How to improve your dating life.
The best way to improve your dating life is to embark on a holistic self-improvement life process of leveling up your mind, body, and spirit, and taking responsibility for your life so that you have more to offer to prospective partners. Then, you can focus on learning some basic dating skills to help you navigate the dating world in a manner that will help to increase your odds of success while decreasing your odds of suffering from outcomes like rejection, ghosting, and flaking.
Learning how to date can be a struggle.
Trust me…
If anyone knows this, it’s me.
It took me a good 2 years after a heartbreaking divorce to finally figure out how to succeed at dating.
And I’ll be honest… once I learned how to crush it on the dating marketplace, my life got a lot more exciting and fulfilling.
As I often say, life is too short to have a dating life that sucks.
Since those days, I’ve also learned a lot more about the process, and have pretty significantly increased my own understanding of how humans naturally date, mate, and form intimate relationships.
I’ve practiced, read scientific studies, talked to literally hundreds of people about their own dating experiences, read awesome dating books by dating experts… and have really immersed myself into the art of learning how to succeed at dating.
And over time, I even started coaching men and women to level up their own dating lives.
And what you’re about to read is the complete outline of my entire dating level-up process.
Unlike the vast majority of dating guides out there—this one is unique in the sense that I’m going to describe a detailed overview of the entire process, from beginning to end—and it’s going to contain everything needed for both men and women.
For the most part, the whole process is pretty similar for men and women. But there are some parts where alpha-minded men and women will want to pursue slightly different strategies. And I’m going to label some sections of this guide respectively—to provide masculine or feminine specific guidance as needed.
I believe that including both in one guide is important so that both men and women can get a holistic, bird’s eye view of the entire process from both sides of the coin.
And therein, they can both better understand what their respective roles and responsibilities are as they engage in the beautiful, chaotic, fiercely competitive, and ever mysterious human mating dance.
7 Steps – The Complete Guide To How To Master Your Dating Life
Keep in mind that human mating behavior, the dating marketplace, and the overarching human mating dance as a whole are all complex topics that could fill volumes and volumes of books.
I call this guide the complete guide to how to master your dating life because it contains an entire overview of the process.
However, I’ve also taken great care to share links to additional information that will help to fill in some of the blanks.
Listen—the core basics of how to master your dating life are actually really simple.
And we’re going to discuss them all in this guide.
But also, keep in mind that you should never stop learning.
After you’ve read through this guide, consider clicking through to read not only my ultimate guide to becoming truly alpha, but also the many supporting links you’ll find located within this article.
Hopefully, utilizing all this information, you’ll have a much better, broader bird’s eye view of the entire process from beginning to end.
My hope is that all of this information will help to equip you for better success in the long term as you navigate the dating marketplace and seek to crush it in your dating life.
With all of that being said, let’s start at the beginning—at step number 1!
Step 1: Embrace The Alpha Mentality
This is truly where it all begins.
In fact, I’ve reached a point in my life where I’ve learned that it’s so counterintuitive to try to help people improve their dating lives when they haven’t embraced true alpha mentality in their life that this is actually the first real step to getting started with the process of leveling up and mastering your dating life.
For a full rundown of exactly how to go about this process, read this guide: How To Truly Embrace The Alpha Mentality.
See, embracing the alpha mentality sets you up for a life of intention, proaction, abundance, and power. It empowers you to take your power back from the chaos, to embrace radical self-responsibility, and just in general teaches you how to get your life together and become a more effective, competent human.
And this is really important.
Most people are still operating with a beta mentality in life—and this absolutely sabotages any efforts to improve their dating game.
As a follow-up to the guide listed above, you should also read this guide: Defining The Alpha Mentality – What It Means To Be ‘Truly Alpha’.
Step 2: Level Up Your Attraction
Once you’ve embraced the alpha mentality, it’ll be time to start putting some serious elbow grease into your attraction markers.
I call these the sexual value metrics.
And they basically serve as a list of traits, attributes, and characteristics that you’ll want to focus on leveling up to increase your overall attraction on the dating marketplace.
Here’s the thing about humans.
We’re hardwired to desire attractive people.
Nowadays, there are a lot of confusing messages flying around about how you don’t need to look a certain way or be a certain way in order to deserve love.
Well, I understand that sentiment. It’s a ‘feel good’ message that helps us to cope with the unpleasantness of the true reality of the world.
But it’s really important to understand that many of these sound bites aren’t very strategic in the sense that they’re not going to help you improve your dating life.
Plus, they’re pretty uninformed when it comes to the science of human mating behavior.
The truth of the matter is that if you want to find an amazing, attractive partner—you truly need to become an amazing, competent, effective, attractive alpha mentality human in your own right—so that you can bring equal value to the table and broadcast yourself as a worthwhile option for people who also have a lot to offer.
Make no mistake—the dating marketplace is a fiercely competitive and brutal landscape.
Everyone’s trying to get the best deal they can get, and conflict between the sexes runs rampant.
However, the good news is this:
The better you get at leveling up your sexual value metrics and broadcasting high-value markers while meeting partners and dating, the more likely you’re going to be to find partners who are going to want to cooperate with you, experience intimacy with you, and share in your life adventures with you.
This is true for men and for women.
Of course, some of the details between the masculine and the feminine sides of the plight are slightly different.
