A while ago I came up with this really fun exercise. I told my client to use the alien approach. For those of you that have no idea what the alien approach is, it’s very simple. You take a full day and pretend like you were just beamed onto the earth for 24 hours.

How would you act?

First off, okay, you’d be in a weird body because you’re used to having lizard guts, eyes that can light a fire, and long, bony, metallic hands. Now you’re in a human body for the very first time and you find that very peculiar.

So what would you do for that one day? Well, first, you’d go around and you’d look at people. You’d survey things, you’d observe all day, you’d wonder what people are feeling, what they were doing. You’d be curious about everything that these people were doing–hell, if somebody ordered a turkey sandwich, you’d be so curious because you’ve never had turkey before. So you could ask if that turkey stuff is any good.

On top of all that, you’d have enthusiasm for everything around you because basically you are brand new to this planet, never having been here before, never experiencing it before. Never even knowing what anything is. You’d be curious about the world around you.
Not only that, you’d want to talk to as many people as possible because you’d want to find out what the human race is all about. And you’d be reporting back to the king or queen alien so you’d be required to give them a full report.

You’d spend the entire day being hyper-sensitive to the world around you. You wouldn’t worry about your alien phone, or your “a-phone”. You wouldn’t worry about reading and sending out texts, e-mails, checking your Facebook, nothing like that.

All you’d worry about is trying to figure out the human race – meeting people, talking to people, being curious about people and things.

Here’s a deal for all of you who have trouble meeting people: go out there and use the alien exercise. Pretend you were beamed down to earth from another planet for the day. Pretend like you’ve never been on Earth before. And do everything that I wrote about above. Have enthusiasm, ask questions, respond to people. You’re an alien, so you want to gather as much information as you possibly can before you’re beamed back to your stratosphere.

It’s getting cold outside here in NYC, so I figure tonight I’ll bundle up on the couch, turn up the heat, and stay in for a movie, some Italian takeout, and a nice bottle of red.

While I’m thinking about it, bars are the farthest thing from my mind right now.  But it’s still Friday, so let’s talk about something relevant: going on a date.  Specifically, Friday night first dates, which I know a lot of guys tend to overthink.  So I’ll break it down and share an email I got from a client this week:

Hey Shogo,

Just wondering is there a polite way of asking a lady to pay for herself for an expensive outing?

I’m thinking about inviting this girl to an expensive concert, which costs $400.  I wouldn’t mind paying if she’s my girlfriend.  But, I barely know her and don’t know if it’s going to work out.  I know she likes music.  She’s in real estate, and I’m pretty sure she makes more $$$ than I do.  So, I wondering if I should ask her to pay for herself, forget about this whole thing and invite her to something else, or just take the risk and pay for her ticket and see what happens.  What do you think?

*I know they talk about ROI in dating, and this is an example.

Thanks in advance Shogo,

Jerry, New York City

Expensive Dates... Get it?

Jerry, good question.  Actually it’s two questions: 1) How much is ok to spend on a first date?  2) Can she pay her own way?

This is an expensive excursion we’re talking about.  Even if you’re banking some major green, a $400 event is just not date material.  It doesn’t matter if you can afford it or not.  Because even if you can, unless you want to be seen as a walking talking ATM or just another a guy who’s desperately trying to impress her, it’s a terrible idea to drop this much cash on a first date.

Ask yourself: do you really want to go to this concert?  Would you go to this concert if you went by yourself or with a buddy?  If the answer is no, then scrap the idea and do something else.  Go on dates where the activity is something that you actually personally want to do (or you know that she’s really going to enjoy—which in turn makes you want to do it too).  Don’t take a woman out for a first date that you would not want to do anyways.  You plan a date based on something that you want to do for fun, and as an added bonus, you have a great woman to share your time with.

