Midlife Dating Podcast

Episode 5 - Why Virtual Dating is Nonsense

• Paul Nelson • Episode 5

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Dating with Purpose is one of the main themes here at 50 Dates at 50. Today, Paul defines what that term specifically means. 

Ever date someone who insists on keeping in contact with their ex?  Paul explains what this reveals about your partner and what it says about you if you tolerate this type of behavior.

To give 50 Daters a foundational understanding of who Nice Guys are, Paul reviews No More Mr. Nice Guy by Robert Glover. 50 Dates at 50 is committed to opening the doors for Nice Guys and Nice Gals to grow into being Good Guys and Gals.

Is virtual dating here to stay? Most likely so, despite the many hidden landmines. It's also pretty much nonsense if you are banking on getting quality dates. However, it does have an essential silver lining.

Online dating offers what appears to be an endless amount of options, especially if you're new to it. However, you'll soon discover the harsh reality of being ghosted or quickly deleted for no apparent reason. Do you want to know what it really takes to set up one date per week? Paul walks you through his September by the numbers of initiated conversations, deletions, ghostings, phone calls, phone call no-shows, meetup dates, date cancellations, and second dates. This provides a good frame of reference for what a regular guy or gal can expect. The key, of course, is starting with good-quality pictures and a well-written profile.

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.

Episode 5 Why Virtual Dating is Nonsense Final

Introduction

Paul Nelson: Hello, 50 Daters. Welcome to episode five, titled Why Virtual Dating is Nonsense. Today I've got a dating report for the month of September, where I interacted with 32 different gals on online dating apps over a 30-day period. By the end of this episode, you'll know what successful online dating ratios look like as we dig into the Ghostings, the Deletions, the actual calls, the canceled calls, the actual dates, the meetups, and second dates, all if you're dating with purpose and using The 3-1-1 Rule. 

Also today, we're going to be defining what dating with purpose is, review Dr. Glover's book No More Mr. Nice Guy. I'll be tackling a question submitted through the website on guys and gals that insist on keeping in constant communication with their ex's. Additionally, I'll be giving you my personal take on why virtual dating is nonsense. 

And hey guys, and gals, if you like what you hear, please take a moment and click on subscribe. I don't want you missing out on making your date nights more memorable. 

So now 50 Daters, let's turn those dating busts into dating bests. 

Glossary Term - Dating With Purpose

Paul Nelson: Today's term is Dating With Purpose. This is the act of actively looking for a compatible person, who has good relationship material. 

Those who date with purpose are open to meeting and dating more than one person at a time. This is similar to the job interview process if you're looking for a new job. 

Now 50 Daters know that time is valuable, and that most people that you meet online are not datable. Furthermore, most dates with an individual won't last longer than one meetup date to one or two additional dates. Dating With Purpose is often confused with, and is completely the opposite of, serial dating. 

Dating and Relationship Questions - I've Caught My Girlfriend Talking To And Texting Her Ex 

Paul Nelson: Question: I've caught my girlfriend talking to her ex more than a few times over our relationship. I can't trust her. However, after talking with her about it several times, she assures me she's over him now. I treat her like the Queen she deserves to be, but I don't think she's over him. I suspect she's talking with him again. What should I do? William, age 54, Seal Beach. 

William, there are a lot of things going on here, although a few keywords give me a pretty good idea of what's wrong. It sounds like you're suffering from Nice Guy Syndrome. Here is why. 

First. Nice guys like project women whom they believe they can fix. Sounds like your gal is a fixer-upper. 

Second. You used the term "Queen". When a nice guy treats a woman like a Queen, he does nice things for her, expecting something in return. 

Queen treatment is actually a turnoff for most women. However, women that continually need fixing will definitely take advantage of it. 

Third. If a woman is generally attracted to you, she won't be covertly communicating with her ex, unless of course, she and her ex have kids, which is an entirely different story. I'm going to assume that's not the case. 

My experience tells me that you've probably been coming on too strong. Most likely you've been spending way too much time around her being needy, especially right after the times you've caught her communicating with her ex. 

In this situation, men generally tend to double down in an attempt to compensate, spending even more time around her, thinking that this will correct the situation. The reality is, this does the exact opposite and will drive her into the arms of her ex. 

When one is not quite over their ex, they'll think of all the good times they had and not the bad. When they think about this, and then you add the absence of being around them, the absence creates attraction. 

With the COVID 19 lockdowns, most couples were spending way too much time together. You've most likely been caught up in that. That is exactly why you need to back off and give her some space. Let her contact you when she is ready. Use absence in your favor, just like it has worked for her ex. 

Keep in mind, however, that this is not the same as playing games. You need to figure out if you really are in a relationship with her, and overcome your Nice Guyness. 