So let’s talk about that.
Masculinity And Femininity
A lot of people aren’t comfortable talking about masculinity and femininity in today’s modern dating world.
But here’s the thing.
Humans evolved to desire certain things—and these instincts are deeply embedded in our biological firmware.
As a man on the dating marketplace, you’re going to get the best results by embracing your natural, evolutionary authentic masculinity.
And for women, the same is true of femininity.
Every individual person is different.
Each one of us has our own style, our own preferences, our own tastes, our own quirks, and our own idiosyncrasies.
And hey, this is awesome. This makes every person unique and interesting in their own way.
However, as a baseline, there are certain universal values and standards that we’ll want to nurture and grow within ourselves as men and women—to give us our best chances for broadcasting the highest level attraction markers possible.
Now, let’s take a moment and talk about not only masculine frame and feminine frame, but also some of the primary value markers that you should be striving to develop and broadcast as you seek to increase your attraction and your levels of success on the dating landscape.
For Men: How To Level Up Your Masculine Frame
As a man, you will level-up your masculine frame when you truly embody what I call the masculine evolutionary mandate:
As a man, you will align best with your natural masculine strength and power when you focus first and foremost on your purpose and mission in life as a man. i.e., the process of generating resources, solving problems, and creating safety and security for your partner, family, circle, and tribe.
For Women: How To Level Up Your Feminine Frame
As a woman, you will level-up your feminine frame when you truly embody the feminine evolutionary mandate:
As a woman, you will align best with your natural feminine strength and power when you focus first and foremost on cultivating your feminine beauty, and desirability—and when you embrace your responsibility to bring beauty, peace, harmony, support, inspiration, nurturing, and love to your partner, family, circle, and tribe.
For Men And Women – Level Up Your Primary Sexual Value Metrics
For men, this means leveling up your:
- Wealth
- Status
- Power
- Tribal connections
- Leadership abilities
- An athletic body
To dive even deeper into this topic, read this guide: What Do Women Want In A Man – The Man’s Complete Guide.
For women, this means leveling up your:
- Youth cues
- Beauty cues
- Fertility cues
- Fidelity cues
- Agreeableness
- Inspiration
To dive even deeper into this topic, read this guide: How Do You Attract A High Value Man?
To learn more about attraction markers, check out this guide: Understanding High And Low Value Attraction Markers.
To understand the scope and importance of sexual value metrics, and why they matter, consider reading this blog post: We’re All Hunter-Gatherers In The Sexual Arena.
Step 3: Create A Proper Dating Funnel
The very first step in the dating process is to start bringing potential dating prospects into your frame.
In other words, if you’re a man trying to date women, you need to start interacting with more women.
And if you’re a woman trying to date men, you need to interact with more men.
This part of the process is really a social numbers game.
If all you do is sit at home, and if you never leave your house, your dating funnel is going to be tiny—and your results are likely going to be lackluster at best.
However, if you invest time, energy, effort, and resources into your dating funnel, and are constantly meeting a string of high-value, attractive potential partners, guess what?
This puts the mathematical odds in your favor—and gives you your best possible odds for actually finding prospective partners who are not only attractive and amazing, but who also feel the same way about you and would love to go on dates with you.
So with that being said, let’s talk a little bit about this business of creating a proper dating funnel, and the 3 methods that you can use in today’s modern dating landscape to deploy it.
The 3 Dating Funnel Methods
Online Dating
At this point, most people are at least a little bit familiar with online dating.
Now, here’s the thing about online dating.
It’s not perfect.
It has many flaws, and it shouldn’t be your only funnel option.
With that being said, there’s still a lot of opportunity that just gets left on the table when people don’t utilize online dating to at least some degree.
Therefore, I always recommend that people who are trying to succeed in their dating life spend about 20 minutes to an hour every day practicing with (and using) dating apps to help them meet potential dates in their geographic area.
How to use dating apps – Here are some general tips to help guide you in the process.
- Use 3 different apps to diversify your online presence
- Research how to set up amazing profiles, and make your profiles awesome
- Get professional high-quality photography taken of you so that your images look amazing
- Describe the positives of your life and what you’re looking for in your bio without slanting any of it toward the negative
- Include interesting questions and hooks in your profile to elicit more responses
- Stay up-to-date on current best practices and strategies on each dating app you use, to deploy effective strategies that will actually help you to achieve success (I recommend researching this on YouTube)
- Don’t spend more than an hour on dating apps on any given day
- Try to use dating apps during downtimes so that you’re not taking time away from other potential funnel methods
- Don’t get hung up on the rejection. Dating apps are definitely not a perfect dating medium
- DO NOT fall into the trap of relying on dating apps for the majority of your ‘dating funnel’ process
To learn more about how to overcome rejection, read this guide: 7 Tips For How To Deal With Rejection – The Alpha Male Perspective.
Cold Approach
Cold approach basically involves the process of walking up to attractive strangers, introducing yourself, and starting a conversation.
This is one of the best methods for meeting people in the real world—though this technique does make a lot of people socially nervous at first.
To get over this initial ‘approach anxiety,’ you can start out by just approaching people, engaging with them, starting small conversations, and then bidding them farewell and going about your day without pressuring yourself to flirt or try to ‘close’ (get a number if you’re a man, or giving away your number if you’re a woman).
