How to Get a Girlfriend with Connell Barrett - 21 Dating Tips for Introverts, with Amber Brooks, editor of DatingAdvice.com

Episode Date: June 20, 2023

You want practical dating tips so you can stop doubting yourself, flirt with charm, and land a great girlfriend, right? Yet there’s so much advice out there! You’re drowning in information, but you’re starved for wisdom. It’s confusing and frustrating. We’ve got you covered. In today’s Dating Transformation podcast, host and dating coach Connell Barrett welcomes the wise, witty Amber Brooks, editor-in-chief of DatingAdvice.com and DatingNews.com. A true dating expert, Amber knows what women want. She and Connell share 21 effective dating tips for introverts. So listen now! It’s time to stop doubting yourself and start attracting wonderful women as your most confident, authentic self.Quotes"Don't let hindrances hold you back; that's the true failure. Instead, push past them and open yourself up to meeting someone who will enhance your life for the better." - Amber Brooks“Engage sincerely with thoughtful follow-up questions to make her feel truly valued and heard.”. - Amber BrooksFeatured in the episodeAmber BrooksEditor-in-chief of http://Datingadvice.comWebsite: https://www.datingadvice.com/ FOR THE LATEST NEWS AND TRENDS IN DATING: www.datingnews.comFOR A FREE STRATEGY CALL WITH CONNELL, TO LEARN HOW TO ATTRACT YOUR DREAM RELATIONSHIP:www.datingtransformation.com/contactGET CONNELL’S NO. 1 BESTSELLING GUIDE FOR MEN, “DATING SUCKS BUT YOU DON’T,” YOUR PRACTICAL GUIDE ON HOW TO GET A GIRLFRIEND BY BEING RADICALLY AUTHENTIC: www.amazon.com/Dating-Sucks-but-You-Dont-ebook/dp/B08LDZL3Chapters00:14 Introduction02:12 Exploring Diverse Dating Approaches05:57 Unlocking Local Secrets: Specific Tips for Dating Success08:44 Breaking Free from Fear: Overcoming Barriers to Approach12:55 Learning from Awkward Experiences: Building Better Connections15:11 Embracing Normalcy and Respect17:48 Personalized pickups and genuine interest breed attraction.20:07 Making an Impact with Personalized Interactions22:41 Tips for Fostering Genuine Online Connections26:51 Building Relationships on a Granular Level32:01 Building Lasting Connections in the Online World37:02 Partnering with dating sites: Say no to Tinder, choose Match.40:56 First date etiquette and advantages.42:51 Key to dating success: Perseverance and resilience.45:38 Embracing authenticity without negativity.47:19 Outro

I mean, maybe the best dating tip of all is have fun. To quote the great 20th century philosopher, Cyndi Lauper, girls, they want to have fun-a. Welcome to the Dating Transformation Podcast. Here's your host, dating coach, Conal Barrett. And we are back. Welcome to the Dating Transformation Podcast. I'm your host,

Conal Barrett, helping you gain confidence, learn to flirt, and find a great relationship all by being authentic. No creepy pickup artist moves needed. And I'm really psyched today because we have a special guest who I think we're going to break the record for dating tips given on a single episode because we have a really special guest today. My guest today is Amber Brooks. Amber is a prominent figure in the dating industry, and she has penned over 1,800 articles on every dating topic under the sun. And she's also written in-depth profiles on dating professionals, reviewed dating sites,

and given lots of dating advice. Amber's insights have appeared on various media outlets, including the Washington Times and Zoosk's Date Mix. And the big thing you need to know is she is currently the editor-in-chief for datingadvice.com. This is the biggest resource for dating advice on the web. And she's also the editor-in-chief of datingnews.com. Amber, thank you so much for joining us today. Yeah, thank you so much for having me. It's a pleasure.

It's my pleasure. I think I say the over-under on dating tips is 27. I'll bet we can get to that now. It's about one per minute. No pressure. Maybe we'll get there. Maybe we won't. And I'm super glad to have you here

today because a lot of people, men especially, struggle with dating, especially online dating. And what's great about datingadvice.com is it's just absolutely chock filled with short, simple, practical pieces of dating advice. So let me ask you this, datingadvice.com, what's the mission and how does it help singles find each other? Yeah, that's a great question. We started in early 2012 with the idea of just becoming a resource for singles of all kinds

to find the answers that they're looking for, kind of like a WebMD kind of resource, answering every question we could find. So yeah, we kind of dove in and started partnering with experts to contribute to our content and answer questions that they were seeing. We have different sections for men, for women, for online dating, gay and lesbian and senior dating,

our main kind of buckets that we try to fill every month. And our mission is, yeah, just to give advice that is realistic, that is useful, and that people can apply to their lives easily. You know, we don't subscribe to a one advice fits all kind of mentality. So we try to get a lot of different perspectives on the different kinds of strategies and different dating approaches that you can take. So really our goal is just to talk to everybody that we can about dating and relationships. And yeah, I've been here, I've been at the company since 2015