You have to get the book No More. Mr. Nice Guy. I highly recommend listening to the audio format in your car on the way to and from work. 

Every time you feel the urge to contact her, go listen to the book instead. Once you finish it, you'll have a completely different perspective on how to approach things. 

William, I know exactly what you're thinking right now. "What if she doesn't call?" Then you know where you really stand. 

 It's important to remember that you can't change her. You can only change yourself and challenge yourself to be a better man, a 50-Dater Man. 

Book Review - No More Mister Nice Guy

Paul Nelson: Our review for this episode is the book No More Mr. Nice Guy, by Dr. Robert A. Glover, published in the year, 2000. 

No More. Mr. Nice Guy is about the perils of becoming a nice guy. Dr. Glover states that nice guys believe if they are good, giving, and caring, they will in return, be happy, loved, and fulfilled. This is also known as Nice Guy Syndrome. 

In his practice as a psychotherapist, Dr. Glover encountered countless resentful and frustrated Nice Guys. It's important to note here that the term Nice Guy, does not refer to someone with actual nice behavior, but rather to someone with a belief system of a Nice Guy. 

At 50 Dates, I refer to nice guys in two different fashions: Nice Guy in the noun form, which is what Dr. Robert Glover is talking about, and then there's Nice Guy in the verb form - that's just behaving nicely or behaving in a good way. 

Henceforth, this entire book review here is about Nice Guy in the noun term. 

Many Nice Guys harbor negative traits that make them anything but nice. Some Nice Guy traits include being manipulative, being passive-aggressive, being controlling, giving to get, having deep masked rage, and having problems with intimacy and sexual relationships. 

Nice Guys tend to go from one extreme to the other, and they're also looking for something to fix, especially when it comes to women. Nice Guys will fall all over themselves to please the woman they are dating. The women will become their projects and the Nice Guys will drop everything for the woman's attention. This is known as Caretaking. 

Nice Guy behaviors are well-defined in the book, which also offers some great explanations on how Nice Guys became who they are. In his practice, Dr. Glover eventually held therapy groups to help men kick Nice Guy Syndrome. There are many examples of stories from over 1800 hours of working with Nice Guys. 

The book contains a series of 46 breaking free activities and the stories that follow the real-life results of these breaking free activities. We see how Dr. Glover changed men from victims of full Nice Guy bitterness, to legitimate, cohesive people. 

Personally speaking, I was thoroughly captivated by this book. Through it, I identified many Nice Guy behaviors that I had and eventually shed when I was young. Some of the girls I dated while in high school are what the book terms as projects, where guys think they can fix a troubled or a problem girl. 

Meanwhile, I didn't break through my giving to get habit until my twenties. I was very talented at fixing cars and could easily change an engine or a transmission in a car. I repaired many cars for gals thinking that they would date me for saving them thousands of dollars in repairs. 

One time, I replaced a heater in this gal's car, only to find out that she was with another guy during the weekend I was repairing her car. 

Later in my thirties, I had a musical electronics repair business in Anaheim, where I specialized in repairing guitar amps, and mixers, and keyboards, things that focused in the music industry, and I didn't learn to say no to repairs outside of my expertise for quite a while. 

To be helpful, I would accept just about anything in for repair. I ended up with many pieces that I could not repair and many angry customers as a result. I finally learned to check my ego, to say the word No, and to ask for help when I could not figure out how to repair problems on my own. 

Why 50 Daters need to read this book. 

I'm speaking to both men and women, and let me start with the guys. 

Guys, if you're reading this, it's because you've decided to make the changes necessary to become a Good Guy. I would highly recommend that you check the glossary of the 50 Dates at 50 website, and look at the definition of Good Guy, Nice Guy, and the Bad Boy or the Bad Guy. 

This book will help you identify all Nice Guy behaviors and eliminate them. It's required reading for any man that wants to become a better version of himself, the type of man that a great woman would seek. 

Gals, many of you may actually have some Nice Guy characteristics of your own that need to be eliminated. You may also be dating or in a relationship with a Nice Guy. Having him read this book can change him into a better man, provided he wants to change, and many women mentioned in the book had their relationship dynamic with their man completely change for the better. You may also have friends who could benefit from the knowledge in this book. 

Overall the world needs fewer Nice Guys. I'm astounded by the number of dating profiles where the woman says she's looking for a Nice Guy. The last thing you want is a Nice Guy. You want a Good Guy, and that's what 50 Dater men are. 

Potpourri Section - Why Virtual Dating is Nonsense

Paul Nelson: I want to talk about why virtual dating during and since the lockdown is pretty much nonsense. 