So assuming this is a concert you really want to go to, if you’re going with her as friends, invite her along.  Just as you would invite a friend, tell her, “Hey, Sting (or whoever the hell costs $400 these days) is playing in concert next weekend, I really want to go and since you’re such a fan, I thought you’d be interested in going.  Tickets aren’t cheap though.”  Now you’ve implied that she’s got to pay if she wants to come.  Keep in mind that this is not a date.  This is you inviting her as a friend.  (It doesn’t mean you can’t date her later on down the road, but for now she is not your date to this event, so don’t treat it like one.)

But if you want to ask her out on a date, then ask her out.  And that means you pay.  My rule of thumb for guys is to ALWAYS PAY on the first dates.  Depending on your relationship, you can split (or let her pick up a check) later on down the road when you’re seeing each other on a regular basis.  But for now, you invited her, you pay, and you lead her on that date.

So that means that every date that you invite her on should be within your financial means to pay for both of you.  It can be dinner if you want (make sure it’s a place you actually enjoy going to; even better, a place you’ve been to many times before), it can be drinks, or just a simple coffee on the weekend or a stroll through the park or the holiday market—which costs nothing.

A date should never have to be “risky.”  A date should always be fun no matter what the outcome.  You should never feel like kicking yourself for having spent money on taking her out if the date turns out to be a flop.

How much would you pay for one night?

When you are spending money on things to go out and try to attract women, that’s when you think about your ROI, your return on investment.  But forget about the ROI when it comes down to the date itself, because on the date you are not spending money to try to attract the woman you’re going out with.  Your return on the investment is how much fun you had on the date itself, not what may or may not happen with her sexually after the date.  The money you spend is just window dressing for your leisure time—it does not buy anything from her, so do not expect anything.  If something happens, great.  But make sure it has nothing to do with the money you spent.  That’s just you and her being attracted to each other, and that’s not something money can buy.

So she doesn’t like you at the end of the date, or you don’t have chemistry, or whatever—you want to walk away from every first date with the attitude that you had a good time no matter what.  If there was no attraction, well then at least you learned something about yourself.  Or you practiced your skills communicating with a woman.  Or you learned something about how women work and it will make you better for next time.  Or you can walk away as friends and you’ve added a new person to your social network.

There is always an upside to every encounter with a new woman.  And that’s what you focus on.  Maybe the date works out, and that’s great.  But even if it doesn’t, don’t chalk that up as a lost investment.  Think about how you grew.  What you learned about your skills connecting with this woman, what you learned about women in general, and what you learned so you can improve the next time.

No date should ever have to be financially risky.  Eliminate that “risk” right out of the equation by asking yourself, “How much would I feel comfortable spending just to hang out and get to know this woman even if things don’t work out?”  And you will have your answer.

What is “flaking?” An example of flaking is when you’re supposed to have plans with someone on a Friday night, and they flake on you at the last minute. Another example is when in your mind you’ve met somebody with whom you feel you have great chemistry, and they flake never to be heard from again.

What if I told you that there is no such thing as “flaking,” and that this misused terminology in dating is just an urban legend made up in your mind to make you feel better about someone who wasn’t interested?

Here’s the key: If someone supposedly flaked on you, it really means either that you did not intrigue them enough, or that the so-called connection or chemistry that you felt was a one-way street. Let’s go even deeper into this.

How about if I told you that the reason why there’s no such thing as flaking, is because you played it safe when you met somebody and they decided not to pursue it further because they have no idea who you are. Or, what if I told you that this so-called flaking is really due to the way you’re meeting people in the first place.

People who tend to bet blown off a lot are people who tend to chase the wrong people. For instance, I have a friend who’s in his mid-forties who constantly chases women in their twenties. These women supposedly always flake on him.

If you’re getting supposedly flaked on (and remember I said flaking is getting blown off), then let’s call it what it is. If you’re getting blown off regularly, then it’s because you’re chasing women and not intriguing them.

If you’re chasing someone, then you put yourself in a position of weakness. If you intrigue, engage and be upfront about everything with women, you will not get flaked on or blown off. Because that too is just a myth.

