Midlife Dating Podcast

Episode 1 - Introduction to 50 Dates at 50

• Paul Nelson • Episode 1

Share episode

Host Paul Nelson introduces both Baby Boomers and Gen Xers to the 50 Dates at 50 Podcast. He explains how singles get back into dating and how couples can benefit from emphasizing date night.

After a 21-year marriage ending in an amicable divorce in 2014, Paul found himself back out on the dating market. Here, he takes a close look at how much dating has changed over the last 40 years, with online dating now being front and center. However, most of today's dating advice is from the Millennial age group and lacks the benefit of life experience.

To support Boomers and Gen Xers, Paul’s podcast and accompanying website provide a comprehensive set of offerings:

  • Chick Flick Movie Reviews – Reviews of movies with dating and relationship messages
  • Dating and Relationship Book Reviews – Reviews of books with dating and relationship messages
  • Dating Blog – Dating commentary, observations, and remarks on current dating trends
  • Dating Glossary – Modern-day dating and relationship terms, updated regularly
  • Dating Questions – Answers and advice given to website blog followers
  • The "Date-a-Base" Date Night Activity Builder – Options for any guy to take the lead and construct a great date
  • 3-1-1 Dating Rule – A detailed explanation of how men and women can quickly get off the dating website or app and in front of the person they are interested in

Pew Research Center -  The Virtues and Downsides of Online Dating

 No More Mr. Nice Guy - By Robert Glover

50 Dates at 50 Website:  https://50datesat50.com/

The transcription below is provided for your convenience. Please excuse any mistakes that the automated service made in translation.

Introduction - Welcome to Episode 001

Paul Nelson: Welcome to Episode One. This is our first ever Mid-Life Dating Without the Crisis podcast. Through this episode, and the many that will follow it, I'll share with you dating advice that took me years to learn. 

A little bit later, I'm going to be filling you in on one of the most effective and successful tools that I know of that'll get you off the online dating website or dating app, and in front of the person, you're interested in meeting for a date. I call it the 3-1-1 Rule, and the rule works equally as well for women as it does for men. And by the end of this episode, you'll know how to start applying it immediately. So, stick around because it truly is an online dating game changer. 

Now, a little history and how this podcast came to be. After my divorce from a 21-year marriage that was finalized in 2014, I was in my early fifties. I was totally out of touch when it came to today's dating realities. My trial and error mistakes, they were many. My dating learning curve was extremely steep. Even the language of dating and the expectations changed from years ago. Any dating skills that I once had, which were little to none to begin with, were pretty much archaic by today's standards. So, to survive, I had to become a student of the dating process. I ended up reading a lot and putting a lot of well-intentioned advice to the test. Now, if this sounds clinical, I'm sorry. It's not meant to be. 

As a man, I always respected the woman that I was with and I valued the time that we spent together. If our chemistry clicked, and our first meet and greet was positive, well then asking for the second date was a given. 

Not all my dates were good and not all my dates were bad. But, I was able to take something positive from each date, as I learned, and apply it to the next date to make the next date more rewarding and fun. I figured out what works for me and what doesn't, and what I needed to do to create a positive outcome. Which, by the way, is how the 3-1-1 Rule came to be.

You know, I've learned a lot, starting with my dating screw-ups, going all the way back to my shy and nervous high school days where I was this young infatuated boy. But years later, today, I'm still learning, but a whole lot better prepared to turn a meet and greet into a relationship or a friendship, and if the chemistry's not there, move on. Our philosophy here at 50 Dates at 50 is designed to get people off the dating websites and apps and weed out the pretenders, and those who see dating as a form of entertainment or, a contact sport.

My dating research began with learning how to write an appealing and positive profile, one that gets positive responses from like-minded people. Then came the pictures. After the pictures, I had to figure out how to utilize the platform or the dating website's communication system. 

Now all of this creates a foundation for success, but this didn't happen all at once. I had to figure out how to master each step before I could move onto the next. That means I messed up quite a bit on phone calls, exercising the texting monster, and actually meeting up.

In upcoming podcasts, I'll show you how to tackle pictures, profile writing, mastering the communication platform, showing up on the date, and how to conduct yourself. As your online dating sensei for boomers and gen Xers, here's some of the things I discovered in my learning process. 