Then, as you grow more comfortable with this process, you can practice slipping into a more ‘flirtatious’ mode, and eventually start asking people for numbers (for men) and/or making it known that you would give out your number if you were asked (for women).
As a general rule of thumb, if you’re trying to improve your dating life, I recommend that you set a quota to try to engage in at least one organic cold approach every single day.
Not every approach will be successful—but that’s ok. At first, it’s just a social numbers game—and you just want to give yourself the opportunity to succeed.
Tribal Dating
Tribal dating is my name for a style of dating where you meet people and date within your existing social circles.
This could mean dating people you go to class with, dating people in your youth group, dating people you’ve met at work, dating people through networking events, etc.
In some ways, tribal dating is the best and easiest way to meet people—because the connections can truly be organic.
In these situations, you’re often introduced to each other by mutual friends, contacts, or acquaintances—and this facilitates the absolute best way to get to know each other with minimal pressure and anxiety.
With that being said, you’ll also want to be slightly careful when engaging in tribal dating. If you come on too strong and try to flirt too much with every new person you meet within these joint social contexts, you could get a reputation for always being the ‘thirsty/easy one.’
And sometimes, this can backfire—as people will likely spread this information through your social networks via gossip.
This isn’t always a bad thing. It’s just something that you want to be a little bit careful of.
Personally, for me, I always try to be just a little bit ‘conservative’ when talking to prospective dating interests via tribal dating.
I start out greeting people professionally and getting to know them a bit as colleagues, friends, and people.
But then, I make it a point to be pretty bold about my interest in them if I decide that I’d like to ask them out.
One thing for men to note about tribal dating is that it can quite easily lead to you getting friendzoned if you don’t make your move relatively quickly. (This really isn’t much of an issue for women.)
And therein lies the tricky part of the equation.
(To learn more about how to avoid getting stuck in the friendzone, check out this post: 11 Tips For How To Not Get Friendzoned – The Alpha Male Guide.)
Of course, balancing this with the desire to maintain your reputation in a social group can be a little bit like walking a social tightrope.
Personally, I find that the best approach to this is just to interact organically with the group, and to not be afraid to do a little bit of flirting when the opportunity arises—especially if there’s someone I’m interested in.
However, I always keep it light, and I don’t cross any lines that could be deemed as being ‘unprofessional.’
Plus, if you’re working on increasing your dating marketplace value, and if you’re constantly working on leveling up your value metrics to become a better version of yourself, then people are likely going to start finding you attractive enough that even if you don’t make your move right away, they’ll still consider you worth the wait.
And honestly, those are the types of people you really want to be dating anyway.
I always prefer to date people who are seriously genuinely interested in me.
As a general rule, I don’t advocate for trying to talk people into dating you if they’re not already super pumped about it.
Continue Working On Your Funnel, Even If You’re Successfully Landing Dates
This is a concept that a lot of people get wrong.
As you start to meet people using these 3 funnel methods, and then start the process of engaging in successful dates—it’s really important not to stop working on your funnels.
In other words, even if you’re starting to date some really cool people on a successful level, always keep a steady stream of new dating prospects coming into your life.
Some people make the mistake of shutting down their dating funnels after one or two successful dates with someone because they’re hoping to score a boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
But here’s the thing. There’s no such thing as a relationship if agreements haven’t been made.
At this point, that person is still a casual dating partner, and you need to keep your dating funnel (and with it, your options) open so that you stay in dating abundance, and don’t close off to other options—which could plunge you back into dating scarcity.
Remember, this is a fiercely competitive game.
Constantly be working on yourself, and constantly be bringing new people into your frame.
Continue to do this until you actually enter an exclusive relationship.
Keep your funnel open until you enter the agreement stage of the relationship, and find yourself in girlfriend-boyfriend territory on a natural, organic level and on a timeframe that really works well for your life.
The only time you should shut down your dating funnels and focus on just one person is after agreements have already been made, and you’ve secured an official, public commitment from them.
Step 4: Use The 5 Overarching Dating Skills To Start Scheduling Dates
One huge misconception that often leads people astray in their dating life is the idea that dating is something that should happen purely naturally and organically, without any effort or ‘focus’ whatsoever.
Here’s the thing.
Dating is absolutely a skill.
And even more than that, it’s a skill that you can learn, practice, and get better at to make your dating life more successful.
Here’s the thing about humans.
They tend to be fiercely competitive maters.
Human women are one of the few creatures on the planet that engage in the process of selective mating, which means that they’re constantly engaged in the process of trying to vet partners and choose the best partner possible.
With that being said, men have evolved over the years to become fierce competitors in the sexual arena, to increase their odds of being selected by women.
Back in our primitive caveman and cavewoman days, we would have seen fierce competition between men and women as they tried to ‘one-up’ their competition in the dating marketplace, attract the highest value dating prospects within the tribe, and secure those mates as their own.
This would have been a very deliberate process that had very serious real-life ramifications.
Back in those days, if a woman didn’t manage to attract a powerful, high-value, masculine man who was also a skilled hunter and brought valuable status and connections to the table—she could very well be looking at a difficult life where her family was constantly plagued by disease and starvation.
