Do you ever feel like the women you meet aren’t actually interested in dating—or worse, you’re not meeting any women at all?
In dating it’s easy to make a lot of wasted effort: Meeting women in the wrong places, and using the wrong approach. As a dating coach with over 15 years experience coaching men how to meet, attract and build relationships with the women they want on programs like my Virtual Masterclass, I should know!
So in this blog I’m going to share with you:
- 10 Reasons why dating apps make your dating life harder, not easier.
- The 2 best types of places you can go to meet women who are really interested in meeting you.
- The 1 big change you need to make to be successful with women (and the other changes you can forget about for now). Let’s keep this simple and do what’s most effective!
Why are you not currently meeting the women you want?
Reason #1 - Over reliance on dating apps
For the vast majority of men (and also women, I coach them too!) dating apps are a slog. Sure they’re easy in the sense that you can be sat on the couch at home and theoretically be “meeting” women. However, this is one of many examples in life where if you choose to do the easy thing (date from my sofa!) longer run you could be setting yourself up for disappointment. Here are just a few ways relying on dating apps scuppers your dating life:
- There’s more men than women on dating apps. It’s like turning up at a party and there’s 2 men for every woman.
- Filters are brutal - if you’re just 1 year outside of her desired age range she won’t see you. A difference that would be meaningless in real life means your dating pool can shrink online once you’re 40+.
- For you this means you have to send out a ton of messages to get a response.
- For her this means she feels bombarded, overwhelmed and disappointed by the dating experience.
- Dating apps are low stakes. No one has made a big effort to meet the other person, so both parties care less about the outcome. This turns out to be a big problem when you’re trying to get her to meet you.
- Dating apps make it hard for you to tell who you’re attracted to. This is especially true for women who are less visual, and more attracted by a man’s personality. After she goes on a few blah dates she loses faith in her own ability to choose a great guy on the apps, and finds it hard to motivate herself to go on a date.
- Messages are a poor form of communication. They’re easy to mess up, and trust me, you’re sexier in person :)
- Confusingly, just because she’s using a dating app doesn’t mean she actually wants to date. Yup, just like the real world some people just want the attention!
- Women do receive weird messages on apps from guys, meaning they can be on the defensive and looking for reasons to filter you out.
- Plenty of attractive women don’t need to use apps as they meet enough men in the real world.
All of this isn’t to say you shouldn’t do dating apps. However, I think you’d be crazy to rely on them as your only channel to meet women. This is why in all my programs like Virtual Masterclass we take dating apps to be 20% of your dating life, with meeting women in the real world 80% of where you need to focus.
Reason #2 - You hesitate to clearly express interest in her
Now, you may be one of the men out there who has already worked out that dating apps aren’t the most successful or rewarding way to meet women. Perhaps you’ve already tried to adapt your lifestyle so you can meet more women organically. Maybe you’ve joined a run club, salsa class or regularly go speed dating.
All of these action steps are good - credit to you for putting the effort in!
However, these action steps rarely lead to success unless you change how you interact with women.
If you are an attractive woman, simply showing up at the right places might be enough to score you plenty of dates. (However, increasingly the attractive women I work with are finding that men hesitate to approach so much that they’re meeting less and less men in real life.)
But as a guy you don’t get the luxury of just showing up: You’re going to have to approach her, show a socially appropriate level of interest, and then ask her out in a way she can easily recognise as “it’s a date!”
This is where most guys that I coach become unstuck. Here’s what normally happens: You hesitate to express interest because you don’t want to be socially inappropriate or make her feel uncomfortable. This is well intentioned, but ultimately messes up your chances of success in several ways;
- You hesitate so long that she struggles to see you as anything more than just a friend.
- You hesitate so long that she meets someone else.
- You hesitate so long that you spend huge periods of time over analysing your next steps - not only meaning you never get feedback from her if she’s interested, but you also miss opportunities with other women.
In dating it often makes sense to fast fail: You need to find what women are interested in the same things as you. Women often find men who are confident, bold, and attractive! Faint heart never won fair lady and all that stuff.
Where can you go to meet women who are actually interested in you?
We know that women on apps often aren’t fully engaged with meeting you - so where can you go to meet women who are going to be the most open, fun and interested in you?
Tip #1: Focus on high-interaction environments
No woman goes to a grocery store and thinks “maybe I’ll meet the love of my life here today.” That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be open to meeting the love of her life there, or if a great, charming man crossed her path in the bakery section that she’d shut him down. What it does mean is she’s not expecting to meet someone.
- For her this means she will need a lot more trust and connection if she meets with a man at a grocery store to want to date him.
- For you this means you will find it much harder to initiate a conversation.
Meeting women anytime, anywhere, gives you tons of freedom; but most men will be able to get the results they want with dating by focusing on going to places where she’s also going to meet you!
Here’s some examples of high-interaction environments that single women will go to meet more men:
Singles events and speed dating
If you struggle to approach women, singles events are going to be the best place to start. You know she’s single and there to meet someone, that removes two major blocks to you starting a conversation with her. If you feel out of practice, or lacking confidence with women, events like these are a good start point. They also provide you a valid place to practice speaking to women, and starting to develop your confidence. The only downside might be that the women who excite you the most won’t necessarily go to a singles event - they don’t need to!