and yeah, it's been a wild journey. There's a lot of different opinions out there about dating. And yeah, I just think that- Everybody's got an opinion about it, don't they? They do. Yeah. And they're very willing to tell you about it. Everyone who's been on one date considers themselves a dating expert. So we have a lot of resources to draw from there. You must feel like a physician, a doctor, I'll bet, or a lawyer, you know how like in your family, maybe there's a doctor or a lawyer and you go to the doctor and say, Hey, Uncle Larry, my elbow's hurting me. Or I think I have a fever. Do you when you mentioned to people that you're

the editor in chief of datingadvice.com? Is it instantly? Oh, my gosh, help me. Let me ask you this. Yeah, yeah, I get a lot of that. Or can you look at my profile or, you know, screenshots of text messages? What would you say? And that kind of thing. But yeah, it's always just fun to be able to help and say like, oh, there's an article about that. And so I always just like link to articles and those kind of conversations.

So I don't have to be me giving the advice and be like, well, Hunt Etheridge said this or something like that. So I always try to source myself. Of course, of course. And the site has over 250 experts. That's an amazing amount of experts and a lot of traffic. Did I see on your site

something like 10 million? No, sorry. Did I see 10 million? No, 2 million words of advice. Was? No, 2 million words of advice. Was that right? 2 million words of advice is right. Yeah. I probably wrote, you know, about half a million of those.

Okay. Yeah. So we, yeah, we have 250 experts that we kind of rotate through and we have some favorites who kind of show up monthly. But yeah, we just talk to a lot of different people and end up promoting a lot of different types of content. So yeah, we're very fortunate that we've been able to work with. I feel like we've talked to most everyone in the dating industry at this point. If we haven't found you, then yeah, we're not doing our job right. So everyone from

like dating app owners to dating coaches, matchmakers, wedding planners, you know, related to love. We'll talk about it. Wow. Amber, you've written a half a million words of dating advice. You're like the Tolstoy of dating advice. Stephen King of dating advice. Yeah. Incredibly prolific. Yeah. Before we get to some of those, we're not going to get to half a million quite of those tips, but we'll get to a few. Before we those. What, what initiatives have you driven on the site that you want to mention? What, um, what features or pieces of content are you most proud of at datingadvice.com? Yeah. Um, so when I came on board, um, before that we

had been relying solely on outside experts to write our content. And then we started growing talent in-house. And so I was part of kindoster or like anything that we thought could be a helpful resource for people and doing a profile on them. And we still do that content today. It's just been very useful and successful and very specific. It's not just like, oh, take her out to a bar. It's like, take her to this bar. This bar is owned by this guy and they're doing a music night on Wednesdays.

So we try to give very specific practical opportunities um and so that's been really helpful to um bring people from all across the country to our site and um kind of uh give them very specific tips fantastic so you said something before we turned on the mic here about your fiance. So obviously you are in a relationship. Can you talk a little bit about your dating story? Yeah. How you navigated the dating world? Any lessons you learned back from your single days? Yeah, absolutely. Writing for the site was like therapy for me a little bit at the time when I was single. Because I'd be like, well, I'm about to go on this date and I don't know how it's going to go, but at least I'll get a story out of it at the end of it.

Um, and so it really kind of motivated me to keep going in the dating world, you know, when, uh, it is kind of like, uh, ups and downs that you go through. Um, so I had multiple profiles up and, um, eventually met my match. It took me, uh, 44 different guys that I dated. I kept counting. Yes. my match it took me uh 44 different guys that i dated i kept count 44 yes uh yeah over the course of like four years when i really got serious about online dating um i i tracked my own progress because i'm a big nerd and so he was number 44 same and uh yeah we met on hinge he actually messaged me on ok cupid also and I ignored it because he said we should introduce our dogs and I was like this is too soon for a first message.

Okay. All right. So I skipped that but two weeks later he messaged me on Hinge and that was the one that clicked for us. So yeah, I am my own success story. I joined Hinge because I wrote about it and three years later met my husband there. Well, even that's a good takeaway that you're now, you said fiance or husband?

He's my fiance. We're getting married next month. So the first message did not get a response or you said thanks, but no thanks. Yet he took a second shot. Yeah. Good strategy. Don't give up after one.

Is that something you might share with our listener? I'm going to read your mind. Ready? I'll bet that you would love to confidently approach women, get great matches on the dating apps, flirt with charm, and attract your dream girlfriend. Right? But fear keeps you from approaching. You're not sure how to flirt. You struggle on the apps, and desirable women just don't seem into you. Well, I have great news! Dating coach Conal Barrett can help.