It began with the realization that the majority of the available dating advice out there on the internet that you're going to find through Google searches is from the millennial age group. The reason I say this is, millennial dating advice lacks any real-life experience behind it.

Let me give you a couple of examples. If you ask a millennial how to date a coworker, they're going to tell you how to date a coworker. If you ask a millennial, "How do I do a long-distance relationship?" They will tell you how to do a long-distance relationship. We as gen X-ers and boomers, know and understand that these things don't work, so we don't even entertain them to begin with now these days. But the millennials, on the other hand, they haven't learned these things quite yet. 

My next point of discovery was that dating advice that we learned in our teens and our twenties was filled with half-truths. Now, let me give you a couple of examples of what half-truths are.

First half-truth I want to tackle would be complimenting a woman. You want to compliment the gal that you're dating, but you want to do it once, no more than twice, when you go out on a date. You go past that, which a lot of guys do, and they'll compliment a gal, 6, 7, 8 times, it has the opposite effect. So, it is true that we want to compliment them, but it is false that we want to compliment them multiple times on a date. 

Let me give you another example of a half-truth, is the dating app Bumble. If you go out and you Google it, and you research it, you find that everybody says that the woman is the aggressor on the  the dating app, Bumble. Well, this is a half-truth. What it really is, is the woman, after both of you each mutually swipe right, there's a connection starting there. But, the woman is the one that has to start the conversation. She can start it by saying hello. It's basically the same as you walking into a room and there's a gal in the corner there, and you both meet eyes, and you can tell that there's something there. The gal will signal you that she's interested.

In Bumble, she's able to control the interaction because on most dating apps, other than Bumble, women will receive, oh, good grief, they can get 20, 30 or 40 messages a day, and it gets hard to sort all of them out. But with Bumble, she can control which men she's communicating with, and she can take her time to go through a conversation with them, and not be besieged with 20 or 30 or 40 emails per day. So truth, women control the interaction at the start. They are not the aggressors. Period. 

Now, the next point I want to bring up is from a peer research poll conducted in October 2019, and it had, the panel was a 4,860 respondents, and this was a poll on internet day. And in the 50 plus age group, 50% of that age group had a negative experience or a negative response towards internet dating, and 48% had a positive response. The bottom line here is that half of all gen X-ers and boomers have had a negative experience with internet dating. I'll have a link to that peer research poll in the show notes. 

My next point, and initially, actually for a couple of years, I thought it was just me, but the reality is, both sexes have much to learn about effectively approaching internet dating. It's a jungle out there. 

My next point that I want to bring up too, is I had no idea that men had forgotten how to take the lead in dating and relationships. That's the way it was, I remember back in the seventies and the eighties, but not so much today. It's been pummeled out of us and there's actually research to support this.

There's a book by Dr. Robert Glover called No More Mr. Nice Guy. I'll refer to that in the show notes, too. And on the website, there's a book review on it. But, he chronicles the development of nice guys. And, this basically started at the turn of the century when the United States became an industrial country, where more people started moving to the cities, and as the men in the family ended up working and spending long hours at the factory, the boys were at home. They didn't have the father figure with them as much as they should have. Then World War II came along and took the men away from the boys for a long period of time. This is basically where nice guy syndrome took place, and it's gotten worse since.

My next point is many of us, many of us boomers and gen X-ers are still trying to date like we're in our twenties. The reality is, what we're seeking 20 or 30 or 40 years ago is entirely different from today. What we seek these days comes in a completely different package, and that package has to do with baggage. We all have some type of baggage. When we were in our twenties, we didn't have that. In our thirties, we started to gain it. Once you go through family life, you go through regular life experience, and you pick up baggage.

We all have baggage that we didn't have 40 years ago. And a lot of us, especially guys, we formed into who we are, and most of us aren't going to change. There are those, yours truly here, that's into personal growth and can make adjustments, but the vast majority of men, and a lot of women too, they're set in their ways and they're not going to change.

The other item we need to address here too, is back in our twenties, we were dating for family potential. That's no longer the case. For most of us, our kids have been raised and many of us are empty nesters. 