Top Tip: If you feel like you’re vibing with a woman at speed dating don’t wait until the next day to see if you’re matched with her. Ask her then and there for her number. I know this is the scary thing to do, but it’s also more effective. When you’re with her in person, she’s the most interested in you; the next day doubts will have crept in and she’ll be matching more cautiously. Asking for her number on the night is a great way to be bold, and get better results from speed dating.
Networking events, public talks and workshops
What a win-win if you can go to an event you like and meet a woman you like! Women will think the same way. Women don’t want to waste time on dating. Ideally they want to date in a way that slots into their everyday life and (even if they don’t meet a great guy) it doesn’t feel like an epic waste of time.
Women will show up to:
- Networking events.
- Foreign language classes.
- Events at co-working spaces.
- Expat meet-ups.
- Workshops aligned with their interests.
- Volunteering.
- Interesting talks.
- Personal development events.
- Meditation classes.
- Meet-ups centred around causes (political or otherwise.)
Their primary goal is likely to be life enrichment: But if they’re single they may also be hoping that they’ll meet a cute guy, who shares their interests there.
If your week to week routine is always the same, and you always go to the same places, with the same people you’re not maximising your opportunities.
Top tip: Set yourself a goal to go to one new activity you’ve never tried before a week. Not all will be the best places to meet women, but you need to do your research to find out where the best spots are in your local area for dating.
Dance classes, run clubs and fitness socials
Single men and single women also tend to have a little more time on their hands to pursue fitness goals. Plenty of fitness pursuits also have a built in social element. If you want to meet more women in social dance classes (salsa to swing!), run clubs and fitness activities with a strong social element like bouldering are a no brainer.
Not only do you get a workout in, but you’re also more likely to see really attractive women in these places.
Top tip: Find a balance of the right time to make your move. No woman wants a strange guy telling her she looks good in her yoga pants, but likewise you can’t wait endlessly to make a move. If you see a woman you like, strike up a conversation and say after class, “I’m going to grab a quick water - would you like one?” If she’s at all interested she’ll say “yes thanks” to this low pressure opportunity to spend 5 extra minutes with you. If your water cooler moment goes well you can also feel relatively confident that you can ask for her number.
Tip #2: Leverage Social Circles
You know what’s even better than gym classes, and singles events? By meeting women through your social circles. Social circles take time to build and maintain but they give you many advantages that dating apps don’t:
- You’re more likely to have things in common with a woman who is a friend of a friend.
- You’re more likely to score a date! Women are going to feel safer and more comfortable meeting someone through mutual friends. Many would argue this is the ideal way that most women would love to meet someone.
- You’re likely to get extra credit even if you’re not her usual type. Rather than fretting over whether she can be attracted to a guy who is 7 years older than her, or 5’8” as she would online; she’ll be more open to being flexible with someone who she met and liked in real life.
This is another example of how doing the ‘hard’ thing - growing and maintaining your social circles, can in the long run lead to making your dating life easier!
If you want to start putting the groundwork in today to being the man she naturally meets here’s another blog I’ve written about how to naturally grow your social circles.
Top tip: The easiest way to grow your social circles is to start saying ‘yes’ more. Even if an event or gathering isn’t strictly your thing, or you’re not the closest to the organisers, just go! You never know who you’re going to meet. Also building social circles takes time. You’ll need to start small by getting more friends generally, and build up to the place where you have enough social contacts that you can be the guy who throws the party! If you can get to this awesome space - you have natural social cool points and will be more attractive to any single women who come along as a plus one.
Tip #3: Forget the perfect opening line
A huge reason that will stop you meeting women in real life settings, or even growing your social circles, is becoming preoccupied with having the perfect opening line. Fear of not having the “right” thing to say, may mean you say nothing at all.
Whether you’re at a spin class, meet-up, or singles event a super smooth opening line is firmly a “nice to have.”
Deciding to take action and start the conversation is essential.
You can start a conversation with her in a way that’s low key, and you can succeed: Either you score a date, or you can build confidence.
If you don’t start a conversation you can never win.
It’s that simple!
So make 90% of your effort where it’s going to count most:
- Build a lifestyle where you naturally meet women.
- Start conversations with as many people (not just women) as possible.
Your conversation starter can be simple and based on whatever situation you’re in:
“I don’t know about you, but I think this place has the best coffee in the whole city.”
“Wow, this is the longest queue I've ever seen.”
“That instructor was tough!”
“It’s great we’ve had such a good turnout today.”
“Are we the first people here? I’m Mike.”
Once you’re having a ton more social encounters, it gets way easier to start to refine your approach.
Trust me, as someone who has coached 1000s of men in person to meet women in real life in my hands on dating bootcamp Real Academy if you want to get better at meeting women an ounce of practice is worth a ton of theory.
Plus as you meet more and more women, something magical starts to happen! You become more relaxed. You act more authentically, and women naturally become more attracted to you.