He's guided thousands of men like you to more confidence and helped them attract their dream girlfriends. So book a free strategy call today to see if Connell's coaching is right for you. On your call, Connell or a team member will give you personalized advice to help you have more confidence, more dates, and more fun. Oh, and you'll be dating women as your best self, a charming gentleman. That's because Connell does not teach creepy pickup artist tricks. He unlocks your most confident self, so you can make authentic romantic connections. Your next steps?

Book your free call today at datingtransformation.com forward slash contact and grab a time that works for you. Then you'll be on your way to more confidence, better results, and attracting bright, beautiful women. Oh, so you know, soon Connell will stop taking on new clients. So book a call today while you still can. Go to datingtransformation.com forward slash contact and transform your love life. Bye. Yeah, I think that that is a good lesson, you know, not take rejection personally you know he didn't assume that I hated him and would never message him again you know he just like tried again just to see different approach you know different day different person so yeah the second time is the one that

took and we always laugh about that that first message that he said that I just straight up ignored fair enough fair enough I one of my one of the tips I give my guys is I call it the three times rule. So you have, you can give three salvos, three attempts at an online dating icebreaker before you give up more than three. You might be veering into to try hard, but just one, Hey, you might not have caught her in the right mood or in your case, it wasn't the right approach. Don't do the don't assume your dogs want to meet right out of the gate. And with some persistence and charm, that second or maybe even occasionally a third and final shot can really work.

Yeah. And obviously it's look what it did for your fiance. And yeah. Yeah. And I think it was also just me kind of being like, I should just give someone a try, you know, like, I think, yeah, you can't really tell who a person is from a profile. And with him, like, he just really impressed me in person and his profile, like, a really bad date and I was like, I just need to say yes to anybody. And so I started guessing a lot of guys. And that was kind of the inspiration for how we met. Well, speaking of bad dates, let me ask you this question. One of my favorite things to talk about on a first date. So I'm in a relationship now. But when I was on a first date, I always thought it

was it wasn't great to talk about too much about dating. That can be a little bit too inside baseball. Yeah, but I thought it was helpful to talk about fun first date horror stories or funny, crazy first date stories. So for example, I was on a first date once where I ordered a beer and she ordered a beer and a ginger ale and a water and a smoothie all at the same time. And I cracked a joke about, are you part camel? Are you storing liquids for the summer? And it didn't go well. So that's one of my quick little dating funny horror stories. Since you had 44 dating up to your now fiance. Yes. What's it any good first date horror

stories you want to share? Um, yeah, I don't know if any of them are really good. But some of them are kind of strange, you know, like, or strange. Yeah, I think as well. I think sometimes like guys just didn't understand like boundaries on a first date and even if we had been talking for a month you know they would just feel a little too familiar um and so one guy on our first date was like we should go on a cruise together and i was like no we should not we just met like we had been talking for a month so we felt like we had this rapport. But yeah, he was he was very much about like, oh, you know, Hamilton's playing here next

month. We should go to that. And I was like, no, I don't want to buy these tickets with you right now. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Or like one time I was at a bar and we met up and he was like, oh, it's too crowded here.

Do you want to like get in my truck and we'll go to this restaurant down the road? And I was like, Nope. Too soon. Too soon. So I think that's something I always kind of tell guys is like, just be aware that women are going to be very sensitive about their safety on a first date. And to really respect those boundaries, you know, don't try to argue with them. That also happened to me where a guy was like, you know, someone's not going to tell you they're a rapist. Like, okay, well, when he said that to you, he did. Yeah. Because, um, we, we had been chatting and he was like, do you want to go out on a date tomorrow night at my place? And I was like, I don't really want to meet you at your place. Can we like go somewhere else? And he was like, what is this? You know, he just immediately was like, no. Um, so yeah, uh, I was like what is this like you know he just immediately was like no um so yeah uh

i was like people won't tell you you're a jerk either but you kind of get that vibe sometime so uh yeah i think respecting women's boundaries is like a very important thing to tell people when you're meeting online in particular um women are just going to err on the side of caution you know a guy asked me if i live alone and I was like, I don't know what this question is. Not a good icebreaker. I'm going to go ahead and block you. Do you live alone?

Also, what's your social security number? Yeah. And what's your credit card number? And yeah. Yeah. Oh, boy. Yeah. Okay.

You can moan me money, you know, for a plane ticket. Yeah. You know, you just want to stay very clear uh from like the creeps and the dangerous people and make sure you sound safe and normal right right and then the great news here is our listener is definitely not that guy yeah and what i tell my my clients and our listener is you don't have to read your competition might not be as good as you think when, when there's guys asking you out on a cruise for your first or second date,

I just say to men, be authentic, be normal. Um, and just show her that you're a guy who respects women and has normal, good social skills, just normal, solid social skills and not doing the weird thing. Yeah. Like the cruise ship ask out, just normal, solid social skills and not doing the weird thing.

