1. Trying to move too fast. The biggest mistake men make in the courtship process is not understanding and accepting that there actually is a ‘courtship process’.  You cannot go directly from 1 to 10 without going through 2,3,4,5,6,7,8 & 9 first. There is no easy way out. Some of the ways men try to push things too fast are:

*Turning the initial coffee meet into a date by wanting to extend or replace the initial 30-45 minute meetup with a lunch or dinner.

*Sending text messages to a woman they have just met that would only be appropriate for a girlfriend. That means pretty much any text message other than vital information.

*Trying to get to woman to come to your house or trying to go to hers. You should not invite her to your home until you have been out a few times, and when you do, it should be for a reason, ie you cook her lunch. Not just to come and have a look at your place. A women will invite you to her home when she is ready, do not hassle her to come to her place.

*Touching. Don’t touch a woman on a first meeting unless she touches you first and limit it to the amount of touch she has initiated. If a woman agrees to see you again then it means she has some degree of interest in you so it may be appropriate  to initiate some form of limited physical contact, keeping careful note of the ladies body language and responses.

*Asking what sort of relationship the woman wants. The thinking being that if she says she wants a relationship she should be willing to have one with you. The only thing you should be concerned with on the first meeting is if you both want a second meeting. If a woman agrees to see you again, she is not agreeing to a relationship, just to spend some time together and see what happens

2. Talking about or looking at other women. It doesn’t matter if it is done in a positive or         negative way. Sure, women will ask you about previous relationships/dates. Yes, it is absolutely a trick question. She wants to know if you are:

* the kind of  man who talks about other women

*bitter

*aggressive

*vengeful

*self pitying

*indiscreet

*misogynistic

*sleazy

*hung up on the past

*possessed of any of a number of other negative traits she will see as a red flag.

Just because she asks doesn’t mean you have to answer. A gentleman never talks about a lady when she is not there. The reality is the main reason most men want to talk about their past partners or dates is that they are….

3.    Seeking sympathy. Very few women are attracted to a man because they pity him. Attempting to attract a woman with your sad story about how:

*Your ex left you/cheated on you/took all your money

*Your spouse died and you are lonely

*You were a carer for your spouse before they passed and it was very hard on you

*You paid the agency a fee for the service  and so she should be with you so you get your moneys worth

Will be an instant turn off for most women. Only  a very small number of women are attracted to sad stories and if you manage to capture one, you probably won’t keep her because once you are no longer sad or lonely you don’t need her help and you will hold no attraction for her, or she will find someone with an even sadder story who she thinks needs her even more.

4.    Text messaging. A common complaint from women about men is “He never calls me, he only  texts”.  If you are interested in seeing a lady, show that interest by picking up the phone, calling her and asking her out on a date. As per point 1, many men also try to use text messaging to generate some kind of intimacy that doesn’t exist, for instance meeting a lady for coffee and then texting her “goodnight” or “good morning” or “what are you up to”. These sort of texts come across as creepy and pushy to someone you have just met.  A good rule is: if you wouldn’t ring up and say it, definitely don’t text it! Leave the texts until you have entered an ongoing and exclusive relationship. This goes for sending photos/gifs/memes as well.

5. Focusing on the relationship, not the person. If you have ever or would ever ask a woman what kind of relationship she is looking for, you are focusing on the relationship and not the person. You are seeking to not be lonely and have your needs for sex, attention and intimacy met, rather than establishing a strong connection with another person. You are concentrating on what you are seeking, rather than being interested in the other person. It is very important to a woman that a man values, respects and is attracted to her as an individual rather than as someone to keep him company or warm the bed. If you are genuinely interested in the other party, rather than just getting a relationship, you won’t want to go straight from 1 to 10 because you will look forward to getting to know this person and will relish discovering new things about them.  If you have ever said someone is “not compatible” after a phone call or coffee meet, then you are focusing on the relationship and not the person.  You are simply looking to have your needs met, rather than find someone you can love and care for, and whose needs you want to meet.  People who are looking for the relationship not the person rarely have a relationship that goes beyond superficial and often their relationships don’t last as there is no real intimate connection with the other party and no motivation to overcome obstacles or problems.

“Some of the biggest challenges in relationships come from the fact that most people enter a relationship in order to get something: they’re trying to find someone who’s going to make them feel good. In reality, the only way a relationship will last is if you see your relationship as a place that you go to give, and not a place that you go to take. ” – Tony Robbins

Being Honest – What does it mean?

Being honest with the person you are meeting is important. So what does ‘being honest’ actually mean?

It means not lying or intentionally misleading people.

