“Trying too hard” – we have heard this expression many times. Most of us notice pretty quickly when someone is trying too hard to be more attractive, and to appear wealthier or more successful. Sometimes, it looks intimidating, but more often than not – it is annoying. One of the big steps toward becoming a more attractive potential or actual dating / relationship partner is making sure that you don’t come across as someone who is trying too hard, as it is a turn-off at just about any stage of dating – from approaching and meeting someone for the first time, to first dates and at later dating stages. Here are some of the more common ways in which both men and women try too hard and often in all the wrong ways:

* Too Much Style. Do you have too much style? Do you look like a runway model or conversely – a clown or someone who hasn’t showered in a month? Do you stick out like a sore thumb with your haircut or hair color, tattoos, piercings, very high heels, very short skirt, or bright colors, thinking that it makes you unique, special and different from everyone else? However, chances are that it makes you come across as weirdo at best. There are more meaningful ways to stand out from the rest than by trying to shock someone with the way you look. Trying too hard to look like Cindy Crawford on one hand, or like Prince, Michael Jackson, or Lady Gaga on the other hand is as likely to make it harder for you to meet someone new, as it is to make the right impression on a first date. Being preoccupied with your appearance will likely make you a subject of mockery rather than admiration.

* Being too loud. Are you overly “articulate”? Do you make your presence known all too well when you enter a restaurant by making sure that everyone hears what you are talking about? Is your laughter too loud because you have too much fun? You might think that what you are talking about is fascinating and is of great interest to the people around you, but most likely the only reaction you will evoke by being loud is eye rolling on the part of those people around who will find your voice and volume nothing other than obnoxious.

* Talking too much. Do you talk too much? Are you draining other people’s energy with protracted monologues about your accomplishments and your challenges, thinking that it somehow makes you look like a hero? It probably doesn’t. Your audience is probably waiting for you to finish, and they might be spacing out and thinking about their grocery list in the meantime. I have noticed how some guys, when approaching a woman, strike up a conversation and will simply not stop talking, not even allowing a woman the opportunity to respond. Many guys could tell stories about the women they went out with, who would simply not shut up. Be assured that excessive chattiness does not make you appear smarter or more attractive. Even if what you say is very interesting, if you are talking too much, it is simply going to tire your date. Having a conversation means having two people talk; not just one talker and one listener the whole time.

* Being too accommodating. Do you always agree on everything with every person you are attracted to or go out with, because you just want to “play it safe” and not ruin your chances? You might think that being too agreeable and too accommodating will make you appear sweet and nice, but it is also a sure way to come across as boring and be on an express train to friends zone. It’s ok to disagree or offer your input on something as long as you do it in a respectful way and do not insist on being right all the time.

* Being too funny. Are you too funny? Do you crack too many jokes? Are you being so sarcastic that it prevents the other person from seeing your serious side? Being entertaining is good, but if that’s the only thing you bring to the table, sooner or later you will be nothing but a comedian to the other person. And being a comedian is almost never equal to being a date or a lover.

* Being “too busy”. Do you run around telling people about how busy and overwhelmed you are with your very important job, very important school, and other projects? Are you too much of a “challenge?” – does it take a week to get a hold of you on the phone, because you take 5 days or longer to return a phone call? Does scheduling the time and place to meet with you for a date sound more like negotiating a business contract with you? Bear in mind that you are probably not the busiest person in the world, so this kind of attitude might just make you look week or enslaved by your own circumstances, or someone who tries to look more important than they really are.

Being attractive is just as much about what you aren’t, as it is about what you are, and it’s just as much about what you don’t do, as it is about what you do. By simply not trying too hard and not giving off that vibe of someone who craves attention or wants to prove something about himself under the pretense of being overly happy or excited or overly important or overly high maintenance, you will in fact be far more attractive. This doesn’t mean that you have to conform and be just like everyone else, but it means that you probably want to find a happy medium between the two extremes.