Yeah. Like the cruise ship ask out. Just not just not doing weird things is a good approach to dating. And my my the first date I had with my future girlfriend, she said, you know what? Women are not giving you points on a date. It's you start off with a reasonable number of points and then you lose them as you do weird things. The more you talk, yeah, the numbers go down.

No, yeah, I think that's a really good point is like, you know, we'll give you the benefit of the doubt and you just have to, yeah, behave normally as much as you can. You know, there's a lot of nerves and we'll give you some like credit for that. Like, yeah, it's nerve wracking to be on a first date. We're nervous, too. Like, you know, I've probably checked my hair like a million times before coming out with you. But yeah, you just have to be able to sound like a person who is confident in yourself and being authentic and not too forward. And that's really it.

Exactly. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Exactly. So what you're saying is my girlfriend and I want to invite you and your fiance on a round-the-world cruise. You're saying it's a double date too soon, are you saying? Is it like a month-long cruise? How long are we going to make a time commitment? Three months circumnavigating the globe.

That sounds incredible. This is the first time we've spoken. I'm sure you win. Let's get the tickets. All right. I'll try to learn a lesson from this episode. Yeah. Well, yeah. So here you are, a woman on my podcast and men love hearing from women, especially with a lot of dating experience and expertise, which you obviously have. Let's talk about a couple topics here and let me just see what you have to share. I'll start with a simple question about dating myths. There's a lot of myths out there or things that a lot of men believe. What do you think?

What are some myths that you would like to puncture today that men shouldn't worry about or maybe misunderstand about dating or about women yeah i think um you know that there's like a pickup line or a magic sentence of words that are gonna like work on every woman they met you know they can just send this sentence to every woman it's gonna work like that's not true all women are different they're gonna respond to different things and you really do have to make your messages personal or your pickups if you're in person um you know you just have to be yeah have a conversation starter sometimes the best message doesn't have to be this like strange pickup line that you looked up and thought like oh this is a pun that'll catch your attention

sometimes just like hey i saw a picture of your dog looks cute what's the name of the dog don't like yeah don't like overthink it um just act like you were talking to someone you know like a friend and asking a genuine question not um some kind of like yeah i think that there's like like oh this is the sentence that's going to make women attracted to you because you are doing all these manipulative things like women have a sense of when something is canned and when something is genuine and so that genuine interest is always gonna win out you know like being genuinely interested in her pictures her profile whatever um i would keep it to what she is and not what she looks like also as much as possible because i think

guys think like that these compliments are gonna to get them in her good graces. But it's just going to make her wonder if you really like her or if you just like her hair. Great. Can you can you elaborate on what you mean by make it about what she is rather than what she looks like? Yeah. So I think that compliments that are that go a little deeper and are like, oh, you look like someone who's full of joy or something, or you seem like a big nerd, which is what I would get a lot because I am a big nerd. And it's just something that's like you like something about them, not, you know, something that they are proud of, too, you know, something that they can wear proudly, not just like, oh, you're hot.

And that's why I want to talk to you, you know, make it more about who she is and how she carries herself, that kind of thing. Right. And in terms of an online dating profile, what are parts of a profile that you have found women like men to notice? Yeah. So I would say like the words part gets the least amount of attention. You know, it's all about the photos usually. But when guys do pick up on like, kind of like what you wrote, you know, your hobbies, or if they share an interest, or they also, you know, like to go to get tacos or something, you know, like those kind of things are going to catch her interest a lot more, um, than just like commenting on her photos, um, because those are really dime a dozen. Um, but yeah, I think if you can pick up on something specific, show you read the profile that you

thought about it, that you have reasons for thinking you're compatible, um, that's going to make you stand out a lot more because she's going to get a lot of like, hey, beautifuls and stuff. And so the way that you can stand out as a good guy who, you know, has something to offer is by just taking like the extra 10 seconds to read what she wrote and respond to it, you know, thoughtfully, not just like you're copy pasting the same pickup to everybody. Right. I have not heard Hey Beautiful in years. I'm hoping it'll happen soon. No, that's great advice. Focusing on the words, what she has to say, because especially if she gets a lot of likes and comments on, oh, my God, it's an amazing bikini

pic or you are so hot. If you can focus on something that's more internal about who she is inside, then that's going to land more impactfully. That's what I'm hearing you say. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's, yeah, it shows that you're a deeper kind of person, that you're looking for a deeper kind of connection,

that you're not just, you know, another of these guys trying to get in her pants as quick as you can and like not get to know her if you can help it. You know, like those guys who are genuinely like, let's get to know each other. We're always the ones that I, you know, would take to immediately who kind of were more interested in what I had to say than what I look like. Sticking with the topic of what to say. This is great advice. Lower the bar for how good the words have to be. It doesn't have to be maybe as amazing as you think. Let's talk about questions to ask. So many men I work with come to me in part because they're struggling with,