What it doesn’t mean:

Telling the other person about your past relationships, financial issues, family problems or health issues.

This is not “being honest”. If you feel compelled to tell the other person any of these things you need to examine your motivation in doing so. It is not ‘honesty’. The reasons people do this are:

1. Seeking sympathy
2. Dumping everything on the person immediately because you can’t be bothered spending time with someone in case they don’t want to continue in the future once they discover more about you.
3. You are trying to pressure the other party into deciding immediately to either be with you or not.

If you were really interested in being honest, you’d tell them the regularity of your bowel movements, what age you stopped wetting the bed, how you tormented your siblings as a child and all the other unsavoury things you wouldn’t actually want people to know, rather than just the things that suit your agenda.

People should get to know each other naturally and organically. The other person doesn’t want to know every detail about you the first time you meet. Frankly, none of us would pursue a relationship with anyone at all if we had the intricacies of their lives dumped on us the first time we met.

No one is expecting someone perfect. Everyone has something about them that is not going to be positive. In the normal course of events though, as we get to know someone bit by bit, we find the positives we like and the negatives will be balanced out.

Dumping everything on the person on this first meeting is effectively saying “I’m telling you everything that may be a negative about me and since I’ve told you I don’t have to do anything about it and you just have to accept me as I am”. It’s disrespectful, lazy and shows that you are not willing to compromise or do anything differently in order to please a partner.

There is no easy way out. No dating equivalent of a ‘get rich quick scheme’. If you are not willing to put the effort into getting to know someone no one is going to want to bother getting to know you either.  If you are unwilling to alter anything about yourself or your lifestyle in order to make room for and welcome a new partner in your life, you will remain without one.

Some helpful tips that will guarantee the person you are meeting will not want to see you again.

1. Don’t bother to dress properly. Come as you are. Shouldn’t the person accept you as you are?  Surely you would be happy to also meet someone who rolls up in their daggy house clothes.
2. Monopolise the conversation. Don’t bother asking the person anything about themselves to give them the opportunity to relax and come out of their shell. Why would you want to find out what their personality is like? Surely they cannot be as interesting as you. Tell them all about you and how great you are.
3. Tell them all about your past relationships. Tell them all about your past partners and why it didn’t work out. For extra turn-off points, really run down your ex and any other women you have met.
4. Comment on her appearance. Tell her you think she is hot/sexy. This is inappropriate and will make her feel super uncomfortable, so has a high turn-off factor.
5. Start telling them all about the sort of relationship you are looking for and ask them what they are looking for. Double points for asking them if they will move in with you. Triple points for asking if they want a sexual relationship.
6. Ask her what the agency told her about you. This has both a high creep factor and a high narcissism factor. Double points!
7. Go the grope. Touch her on hand or the knee. Try to give her a kiss or even a hug. When she recoils or says no, sulk. (Being serious, this is satire! You should never, ever do this, even if you really don’t want to see the person again!)
8. Complain. Let it rip. Why not?? Complain about your job, your kids, your neighbours. For extra points complain about the agency or complain about how far you had to travel to meet them. This is particularly effective because you are basically complaining to the person about themselves. This has extra strong insult-o-power.
9. Ask them how long they have been with the agency, how much they paid and how many other people they have been out with. After all, it’s your right to sit in judgement of others. Also tell her how long you have been with the agency, how much you have paid and who else you have met. Who cares if she doesn’t want to know. For extra points, run down the other people you have been introduced to.  Running down other women is a dead set guaranteed move to make sure a woman won’t see you again.
10. Don’t bother to ask her on a date.  Tell her if she wants to go out again she has your number.  This will show her that you are not prepared to put any effort into courting her, so you can be assured, she will never call.

OK, so I’ll say again, this is satire. These are 10 things you never, ever want to do.  Self-reflection is always unpleasant but it’s definitely worthwhile to make sure you are not guilty of any of these behaviours. I didn’t make them up, they are all based on feedback I have received from people post first meetup.

Something a lot of people are unsure about is how much physical contact is appropriate on the first meeting.

This is an easy one – NONE.

As in zero, zip, nada, zilch.

Remember, this is not a date. This is not a person who has already met you and and decided they are interested enough in you to go on a date with you.

This person is a total stranger and everyone should know you don’t go around touching total strangers.

If it wouldn’t be appropriate in the workplace, it’s not appropriate on a first meeting.

Touching someone on the hand, or worse the knee, kissing on the cheek (or heaven forbid the lips!) would all be considered inappropriate in the workplace.

The women who use our service are generally selective and not interested in jumping straight into bed with a man, and don’t appreciate physical familiarity until they know the man better.