?As I was pulling out of the Miami airport in my rented Subaru and was merging onto a freeway, not knowing the way to my hotel and stalling the traffic behind me, a large, heavily tattooed man  of a Latin background in a tanktop was frantically honking at me and screaming at me in Spanish. I know he was talking  in my direction, but I doubt it was anything flattering. I continued to drive, thinking that it was probably my very first interaction with a Cuban person. What if I was some kind of CEO or VP who was driving to meeting with a potential business partner of Cuban ethnicity. Or what if I was about to interview a Cuban born person for a job? How could that incident outside the airport not have at least some effect on my views or at least predisposition on that day toward the Cuban people, especially if that was my only interaction ever with a member of a Cuban race as of that day?

Shortly after I returned from Miami, I met with my friend for lunch. He is a Ph.D. in Chemistry and a distinguished attorney in California. Among other things, we talked about possible vacation destinations. My accomplished friend told me that he had no desire whatsoever to travel to France or Germany, because the few people he met from those countries didn’t impress him. He did not think they were either very smart or interesting. I was astonished to hear my friend’s reasoning. Out of all the people I knew, I expected him to know better than judge a country of any size, let a lone the relatively large countries, such as France and Germany, based on few isolated encounters with their citizens. Does this mean that he would discourage his son or daughter from dating, having a relationship or marrying a German or a French? Does it mean that he would never hire someone from those countries to work for him?

I don’t think many of us can deny that having a negative or a positive dating experience with a person of a particular profession or race doesn’t positively or negatively shape our view of the entire profession or race from then on. Logically, many of us realize that it makes little sense to assume that just because one lawyer you dated was argumentative, the nurse you had a relationship with was caring and nurturing, and the accountant was stingy, that the same would be true about all the other people in those professions. And yet so many of us do it – we stereotype and generalize so often. We do it more often than we know or are willing to admit. I can’t remember how many times I have heard that Jewish men are cheap, neurotic, and poorly hung, that Jewish women are high-maintenance princesses, that Asian women are submissive and subservient, that Latin men are short tempered, that Latin women are more fertile than others, that Black men are well hung and have criminal record, that white women have entitlement mentality, that white men are “vanilla” on the inside, and that Indian men are chauvinistic and/or dorky, to name just a few. I am sure that sometimes these stereotypes are true. After all, many kinds of prejudice seem to have at least some, minimal empirical basis.

I have been taught all my life how bad racism and any other kind of stereotyping is. I have been taught both at home and at school to resist the urge to generalize, not to base an opinion about a larger group of things or people based on insufficient sample. Isn’t, after all, any sample is inherently insufficient to make any kind of universal conclusions about the entire group? And yet I would be lying if I said that I am free of the tendency to generalize. I can’t imagine not having negative feelings toward a member of a certain race or profession if she broke my heart. It’s only fair that if I, for instance, had a really bad break up with a Portuguese journalist, I wouldn’t be looking very favorably at other journalist or Portuguese people for some time thereafter. On the other hand, if I feel in love with a Chemist of a Persian ethnicity, I would like be more curious about both the science of Chemistry and the Persian people.

I can’t help but wonder – perhaps discriminating, generalizing and stereotyping is part of our nature. Perhaps we are destined to seek cause and effect in everything we do, because these kinds of rules help us live and evolve. Isn’t so much of the human progress is about “If this happens, that must follow”? “If this person is “a” and “b”, this means that all other “a”’s are “b”’s as well?”

While we may not be able to completely free ourselves from that drive to generalizing and categorizing people, perhaps being aware of how wrong we might be when doing it, will help us avoid misreading people, and instead – give them and ourselves a chance to get to know each other rather than think that we know who they are just because we met someone that belongs to the same race, professional or any other such category.

