When you’re on a first or second date with a woman, should you be super honest with her or should you fib a little to make yourself look better?
Should you tell her everything about yourself so she knows the kind of guy you are or is it better to be a little more mysterious?
What’s the best path forward for you AND for the women you’re dating?
Great questions my friend…
Dating Women: HONEST vs. OPEN…
I’ll just give it to you straight:
I think you should always be honest with a woman but it’s not a good idea to be super open right away.
Why?
Well, let’s take a look at the dating lives of three guys I know to demonstrate this principle:
I know a guy who lives in LA…
He lies to women about his job to get them into bed.
When a woman asks him, “What do you do for a living?”
He LIES…
He tells them that he’s a movie or music exec.
He basically tells them he can get them movie contracts, record deals, etc…
Which isn’t true at all.
He works in real estate.
Now, here’s the thing: This tactic works really well in LA for short-term flings (ethical? absolutely not. Effective in this place/scenario? Definitely)…
However, every time he wants to keep dating a woman or make her is girlfriend, he always stalls out because they eventually find out that he lied and then they run away as fast as they can.
So, I think we can all agree that outright lying to a woman is a no-go, especially if we want to attract and keep a high-quality girlfriend or wife.
It’s unethical and it doesn’t work long-term…
Besides, a healthy relationship is built on trust and that means that a good relationship can’t get started with a lie.
Plus not every woman out there is chasing the Hollywood dream. =)
Now, there’s another guy I know, one of my good friends actually, who’s an incredible guy…
Extremely intelligent…
Great manners…
Funny…
Easy to be around…
Would make an excellent husband and father in my opinion…
And, he’s considered good-looking by most women.
However, whenever he goes on a first date with a woman, he tells her all about himself for most of the date…
He thinks that’s what he should do so that she can “get to know him” and “see” if he’s a good fit for her. He thinks to himself, “Well I’m just being honest…I don’t want to lie or play games so I must be doing it right…”
When a woman asks him, “What do you do for a living?”
He tells her all about his job for 5-10 minutes, goes into every detail about his work, and then segues into something else about himself or his life…
In other words, he’s super OPEN about himself on his dates.
And, not surprisingly, he doesn’t get any second or third dates with these women because they get turned off by that.
He doesn’t understand the concept of honest vs. open yet, but when he does he will be wildly successful with women and he’ll be able to choose the kind of woman he wants to be with.
And lastly, another guy I know, one of my closest friends, is a little less good-looking and smart than the friend I just told you about…
However, when he’s on a first date with a woman, he doesn’t give away everything about himself right away…
He makes her work for information about him a little bit.
What my other friend shares about himself on the first date, he shares over the course of 5-6 dates…
He’s always HONEST, but he’s not as OPEN…
For example, when a woman asks him, “What do you do for a living?”
He replies with a silly answer FIRST:
“Actually, I’m a ninja…”
“Oh, I’m a male model (he’s not classically handsome so this one works really well for him because he’s clearly NOT a model – it’s funny when he says it with a straight face)…”
“I’m a bank robber…”
Etc.
He sometimes even elaborates a little bit and really plays it out:
“It’s not as glamorous as you might think though…it’s actually a lot of work.” 😉
Then, if she asks again and presses him for the real information, he gives her the real answer:
“Haha! No, really, what do you do?” =)
“I’m an accountant. It’s pretty boring for most people but I really enjoy it…”
Then, after that, he asks her an open-ended question about HER:
“What about you? What do you do? Do you enjoy it? Why or why not?”
Then, he asks HER another follow-up (because he wants to get her talking about herself):
“Interesting…so if you weren’t an X, what would you do if you could do anything and why?”
Etc.
He’s a WINNER…
See, he’s not being dishonest when he tells her he’s a bank robber or a ninja; he’s being PLAYFUL…
Because he’s clearly NOT a ninja, bank robber, or male model so it’s clear that he’s joking even though he delivers his playful answers with a straight face.
And, he’s making her work a little bit to get information about him…
Then, when she chases him for the information a little bit, he gives it to her straight at that point.
Again, he’s being HONEST but not so OPEN.
And here’s another big key that he follows every time:
He encourages HER to share things about HERSELF with him more than he tells her things about himself. <==This is HUGE…
He tells her a little bit about himself on each date and gets her to share A LOT ABOUT HERSELF on each date.
Because he knows a woman feels more attracted to him and connected with him when she shares things about herself with him than she does when he tells her all the awesome stuff about himself.
And he also knows that women love challenge, mystery, and trying to figure a guy out.
Plus, he understands that when you reveal yourself SLOWLY to her, that means that you don’t just tell everyone everything about yourself so when you do decide to share something about yourself with her, she must be SPECIAL because she earned it over time by being her awesome self. <==Understand this and you will get much better results…
And that’s why he almost always gets second and third dates with women while my other friend doesn’t.
Think of revealing information about yourself to a woman like the process of making coffee:
Would coffee taste very good if you shot cold water through the filter with a fire hose?
Of course not.
Coffee is the best when the water slowly heats up and then slowly drips through the ground-up coffee beans and makes its way past the filter one delicious drop at a time.
So, instead of telling her all about yourself and ruining the flavor, just slow-drip info about yourself over the course of several dates so that she gets to drink a delicious espresso every time.
And, again, ask her to share lots of things about herself with you because it:
1. Makes her feel more connected to you and more attracted to you at the same time (as long as you also keep the attraction alive by playfully teasing her sometimes, etc.)…
2. Takes the pressure off of you to think of the next awesome thing to say or try to impress her with all the amazing things about yourself.
Remember: Have as much fun with her as possible, playfully tease her, and ask her open-ended questions that allow her to talk as much as possible.
And share back a little bit less than she shares.
That’s how you keep the attraction alive so that you can make it to the third date and beyond.
She should be talking about 60-80% of the time on your dates.
ALWAYS be HONEST; just be a little more playful and a little less OPEN.
Make sense?
Excellent.
Until Next Time,
Jim
