Dating Tips (Part 1)

I thought I would give a new introduction a skip this week, being scared that the only possible suitors at the moment are bald chartered accountants. I was planning to spend the weekend with one of my fellow single church friends partying in Pretoria. Then, yesterday, I got a call from the owner of the dating service with a new partner in mind. He hasn’t called me yet, but it seems as if I will be a busy girl this weekend.

I thought I would share the first 3 dating tips that I got from the dating service. It is called the 27 Dating Tips Special Report.

1. Never be hasty.

That is just the time when you might have poor judgment and make a mistake. Hasty people are bad shoppers! Beware if your partner is in a hurry – question his/her motives.

I don’t know if you have seen the Crazy Girlfriend Praying Mantis memes, or if you have been isolated from the internet for the past year, but it quite sums it up perfectly.

The female praying mantis has earned the reputation of a sinfully cannibalistic femme fatale. Miss goody-goody lures males with her pheromones, and when one approaches, the prospective mate engages in a courtship dance. If the daring male is deemed worthy, he is allowed to hitch a ride on the much larger female's back and commence fertilization. The she-mantis has been known to ravenously chew off her partner's head during or after this stage.

Okay, so maybe we are not insects, but I definitely see a similarity in our approach to dating. We lure people in and want to get right to the point. We want to know immediately: are you in or out? No time for wasting time. We are so rash and impulsive when we are desperate that anyone will do. We fall utterly fast and hard and when the feelings aren’t reciprocated, well, someone’s head gets bitten off!

2. Try to ensure that you yourself are a whole person emotionally – that is when you will make the best choices and also be more appealing. A needy person is never appealing. Go for counselling if you think it may be necessary.

Ha! Go for counselling!! Been there, done that!

But seriously, this is common sense, right? Nobody wants to date a depressed or suicidal person or that person who is looking for someone to ‘complete’ them. Self-discovery works best when you're not dating (a.k.a. dating yourself) and I have had one hell of a year and a half of self-discovery and spiritual growth. I have never been this happy in my life and besides one of the most attractive attributes on any person is self-confidence.

3. Men are very visually oriented. They will usually make up their minds within twenty seconds whether they are interested in a woman or not. They actually admit that they look at things like personality later. Women, on the other hand, will still give a man a chance. For instance, a woman may wait to see how a man behaves in different circumstances or how he treats her before she finally makes up her mind. Of importance to a woman, is that a man is kind and that he makes her laugh.

Do you seriously want to tell me that we spend hours, even years, to get facials, go through the suffering of having your eyebrows waxed, buy pre-night out masks, exfoliate daily, practice all the make-up tips in the magazines and create boards on Pinterest entirely dedicated to our faces – only 36% of our body’s actual worth… and a man can reject or accept us in a mere 20 seconds?

I don’t believe it.

Luckily for me, neither does the research done by the University of Texas. In a study to determine the importance of attraction, they organized the ‘mother of all blind dates’ where they examined 752 individuals. Now, during the initial questionnaires the participants also stated the complete generalizations as per my dating report, but… this study found that there is a big difference between self report and actual behavior. On self-report, men often, although not always, say that physical attractiveness is more important, but behaviorally, differences are much smaller. They found that women and men were equally inspired by good looks and equally inspired (albeit to a lesser extent) by earning prospects.

As obvious as that may be, these dating tips have reassured me that I am indeed in a good place to date again after effectively having zero experience in dating for a long, long time. They are all related with working on yourself first. Assess your attitude and motivation for dating, ensure that you are an emotionally stable person without co-dependency and fantasy issues and paint those nails, cover that blemish and wash your hair before a date.

Cheers to knowing that you will never find happiness if you are not a peace with yourself… and realizing that you are truly blessed and very happy indeed!