By contrast, a woman who would have managed to attract and secure a successful, high value, powerful, masculine man as a mate would have been able to look ahead to a life of relative ease, luxury, and, safety—thanks in part to the status, power, and tribal connections she would have inherited by virtue of the man she chose to mate with.
And the same is true for men.
If a man chose an infertile woman as his mate, his bloodline would suffer. And he may never get the chance to propagate his genetic legacy.
All throughout human existence, this has been a very strategic endeavor.
And as modern-day humans, we can still tap into these ancient instincts and primordial behaviors to help give us our best odds for survival on the modern dating marketplace.
So, to begin a discussion about how to do this, let’s define a word that a lot of people are confused by…
Game.
What Is Game?
In the pickup artist community, the word ‘game’ has often been used to describe a man’s proficiency in his ability to succeed with women.
In other words, a man was said to have ‘good game’ if he could score dates and hookups with a lot of women, and ‘bad game’ if he was a rejected, lonely loser who couldn’t get a date.
The same can be said for women, though the definition actually differs a bit in that context.
Women are said to have ‘good game’ when they’re able to attract high-value, powerful men and retain those men in relationships and marriage (i.e. get those men to channel their resources exclusively to her).
Whereas, women who can’t attract or elicit commitment or proposals from men, who find it nearly impossible to break through that barrier of just being the ‘friend with benefits’ or ‘the hookup girl’ are said to have ‘bad game.’
My definition for the term game is very simple.
Game is your ability to interface with prospective dating partners in a confident, authentic, productive, organic fashion that empowers you to broadcast all of your most prominent high-value markers while minimizing the potential danger of ‘putting your foot in your mouth’ or otherwise ruining the encounter.
In other words…
- Be your best self (while also constantly striving to improve yourself)
- Engage with people authentically and in a positive, productive manner
- And don’t embarrass yourself and/or do things that’ll ruin your chances
That’s really the basic essence of game.
You don’t need to be a seduction expert to have good game. You just need to be reasonably socially adept, engaged in self-improvement, and willing to talk to people, shoot your shot, and make an attempt to land dates with attractive prospective partners without doing things that’ll jeopardize the process in a negative way.
What Is Advanced Game?
When I talk about advanced game, I’m talking about the process of using actual specific dating skills to strategically improve your odds for success beyond just being an attractive, self-validated, outgoing person.
I basically break the concept of advanced game down into what I call the 5 overarching dating skills.
Every man and woman should learn these skills, practice them, understand them, and seek to level them up in life.
In fact, contrary to what many people believe, you should even continue to practice these skills after you’re in a committed relationship.
You should practice them with your partner, and you should constantly be honing them to keep your game intact, stay interesting, stay sexy, and avoid falling into that boring beta ‘slump’ that often happens after people get lazy and sluggish within the context of their committed relationship.
The 5 overarching dating skills are:
- Approach
- Engagement
- Connection
- Escalation/Flirting
- Closing
For a more in-depth discussion about these 5 dating skills, read this guide: The 5 Core Overarching Dating Skills.
To learn more about how men and women can leverage these dating skills to meet more people and set up more dates, read this guide: How to Meet Someone in Real Life – Dating And Attraction.
It’s The Man’s Responsibility To Pursue Dates And Sex
Nowadays, we have a pretty big misunderstanding about what the natural roles of men and women are supposed to be on the dating marketplace.
Now, this is a relatively complicated science.
And there are a lot of reasons for why I’m about to say what I’m about to say.
But in my life, when I learned these principles, embraced them, and began deploying them in my dating life—I saw a massive surge of success.
This is due to the fact that humans truly do have an innate sense of what the man and the woman (the masculine and the feminine) are supposed to bring to the table, what responsibilities they’re supposed to take on in the mating process, and what just works better for communication and cooperation between the sexes.
With that being said, remember that it’s the man’s responsibility, always, to pursue dates and sex—even within the context of committed relationships.
And here’s why.
As men, we were programmed by the evolutionary process to be champions of purpose—to fulfill the masculine evolutionary mandate of generating resources, solving problems, and providing safety and security for our family, tribe, and community.
Men are the competitors and women are the selectors.
Therefore, since women are the ones who hold the sensitive reproductive tools (in other words, they have the womb, the eggs, and the means to carry a child to term), they are the ones who carry the inherent store of human reproductive value.
This is why women are the selectors. They are tasked with choosing men who will empower them to make the most effective use of these valuable reproductive tools.
Men, therefore, must take responsibility for competing to be selected by women.
And thus, it is on men’s shoulders to pursue dates and sex—because access to sex, i.e. access to the female reproductive system, in all of its incredible evolutionary value, is what women are programmed to safeguard—and what men are programmed to pursue and achieve.
In other words, the whole process just works better and more naturally when men pursue dates and sex.
It’s The Woman’s Responsibility To Pursue Commitment
On the flip side of the coin, as men seek to better themselves, build resources, solve problems, and provide safety and security for the tribe—they’ll hopefully succeed in amassing wealth, power, status, strong tribal connections, and an athletic body to become high-value men while on the journey.
In other words, they build up their own value—which they can now use to trade to the female (in the process of cooperative pair-bonding) for access to her feminine beauty, her valuable reproductive system, and the many other feminine qualities she brings to the table.