Another thing that's interesting too is, women in their fifties that find themselves divorced, when they were in their twenties, they were looking for the soon-to-be successful alpha male. Alpha males in their fifties these days, they can easily date women in their thirties and forties. And I think a lot of women will be surprised that it's really hard to find alpha males in their fifties that are open to dating gals in their fifties. The tables have really turned. I've got some future episode material that will support this.

The next point I want to bring up is that being successful in dating and relationships is a nuanced skill. A lot of people probably don't understand it and it took me a while to figure it out, but it's just a handful of adjustments. You make a handful of adjustments in what you're doing in dating and your whole world will change.

It easily comes down to having professional pictures taken in your profile, having your profile professionally done. How many of you have LinkedIn profiles that you've had professionals write for you? You may be in a position where you need a professional dating profile writer to work on yours.

This is a, it's a game-changer when you do these things. Clothes. My goodness, men, I have some episodes coming up on clothes, but it's extremely important that you understand how important clothes are and how you dress when it comes to dating. Women make mental notes of this, and I don't know if enough of you guys realize it - the baggy t-shirts just don't cut it anymore. It's not going to work, especially in our age group.

The next thing that you gotta learn is texting and phone habits. Our generation likes to talk on the phone. If you talk to a millennial, they'll advise you against making a phone call to set up a date. They'll do it by text. But we all have to text. We have to utilize that interface. It's part of our daily lives now, but it's managing how you use it, and you don't want to use it like a millennial. 

Again, a lot of millennial dating advice out there on text messaging, and I see it regularly from women that I've dated in how they've interacted with other men. It's just absolutely stunning how a lot of these guys in their fifties and sixties are sending out text messages like they're in their twenties. 

Grooming is important. This is another topic that I'll have future episodes on, but just changing, or improving, or recognizing your grooming habits is extremely important. Getting a right haircut - guys, there's a lot to do with manscaping and many areas that make a massive improvement in making you dateable. 

Etiquette is another one. This is another area where it's like a lost art. Etiquette is how we conduct ourselves. There's so much ghosting. I call it abandoning the conversation here at 50 Dates where conversations just drop off. There's no etiquette anymore. Everything seems to be disposable.

But 50 Daters, we got to move ourselves up, and if you start behaving with etiquette, both men and women will notice that. That's a game-changer also, so just… It's like if you made a couple etiquette changes and you changed a couple of things on your phone habits, if you went to Nordstrom's and had a professional stylist help you dress, and you go out on a date dressed properly, this is going to make a massive difference. 

I can tell you just on a lot of these simple adjustments and… Another adjustment that a lot of you guys need to do, and we'll talk about this on future episodes, is conversation topics. I am stunned at the amount of guys that want to talk about their health and their latest operation. Yeah, I get it at our age. I completely get it, but you can't talk about your latest operation. You can't talk about politics. You shouldn't be talking about politics. You shouldn't be talking about religion, and there are many guys that this is like some of the first topics they bring up.

If you're going to bring these subjects up and they're important to you, you got to get to know the person a little bit first and then bring that up a little bit later. But, we have more sessions on that coming up, too.

Another thing that's interesting is, many of you may not realize it, but there are so many books, and podcasts, and DVDs that help us understand relationships and dating that weren't available in the eighties. Much of the material on relationships, if you read some of these things like Mating in Captivity, for instance, by Esther Perel, she will explain why you're probably not getting along that well. What happens when people spend too much time together? It's extremely interesting. Again, this stuff was not available in the eighties. It is now, and we can understand relationships and how to keep them fresh. This is great information for us to have. The problem is a lot of us aren't taking advantage of it. 

My next point of discovery was coaching and workshops. Guys and gals, especially guys, there is a plethora of workshops that can help us improve in a variety of areas that just weren't available in the eighties and in the nineties for the most part. These are workshops and also online courses basically on self-improvement. Improv is a really good one that everybody can benefit from.

Guys, if you have problems on dates, on meetups, don't know what to say or do, all you got to do is take an improv class, or take one of these and go to it for a few weeks, and you'll immediately start to improve. 

There are dating coaches. We've got relationship coaches. There's even training on how to speak better, how to be a better conversationalist. There are online courses on this and things at junior colleges that you can take. 