Let’s say when you meet someone you’re 110% upfront with them about everything, you’re powerful, you’re interesting, and you engage them, but you guys just don’t connect. If without playing any games like this you two just don’t connect, it means that you have no chemistry. What’s good about this, though, is that you at least found out immediately.

If I meet a woman and we don’t connect (either on my side or her side), I don’t lose any sleep over it and I don’t care. There’s plenty of other women to meet and to get to know.

If you, however, are the type of guy who’s constantly playing games and trying to sell yourself to women, then you are creating a lifestyle of being flaked on by women. Flaking is not even in my lifestyle or in my vocabulary.

The only flakes that I ever see either come from the sky in the winter, or come from the nasty man in front on me on the airplane as they fall from his head onto his shirt. It’s all about how you approach this.

Men who chase women get flaked on all the time. More specifically, men who chase women who are wrong for them get flaked on all the time.

Take a look at your life right now. If you’ve been flaked on recently and you use the term flaking, it’s time you looked in the mirror and realized that it’s something you’re doing not something they’re doing. Everybody who is going to date is going to meet people with whom they don’t have chemistry. It’s just a matter of how you go about doing it and thinking about it.

As some of you guys who’ve been following the blog lately may know, I’ve been in New York apartment hunting the past few days. It’s my old stomping ground, so while I’ve been here, I’ve also been going out a lot catching up with old friends.

I was out at a bar last night with a friend in the West Village, sitting at the bar having a late dinner. We were there for about an hour. While we were there, I saw a guy walking around talking to basically every woman or group of women who were standing or sitting around the bar.

Now this guy was full of energy, really chatting up every woman in sight, using a lot of hand gestures and getting everybody to laugh and so forth. It looked like he was really having a good time. But then, on probably three occasions, I saw him pull his phone out and take down a different woman’s phone number each time. And I wasn’t there for very long—I left around 11pm before the place got too packed—so I’m sure this guy ended up taking down more phone numbers than that.

So this guy probably ended up with about four or five phone numbers by the end of the night. I never understood that. When I’m single and I’m going out, I never need any more than ONE PHONE NUMBER. That’s it. One good number from the one woman that I have the best connection with, and who I’m most interested in. This is why I basically never have a bad first date. Why on earth do you need to take down five or six phone numbers in one night?

There could only be two possible reasons why you need that many numbers.

How To Get A Womans Phone Number

One, you are planning on going out on four or five different dates. Have fun with that. Do you know how tiring and time-consuming that is? If you’re going out on that many dates, it’s completely mentally draining. I’ve done it. I could never give each woman my best, because as the week progresses, I’ve already talked myself silly and my head is in a daze trying to keep my stories straight about which woman said what. And I always got them mixed up. Not to mention, if you’re spending that much time dating, you’re basically doing nothing else. Your “hobby” is going out with a different woman each night and you’re not making yourself any more interesting that way.

The other possibility is that you’re taking down a bunch of phone numbers because you already know that 90% of them are not going to call you back. So you call all the numbers you collected and you’re lucky if one of them agrees to go out with you. The others just gave you their number because they felt pressured into it or because they wanted to end the conversation and go back to their friends. If this is happening to you, you really need to start working on having better conversations, making yourself more memorable, and making better connections with the women you’re meeting.

So how do you do this? When you’re going out, talk to anyone and everyone you want to. I’m all for that. But don’t ask for a woman’s phone number just because you talked to her for 5 minutes. Make the conversation the goal, not the phone number. Before you go out, tell yourself that you’re looking for one good connection tonight and when you find that, then you get the digits. Get the phone number when there’s potential chemistry. Get the phone number when you’ve bonded over something, when you find out something about her, and when you find out that you have something in common that you can talk about when you call her later.

One good phone number, that’s it guys.

I know that our usual weekend topic is nightlife and bars, but let’s switch it up a little for today. Today let’s talk a little bit about when you’ve got a date.