You have to admire dating platform providers for doing their best to adjust to the COVID 19 situation. They've done what appears to be a great job in developing options for virtual dating. While this may seem great to Millennials and Gen Z, they don't have enough life experience to see some of the landmines. The biggest problem with virtual dating has to do with what we call, The Candy Store Effect here at 50 Dates at 50. 

In the process of virtual dating, if you talk to somebody two weeks ago or a month ago, they've most likely already forgotten about you. And if they do manage to keep in touch with an occasional zoom chat, they will eventually lose interest anyway. This has to do with all the new potential suitors that they're talking with, each one seemingly having more potential than the previous. 

My experience so far is that nine out of 10 of these virtual dates will not end up leading to a real date in the end. The reality is that the last one or two people that any party talks to on a virtual date will be the ones ending up getting a real date. 

I've experienced the same phenomenon while traveling. You can have a good conversation or set up a date before leaving town. You're out of town for a week, maybe 10 days, and by the time you get back, they end up canceling. Or, you try and reestablish the conversation once you get back and you get ghosted, only to realize that their profile has been taken down or is inactive, which generally means that they've most likely found somebody while you were away. 

Additional virtual dating challenges circle around technical issues, such as lighting, camera position, and background. This is similar to the professional help needed on most pictures found on dating profiles. In virtual dating, you'll need to learn how to look good on live camera. This involves a steep learning curve, and there hasn't been a whole lot of decent advice out there on this subject. It wasn't until August that I became aware of any detailed and tested information on how to approach it. 

I'm a regular listener to Julie Furman's Cupid's Coach podcast. Julie interviewed Rachel Greenwald in episode number 50, titled, Creating Connections Via Zoom Dates. Rachel lays out a manageable and well-explained avenue that anybody can follow on creating a positive zoom meetup date. 

Rachel is the author of Why He Didn't Call You Back and Find a Husband After 35 Using What I Learned in Harvard Business School. These are both great books for women and men to read. Reviews on both these books can be found at the 50 Dates at 50  website. 

Julie Ferman is a professional matchmaker. Her website has some excellent content and is available at julieferman.com, which will be in the show notes, and at the 50 Dates at 50  website in the resources section, there's a link to it. 

As I've explained in episode one of the podcast about The 3-1-1 Rule, it's imperative to quickly move off the dating app messaging interface, and onto a real phone conversation. The phone call is crucial for weeding out the pretenders. Just by asking the other party, if you're open to moving your text or message conversation to a phone call, you eliminate half the pretenders. Those that are not serious will immediately ghost you. Those that are honestly interested will agree to a phone call. 

Now at this point, here is where you have the option of making that first call into a zoom meetup. If you do do this, keep your zoom call to about 45 minutes, max. Why such a short time? Easy. The longer you talk, the higher the probability of you putting your foot in your mouth. And not putting your foot in your mouth is one of the big keys on getting to the second date. 

With virtual dating, you're stuck between a phone call and a first face-to-face meetup. Attraction and the unpredictable happen when you are face-to-face, not screen to screen, as you would in a virtual date. By the time you get to a face-to-face after a screen to screen, the ability to recapture any magic that was garnered during that screen to screen will be pretty much gone, and you probably won't get another chance. 

You'll wind up with many an awkward moment on that first face-to-face after one or more virtual dates. 

So, the goal is to get to the phone call or the zoom meetup as quickly as possible and keep things brief. If the zoom meetup flows well, ask for a face-to-face meetup date. 

This is not to say that virtual dating does not have a silver lining. It does. It makes for great dating practice. We all need practice for face-to-face dating conversations and the more you work at it, the better you'll get. 

So as long as you understand this, I say, move forward with virtual dating to get ready for when you can start meeting people face to face again. 

Since the lockdown is lifted, I've noticed that the virtual meetup is preferred about 10 to 15% of the time over the regular phone call. And this is probably here to stay to some degree. So 50 Daters, practice, practice, practice so you'll be ready to meet that great potential match when the opportunity presents itself. 

Realistic Dating Numbers

Paul Nelson: Back in our high school and college days, being popular was one of the best ways to get dates. In our age group, we no longer have the social circle as we did in high school and college. However, one of the biggest pluses that online dating has to offer us is it allows us to bypass the normal social circles of yesteryear. 

You don't need to be popular to be successful in online dating. All you need to do is put yourself out there, make the time, show up, and be present. Being present means putting an effort into and participating in the date. 

Speaking of being present, I had three dates last month where the women completely stopped participating in the date. One, right upon meeting her, she showed up with a really bad attitude which sabotaged the entire evening. She had fun during the activity portion of the date and then went right back to the crappy attitude. 