they fall into quote interview mode, where they either ask too many questions or they don't ask any questions, or maybe they ask the wrong questions. So do you have any thoughts? Maybe these are articles you've written or just things you've noticed from datingadvice.com about the art of the kinds of questions to ask. Are there good questions and are there bad questions with, say, an online dating conversation? Yeah, absolutely. So yeah, you always want to kind of end with a question so that you're not, you know, just letting the conversation die when you're having an online conversation. You want to like ask another question. Usually a follow-up question

is the best, you know, start with like one question. Like you like to travel, your profile says you like to travel. Where have you traveled to? And then she says, oh, I've been to France. And you're like, great. Why did you go to France? You know, like keep the conversation going that way in a natural way. Don't be like, you know, do you like to travel? Yes, I travel to France. And then be like, okay, what are your goals in life? You know, like don't make it like an interview that does seem like you're just kind of listing out these questions you read online and some kind of like best questions to ask list. You know, respond to her with follow-up questions that are specific

to the question you asked first. And so I think that's a really good strategy and just like a natural conversation strategy to keep the conversation going and show that you listened and responded. And yeah, if she's not asking questions and you feel like you have to ask a lot of questions, that might not be a really great sign for the conversation anyway, but I would say kind of always fall back on interests, goals, and family. Those are always three good buckets to draw from when you're learning about a person.

And don't talk about politics and religion if you can help it in those early days, because it's going to be you know heavier than you really want to keep things i love it interests goals and family so asking about her best uh her family her close relatives obviously her passions interests and i'm sorry what was the other one like what she wants to do in life. Yeah, where does she see herself? And that kind of gives you a good idea if you can see yourself there too. And why are those three goals good topics?

I think that they're just kind of core to people's, like they're easy to answer. And I think that they're really core to a person's personality and their perspective. And so you're going to learn a lot from those kind of questions. But it's not going to put her on the spot. it's not going to be something out of the blue like um you know what tattoo would you get if you had to get a tattoo you know like you don't want to get super niche and weird um you know you just want to be like what do you like to do and see what see what she says back to be authentic be normal yeah because you can and i know this all too well as as a guy who's so i've been a dating coach for 10 years i work with more than a dozen coaches and i i come i go back to the pickup artist days or the mid 2000s

the book the game and i learned so much stuff and sometimes bad techniques. And you can try so hard to be different with weird questions like, what's the weirdest part of your body you've ever would ever get a tattoo on that? It might be different, which could be good. But if it's so out of a woman's reality, you don't become relatable to her as a normal person who she might want to date so it's nice that there's all this information out there in the world but you can you can overlearn the lessons of trying to be different or trying to be interesting or trying to be funny yeah yeah and then you can start to start um sounding charming versus like being charming you know if you're putting on this kind of front eventually you're going to run out of these like long weird questions to ask and then you'll just

have to be real anyway um so i always say like better to be real up front and if she likes it it's great if she doesn't you know like you just need to move on to the person who is going to like it um because that person is out there and you're just like uh yeah you're just running out the time you know you're kind of checking your 44 boxes where you can get to that and you're just like, yeah, you're just running out the time, you know, you're kind of checking your 44 boxes, bringing it to that person, you can just stop. Well said. What about are there any good dating success stories you can share? As with 2 million words of advice on your website? I'm sure many men and women have found love thanks to datingadvice.com. Any good success stories you know about anecdotally or come into contact with? Yeah.

So the kind of the bad thing about our content is, you know, any of the success stories would come from the comments section and not a lot of people read an article and then come back, you know, after they found love and like tell us about it. But some do. And so those are always the kind of things that are really heartwarming. Um, so we used to have a forum, like a dating forum where we could talk directly to people and that kind of, um, we had to cut, cut that off our site, um, during COVID, but, um,

it was very fun to kind of get to know people on that kind of granular level. And I did connect with this guy who, um, he was very young and he was, he was basically like, am I ready to date? Uh, and I was like, you're never going to feel like you're ready to date and you just need to like go and date. And, um, it was, we ended up in like a very long, um, side chat and he did eventually like get a girlfriend and it was just very like adorable, um, to kind of coach him through. He's like, okay, now we're going on a date. Like, what do we do on the date and what do I wear on the date? And so it was just very fun to kind of put on a coaching hat more than I usually do and see his progress and kind of gaining confidence

through the experience. So that's always one that kind of like stands out to me. But yeah, my friends will text me sometimes. They'll be like, I was searching for, you know, like ways to meet people and I saw your article um and so that's always fun and uh one of my fiance's friends um he asked me one time at a party like what was my favorite article I wrote it's online dating sucks um it's still ranks number two in google it's pretty proud of um and it's but it's actually full of very practical advice it's like online sucks. But it doesn't have to basically like, you know, if you have the right strategies, you can kind of get better success. And he applied that and he like got a girlfriend.

