Why Does It Never Work Out for Me? A Must-Read for the Hopeless at Dating Who Can't Get Past the Talking Stage

You've been on plenty of blind dates, tried meeting people naturally...

Do you know people whose connection fizzles out the very moment something starts to spark?

It ends at the talking stage, so you have no way of knowing what went wrong. You want a relationship, but you're increasingly afraid to start over because the same thing might happen again. If you're stuck in that vicious cycle, don't just stew about it alone; you first need to understand what stages the talking stage is actually made of.

Once you understand what you absolutely must do, and absolutely must not do, at each stage, you can at least make it smoothly into a relationship.

I hope you'll read this, figure out which misunderstandings about the talking stage have been tripping you up all along, and walk away with a solution.

The Neuroscience of Dating

First, what do you think dating is? Dating is a pretty abstract concept.

Fortunately, while psychology hasn't quite cracked it, neuroscientists have.

According to neuroscience research, when a person is attracted to someone, adrenaline is released and the brain issues the command, "Go win that person over."

For us, this is really where the problem starts: how do I win them over?

It isn't about the lines you use. What matters first is looking at what charms you have—physical, inner, situational—

and whether the place where you're trying to attract someone actually suits those charms.

Say you sweat a lot. Could you win someone over while hiking or working out? Probably not, right? You'd feel sticky, you couldn't keep your expression together, and because you're sweating so much, the odds of the other person seeing you in a good light go down too. Have you ever seriously thought about not how to attract someone, but where?

What if the other person loves drinking? Then during the talking stage, you should never schedule the meetup early.

If you book an early time, you'll most likely lose all your points fumbling around before you even get to the bar, and the date will be over before you walk through the door.

So from the outset, booking a nice izakaya with a good atmosphere in the evening can be the strategy!

Each of these small things is a strategy for minimizing your own weaknesses.

The Stages of the Talking Stage

Once the talking stage begins, it breaks down into roughly three stages.

There's the sub-talking stage, the talking stage and the deep talking stage, and we'll go through stage by stage to see why your talking stages have been blowing up until now.

The Sub-Talking Stage

1. Eye contact

Eye contact is like mirroring someone's behavior.

How long, on average, do men spend at a cafe? Less than 3 to 5 minutes.

In other words, they gulp down their coffee like someone who's drinking it for the first time.

It's also a behavior that doesn't match the other person's pace.

And this is one of the very top behaviors that women dislike in men.

To match the other person's pace, you have to look at them often. And that's how eye contact naturally happens from time to time.

Ask yourself whether, in your past talking stages, you matched the other person's pace.

If they fold their arms, you fold your arms too;

if they nod, you nod too. Ask yourself whether you've ever tried, through synchronized behavior like this, to make the other person feel close to you without even realizing it.

2. The conversation is interesting.

When you ask people about their ideal type, the number one answer is "someone I can really talk to" or "someone with good conversational back-and-forth."

So what does "really being able to talk" actually mean?

For those of you wondering, here are four ways to make conversation click.

1) Reactions - they remember what I said and respond to it.

2) Conversation code - our conversation topics line up.

3) Conversation frequency - the rhythm and frequency of contact is similar.

4) Conversation pattern - do they prefer long calls and long chat sessions in one go? vs. do they prefer sporadic but continuous contact?

It isn't just about good back-and-forth; a big part of it is which parts of me they took an interest in, and how much further I'll look into their interests.

3. There's something to look forward to at the next meeting.

The so-called "after," the follow-up date: how are you setting it up?

Please tell me you're not still setting up the next date right before parting ways, with "I really enjoyed today... (blush) Shall we meet again sometime?" or texting after you get home, "Did you get home safely? Next time... shall we watch a movie?"

The follow-up date is absolutely not something you set up right before going home.

You should slip the plan in naturally among the topics that come up during the conversation.

For example, if the other person says, "I love going to exhibitions, haha,"

then "Let's go there together next time" or "What are you doing next week? I happen to be free, want to go together?"

When the conversation is flowing and you're mirroring each other's behavior, this kind of talk about meeting again is what naturally follows.

Covering the talking stage and the deep talking stage would make this far too long...

so I'll cover the rest in the next post!

I'm rooting for your talking stage to go smoothly, and Honza will be with you so that this year you can finally close it out with someone you love!