These things are all available through online or DVDs, not so much DVDs anymore. Didn't think I would be reminiscing about the days of DVDs, but a lot of this stuff can be done through Zoom coaching at junior colleges. There's a lot of options we have available for personal and self-growth to make us better daters.

Now the next point that I discovered is dating is actually fun, especially in our age group, because we've come full circle. And let me elaborate on that. In high school and college, dating was actually about going out and having fun. You would go to the dances. You go out as groups. There were a lot of things associated with dating that were a lot of fun because there was no pressure. But as we got older, there was pressure to get married and settle down and create a family. We're past all that because we've had our families. For most of us, the kids are out the door or they're very close to it.

And there are many of us, obviously, that are empty nesters, and those that are soon to be. This opens up a whole new world to us that was not there before, when it comes to dating. We're looking for somebody that we can go out and have fun with and do things with. We're not looking for a partner now to raise a family anymore. It just completely changes the entire dynamic.

In future podcasts, I plan on speaking to each topic in more detail. Stay tuned and discover the information you'll need to survive, and how to master and enjoy today's dating experience. 

If online dating gets you crazy at the best of times, or it makes it hard for you newbies to experience a string of good dates... if this is you, you're the reason I created 50 Dates at 50, a platform for boomers and gen X-ers to discover how to keep a positive dating attitude when searching for a rewarding date, and how to maintain a relationship once you found the right guy or gal. 

Where the Name 50 Dates at 50 Came From

Paul Nelson: So how did the term 50 Dates at 50 come to be?  It's a metaphor for the three phases of our dating life. The first phase of dating, the first 50 dates if you will, took place when we were in high school and college, and probably just out of college. And then we ended up getting married. That's the first phase. 

Now a lot of us boomers and gen X-ers find ourselves back out on the dating market. We're currently dating, and this is our second phase. This is our 50 dates current because it can take up to 50 dates to easily find the right person. And, the knowledge we gain from the first 50 dates, and the current 50 dates, sets us up for growth and moving into 50 dates in the future, once we find the partner that we're looking for. It's all about putting the fun back into dating, learning what it means to be dateable, and recognizing quality relationship material when you see it.

Date night for couples in a relationship is also essential, for it keeps the spark of discovery and adventure alive. After all, once you peel back the layers, a relationship is simply a date that hasn’t ended. If you understand this and put what you've learned and what I will teach into practice, life is good.

Comprehensive Set of Website Offerings

Paul Nelson: I'll show you why and how. How do we accomplish this? 
With a comprehensive set of offerings here at 50 Dates at 50 that become your personal roadmap. Using learning stops along the way, the destination of your dating journey will culminate in a successful trip. Let me talk about what we have here at 50 Dates at 50 that will help you with that successful trip.

Chick Flick Movie Review - Movies with a Dating and Relationship Message

Paul Nelson: So, one of the first offerings we have at 50 Dates at 50 is Chick Flick Movie Review. These are movies with a dating and relationship message. These are great for couples to watch, singles, to keep their spirits up after a bad date, and men to learn from, specifically to become better daters.

Now in the reviews, we're going to point out what works in the movies versus what works in real life. There are many things in romantic comedies that men should absolutely never try. I'll point these out and why.

Let me give you an example of what I learned not to do that I've seen in the movies. This goes back to when I lived in Denver, Colorado in the 1980s. I'd watched a romantic comedy. The man in the comedy told the woman that he was dating that he loved her in the first three dates. The gal that I was dating at the time, we were about two or three dates in, and I did the same thing, thinking I would get the same result. In the movie, the guy lived happily ever after with the gal. My result was the complete opposite. This is why we don't do many things that we see in the movies when it comes to dating.

Dating and Relationship Book Reviews

Paul Nelson: The next offering is Dating and Relationship Book Reviews[RS2] . When I got back into dating, I did so much reading and research, book after book, trying to figure things out. Let me remind you that a lot of this information was not available in the eighties. So as I got through many of these books, one of the things that dawned on me was, if this information was available 20 years earlier, my approach to a lot of things in my marriage would have been a lot different.