Because he said that and he said that the article really helped him see kind of the woman's perspective in online dating. So yeah, we've had some success stories trickle in. My success story is probably my favorite. Obviously, as it should be. Rejection, ghosting, loneliness, lack of dates and lack of confidence. For many men, dating just sucks, but it doesn't have to. There's a simple yet powerful way to gain instant confidence and attract a great girlfriend. Be radically authentic. It's all laid out in the number one Amazon best-selling book, Dating Sucks But You Don't.

Your step-by-step guide to attracting wonderful women and doing it with total authenticity. Author and dating coach Conal Barrett has had and fixed all the dating problems that you struggle with. He's also helped thousands of men gain confidence and find love. He's put his best tips and strategies into Dating Sucks But You Don't so that you can Confidently approach women and get dates. Become magnetic and attractive, even if you're not tall or great-looking. Always know what to say to make sparks fly. Get lots of great matches and dates on the dating apps. And attract your dream woman.

You can find Dating Sucks But You Don't on Amazon or wherever books are sold, in paperback, Kindle, and audiobook. Get Dating Sucks But You Don't today to transform your confidence and find your dream girl. So if somebody typed in online dating sucks right now on Google, they would see your article on the first page. Yeah, I think last I checked.

It's always kind of up and down, but yeah. Um, yeah, it's, it's usually in the top three. Fantastic. Uh, quick plug. Yeah. Stop this podcast, go to online, go to Google, read, read. Online dating sucks. Um, but I don't actually think it sucks because it is how I found love. So, Oh, exactly. So my book is called dating sucks, but you don't actually think it sucks because it is how I found love. Oh, exactly. So my book is called Dating Sucks But You Don't because I had a client who came to me struggling on the dating apps, not getting matches. And he took it personally. He thought there was something wrong with him. And he said, oh, I just suck. Women don't like me.

And I said, you don't suck. Your profile sucks. There are some things you're doing. Your marketing, quote unquote, sucks. But you're an amazing guy. And he ended up meeting his now wife through some work we did together. And he got proof that he doesn't suck. So one more question in the world of online dating to that point.

I was on your site earlier today. And I saw a link to a Psychology Today article. I'm sorry. It was on datingnews.com that linked to a Psychology Today article. And the article said that a new survey finds that online daters land about one date for every 55 matches on average. Yeah. Which that's a much lower number than I ever would have thought. And this is a big question because there's probably a lot of puzzle pieces that go into getting more dates per match.

But if you had to give one or two big, simple tips for men doing online dating, what are the biggest online dating game changers that can help guys get more dates for every match they get? Yeah. Yeah. I would say that number is probably skewed. You know, there's probably just like some sort of there's a lot of outliers out there probably making that number bigger than it should be, because I do think that there are a lot of guys who are just trying to go

quickly, you know, and trying to have like the the fastest online dating success they can find. So they're just like yesing everybody and maybe sending like one word messages. And so you get a lot of that as a woman on online dating, you would get a lot of like, just very clearly like he's not paying attention. He just like swiped on a lot of people. And I think that for the nice guys, you probably have a better chance of success if you just, yeah, act like you care about the person in the conversation. That's a very simple thing to do, because you obviously are online for a reason. I'm online for a reason. And, you know, we don't want to waste our time. So I think, yeah, a way to up your success is just to

say, hey, I saw this on your profile. I like this too. And, you know, giving her the giving like showing a little bit of good faith first in the message. I mean, like, I like you specifically and not treating it like another lottery ticket that you're buying for a quarter. So, yeah, I think just being more thoughtful as you swipe, you know, it's easy to get burnout. It's easy to feel like everyone's the same, but we're not, we're all people. Um, and so talking to a person like a person would be my first big tip, uh, for, you know, having better success. Um, you know, I think that was something that, um, really stood out to me when I was online dating is the people who genuinely seemed interested in me. You know, someone's interest causes your interest.

You know, it's like a positive feedback loop where if you just kind of express interest, then they're like, oh, someone likes me. I like that. And so it kind of like grows from there. Yeah, the old expression, if you want to be interesting, be interested. Yes. Absolutely. That's great advice. And I would rather, I suggest to my clients, don't write 20 messages and put just a surface level, an inch deep amount of work into it. Maybe send two or three messages to two or three prospects who

you're really interested in and make it a foot deep or a foot deep of interest. And that'll do better for you than keeping it really simple and fast and shallow. Quality over quantity and don't copy paste a message. You know, if you can copy that message and send it to another girl, like it's not a good message. Both the messages that my fiance sent me were very unique to be fair to him um one was a little bit strange about our dogs but the second one was specific about a picture that i had and um it was i was i was dressed like catwoman for the dark knight movie and he was like which batman movie were you going to in this picture and i I was like, this is a good question. This shows that you saw the photo and didn't just like comment on, you know, the black leggings. You were like, I'm interested in what you were

doing. And so, yeah, being able to have something specific to the person and about who they are. Those are the main things for a first message. Yeah, I like to suggest that men make that question, to your point, relevant to that woman, interesting to her, her style, her interests, her job, whatever it may be, and also as easy to answer as possible. Don't ask for a don't ask ask for a. What's your life philosophy or something? Yes. Tell me, what do you think about Plato's Republic? And I need 300 words minimum. Fun, simple, binary questions.