If any physical contact occurs on the first meeting should be instigated by the woman, and the man should respond only with the same level of contact.

Why don’t (a lot of) women say what they really mean?

Mostly because women have been brought up to be peacemakers. The ones who smooth over troubled waters, soothe hurt feelings and generally provide the glue that keeps families together. Hurting someone’s feelings, either deliberately or accidentally is something they want to avoid at all costs.

They also don’t want to be seen as aggressive, demanding or desperate. So often women will say things that they think will save the other persons feelings, rather than the actual truth.

In the courtship process, if a man is interested in getting to know a woman better, he will need to put some effort into pursuing her. This means that if the woman is not interested, she needs to rebuff his advances, and unfortunately too many women take the option of making an excuse that takes the blame off the man, rather than telling him straight “It was really nice to meet you, unfortunately I don’t think we are a match, I hope you find someone you like soon.

Of course, men are not without fault. If a man is not interested in seeing a woman again, he can simply not call her. No excuses needed. And some will do this even after they have told her they will call. Also, in some cases when a man is told a polite “No Thank you”, he responds with a torrent of abuse and insults. These men are making it hard for other men, as I’m sure any most people would be tempted to tell a pleasing lie rather than the hard truth if the truth got them abused.

It’s helpful for a man to know what a woman is really saying to him. It can stop people from getting frustrated or from making the mistakes that sabotage a meetup. So let’s have a look at some of the most common ones:

When she says:  “I’m not looking for a relationship.”

Let’s start with the obvious. No one joins a matchmaking service, accepts a match and meets up with someone if they are not looking for a relationship of some kind.  No one is that desperate for a cup of coffee that they have to spend an hour with a total stranger to get it. There are millions of coffee shops they can go to anytime. So what does this really mean?  In the vast majority of cases it means some variation on this “You have asked me what I am looking for or told me that you are looking for something serious. I have only just met you and this is way too much. I feel like you are expecting me to agree to being in a relationship with you and I’m still trying to work out if I even want to meetup again. I want to get the know the man and I want him to get to know me. I’m worried that you will just take the first woman that says yes rather than be genuinely interested in me”.   Occasionally it means “No thanks I’m not interested in seeing you again” but mostly it means “You are trying to push things too quickly”.

When she says: “I’ve already got someone”

Again, no one goes for coffee with a total stranger if they are not looking. In some cases if is possible that she does have someone she’s sort of seeing but not that keen on, so she decided to meet you to see if you were any better than him. Now she’s decided you’re not, so she uses the other bloke as an excuse. If she had decided she preferred you, for sure she would have dropped the other bloke like a hot potato and you would never have known of his existence. 

Alternatively this can also mean “I want to show that other men are interested in me and I am not desperate. If you are interested you will need to put some effort in”

Also, it can mean the plain old “No thanks I’m not interested in seeing you again”

When she says: “I don’t know why the agency called me, I haven’t heard from them in ages”

This may be some version of the truth or not. In order to match 1 man with the type of person he is requesting, we need to have at least 50 women to choose from. So obviously some women won’t hear from us for anything from a few days to years.  However, the same principle applies regardless, no one goes for coffee with a total stranger if they are not looking. So why does she say this?

1.  “I don’t want to appear desperate or like an easy catch, so I’m going to play it like I don’t care one way or the other”
2. You just gave her an earful about the other ladies you have been introduced to and what was wrong with them or had a whinge because they were not interested in you. She decided it was easier to let you continue with that narrative and blame the agency rather than say “No Thanks”

When she says: “I’m too busy”

Either “I tell everyone how busy I am because it’s my excuse as to why I am not in a relationship. I’m so used to doing it that it has become a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you want to see me again you will need to put in the effort to work around whatever I am busy with”

These are the main excuses that women give and as you can see, sometimes it can be hard to work out what their real motivation is. But this should at least give you a tool to look back at a meeting  or interaction and see if there was a way if could have been done better.

The same woman that gives one of these excuses often rings us even before you do to ask for another match, so in some cases there is still a chance with that lady if a different approach is taken. Women tell us everything that men do wrong in the courting process (and vice versa) so if we can find out what went wrong we can sometimes get people to give each other another chance.

People are often alone for a reason and if we can find out what that reason is and change the behaviour, we can change the outcome.

Meaning of compatible in English:

adjective

compatible

“able to exist, live, or work successfully with something or someone else.”

I regularly get feedback from people telling me that the person they met was ‘not compatible” and hence they would not be seeing each other again. This absolutely stumps me. How on earth you could determine if you are “able to exist, live, or work successfully with something or someone else” after a 30 minute coffee meet is beyond me.

