Wouldn’t it be great if you could make a man like you instantly?
That hesitancy kills dates. Neither of you feel comfortable enough to relax and let down your guard, you stick to safe questions, and you leave the date wishing you’d have spent the evening at home.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
AMY WATERMAN[1] "Back when I was in my 20s, I needed to come up with a way to make complete strangers like me instantly.
The stakes were high. I was working my way around the world, and I needed jobs and places to stay. Being a foreigner meant that I was constantly dealing with stereotypes and people’s judgments about where I came from. How could I get someone to trust me and like me enough to want to help me?
What I learned—which probably won’t be news to many of you—is that people just want you to be impressed by them.
They want someone who hangs on their stories, asks them questions, and is genuinely interested in their lives.
The more you like them, the more they like you.
So my goal was to find out what was good and interesting about people, and then show them how much I appreciated their time and enjoyed their company.
That was no hardship!
Most people don’t think they’re appreciated enough in their lives.
The people they live with take them for granted. No one sees their brilliance.
But someone from the outside doesn’t see them as ordinary.
Someone from the outside hasn’t heard their stories before.
Strangers are interesting. You don’t know anything about their lives, or what they do for a living, or all the things they know how to do that you’ve never dreamed of.
If you listen, you can learn all sorts of things you never knew before.
Before I actually got out into the world and started traveling, I thought that people would want to know more about me. After all, I was the foreign, exotic one!
But what I found out was that people wanted to tell me about themselves. They wanted my take on their experiences. They weren’t really interested in me at all, except as someone who could hold up a mirror to their thoughts and ideas.
So I obliged.
I learned to give them what they wanted:
Someone to see them and accept them.
I would be talking to someone new, and I would consciously think in the back of my mind:
"I think you’re great. I like you.”
Now, I wouldn’t say those things out loud! I’d just think them.
And it wasn’t like I was pretending to feel something I didn’t. No matter who a person was, I always found something to like about them.
Everyone has something you can admire about them. Sure, there may be things about them that put you off, but you can put those aside for the duration of a conversation.
And for most of us, a first date is simply a conversation. One conversation, lasting an hour or two, that you can leave behind at some point and then go about the rest of your day.
For that one conversation, how hard would it be to look for something to admire and respect and be interested about in the person you’re with?
Just ONE thing.
Once you find that thing, you can ask them questions. You can invite them to teach you more. You let them know you’re impressed and you find it fascinating.
You can look at them and consciously think to yourself, “You know, I like you. Maybe you’re not even my type. But right now, just for this hour, this date, I think you’re a pretty cool person.”
Even if you don’t ever want to see this person again, you’ve left them with a positive experience of you.
You’ve left them feeling better about themselves.
And that changes how you feel about yourself. You realize that you’re the sort of person who can make anyone like you, just by liking them first."
Finding something to like and appreciate about the person you’re with will change your dating experience completely. People will relax when they realize they don’t have to prove themselves to you. They’ll like you as much as they think you like them.
And that makes dating a LOT more fun
Normally, when you meet someone new, both of you are on guard. You’re not sure what you think of each other, you’re not sure if you’re going to connect, and you proceed with caution.
That hesitancy kills dates. Neither of you feel comfortable enough to relax and let down your guard, you stick to safe questions, and you leave the date wishing you’d have spent the evening at home.
It doesn’t have to be that way!
AMY WATERMAN[1] "Back when I was in my 20s, I needed to come up with a way to make complete strangers like me instantly.
The stakes were high. I was working my way around the world, and I needed jobs and places to stay. Being a foreigner meant that I was constantly dealing with stereotypes and people’s judgments about where I came from. How could I get someone to trust me and like me enough to want to help me?
What I learned—which probably won’t be news to many of you—is that people just want you to be impressed by them.
They want someone who hangs on their stories, asks them questions, and is genuinely interested in their lives.
The more you like them, the more they like you.
So my goal was to find out what was good and interesting about people, and then show them how much I appreciated their time and enjoyed their company.
That was no hardship!
Most people don’t think they’re appreciated enough in their lives.
The people they live with take them for granted. No one sees their brilliance.
But someone from the outside doesn’t see them as ordinary.
Someone from the outside hasn’t heard their stories before.
Strangers are interesting. You don’t know anything about their lives, or what they do for a living, or all the things they know how to do that you’ve never dreamed of.
If you listen, you can learn all sorts of things you never knew before.
Before I actually got out into the world and started traveling, I thought that people would want to know more about me. After all, I was the foreign, exotic one!
But what I found out was that people wanted to tell me about themselves. They wanted my take on their experiences. They weren’t really interested in me at all, except as someone who could hold up a mirror to their thoughts and ideas.
So I obliged.
I learned to give them what they wanted:
Someone to see them and accept them.
I would be talking to someone new, and I would consciously think in the back of my mind:
"I think you’re great. I like you.”
Now, I wouldn’t say those things out loud! I’d just think them.
And it wasn’t like I was pretending to feel something I didn’t. No matter who a person was, I always found something to like about them.
Everyone has something you can admire about them. Sure, there may be things about them that put you off, but you can put those aside for the duration of a conversation.
And for most of us, a first date is simply a conversation. One conversation, lasting an hour or two, that you can leave behind at some point and then go about the rest of your day.
For that one conversation, how hard would it be to look for something to admire and respect and be interested about in the person you’re with?
Just ONE thing.
Once you find that thing, you can ask them questions. You can invite them to teach you more. You let them know you’re impressed and you find it fascinating.
You can look at them and consciously think to yourself, “You know, I like you. Maybe you’re not even my type. But right now, just for this hour, this date, I think you’re a pretty cool person.”
Even if you don’t ever want to see this person again, you’ve left them with a positive experience of you.
You’ve left them feeling better about themselves.
And that changes how you feel about yourself. You realize that you’re the sort of person who can make anyone like you, just by liking them first."
Finding something to like and appreciate about the person you’re with will change your dating experience completely. People will relax when they realize they don’t have to prove themselves to you. They’ll like you as much as they think you like them.
And that makes dating a LOT more fun
[1]Amy Waterman, M.A., is an old-timer in the field of dating and relationships. Her work has appeared in over a dozen online courses, including The Pleasure Principle, Save My Marriage Today, Connect & Commit, and How to Be Irresistible to Men. With two decades of international travel under her belt, she knows that the search for love is at the heart of the human experience.
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