Almost every dating book on the market talks about the importance of first impressions when it comes to dating. Many dating advice guides go as far as to say that a woman can determine within 30 seconds of meeting a guy whether she is going to sleep with him.  Many, if not most, guys believe that if there is no instant chemistry/attraction when they meet a woman, they do not belong together. This is not always true. In fact, I have seen and also experienced a number of incredibly fulfilling relationships that didn’t start as “love at first sight”. Some of them started quite slowly – even with a not-so-great first date, where I would think that a woman I went out with didn’t even like me.  I met at least two women with whom I had pretty bad first dates, and both of whom struck me as very interesting, attractive and desirable later. In fact, I think that all of the women I ended up developing feelings for and dating long term, wasn’t as intriguing to me right away and my feelings took time to develop. I am not sure why that was the case. Maybe I wasn’t myself when I initially met them. Or perhaps they had their guards up or they otherwise didn’t act like they normally would at first, as they were concerned about sending the wrong message, such as being easy or desperate. I am not sure. What I am sure of, however, is that if it happened to me several times and if it happened to a few of my friends, it means it happens to other people as well.

Having a tendency to analogize things, I can’t help but conclude that it’s hardly surprising that strong feelings don’t always flourish in an instant and they take time to evolve into a real emotion. After all, many other great things will not necessarily strike you as such right away – some of the best movies start rather slow; the first few pages or even chapters of some of the most influential pieces of literature out there are not all the exciting to read, and it sometimes takes re-reading once or even more to really appreciate and understand a certain book.

So, what does this mean to you? – this might just suggest that you shouldn’t place as much importance on your first impressions, as you might have been in the past. Perhaps we shouldn’t judge whether we might love someone and have a great romantic connection with them by the very first few moments of meeting someone. Just because we are not “feeling it” right away, doesn’t mean that we won’t be crazy about the same person a week, a month, or a year later.

Here is an unedited, actual excerpt from a 25 year-old woman’s dating profile:
“First off I’m a packaged deal, I have two handsome baby boys. My oldest is 4 yrs old and my little one is just about to turn 1… My boys are my everything, they come before everything and everyone.. And they already have a father so that definitely isn’t what I’m looking for. But if my boys don’t like you or if you don’t like my boys, kick rocks! I would never pick a guy over my boys.. =) But a little more about me: I am friendly, loyal, super nice.. sometimes too nice, but if you get me mad I wouldn’t be afraid to tell you what’s on my mind. I am very independent, got my own place and car. I have a career and love what I do, not many ppl are able to say that but I am so grateful I can say that…”

This author of the above writing is quite attractive and the rest of her profile makes her come across as smart, witty and articulate. However, the very beginning of what she wrote would be very off-putting to many, if not most, male readers. There is no reason to announce how important your children are and interpose the “if…. then kick rocks” ultimatum on your page. Any man would know that it’s a given that if you have children, you care about them dearly. It’s a common maternal instinct. There is no reason to accentuate it and remind the guys that they will never be as important to you as your children. It adds nothing good or attractive to the profile.
That woman could have significantly improved her profile by simply deleting that whole about her children, except simply mentioning that she has them, and that would make her come across as a far more positive person.

It is understandable how she would want to weed out all those guys who would try to interfere one way or another with her time with her children, but writing something like the above is not the way to do it. Putting a more positive spin on how you can combine having children with having a good dating life is a far better idea. For instance, you could say something like this: “While I have children who I spend a lot of time with and who need a lot of attention which I enjoy giving, I make sure to make the time for the right man, who, among other things, will be understanding of my situation.”

And of course, there is absolutely no reason why your profile pictures should include your children.

Some people have a habit of saying certain things when they meet someone for the first time or when they are out on a first date that hurt them much more than they may think. One common type of such information  that people are so often tempted to share is their past negative dating experiences. They would complain about how awful their exes were, how difficult it is meeting people, and how the members of the opposite cannot be trusted.