Hey, would you rather sing a karaoke song or do XYZ? Or, you know, hey, I see you're a Batman fan. Who's better? The Riddler or the Joker? I don't know. I mean, it's easy to answer that. Yes, for sure. Yeah, I think Okakuba did a study a little bit ago about character size and was like, basically like 55 characters, like it should be the size of a tweet. So you know, two sentences, don't give her a whole long thing. Don't tell her your life story. Just like, say, Hey, I like you. Here's a question and get

out of there. That's a great tip. We might I think we're at 27 already. Let's go for 30 and then we can wrap up. Actually, there's a recently updated post on your website about the eight top eight dating sites as ranked by your website. And I saw number one was Match and OG. That's the first website I was on back when we called them websites, not before dating apps were a thing. Talk a little bit about that list and any takeaways for a guy who's listening to this trying to decide, hey, what dating app, what dating app slash website should I go to? Yeah. So, um, we partner with a lot of dating sites, dating apps, and, um, we, uh, do a lot of interviews, try to stay up with like their

newest features, what's going on with them. And what we really recommend is, um, trying at least three different sites and making one of them not Tinder. Like, you know, I would say none of them should be Tinder. If you're like looking for of them should be Tinder if you're like looking for something real. If you're just looking for like casual chatting, like that's good. But we really try to provide alternatives to the names that you hear all the time and give people kind of maybe, maybe it's a smaller dating pool, but maybe that's better for you because you're not going to be having such swiping fatigue and all the high competition. And so that's something we really like about Match is that it's more quality based and it gives you a lot of deeper information on the profile. It's been around a long time, you know, launched in 1995. So it's matchmaking algorithm just has like a lot of power behind it. And yeah, I was on Match for a long time. And I

think that it's, I think it's a really good way of finding compatibility in another person. And everyone there is more interested in relationships. And so you kind of start off taking each other more seriously. matches usually the number one recommendation that we make because our audience tends to be looking for something real, not just like a casual date, which is good for like the Bumbles and the Tinders. Even Hinge, I would say now has gotten a little bit more swipey. And so we really tried to be anti-swipey and pick sites where you have smart algorithms like eHarmony has a very smart algorithm and a lot of personality questions. I think it's like over 80 questions right now. And so yeah, we recommend going outside the usual swiping pool to find like matches that are more serious and going to take you more seriously because they're not inundated with

hundreds of matches a day like you'll find on a lot of the other apps. Right. Yeah, Match.com. It's been a while. I've been in a relationship for two years find on a lot of the other apps right yeah match.com it's been a while i've been in a relationship for two years now but that was the og and when i first did match.com i mean you would send paragraph after paragraph of emails to each other yep it was like like long letters yeah with a feather quill ink well um i i think i the Telegraph was how the technology back then when I first used it. But no, it was so cool to see that it's number one. The OG is still the OG. Yeah, it's still very popular. It is a bit more of an older crowd, I would say. Their sweet spot

is really 30 plus, whereas most dating apps tend to be 25 and under. So you should also keep that in mind as you're as you're looking for for matches. But yeah, matches just it has a lot more of a more serious approach. So if you are a more serious dater, that's going to be better for you. Yeah, I work with a lot of 40 plus single dads, 40 plus divorced men. I'm 52 now and I work with a lot of men in their 50s. So it sounds like Match.com is a good place for men in that stratosphere to shoot for. Absolutely. You know, you don't want to be like on Tinder competing with 20 year olds when you're an adult. Like if you're a grown, grown person, you know, like match is a grown site that you can rely on. So yeah. Okay. One last question for you. So we can hit 30 plus tips. I'm sure we've gotten

there already. We're not going to hit 44, the number of dates you had before you met your fiance, but we can get close. I ask every guest this, I like to say, hey, what are your three biggest game changing tips? These can be across any part of dating, whether it's online dating, it could be in person dating, it could be about confidence, literally anything. But in any particular order, what are three game changing tips you can share with us today? Sure. Yeah. So I used to always recommend show up early to the first date, like at least five minutes early, 10 minutes early, kind of get your bearings. You know, you don't want to be late on a first date because that

sends a bad message. Ironically, my my fiance was late. He was 10 minutes late, but he was texting me the whole time. And it was about his dog. So I understood. But but you don't want to be late. Ideally, you know, like he came in very sweaty and nervous and started off on bad foot. You want to avoid that if you can. It's not a deal breaker if you are late, but it just sets a more like smoother start to the date. If you're like already there, maybe you picked a table in order to drink,

you know, maybe you've already like gotten the tickets that you need for whatever you're going to. Just show a little preparation and don't make her wait on you. So that's a really good first date tip. And if I can add to that, I love your tip. And the thing I add to that with my clients is I say if it's a bar type setting or a restaurant, don't be on your phone. If you can help it, talk to the bartender, maybe chat up the people next to you, be social. You'll get into a social mode so that when she

walks in, you're not the sweaty guy on your phone. You're the one who's smiling and chatting with people. And that can be not just impressive to her, but also it gets you out of your head and in that social mode. Yeah, I think that's a great tip to not be engaged with something on your phone, but kind of like engage with the environment and being aware of your settings. So yeah, I think that's a really good notion too. Yeah, it's just all about putting your best foot forward and being the most confident that you can be.

