Love Life with Matthew Hussey - 5 Texting Tips That Lead to Better Dates

Episode Date: March 20, 2026

Texting can make or break the early stages of dating. One message can create excitement . . . while another can stall things completely.In this episode, Matthew shares 5 practical texting tips designed to help you move promising conversations toward real-life dates.From playful ways to spark intrigue to subtle shifts that build emotional connection, these strategies help you avoid the common patterns that keep people stuck in endless texting without real progress. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hey everyone, it's Matthew Hussey with the Love Life podcast. Thank you so much for being here. I think you're going to enjoy this clip. It's a classic from the archives. Check it out and I'll speak to you at the end of the episode. Number one, you send him a message that says, I'm craving our conversation. Here's what this message does. You've snuck into his day and jolted him out of whatever he's doing right now to bring him into the moment with you. It wasn't small talk, hey, how you doing, what you're up to, how's your day going? You just jumped straight into something meaningful. And you've paid a unique compliment to the dynamic you have with him. Number two.

Uh-huh. Why haven't you asked me to see the new Blade Runner yet? This message is adorably demanding in a playful way. It's vulnerable on one hand. You know, you are saying, I want to do this with you. It's also slightly unreasonable because he didn't even necessarily know that you wanted to see that. In fact, I would say this message works better if he didn't even know you wanted to do that thing. And you're being up front about what you want.

You're putting the ball in his court and saying, Hey, Mr. Invite me on this date, please. Mistake number one, playing games about when to text back. Now let's say Monkey receives a text. Huh, it's from George. But instead of texting George back and having a conversation, Monkey thinks, thinks, no, I am going to wait. And George is going to see how busy I am, and how important

I am, and how attractive I am. But the problem is, George is by his phone right now. She could have had a message with him and carried on the momentum and ridden that wave. Instead, she waited five or six hours to text back George, who incidentally was no longer curious. Now look, I'm not saying that when someone texts you, you should always be by your phone waiting to text them back. But if someone happens to text you in a moment where you're not doing anything and it's organic to reply to them right away, why not use the momentum of that moment and have a conversation? If five, ten minutes later you need to go, that's fine. That's where you can be busy in an authentic way.

But don't play games of making someone wait just to look cool. Number two, obsessively sticking to text as the first. form of communication. I think of different mediums, whether they're texts, pictures, voice memos, phone calls, face times, all as having a kind of energy bar. And the more you do them, the more that energy bar gets depleted and we start to get diminishing returns from that thing. If we overtext, it doesn't matter how quirky or fun or witty we are by text, it begins to wear thin. And most people have had that experience. It's like, Like, okay, I need a different stimuli now.

I need something else. That's when it pays to send someone a picture and just say, you know, the view from where I am right now, if you happen to be looking out on a beautiful view, or if you happen to be sitting in bed with a dessert in front of you in front of the TV, take a picture of the dessert and be like, the view from where I am right now. Check out my view right now. In that moment, you're changing up the medium. The same can be done with a voice memo.

In the middle of a text conversation, when you feel like it's getting a little dry, send someone a voice memo instead. If they're teasing you, shake it up by sending a voice memo back saying, you're so mean. It's cute, it's playful, but it's a pattern break that suddenly injects new life into the conversation because the energy bar of voice is not depleted in the way that you're texting has. Mistake number three, being one note. What gets someone really attracted to us is not when we're one energy,

but when we're able to be versatile between different energies. If you find yourself always being very polite and sweet, today be a little bossy. Say to someone, are you going to call me tonight or what? If you find yourself sending lots of nice, friendly messages to someone, amp up the sexual tension today. Tell him, you look really hot in that picture you posted today. Those are things that show that you can be many things.

So think of the energy, energy you normally have, the one you're most comfortable with, and do the inverse of that today. Mistake number four, talking about everything except yourself. People truly fall for you when they hear your story, because your story is what makes you different from everybody else. So the next time you have a conversation with someone, ask yourself this, am I only describing here what I've been doing or am I actually revealing who I am and what I'm thinking about. Here's an example, because I know this sounds a little abstract. If someone asked you, what did you do last night? You say, I cooked ribs for the first time last night. Now, that's not a bad text. It's still a conversation

starter, but it's still only talking about what you did. What we want to do is add on to that a bit about who you are. If you wanted to do even better than that in telling your story, you could say, I made ribs for the first time for my family last night. I'm a little late to this cooking thing, to be honest, but I'm actually really enjoying learning about it. Now someone sees a hint of vulnerability, what you're learning about right now, and how you feel about it.