So some of my favorites that really made me see the light in a lot of things, where The Five Love Languages, Find A Husband After 35 by Using What I Learned in Harvard Business School, Mating in Captivity, Why He Didn’t Call You Back, The Game, Why Are You Still Single?, and No More Mr. Nice Guy, just to name a few. There are many more, and we'll go through those in reviews coming up. 

Our next offering is Dating Resources. These would be links and access to other blogs, dating advice, where you can have profile pictures or photos taken, coaching, YouTube channels. Since 2014, I've spent countless hours roaming through the internet, searching for good dating and relationship material. That's what this is all about. I've done a lot of the work for you so that you don't have to spend hours and hours looking for reliable information. 

Dating Blog - Dating Commentary, Observations, and Remarks on Current Dating Trends

Paul Nelson: The next offering is a blog. This is my dating commentary, observations, and remarks on current dating trends. You'll find links to comedy bits on dating relationships here, Ted Talks, information on virtual dating. I cover topics like ghosting, drinking on a meet up, the use of smartphones in dating, and many others. 

The Dating Glossary - Modern Day Dating and Relationship Terms - Updated Regularly

Paul Nelson: The next offering is the Dating Glossary. Here I've got 80 plus modern-day dating and relationship terms, and I update it regularly. Some of the most recent terms that we've added to the glossary are The Bigger Better Deal, the One Hour, One Drink Rule, the Flannel Nightgown, what fusion is, and what differentiation is, 

Dating Questions, Answers, and Advice

Paul Nelson: The next offering we have is a column on dating questions and advice. These are approached from modern-day situations from a boomer and gen X perspective. Some questions that we've answered are breaking up by text message, guys and gals that stay in contact with their exes, dating somebody that lives in a retirement community. 

The “Date-a-Base” – Date Night Activity Builder – Choose from Date Ideas and Restaurants – Interfaces with Google Maps

Paul Nelson: Our next offering is the “Date-a-base.” This is a date night activity builder, which quickly allows you to assemble a meal and an activity from a group of tested date night locations. This is equally applicable to either a date night out or a gal's night out. So let me tell you how it works. You go ahead and go to the hamburger in the upper right-hand corner of the website, click on it. The navigation menu will come up. Scroll down until you find the “date-a-base”. Click on the “date-a-base,” and you have a webpage that comes up that gives you two choices: date ideas or activities and restaurants. If you select restaurants, you have a choice of multiple different types of food, whether it be Mediterranean, Italian, Mexican, Peruvian, and there's also a city listing. So if you're looking in Anaheim, you could find how many Thai restaurants are in Anaheim or how many Mexican restaurants are in Anaheim.

Then you can go over to the activity side, and you could select Anaheim too, and find out what comedy clubs, art galleries, live music, or performing arts venues are in the same area. Now you can pick out an activity in Anaheim and a meal to go with it. Each one is cross-referenced by food type or activity types and city types. It's an easy way to put two and two together to make a great date: a meal and an activity. 

So the bottom line is, men, no matter how busy you get, you're still in a position to quickly put together a great date. Pick out an activity and a meal someplace at a new restaurant that you've never tried, and there you go. The database also interfaces with Google maps so you can easily get directions to either the restaurant or the venue. 

The database is actually a creation of many of my dating experiences. One of the things that came up on a regular basis when I was out on dates was the gals told me I put together some great dates. The database is an offshoot of the choices I was making, putting together these dates.

I'll be regularly adding to the database. This is something I've been wanting to do for years, Just go out, scout more locations, qualify them for being date-worthy, and get them in the “Date-a-base” here. All fun places to go. So, my commitment here is putting together some great date ideas for you, taking the hassle out of planning something special to share with your date, and help make it a memorable one.

For those not in Southern California, you'll be able to use the database as a guide to help you find activities where you live. The goal here too is to expand into other parts of the United States.

At the 50 Dates at 50 website, we update with new posts a couple of times a week. You can follow us on Facebook, which links to our website for an up-to-the-minute list of posts. We've made navigating the website simple. From the homepage, just scroll down to review all the most recent posts. The hamburger in the upper right-hand corner will take you to the navigation index. Because all of us are not 14-year-old gamers, we've made it purposely easy. Now this being our first podcast, regularly scheduled podcasts on dating relationships for the boomer and gen X crowd will soon be following. 