Does this ever happen to you? Say you are out with someone you like. You are feeling that initial attraction and connection. It seems to you that the person you are out with is more interesting and more attractive than a few others you were out with, and as a result you are eager and are tempted to share with him/her your recent negative dating past, because for some reason you feel that it will bring you closer together, especially if the other person can identify with your negative dating experience. You might talk about your bad luck meeting new people, or you might bring up the several bad relationships you have had over the past few years, or ugly break-ups, cheating, lying or any kind of abuse you were subjected to by your past partners, thinking that sharing this kind of personal information will increase the romantic connection and will make you feel closer to each other, and will also evoke some kind of empathy toward your past.

In reality, however, this kind of information usually causes a whole lot of damage to your image and how the other person perceives you. You might think that dealing with bad dating life makes you some kind of a hero, but if the other person does not know you well, they will likely naturally assume that if you had series of bad relationships or bad dating experiences, there must be something wrong with you.  They might not see what it is right away, but subconsciously they will start looking for “deal breakers” in you. After all, your date might be thinking that if a number of people didn’t get along with you in the past for whatever reasons, they couldn’t all be wrong. The other person could also assume that all those negative experiences damaged you and likely made you emotionally unavailable to have a healthy interaction and romantic connection in the present or in the future.

Either way, this is clearly not the kind of message you want to convey about yourself to someone you just met or to your date. Resist the urge to share your past negative dating experience and show any kind of signs of being a victim of your own dating life and relationships – at least until such time that you get past the first impressions stage.

It is not a secret that there exists a stigma with regard to living at home and/or living with parents. By the time you reach a certain age, you are expected to go “on your own.” This especially applies to men. This applies more to men than to women and is especially prevalent in the United States. When a woman meets a single and finds out that he lives at home, she is likely to immediately assume that he is not independent and cannot take care of himself, that he has his mother cook for him and do his laundry and that he is otherwise “mama’s boy” who can’t take care of himself and is certainly not ready to take on the responsibilities of a mature man in a relationship. Sometimes, that fact alone that the guy lives at home is a deal breaker from a woman’s perspective.

So, how should both men and women deal with this stigma? Even though the negative assumptions associated with living at home apply more to men and women, I believe women have more control over this issue. The best thing a woman can do is remember that different men live at home for different reasons. Therefore, it is inappropriate to assume that a man cannot take care of himself just because he lives at home. While some guys are indeed spoiled children of their parents who try to avoid facing the real world on their own as long as possible, other men live at home for entirely different and far more “noble” reasons. Some guys actually help their parents financially when living with them, or take care of them and help them with their household duties if their folks are not able to take care of themselves, both. Other men live at home temporarily because they might have lost their job, lost their house or underwent some other unexpected challenging experience that forced them to temporarily move in with their parents, and they are actually actively working on moving out and getting back to their normal, independent life. This can happen to any of us.

So, when you are out with a guy and you find out that he lives at home, don’t rush to assume all those negative qualities about him that so many other women do before you find out why he lives at home, as the reasons you might discover will give you the true insight into what kind of man you are dealing with  – the one who has not yet grown to be a “real” man who someone who is more of a man than many others, because besides handling his own responsibilities he helps and supports the people who are the most close to him. Remember, it’s not the fact that the guy lives at home that should matter, but the reasons for that living situation.

I keep hearing stories from my friends about how they travel to Europe for just a few weeks and end up falling in love with someone while there, after being single at their hometown for a long time and often – for years. I also hear about how the locals in my town (San Francisco) fall for people who come to the city for a short visit or business. I have also personally experienced having strong feelings toward a woman who was visiting in town on two separate occasions. Reflecting back on my own experience as well as studying the experiences of other people who, I believe there is a strong common pattern and reason as to why people tend to develop strong feelings under the above circumstances that every person can apply to their behavior in order to be more attractive when they meet someone and when they go out on a date. There is one element that clearly distinguishes our behavior when we travel – the things we bring up and talk about when traveling is usually very different from the conversation we have when we go out in our home town and when we deal with locals. When you travel or when you go out with a tourist, you talk about your or his/her impressions of the new place one of you or both of you is seeing. You are having a great time, exchanging impressions about the new great places you see, the sites you admire, the people you meet, the foods you try, etc. You are sharing with each other generally positive experiences that are conducive to creating mutual comfort and romantic environment. Your conversation is usually nowhere near the mundane and somewhat boring subjects the locals would be talking about such as your job, school, paying bills, equity in your house, and recession. This may be very refreshing, and it often comes in strong contrast to your many previous interactions with your local dates, likely to create an emotional connection.