Men and women, in engaging in the grand human mating dance and process of pair-bonding, effectively trade their stored evolutionary sexual value to help further not only their own agendas for survival, but also their ability to create a thriving family, tribe, and cooperative social unit.
The result is the beautiful, streamlined, complementary cooperation of the sexes.
Women who have the capacity to bear young, and men who have the capacity to create resources, can come together to form what many would consider a traditional family unit—which, rightfully so, serves as the foundational cornerstone of the human cooperative social and tribal dynamic—the same dynamic that has pushed us to overcome nature to not only survive as humans, but to also thrive and become the dominant species on this planet.
Now, I’m not trying to say that you need to adapt to the traditional family unit in order to be a good person or to be successful in life.
But what I am saying is that this is the way we were programmed by millions of years of adaptive evolution to behave—and thus, this is how humans will naturally behave when they’re acting based on instinct.
Thus, when you tap into this evolutionary power of human mating behavior, you’ll find that the process actually works really well. You’ll find that you’ll beat your head against fewer walls, and that you’ll tend to find more success, when you allow yourself to become a part of this flowing, organic evolutionary process.
With this being said, women are responsible for pursuing commitment because what they need, evolutionary speaking, to survive in the world is the help of a man (and to a greater extent, a tribe) and the resources that come along with him.
It’s in her best interest to find a male partner to pair-bond with—a high value partner who can protect her and provide security while she is engaged in the rather dangerous and taxing business of creating offspring and raising them to adulthood—which is a process that puts her at risk and exacts a significant metabolic toll on her body.
In other words—the natural way of things is for men to pursue access to sex, and for women to pursue shared, exclusive access to the man’s resources.
And when a high-value man and a high-value woman can come together and agree on the context of a relationship, thus creating a secure and intimate context for the exchange of these values—this is when beautiful, romantic, adventurous, trustworthy, positive, passionate, and intimate relationships are born.
By all accounts, this is a truly beautiful thing.
Do Sex Differences Really Matter?
Nowadays, a lot of people really like to try to minimize the differences between the sexes.
However, I’ll be honest—I believe that, while everyone should stay true to who they want to be in this life, and while everyone should walk their own path to find their own sexual identity, I do believe that it’s a shame that more people aren’t taught to take pride in being a masculine man or a feminine woman.
These were the values that brought us up through millions of years of hardship and evolution as humans adapted and overcame the dangerous forces of nature that constantly threatened to render us extinct.
And these values also work incredibly well to help men and women exist in cooperation—even to this day.
And as men and women, when we embrace these values instead of rejecting them or trying to work against them, we will find that dating, mating, romance, attraction, sex, and intimacy will all flow easier, create greater fulfillment, produce more satisfaction, and just, in general, allow us to experience a better quality of life.
As I always say, the quality of a person’s dating life (and the quality of their intimate relationships) will determine, to a great extent, the quality of the rest of their life.
In other words, life is too short for a dating or relationship life that sucks.
Step 5: Keep Dating Casually, And Keep Your Options Open
Now, we’ve already kind of covered this in a previous section, but it’s worth repeating.
When you engage in the process of bringing people into your dating funnel, going on dates, and beginning the process of engaging in some kind of casual intimacy or casual sex with these dates, you’re in a part of the process that I call ‘mating in the wild.’
In other words, you’re out having adventures, and engaging in sex as you get the opportunity (or decide to do so) without really forming any serious agreements or commitments.
Personally, I believe that the vast majority of humans will (and should) go through a period of ‘mating in the wild’ before they settle into a long-term commitment, as a means of learning about the dating marketplace, learning what to look for in a partner, learning how to navigate sex with other humans, and just in general figuring out how to be sexually mature adults in their own capacity.
You can learn more about my history with ‘hookup culture,’ and my thoughts about why it can actually be beneficial, in this article: Hookup Culture – My Personal Alpha Mentality Perspective.
With that being said, there can still be a lot of temptation to partner up during this phase, and get into ‘situationships’ or ‘unofficial agreements,’ and these confusing ‘half-relationships’ can play havoc with your dating practices and open you up to decreasing the efficiency of your dating funnel system (without increasing your security by any significant equal margin).
To learn more about this, check out this guide: Talking Vs Dating – What’s The Difference?
Here are some tips that men and women should follow at this stage of the game, to learn how to conceptualize this concept of ‘mating in the wild’ and using it to your advantage.
Build A Rotation (Casual Dating Advice For Men)
As a man on the dating marketplace who’s currently engaged in the process of mating in the wild, it’s in your best interest to build a rotation of women (i.e. a rotation of consistent, regular casual dating partners) that you see and spend time with on a recurring and regular basis.
For some men, this idea may sound crazy.
And in many ways, our culture demonizes the idea of dating multiple people at once (especially when MEN are the ones doing it).
But here’s the thing.
If you’re honest about it, and you resist the urge to make agreements with these women—well, that means that you’re not doing anything dishonest, and that you’re just doing what’s in your own best self-interest to ensure that you have a high quality dating life.
You’re simply creating dating abundance for yourself as a man, which is a good thing.
This is really important. Don’t get caught up in the trap of falling into situationships or shutting down your interactions with other women due to pressure from outside sources just because you’ve met a woman who seems nice and who seems to like you.