The 3-1-1 Rule – How to Quickly Move Off the Dating Apps and Websites to a Meetup Date

Paul Nelson: And now, the game-changing tool I use personally to efficiently and effectively navigate the world of online dating.

I call it the 3-1-1 Rule, and it stands for three neutral message exchanges, one phone call, one face-to-face. It quickly gets you off the dating app or website, in front of the person you're interested in on a meetup date. It's also highly effective at sorting out the pretenders. It works on the principle that rejection is your friend. 

Now we all know that rejection is no fun, but the fact is, the faster that we get to rejection. the better. It works like this. You start up your message conversation on the dating app or website with the person that you're interested in. The goal is to go to three mutual message exchanges. So here would be your typical conversation and how it works. Let's say John and Mary match on Coffee Meets Bagel. John goes ahead and sends Mary a message, and he says, “Hey, Mary. Happy Monday. I see that you like hiking. Have you ever hiked at Silverado Canyon before?” John hits send. 

A little while later, Mary replies, “Happy Monday back to you, John. I've never hiked at Silverado Canyon before, but I have hiked at Peter's Canyon and Crystal Cove. Have you been to either one of those?” Mary hits send. 

Now what we have there, that's our first exchange. There's one message on each side, so now comes the second exchange. John now responds to Mary.

“Yes, I hiked Peter's Canyon last year. It was a fun hike. Crystal Cove is definitely on my list, though. What was your favorite part about hiking there?” John hits send.

A few hours later, Mary responds. “John, it would definitely have to be Moro Ridge where you can feel the ocean breeze after you walk out of the hot canyon.” Mary hit send, but an hour later, John responds.

“Mary, I'd like to hear more about your Crystal Cove hiking experience. Are you comfortable moving our conversation to a phone call?” John hits send. About 10 minutes later, Mary replies. “Yes, John, a phone call would be good. My number. (714) 555-1212. I'm available to talk anytime tomorrow afternoon.”

John replies a few minutes later. “Mary, I'll give you a call tomorrow afternoon. I'll be calling you from (714) 555-2121. Look forward to talking to you.”John hits send.

You see, by the third exchange, John is asking for the phone number. This is extremely important because you want to quickly move it to a phone call. If the person that you're dealing with through the message interface on the dating app doesn't want to give you the phone number by this time, well, you've already weeded them out. There's a lot of time wasters that want to be text buddies on a lot of these dating apps and interfaces, and you want to be able to quickly sort them out. They'll go for days, exchanging text messages, and then when you finally do get around to asking them out, they're either not interested, or the conversation stops. Or, if you are able to set up a date, they'll go ahead and cancel on you at the last minute. 

Now, from a woman's perspective on this, if you get to three call… or if you get to three message exchanges and the guy hasn't asked you for the phone number yet, it's up to you to give them a polite little shove in the right direction. You know, if the guy keeps asking you questions, one of the best things that you can do, from a woman's perspective, is simply say, “I really like that question. How about we move our conversation to the phone?”

Whatever you do, gals, don't give them your phone number yet. Make him do a little work to ask for the phone number. There's another reason for this. If he responds back not asking you for your phone number, then he's probably more of a text buddy kind of guy, and these are the guys you want to stay away from. If you go basically four exchanges and he hasn't asked for your phone number, you got my permission here at 50 Dates to abandon the conversation.

All right, but I can hear the first question/comment right now. “But Paul, but Paul, I don't want to give out my phone number on the dating app. I don't want to give up my phone number on the website.” Well, guys and gals, this is not a problem. Almost all dating apps and dating websites have a voice system where you can actually call the other person through the app or the dating website.

Think of it as making a, like a Zoom call or a FaceTime through the app’s interface. Both parties have a, like a little phone call or a camera icon on the app that allows you to call the other party at whatever arranged time you guys want to talk at. So, if you don't want to give out your phone number, this is the next best option. Just ask for a conversation through the dating app. This completes the three in the 3-1-1 Rule. 

Now we're going to go to the first one in the 3-11 Rule, and the first one is the phone call. So now on the message interface that the guy has got the girl's phone number, what I do in this situation is I'll send a return message back through the message interface with my phone number, and also a time for us to meet for the phone call. That way the gal knows what number you're going to be calling from, and in the same message, you want to suggest a time, a scheduled time for the phone call, like Wednesday at seven o’clock.