Mistake number five, being too passive. Almost everybody has had the experience of something moving way too slowly, of someone who keeps drifting back and forth, giving you kind of mixed signals, They're not asking you out, but they do keep reaching out by text. You don't know where it's going. It feels totally ambiguous. This is where I like to apply what I call gracious impatience, which means warmly, politely being more upfront about what you actually want.

So let's say monkey wants to progress things with George. Now they've been texting back and forth for a few weeks, but it seems like the momentum isn't carrying them to this. next stage. Why doesn't he ask me out on a date? Why don't he at least pick up the phone? Here I am just texting away. What am I gonna text myself into an early shallow monkey grave? Sorry. Well the passive response would be to be texting George and to be like, yes, like I think that that is true as well George. Bye George. We'll do the same thing again tomorrow or monkey can be graciously impatient. The next time George messages her, she can say, yeah, that's a real funny joke, George,

you're a real funny guy there. So anyway, mister, are you actually gonna ask me out or can I just expect to how's your week for the rest of my life? Now I know this sounds like a simple message, but there is a lot that is right with this message. When you say so mister, there's a little bit of an authoritative,

but almost sexy tone to that. You're being demanding, you're being a little bossy. Then you give the standard, are you gonna ask me out? That's what you want. You're actually saying what you want. Or can I just expect a how's your week for the rest of my life? That's you being intentionally hyperbolic and dramatic to create a playfulness around something that you're also kind of not playing about. People never get any momentum.

They don't get from a first conversation, to FaceTime or an actual date, or they don't get from date one to date two, or they had momentum and they lost it and they don't know how to get it back again with that person. Recently I was coaching a woman who showed me a text exchange with someone she had met on an app. The exchange went like this. Hmm, are you just a flirt or is there more to you? He said, are you just a Debbie Downer or more to you? She said, you have to be more than a flirt to find out.

He said, you're a lot to deal with. Although that guy sounds like kind of a jerk, and probably not someone she wants the attention of, there is something that she said that I wanted to pick up on. She said, hmm, are you just a flirt or is there more to you? Now, the problem I have with that is the intention is good. What she wants to see is if this exchange can become more than a flirtatious or perhaps even a sexual interaction and become a deeper connection.

I believe the best way to do that is not to ask, is there more too? you, but to show there's more to you. Because when you've revealed more about yourself, what you're really saying to someone is, here's me, can you be that too? I'll give you an example. Let's say a guy texted a woman and said, what are you up to? Now, she could just give a plain response, oh, I'm with my family right now, what's going on with you? Or she could see this very simple question as a way to tell her story and reveal more about herself. So he says, what you up to. She says, I'm building a desk from IKEA with my dad and my sister and none of us seem to be able to do it. So we're just rolling around on the floor laughing instead. Now when that woman

says that, she's revealing a lot about herself. She's a family person. She has an adorable affectionate relationship with those members of her family. In this case, her dad and her sister. She's self-deprecating and can laugh at herself in a situation. All of that is telling her Now that does something very subtle. It shows her in three dimensions. And the effect it has is that it invites him to either show himself in three dimensions by getting vulnerable in return and revealing more about his life. Or at the very least, it invites him to recognize her in three dimensions, to see her as a more rounded, real human being to invest in.

Now if at this point he doesn't do either of those two things, and instead, Instead, he just says, so what are you wearing while you're making the desk? He's showing that he is either completely one-dimensional or that his intentions are completely one-dimensional. You learn more by revealing your own self and your own story than you do by asking someone to reveal theirs, because everything is shown in their reaction to you opening up. Thank you so much for spending this time with me. I do not take it for granted. I also wanted to let you know another way that we can connect each week because there is a private email that I send every Friday to those who have signed up for it. For me, it's a way that I can stay connected to all of you between episodes. The newsletter is called The Three Relationships. And basically, each week I share something to help you improve in one of the three big relationships in your life. Your relationship with other people, your relationship with other people, your relationship. relationship with yourself or your relationship with life itself. These three relationships are the

basis of an amazing life. People tell me that they look forward to this email every single Friday. It's not the kind of email they skip. So if you want to join us, go to the three relationships.com and you can sign up for free. That's the number three by the way, not the word three. So the three relationships.com. Thank you for listening. Take care and keep showing up for yourself in your life. I'll see you in the newsletter. You know,