But, you don’t have to travel in order to adopt some of those attractive behaviors. You can incorporate the same behavior into your own interactions with the opposite sex when you go out at your home city. Staying away or at least minimizing the time you spend in the beginning on discussing the mundane, routine subjects such as getting into the specifics about your career goals, and the details of today’s economic and political issues  is a good idea if you want to avoid the “friends zone” and create romantic dynamics between you and the other person.  Of course, no one can expect you to act like a tourist and look around yourself with excitement like you don’t know where you are, but keeping a conversation on a lighter note, with wit and humor is of critical importance of being perceived by your counterpart as a romantic prospect rather than a friend or some kind of business associate.

Plenty of articles were written about the common courtesy of not answering a cellphone on a date, as it is generally considered rude and inconsiderate toward the person you are out with. However, I believe that even just checking your cellphone compulsively, whether it’s for time, or for incoming text messages or e-mails can be just as rude as answering the phone or even more inappropriate as it likely to make the person you are out with even less important than answering an actual call.

When you are out on one of your first dates with someone you like and would like to be romantically involved, or even when you are meeting up with a friend who you haven’t seen in a while and are not likely to see very often in the future, it is only fair that you will give each other full and undivided attention during those few hours you spend together. Having a conversation with another person who you don’t see very often and who you are interested in maintaining some kind of connection, and taking your eyes off him/her to look at your cellphone for incoming texts or e-mails like so many people do communicates to even not so perceptive and observant people that they are not all that important to you and that your mind is elsewhere while they are talking to you, as you are probably thinking about the e-mail/text you got or about a phone call you are expecting, or you are just concerned about what time it is and are really not paying attention to your company.

Whether it’s on purpose or out of habit – it will still make the other person feel the same – insignificant. Speaking of habits, I knew someone who would look at her phone every time there was a pause in our conversation. The moment I took a few seconds to think about what I was going to say next, she would immediately look at her blackberry, scroll down through the messages and try to type something.

Unless you want the other person to feel like they are taken for granted and their presence mean very little to you, you should avoid looking at your phone unless you expect an urgent call during your meeting. The best practice is to simply turn off your phone and put it away so looking at it is not even an issue. And if you absolutely have to answer or make a call or send that text/e-mail, excuse yourself  and take care of business away.

I also believe that a person who puts away his/er cellphone, turns it off for the night and focus the attention on the other person, shows a great degree of strength, confidence and control over his own life. He does not allow anything or anyone to interfere with his personal time. He is the boss of his off-work hours and of his communication with others. He respects himself and the person he is out with to give them the necessary attention and to make them feel heard and appreciated.

As a woman, you can easily distinguish yourself by not doing what so many other women do when they are out with a guy – holding their phone in their hand and constantly playing with it or looking at it. When you focus on the guy you are out with, you are making a statement of maturity, class and better time management skills than those girls who can’t live for a few hours without being “connected” to their friends.

Lets face it, most of the calls we have to make and texts/e-mails we have to respond to do not involve national security, and they can wait for a few hours, so don’t let your cellphone make you and your company feel like your face time with each other is not as important as it really is.

“Desperate” is an interesting term. People often use it in reference to someone who is needy – someone who is eager to date or get into a relationship quickly and/or someone who has low standards and would rather be with just anyone than alone. Obviously, this quality is unattractive and is a major turn-off to both sexes.