Remember—it’s your responsibility as a man to pursue sex and dates. It’s in the woman’s best interest to pursue a relationship with you! So—having that ‘relationship talk’ is really the responsibility of the women you’re dating.
You should only agree to drop other dating prospects when the woman you’re dating—the woman you want to have a relationship with—comes to you and asks for an official relationship.
If you accept this and you decide to make an agreement to become committed to her—then, and only then, should you drop your other dating prospects and stop leveraging your dating funnel.
Note: This also ties into the question of whether or not men should cheat on women if they could possibly increase their sexual success by doing so. My official answer to this is ‘no,’ men should not cheat. They should honor their agreements and their word. This is the alpha way.
To learn more about this, check out this article: Should I Cheat On My Girlfriend? – The True Alpha Male Answer.
Resist The Urge To Focus On Only One Man (Casual Dating Advice For Women)
In coaching women on how to improve their dating lives, I’ve run into many situations where women tell me that they don’t like to date more than one man.
Now, this isn’t true for every woman—but there are a lot of women who deal with this.
Women will generally date a few different men if they’re not super interested in those men—but the minute they meet a man who they really like, who they could definitely see themselves being in a relationship with, they tend to focus solely on him and drop all of their other prospects.
But listen, this is a very dangerous game for women to play.
And as a woman, it’s in your best interest not to do this.
Keep your dating funnel open.
Then, when you meet an amazing guy, play it cool.
Take things slow.
Start dating him.
Start getting him even more interested in you by leveraging your natural feminine beauty and charm, and continue to casually date him and engage with him.
To learn more about how to do this using your incredible feminine sexual power, check out this guide: 8 Tips For Women – How To Make Him Want You Bad – A Man’s Advice.
When you reach a point where you’re ready to ask him for a commitment, which usually falls somewhere between the two-month and six-month mark, sit him down and have a ‘what are we?’ conversation with him.
Ask for a monogamous, sexually exclusive, official boyfriend-girlfriend relationship.
If he says ‘yes’ to this, then make the agreement, drop your other partners, and close up your dating funnels.
If he either says ‘no’ to this, or tries to compromise and not give you what you need to be secure in the relationship, then you’ll need to show him that you’re serious about the fact that you want to have a real relationship by being willing to pull back and walk away from him.
Sometimes, if a man realizes that the woman is willing to walk away from the relationship rather than compromise on her values, he’ll come back around and tell her that he has changed his mind, and that he does want a relationship.
But sometimes, when you enact the strategy, you’re actually walking away from a massive heartbreak later on.
This is tough stuff, but it’s really important.
Do not drop those other dating options until you’ve secured the commitment you want with the man you want.
For some more tips on exactly what to look for in a high value man, check out this article: 18 Green Flag Behaviors Of High-Value Men.
Step 6: The Agreement Phase
As stated earlier, the burden falls to the woman to initiate the ‘agreement’ discussion with a man.
Therefore, most of this section is going to be for women—though there are some sections here for the men as well, which are appropriately labeled.
Let’s talk about this business of when the woman should initiate this agreement discussion and what she should ask for.
When Should The Woman Initiate The ‘Agreement’ Discussion With A Dating Partner?
This is a very common question that I get a lot from women.
And there’s a very simple answer.
As a woman, you really want to be tuned into your feelings and how connected and attached you are to the man you’re dating.
It’s also important to be aware of the timeline, and to make sure that you’re not over-investing in him emotionally on a premature basis.
For most people, the proper time to enter the agreement phase of the relationship falls somewhere between the two-month and six-month markers.
With that being said, some people might date a year or more before officially making the relationship a committed relationship.
It’s also important to understand that as a woman, if you start to develop very strong feelings for this guy, to the point where it’s going to hurt you or upset you if you find out that he’s exercising his right to date other women, that’s an indication that it’s time to have the ‘agreement’ conversation with him.
With that being said, if that happens within the first week of dating him, that’s just way too soon.
There’s a very high likelihood that you’re going to scare him away by trying to initiate a talk with him at such an early stage of the process.
Therefore, it’s really important to emotionally pace yourself.
This is an intentional process that is always in a woman’s best interest to learn as a skill.
Try to hold back on forming such powerful emotional connections with someone until you get to the point in the relationship where you could legitimately ask for a commitment from them.
At the very earliest, this shouldn’t happen until you’ve already been dating for two to three months.
What Should A Woman Ask For In This ‘Agreement’ Discussion?
As a woman initiating the agreement/commitment discussion with a man, you’re going to want to ask for a number of things.
- You’re going to want to ask for a committed, officially/publicly recognized relationship.
In other words—you’re going to want for both of you to share it on social media and tell your friends/family about it.
- You’re going to want to ask specifically for monogamy/sexual exclusivity as well, unless your relationship is non-monogamous by nature and both of you truly want that.
- Both of you should also explicitly agree to delete your dating apps, end all other dating and casual relationships that are still going on, and commit fully to one another as exclusive dating partners.
Now, you can expand on this and also ask for other things if you want—and the more complicated your lives are, the more specific agreements you may need to make to deal with certain situations and more complex concerns that you may both have moving forward into the future.
With that being said, the examples given above should serve as a very basic, baseline example of the bare minimum things you really should ask for.
