Timing is as important when it comes to meeting and dating people as it is when driving a car. Consider waiting for an upcoming traffic to pass as you are turning left on a two-way traffic road. If you make your move too sooner and turn left too early, you are going to cause an accident and instead of completely the turn, hit the upcoming car. If, on the other hand, you are hesitating to start moving when the time is right during those few moments that you can and you should be turning left, you are likely to miss the green light altogether and you will have to wait till the next green light.
The same applies to meeting people and dating. When it is that you do something, is just as important as what and how you do it. Here are the main situations where making sure that your timing is right is very important to the outcome of your action:
* Approaching a woman and starting a conversation with her after you noticed her. We have all been there. You notice a woman, you make an eye contact, she smiles and looks away, then you look at her again, she briefly looks back again, looks away and never looks at you again afterwards. You are thinking about making a move, but don’t quite know what to say. You keep thinking about how to approach and meet her for a few minutes while lingering around her, and at that point things become awkward and you feel that approaching her after hanging around for this long will be awkward. When is the best time to approach a woman in a situation like that. Ideally, just a few moments after you make an eye contact for the second time. You should not be waiting for a woman to look at you again afterwards. This happens rarely and it’s unncessary. Instead, you should approach and say something – say anything to start a conversation. If you can’t think of anything creative, charming or witty to say, it’s perfectly fine, as it’s completely unncessary. You might think that you are supposed to sweep a woman off her feet with your first words, that’s simply not the case. Saying anything is better than saying nothing. Something as simple as asking for directions, or a recommendation for a product, bar, restaurant to just break the ice is must better than saying anything. If a woman is reading something, asking her about what she is reading with so much focus on attention is better than continuing to stare at her and creeping her out. If you doubt for a moment that women don’t like to be stared at, just ask any woman how it makes her feel when some guy keeps looking at her without doing anything to meet her (even if that guy is very attractive and someone she would be interested in).
* Bringing expensive gifts or taking to expensive dates. Special gestures and special gifts are only special and have that significant impact that you would want these special things to have if they come from a person who is also special to the recepient of the gift. Bringing flowers on a first date and going out to a very expensive dinner is not going to have nearly as much impact on a woman who barely knows you. It takes time for a woman to develop that kind of romantic interest in a guy where his generosity will cause her have butterflies. Trying to make things too special too early on will likely backfire – it will put unnecessary pressure on a woman to decide how she feels about you and your gestures, which is counterproductive to a healthy interaction and getting to know each other, which is done best when there is no such pressure. Flowers and gifts have much more meaning when they come from a guy that a woman is in love with or at least likes a lot. An expensive dinner is much more meaningful when its in celebration of a birthday or an anniversary, and not when it’s used as a tool to attract a woman when you go out for the first time.
* Going for that first kiss at the wrong time. So many movies have been misleading us for years about when a man should be going for that first kiss when he goes out with a woman, suggesting that doorsteps or her place is where it should happen right before good-bye, but nothing is fruther from truth. When you go for that first kiss right before leaving, this will not be a special kills of romance or a newborn passion, but …it will pretty much be a good-bye kiss. You are likely to be or feel rushed due the fact that you are about to leave and that the woman you are out is about to go into her house. One thing that makes that kind of kiss even more awkward and borderline inappropriate, is when the couple has no chemistry throughout the date, they don’t get closer to each other physically or othewise throughout the date and then the guy just goes for it at the end. Attraction and romantic interest don’t work like that – not with women anyway. Your first kiss starts just a few minutes after you meet with your date. You need to build up to it. You need to develop mutual physical and mental interest in each other, and then go for that kiss and not when you are headed back home. Sometimes, when the guy waits for the last moment to kiss a woman, it also suggests that he didn’t have the guts to make a move that whole time they were out, and now he is trying to use this last opportunity to take whatever he can before she leaves and use their good-bye hug as a crutch to have that kiss. Of course, if you had a great connection on a date and you like each other, the fact that your first kiss takes place right before you leave each other for the night is not going to be deal breaker by any means. It still can be very exciting and romantic. It can also extend your date and turn a good-bye into a protracted making-out sessions. But, in the absence of such an exceptionally strong chemistry and mutual interest on a first date, you are better off not postponing that first kiss for that long, or, on the contrary – don’t kiss on a first date at all if you feel that it’s just inappropriate and out of place and see what happens on your second date.
* Not knowing when it’s time to leave. This is a typical bar/club mistake, caused by desperation. A guy starts talking to a girl at a bar and instead of just talking to her for 20-30 minutes, getting her information and letting her get back to her friends, he lingers around till the establishment closes in hopes of getting laid that night. If that’s all you want, this is a perfectly legitimate strategy. Otherwise, by doing that you are starting your interaction with a woman on the wrong foot. It’s simply too much and too soon. Guys make the same mistake on a first date. They think that if they make the date lasts long enough and late enough in the evening, they will be more likely to have sex with that girl on that night. Lingering around on a first date in hopes of getting laid is a sure way to tire a woman, and you don’t want a woman to be tired of you after a first date; you want her to lave that first date by wanting to spend more time with you and looking forward to seeing you again as soon as that date is over. If it appears that a woman is not ready to be physically that close to you, leave it alone and give her and yourself time to develop that closeness that’s needed for both of you to enjoy physical intimacy as much as both of you should.
* Telling a woman how you feel about her too early on. This is very similar to gifts and flowers. Some guys are eager to tell a woman that they are in love with her a few weeks after meeting her, experiencing the tempating of telling that woman how special she is. This also often backfires. It takes women longer to develop a strong romantic interest in a guy than it takes a man. If she doesn’t feel the same way about you at the time she hears your love words, it will make her feel “cornered” and be forced to decide right then and there how she feels about you. Should she say that she loves you too back? What if she is not yet sure how she feels about you? Should she play it safe and say that she would like to be friends to take things slower? These are not the kinds of questions you want a woman to ask herself when you tell her how much you like or love her. Contrary to some guys’ belief, a man does not become more attractive to a woman by telling her that he likes her, as flattering as hearing that might be. The best time to tell a woman how you feel about her is when it’s clear to you that she is at least as in love with you as you are with her. That’s when it will have the impact you want and will make her very happy to hear that.
Make sure you are also awre of the critical importance of timing when it comes to humor and being funny when approaching and meeting someone new.
Great column.
I guess the general point here is that you can't hang onto these rigid movie-cliche rules. I know some people who took many months to develop attraction and I know a couple who married and conceived their first child at week 3, and they are still happily married. The latter is not a typical case. It depends on the two people, the circumstances and the interest level.
In most cases though, people need time to process these things as going out with someone you met should never be your top priority of the month. We all have other things in our minds such as school/career/job, family, friends, etc. Better waiting a little longer than trying to come off too strong too early when, as in many cases, it takes time to build chemistry.
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