventually, so the last thing you want is to have to experience them all at once.

So let’s take a look at them before you’re sitting alone in your hotel room, raiding the minibar, crying and abusing the substandard wifi to Facebook stalk your former beloved.

Er… not that I would know anything about that.

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