And so yeah, showing up with that kind of like presence is gonna be more impressive than- Yeah, I always just hold up the cruise ticket, cruise ship tickets. So when she walks in, the cruise the cruise ticket cruise ship tickets so when she walks in she sees the cruise ticket yeah okay game game change game changer number two what do you got um okay so perseverance and resilience to rejection is like a huge thing in the dating world right and i think that you know there's no one secret success tip but there is one failure tip and that's like stopping like not not trying. And so you always need to be persistent.

And that doesn't mean like being persistent with one person. Like if she has said no, give up on her. Um, but just like using that rejection to feel yourself, you know, if I like everyone gets rejected, it's not always personal sometimes about what they have going on, sometimes it's just not a good fit. It don't take it like you're a failure. Um, you're only a failure if you stop because of that one incident, you know? And so what I would always do and what I always say to my friends when we're

talking is like, use that one rejection to send out like five more messages that night, you know, like don't let it stop you. Because then like, that's the real failures if you let it stop you from meeting someone who is going to be a yes. And you wouldn't do that in like the job industry. You know, if you're interviewing for a job and someone tells you, you know, you wouldn't be like, oh, I'm unemployable now. You know, you got to keep going. So that's something that's really important in the dating world, too. I have a quick story to underline your point. I met my now partner because I had gone out on I was about to go on what I thought was going to be my first real date I was excited about

after the vaccines came out two years ago. And I'm literally walking to the bar and this woman cancels on me. And I felt really bummed out, even rejected, you might say. Mr. Dating Coach can feel rejected too. And I said, you know what? I'm not going to stew in my negativity. I'm going to jump back on the apps and take some action just so I can look forward. And that was the night I matched with my now partner, Jess. So absolutely that persistence, you can turn a quote negative into a positive if you stay

persistent and take that new action. So I love it. Yeah. Yeah. Just having a little bit of resilience perspective that like one rejection isn't the end of your journey. You know, it's just like a roadblock. Now you're just turning left instead of turning right. So yeah, I think just keep going no matter what. And yeah, the third thing I would say is try to stay positive in those first interactions because this is going to be the impression that you're making. And so if you are, you know, complaining a lot, if you're, um, kind of a negative Nelly, that's going to leave a bad taste in her mouth, you know, like don't, don't bad mouth anybody. Um, don't, um, yeah, don't, don't, don't sell yourself short. Um,

don't complain about yourself, especially, you know, like, you know, just like you're selling yourself in that moment. So try to keep it positive, it light and um yeah uh don't be a rain cloud on her day dates are supposed to be fun what what yeah fun yeah dating is supposed to be enjoyable you are supposed to enjoy it that is what people tell me what a concept yeah 100 100 uh i like to say be an open book but not an open wound yes yeah you can be very trans you can be an open book, but not an open wound. Yes, yeah. You can be very authentic and transparent, but that doesn't mean, oh, my boss is such a jerk today.

I really hate him or her. It's like, no, bring some of that good, authentic, positive energy as opposed to being a negative Nelly, which is a great tip. Amber, thank you so much. Before we go, is there anything else you'd like to share or tell people how they can find you out there on the interwebs? Yeah. So datingadvice.com, our newer site, datingnews.com. That's really where I live a lot of the time, posting content and managing the writers there. You can also find me on Twitter at The Dating Editor. And yeah, mostly those two sites

at datingadvice.com, at datingnews.com. That's where I send all my tips out to the world. And yeah, thanks so much for having me today. I really enjoyed this conversation. We definitely hit peak tip per minute ever for my podcast. It's going to be tough to beat this. You'll have to come back some other time. We'll talk a lot more, which I'd love to do.

You know, got a million of them. Half a million words. I'm going to send you those cruise ship tickets so we can go on that group double date around the world. I can't wait to meet your fiance. We just met, but let's book it. Let's lock it in. All right. Amber. We just met, but let's book it. Lock it in. All right, Amber Brooks, thank you so much for joining us today. And thank you for listening. And remember, women out there already like you, they just have to meet the real authentic you.

We'll see you next time. Thank you for listening to the Dating Transformation podcast. For lots of free tips, videos and other goodies, go to datingtransformation.com. See you next time.