If a man can’t agree to give you these things, you should definitely pull back and walk away—because the truth of the matter is that these are all things you really need from someone in order to have a functional, committed relationship that’s based on trust, transparency, and mutual respect.
What Should A Woman Say To Ask For A Commitment Agreement From The Man?
At this phase of the relationship, you’ll basically sit him down and say some version of the following:
“Hey, I really like you. I know that we’ve been casually dating up until this point, but I’m starting to really get serious feelings for you—and for my own good, I really need to know that you’re as serious about this as I am. So I’d like to propose that we make some specific agreements. I’d like to have a committed, monogamous, exclusive boyfriend/girlfriend relationship with you, and I want to make it public and official. I’m ready to start the next chapter of this relationship, and I hope that you want that too. If you’re not ready for that, I completely understand—but that means that I would need to pull back and stop investing in this. I really like you. In fact, I love you. I can’t go on with this just being casual anymore. What do you think? Is this something that you could agree to? Is this something that you want and are ready for?”
What Should The Man Do When A Woman Asks Him For An Agreement/Commitment?
As a man in this equation, if a woman sits you down to have a ‘relationship discussion’ with you, it’s really important that you take it seriously.
You need to understand that her heart and feelings are on the line here, and that you need to be really honest with her about what you want with her.
If you’re not ready to give her the things she’s asking you for, you need to state that directly—and then let her do whatever she needs to do to care for her own emotional needs.
She may need to walk away from the relationship—and you may need to be strong enough to let her do that.
If you try to keep her involved or string her along in a relationship where she’s not going to be getting the things she really needs, it’s not going to work well in the long term.
You’re both likely to get hurt, things are likely to get weird and messy, and it’s just going to further confound and confuse her.
And as an alpha mentality man, it’s really important to take responsibility for being direct and honest, and doing the strong, alpha thing (i.e. letting her go) in this circumstance.
On the flip side, if this is what you want (a relationship with a great woman), if she’s the person you want it with, and if you’re ready for it, then now’s the time to jump in and commit.
You might be a little scared of the idea of committing to someone at first.
You may think to yourself:
“I don’t know if I’m ready for this big of a commitment.”
But listen…
If you want this woman, and if you really want to give this a try, then it’s in your best interest to face that fear and go for it anyway.
This isn’t exactly a marriage proposal.
It’s just an agreement to have a mutually exclusive committed dating relationship.
If it doesn’t go well, you can always walk away from it.
However, being in a committed dating relationship can sometimes be one of the most beautiful things a man will ever experience.
And as a man who’s out on the dating marketplace, you should at least be open to considering this as a possibility if the woman asking you to do it is a high-value woman who you’re attracted to, who you have a great time with, and who you think would be a consistently positive addition to your life.
Note: To learn more about what to look for in a high-value woman, check out this post: 13 Traits Of A High Value Woman – The Alpha Male Perspective.
For Women – What Should You Do If The Man Isn’t Sure About Committing To You Completely?
If the man isn’t sure that he’s ready to make a commitment, and/or if he only wants to adopt some of your proposals, but not others—then it’s up to you to decide whether or not you should compromise and walk away.
Personally, whenever I’m coaching women and advising them on what to do, my advice is always the same.
If a man can’t at least give you the three baseline commitment items that I already listed above:
- An official commitment
- Public displays of fidelity
- Sexual exclusivity
Then you should walk away.
He might come around and change his mind, or you might not hear from him again.
In either case, the right thing happened.
These items are all crucial in order for you to have the kind of secure and functional relationship you really need in order to move forward in life.
I’ve seen far too many people get heartbroken, ruin their own dating happiness, and fall into dating disasters because they allowed themselves to get dragged into ‘halfway situationships’ or vague dating relationships that were full of compromises and/or half promises (or even worse, unspoken assumptions).
As a woman, trust in your instincts and understand that you need security and safety in order to find peace and perform well within the relationship.
This is a very natural thing, and you shouldn’t be ashamed of it.
If The Answer Is A ‘Yes’ – Congratulations! You’ve Successfully Moved Into The ‘Agreement’ Phase, And Are Now In A Committed Relationship
Congratulations!
With that being said—I hate it break it to you, but the work isn’t done yet.
In fact, it’s just getting started.
I often say that being in a committed relationship is actually a lot more work than mating in the wild—and it is.
But, it’s totally worth it—if you’re ready for it.
Making a relationship work with another person isn’t always easy.
And making a relationship great requires a lot of study, education, effort, attention to detail, and awareness.
With that being said, pair-bonded intimate relationships with a committed sexual partner can be some of the most rewarding and amazing human relationships that you’ll experience in life.
Whether you’re just agreeing to be boyfriend-girlfriend, or getting ready to tie the knot and become a married couple, you’re embarking on a new phase of life that you should approach with both great respect and great excitement.
You’ve got your work cut out for you. But you’ve made it this far.
And if the two of you keep trying to work hard to be the best versions of yourselves, and stay committed to being high-value partners to one another, you have a fantastic shot at success.
Step 7: Domestic Overlap, Cohabitation, Marriage, And Beyond
Alright.
This article isn’t necessarily going to include a primer on how to be a good husband or wife.
However, in the context of the dating marketplace, I still want to leave you with a few words of wisdom about how to successfully navigate the domestic overlap, cohabitation, and potential marriage that could follow the commitment to agreeing to be a mutually exclusive couple.