However, there is another kind of desperation, which I believe is even more unattractive and damaging to a person’s dating and romantic life – it is when you are not doing the things you want and when you don’t show your romantic interest in another person simply because you are afraid of being perceived as desperate or interested by others. There are so many examples to this kind of desperation. A high school student is afraid to sit in class next to a girl that he likes because he is afraid that she and others will know that he likes her. The girl is afraid to make an eye contact with a guy at a bookstore because she doesn’t want him to know that she finds him attractive. A guy is not asking a girl out who has rejected him before, even though it’s clear to him that she changed her mind about him, because he is concerned that she will think of him as desperate. A woman texts or e-mails the guy she met instead of calling him because she doesn’t want to be too “forward” and be perceived as too interested.

The above situations mostly happen because people are somehow embarrassed of their romantic interest instead of being proud of it, and also because the idea of being a challenge when it comes to dating has been marketed to both men and women through just about every media source, from dating books to movies. The same people act as if it was some kind of crime to approach and start a conversation, to make an eye contact with that stranger who is looking at them, or to sit next to someone in class, a restaurant or a bar. Your interest in anyone, when expressed in a confident and respectful fashion, is a compliment to that person regardless of how he/she feels about you, and if they can’t recognize and respect that, be it accepting your advances or gracefully rejecting you, it’s their problem and not yours.

You have been given the drive and the ability to want to be with a few specific people in this world for very particular and pre-determined reasons. It is nothing to be ashamed of. It would be a much greater problem if you weren’t attracted to anyone. You should not allow those who don’t quite know how to handle that power to either discount or discourage it in you by their negative reaction toward you. You are never desperate when you do what you want – when you take charge of your life and show initiative in your romantic interactions with other people.

I am sure you have heard a guy use the term “unapproachable” in reference to a woman. Most guys who go out will see that many of the women who are out in fact look “unapproachable.” There are different names for essentially the same phenomenon in women’s behavior  – “stuck up”, “snobbish”, and “high maintenance” are just some of them.

While some women make the conscious choice of looking unapproachable, as they don’t want to talk to any guys when they are out, many girls make themselves look “over the top” because they mistakenly believe that this kind of showing of power makes them more attractive and more likely to meet that great guy who they could date and potentially have a relationship with. This belief that looking “decked out” and having the runway model look on their face is reinforced by the media and particularly by such sources as Victoria Secret commercials and beauty magazines, both of which convey the idea that a very attractive woman should have that almost condescending expression on her face, and the demeanor of “I am hot. You want me and you know it, but you can’t have me.”  It is naive for a woman to expect to not be objectified by the men around her, if she does everything she can to come across as an object. While on the most primal level, men would find this kind of demonstration of confidence to be intriguing and even sexually arousing, they will be less likely to initiate a contact with a woman who carries herself like a princess, and even if they do – their interaction with a woman will be affected by the woman’s demeanor. So, while you may think that having that “attitude” when you are out makes you sexier and more attractive, it will most likely have the opposite effect on the men around you. The less confident ones will be intimidated by your posture, and the more confident guys will pay much more attention to your appearance than what’s inside of you, which is probably not what you are looking for.

Having a tough girl look on your face – the one a fashion model would have when walking down the runway – while might make you feel powerful and special, will hardly invite a friendly guy to have a nice, natural conversation with you. But standing out at a bar, bookstore, a bus stop or anywhere else as a friendlier woman with a warm energy, a smile and a friendly attitude, will necessarily invite more attention from the opposite sex. And while some of that attention will not be the kind you want or from the guys you would like to talk to – at the very least you will have more options to choose from.

Coming across at stuck up is hardly ever attractive, and most people will perceive it as a sign of insecurity or an attempt to overcompensate for the lack of “status” that the tough attitude is supposed to project.