The other two took about 15 minutes in before they stopped being present. In both instances, we had a great conversation going, and while they were talking, in mid-sentence, they stopped for a brief moment. Their body language changed. The tone of their voice changed, and it's like they threw an internal switch and then proceeded to just mail it in for the rest of the date. It's almost as if they realized they were having this fun conversation, and something inside of them was not going to allow that to continue. 

I've learned that when this happens, it generally has nothing to do with me personally, as I've learned not to say stupid stuff that will disqualify me that quickly. It's usually something on their side that's holding them back, and there's really nothing you can do about it when this happens. 

In many cases, they're probably in a different phase of dating than you are. Generally speaking, the song Love Stinks by The J. Geils Band describes best as to what's going on here with this lyric. "You love her / But she loves him / And he loves somebody else / You just can't win." But I digress. 

About being more present on the date and back to my point on not having to be Mr. or Mrs. Popularity to be successful in online dating. With online dating, all of us are on equal footing, and we can all easily compete. 

That said, this leads me back to what I talked about at the beginning of the podcast about what successful online dating looks like when you're Dating With Purpose. 

So without further ado, here's what successful online dating looks like, with my September 2021 dating report. Remember here: the goal is to get in front of the person you're interested in dating and meet face to face and see if you have a potential fit with your five deal-breakers and five deal makers. This is not some type of scoring system or any type of bragging.

The bottom line is online dating is a numbers game. And we as 50 Daters need to take specific, deliberate steps to put the numbers in our favor, and we need to know what realistic numbers look like when you have a profile with good pictures (and good pictures are extremely important), the profile needs to be well-written. Additionally, you have to have practiced your dating skills. 

So for September, I was using the apps Bumble, Hinge, Tinder, and Coffee Meets Bagel. Only three apps active at any one time out of the four, which are now currently all on pause as I practice Right Swipe Discipline, and I work my way through the current pool of dating potentials. 

I know numbers don't translate well in an audio format, so I'm going to keep this as simple as I can. Out of 32 dating app conversations, I was ghosted or deleted a total of 21 times. That means I had eleven successful dating app conversations. 

To use a baseball analogy as a parallel, batters that get on base three out of 10 at-bats are considered to be very successful and get paid millions of dollars for failing seven out of 10 times. Think about that as I go over these numbers. 

Successful professional batters in baseball get on base only three out of every 10 at-bats. That means if you're getting ghosted two out of every three conversations, you're actually doing pretty well. 

Of the remaining 11 conversations, I set up 11 phone calls. Eight gals were available for the calls. Three were not. Out of those eight calls, four resulted in meetup dates. Out of those four meetup dates, two resulted in second dates. All of this using The 3-1-1 rule, so I'm not wasting a lot of time. 

These are real numbers. They were a little higher pre COVID and worse about six months ago when lockdown finally lifted in Southern California here. But that, again, is a story for another episode. 

Successful online dating is making time for two to four dates a month while you're searching. Why do we put in so much effort? Because one or two out of every 10 meetups has RGW or Really Good Woman, or RGG, Really Great Guy potential. 

You put yourself out there, you show up, and you'll be surprised at what happens. 

I'm here to show you how to cast a wider net and meet with more quality potential dating partners. All you have to do is make the effort to work in a date once a week, or every 10 days, or every other week. 

I'm just a normal, grounded, Good Guy, not a pick-up artist. I'm not a comedian. I'm not a hot boomer male model or a fortune 500 CEO, just a regular Good Guy, and if I can do this, any 50 Dater can do this. 

Gals, you're included here. You should easily be able to open up time for meetup dates. Just nudge the guys online to call you and make yourself available for calls and meetups. And help him when he asks. If you're not available for the day that he asks, give him a counteroffer of another day or two that you're available to meet. This is extremely important, and I'll have future episodes where I go more into the topic of the counteroffer. 

50 Daters, if you stick with me, you can easily have two to four dates per month during your Dating With Purpose process, and it won't take a lot of your time, and you'll never run out of fun date ideas. 

I can hear it now. "But Paul, I don't have that kind of time. How can you possibly find the time?" 

Well, it's simple. I properly plan. My average month means working around my 40-hour workweek. I also play in a band. That's four rehearsals and two gigs per month, so that's six spoken for days. I take dance lessons. That's four days that are taken up. That's a total of 10 spoken for days out of the month. 

This leaves me with 20 to 21 available days for dating per month. Now when I'm not dating, I fill in those gaps with putting this podcast together. And if you think dating takes a lot of time, try setting up a podcast. 

I also do blogging for the website. I read books. I listen to books on Audible. I listen to podcasts while I'm on the road and while I'm exercising. And, I get a chance to work out with weights on most days. 

Part of that plan is making time for the date. 

Conclusion

Paul Nelson: We'll end this episode by asking the question, "Why are dolphins so successful at dating?" Because they always click with one another. 

 Until next time.