Here’s some basic, important dating advice for committed partners.
Basic Relationship Advice For Men
Men, always continue to work on yourself.
Always strive to be a strong leader.
Always take radical self-responsibility for the frame of the relationship and the direction of the family.
Don’t blame her for anything. Instead of pointing fingers and casting blame, work together to find productive solutions.
If she’s worth sticking with, stick with her. If she has demonstrated that she’s not high value enough to be a complement to your life, be the strong masculine man you were born to be—and be honest with her and walk away from the relationship.
Don’t do things half-heartedly. Don’t be ‘one foot in and one foot out.’
If she’s worth investing in, she’s worth investing in fully.
If she’s not worth investing in fully, you have no business being in a committed relationship with her.
At a certain point, a committed relationship becomes family—and this is a whole deeper level of commitment that you must take incredibly seriously.
Read great books about how to be a good man, boyfriend, and/or husband.
Find great male friends who have successful marriages, and normalize the process of always striving to be a better leader, father, and husband than you were the day before.
Always continue to embrace the alpha mentality—and continue the journey of minding your business, getting your money, pursuing your purpose in life, and leveling up your mind, body, and spirit on a daily basis.
Stay focused on your purpose and mission in life, and protect her as she walks beside you into the future.
Also, be committed to helping her to become her best self as well—but do it through encouragement—not by ordering her around or by trying to be her boss.
Basic Relationship Advice For Women
Encourage your man.
Listen to him.
Be willing to be supportive of him.
If he needs to vent, let him vent.
Never challenge him, argue with him, disagree with him, or disrespect him in front of other people.
Always show him respect in public.
If you must challenge him, do so in private, and with great love, respect, and admiration.
Men love amazing sex—so have some freaky, nasty, amazing sex with him on a very regular basis.
Stay so invested in the sexual relationship that you look forward to it with enthusiasm! A truly high value man will never accept anything less than full enthusiasm from his committed partner—and he’ll see a lack of it as a sign that the relationship is in trouble.
Cook him meals. Give him back rubs. Nurture him.
Be the tender, loving, beautiful part of his life that contrasts the violent and fiercely competitive reality that he has to face out in the world every single day as he pursues his purpose.
Remember—he’s either a high-value man, or he’s not.
- If he is, show him the love and respect he deserves.
- If he’s not… you have no business being with him. It dishonors and devalues a woman to stay in a bitter, begrudging relationship with a low-value man.
Also, don’t be afraid to stand up for yourself as a human if things go sideways.
If he starts to act immaturely or starts to treat you badly, be willing to have an honest conversation about how you need things to change so that you can feel at peace in the relationship.
And never allow yourself to be stuck in a relationship that’s abusive or toxic.
A Note About Exes
Sometimes, for many different reasons, people will try to stay in touch with exes after getting into a committed relationship.
Men and women tend to do this for different reasons—and I’m not going to go super deep into that topic here, though I do cover it in pretty deep detail in this podcast episode: He Still Loves His Ex But Likes Me.
But the quick and dirty stuff you need to know is this.
- If you’re not in a committed relationship yet—you have no basis to be upset with someone about continuing to talk to their ex. Let it be and don’t make it an issue.
- Once you get into a committed relationship—you should both cut all ties (as far as is practically possible) with those exes in order to maximize the potential success of your new relationship. Failure on anyone’s part to do this is a pretty big red flag. This should obviously be built into the relationship agreement.
Books To Help You Master Your Dating Life, Starting Today
By David M. Buss
If you truly want to understand the foundational principles of human mating behavior, this book is an alpha mentality MUST READ.
By Cindy M. Meston and David M. Buss
This book is a MUST READ for anyone who wants to understand the complex nature of female mating behavior from a scientific and real-life perspective.
By Helen E. Fisher
If you want to truly understand the brain chemistry behind stuff like love, lust, attraction, desire, infatuation, etc. Then this book is a MUST READ.
By Vanessa Van Edwards
Every alpha must learn how to be charismatic – and this book is a MUST READ due to how well Vanessa Van Edwards teaches these skills within it. If you want to master your own charisma and level up your ability to succeed with people, this book is crucial!
The Best Dating Books For Men
By Kezia Noble
My favorite all-around dating book for helping men to understand how to interface with women – with plenty of awesome insights that’ll doubtlessly help you with your dating game.
By John Gottman, Julie Schwartz Gottman, Doug Abrams, and Rachel Carlton Abrams
If you want to learn how to interface with women successfully – both in a dating capacity and in relationships, then this book is a MUST READ.
The Best Dating Books For Women
By Matthew Hussey
If you’re an alpha-minded woman who wants to increase your odds of dating success, then this book is a MUST READ.
By Stephan Labossiere
If you keep finding yourself getting stuck in the same dead-end situations with men who say one thing and do another, this book is a MUST READ. It’s full of practical wisdom to help women understand some of the confusing things men do and say while dating.
Final Thoughts
Alright.
I think that about covers all of the main points.
Hopefully, this guide has given you at least the bullet-point version of how to master your dating life and win on the dating marketplace.
At this point, I think I’ve talked enough.
Go with grace, my friends—and never give up your power.
This is Joshua K. Sigafus, signing off!