This is the next stage of the process of elimination because you're going to find that even if you do get a phone number exchange going, half the time, I'm serious, 50% of the time, I know from a man's perspective, the woman is not available for the phone call. This is just the way it is. It's just the way the numbers work out.

So if you get six phone numbers in an exchange like this over a period of time, you can expect three of them to not materialize. It's just the way it is. So once you set up a time for the phone conversation, the guy makes the call, and you keep the call to about 30 to 45 minutes, no longer than an hour. This is very important. Also, we want to keep the phone call short. Why do we keep them short? It's simple. In dating, especially online, both parties are looking for ways to disqualify you. That's the way online dating seems to work more than anything else. They'll go through a profile, looking at what they can do to disqualify you as a candidate. The less that you say and the simpler that you keep the conversation, the more likely it is you'll get a face-to-face meet up date.

At the end of the phone call, the guy has to have his act together. Guys, here's what you do. You know ahead of time, for instance, in this case, that you have Wednesday and Thursday off, and you can be available at seven o'clock on each one of these nights. The best way to approach that this is to say, “Hey, Mary, let's have a face-to-face meeting. It'll be a lot of fun. We could meet at the California Pizza Kitchen at the Irvine Spectrum at seven o'clock on Wednesday. What do you say?”

Mary will either accept there or she will decline. If Mary declines and does not give you another optional day, you know, you're toast. If Mary is interested and can't make it that day, she'll suggest another day or two. That's the big identifier in interest.

There are situations where I've had it personally, where due to some scheduling issues going on, I've had to delay, to revise the meetup location, especially if it's in an area that I'm not familiar with. Let's say like Long Beach, for instance. I'm not all that familiar with that area. I have to do a little research, so it may take me an hour or so, maybe the next morning, I'll send out a text with the meeting location and time, but basically I've got the day and time figured out already. She's basically agreed to that under most circumstances. I just may have to do a little more research for a location. 

Now we come to the final one in the 3-1-1 Rule, and that's the meetup date. I'll have some podcasts coming up that go much more into detail on this, but the main thing is guys, you want to set up - some people call it a coffee date, or it could be over a drink. You don't want to do something over dinner. You can throw in some appetizers if the conversation goes well. The object of the meetup is to keep it simple. Keep it short and see if the two of you have chemistry and the conversation goes well.

I want to bring up another thing about the meetup date. Guys, you're asking the gal out in this situation. It's your responsibility to pay. A 50 Dater man, any man that does the asking out, he pays for the date. There's none of this Dutch Treat stuff, not in a dating situation. If you're out with your office buddies, go Dutch. But in this situation, guys, we have to man up and we pay for the meetup date. We pay for the drinks, we pay for the coffee, we pay for the appetizers if appetizers come up. 

So the 3-1-1 Rule will save both men and women, guys and gals here, an enormous amount of time. It does an excellent job of narrowing down the dating pool to the more serious daters, and those that are dating with purpose. It will quickly eliminate the game players, the flakes, those on the dating apps and websites for entertainment, and the text buddies. 

Show Wrap-Up

Paul Nelson: For those of you seeking to re-enter the dating scene and are lost on how to start, I hope today's podcast and the 3-1-1 Rule makes your dating experience less daunting. Years, and I mean years, of my personal dating journey has taught me what I've shared with you today, and best of all, there's a lot more to come in future episodes. What worked for me will work for you. I promise.

Got a question or a comment on today's show, or a good or bad date story to share? Check out 50 dates@fifty.com. That's five zero D A T E S at five zero dot com and leave a message. 

So here's my podcast commitment to you, 50 Daters. When the going gets tough and you've had a string of bad dates, or a breakup, we're going to be here to get you through it. When you found a keeper and the dating is going well, we're here to help you maintain it and keep things fresh. Either way 50 Daters, I'm here for you, and I've got your back.

In closing today's show, I'm going to leave you with this humorous line penned by comedienne Wendy Lieberman, who had this to say about dating: “I've been on so many blind dates, I should get a free dog.” ‘Til next time. Enjoy.