So that means one of 2 things:

1. You didn’t have any chemistry. Which is fine. That’s what you are there to determine. If there is no chemistry, compatibility is irrelevant. If this is the case, that is fine, let’s move on to the next match.
2. You attempted to plan your life with someone you have known for half an hour and, unsurprisingly, you discovered they are not a mirror image of you or a cookie cutter replacement for your past partner.  If this is the case, all is not fine and you’ve sabotaged something that could have been great.

Compatibility between things is quick and easy to determine. You’ll soon find out if the spare part, ink cartridge or coffee pod is compatible with your existing equipment.  Either it will work or it won’t.

People are different. You can’t just insert the person into your life and press go.

The purpose of the first meetup is to determine if you have any attraction and if you enjoy each others company. That’s it.

Compatibility between two people needs to be made. You need to spend time with someone to determine whether you are likely to be able to coexist, and to see if you would even want to!

Sure, some people have an easier start of things because they find they agree on a lot of things and have similar interests. None of this means that you will end up as more than friends though. And those things are certainly not a necessity for a successful relationship. Mutual respect and the acknowledgement that the two of you are individuals with different life experiences who have actively chosen to be together, creates the environment for compatibility. 

Every person is different and every relationship is different. The relationship you have in the future will not be the same what you had in the past. The things the two of you enjoy doing together may be different than the things you enjoyed doing before. The world is full of possibilities and a new partner opens you up to a whole range of new experiences. Enjoy!

When the initial coffee meeting goes well enough that you feel it is worthwhile seeing the lady again, it is best to arrange a second meeting (the first ‘date’) before you leave the initial meetup.

You could say something along the lines of “I’ve really enjoyed our coffee today, would you like to go for lunch on the weekend?”

It is preferable to arrange the second meeting there and then rather than say you will call. This also gives the person the opportunity to say if they are not keen to meet up again rather than dodging calls later.

A man should never say to a woman anything along the lines of  “If you are interested call me”.

The only woman who will possibly call in response to this is one who is either completely desperate or has ulterior motives.

When a man says that to a woman what he is saying to himself is “I don’t want to be pushy”

When a man says that to a woman what he is really saying to her is:

“I don’t like you enough to put any effort into pursuing you”

“I am unwilling to put any effort into any woman”

“I am putting the responsibility of anything coming from this meeting onto you and am not willing to accept any responsibility for the courtship process myself”

Under no circumstances should a man attempt or ask to kiss, cuddle, hold hands with or otherwise touch a woman on the first meeting.  Additionally discussing sex, either what you’ve had in the past or what you hope to have in the future is a no go. The way to tell a woman you are attracted to her is to ask her on a date, not to tell her you find her sexy etc. This will only be appealing to possibility 5% of women, so it is 95% likely that this will be a big turn off for the lady. If a man is sufficiently motivated by a woman to want to pursue some kind of intimacy with her, he should also be sufficiently motivated to show her the respect of a proper courtship process.

There are a number of ways that you can get the best out of your service. It’s important to follow the instructions we give you when we pass on a match, and to read the Tips for Success in your welcome pack.
1. Keep the initial phone call short & to the point. The purpose of the phone call is to make an arrangement to meet, not to get to know each other or determine compatibility. In order to know if this person may be the right one for you, you need to MEET. Face to Face. And the longer people talk on the phone, the less likely it is to end in a meeting. And that is a lost opportunity.
2. No texting. Never text with someone you don’t know. It assumes an intimacy that isn’t there yet and is also very easy to be taken the wrong way.
3. No exchanging photos. Meet face to face and see if there is chemistry. You can’t cuddle a photo. There are many reasons you can be attracted to someone. It might be their shy sweetness. It might be the confident way they walk and hold themselves. It might be how when they laugh their whole face lights up. You won’t get any of these things from a photo.
4. Don’t talk about the past, only the future. Who really cares how long the person has been with the agency, how many dates he/she has been on or what membership fee they paid? Does this affect in any way whether or not you could make each other happy? Asking these things makes the other person feel you are judging them, and non of us like that feeling.
5. Also avoid talking about past partners and past relationships. Nobody wants to hear about your exes faults, nor do they want to hear how wonderful they were.
6. Give honest feedback about each person you meet. Not only will this help us match you accurately, it will help us match the other person as well.
7. Stay positive. Every meeting is a step in the journey and every person has something to offer. Even if they are not the right one for you, be glad to meet them and grateful for the opportunity to practice your conversation skills.
We are always happy to help so call if you are needing assistance with any aspect of your service 🙂