When you’re out and you’re dating, you know from the blog that if you’re the man on the date you always want to have a plan on the first date or so. When you ask a woman out, you want to be the leader, you want to have a place to go, but also be open to suggestions from your date. You want to have an idea of where you want to go and what you want to do that night based on the situation, the interaction, or the conversation you had with your date.

“What do you want to do tonight?” are words that should never come out of your mouth when inviting a woman out on a first date. Be thoughtful, be inspired, and show that you actually put some consideration and effort into the evening.

You don’t need to plan out every little detail of what you’re going to do—granted, some men and women do like their evening to run that way, and that’s fine if it suits your personality.

First Date Ideas

But there is a fine line between planning out a fun time on your date and rigidly sticking to your plans without room for creativity if things go wrong. You always want to be flexible in your planning. If things don’t go exactly according to plan, roll with it.

If your date is a vegetarian and you accidentally took her to a steak house, you can always leave and go somewhere else. Find a cool, hip vegetarian place maybe neither of you have ever been to before. You just might have a great new discovery in the area that you had no idea existed. And if the food wasn’t that good, oh well, at least the two of you had the experience and went on a little adventure together.

If you planned out a nice afternoon picnic or walk in the park and suddenly it starts raining, what do you do? Maybe change the plan and take her to a matinee. Sneak your picnic food in her purse have your own little picnic in the back of the theater.

It’s all about being open-minded. It’s all about being open to the fun possibilities out there. Because in reality, nothing goes exactly according to plan. You can never plan anything out 100% and know what the future holds in store, so be open to whatever comes your way, embrace it and make the most of it. The more your rigidly stick to what you planned out and try your hardest to make things to go exactly as planned, the more you are closing yourself off to great opportunities that come your way, opportunities that you couldn’t predict, even opportunities that you never thought could be possible.

So on all of your upcoming dates, I want you guys to have an action plan and a direction going into the date. But I also want to you be open and receptive to change. Be open and receptive to new possibilities on your dates, or in your encounters, or even when you are first meeting and talking to someone of the opposite sex, and see what great moments and great memories that you could never have predicted lie ahead for you.

I’ll tell you where you don’t go. You don’t go to a movie, you don’t sit there in silence, wondering what she’s thinking, who she is, and feeling all uncomfortable wondering what to say after the movie.

You don’t go and spend money on dinner. That’s right, you don’t sit there and chew food, exchange resumes, and basically talk at each other for two and a half hours.

You don’t spend money on a first date. The reason being is most first dates never pan out to second dates. So why should you invest your hard earned money in a woman that you may never ever see again? Guys, dating is like an investment. You want to pick and choose who you date, who you spend money on, and where you go.

My best first dates have always been activity dates. Miniature golf is great, bowling is a lot of fun, walking in the park is great, playing Frisbee is a lot of fun, rowing a boat across a lake or across a pond is a blast, going to a street fair, and sitting and just having a cup of coffee or having hot coco in the winter time. Simple things, so you can go, talk, and hang out and have no pressure.

Here’s the deal, if you like her you can plan the next date at the end of the first date. But the bottom line is stop spending your hard earned money, stop wasting your money on women you never ever see again. You don’t need to impress her with where you take her, you need to impress her with who you are.

One of my greatest dates I ever had was this woman was telling me how much she loved the sunset. So I took her to this great beach in Malibu. Malibu is about 15 minutes from my house, so maybe I was out $2.25 in gas to get her to and from there. Bought a bottle of wine because she liked wine, I spent $10 on the bottle of wine. We sat, we talked, we watched the waves break, we walked some more, we watched the sunset, and we had a fantastic time. It was a great date. It created a moment.

That’s what women are looking for, to create that moment. They’re looking to have something that they can go back to their friends and say this was a really different date. I’ve gone on hiking dates where it was a lot of fun, where we just talked and we hiked and we saw things, and it takes the pressure off sitting across the table. When you’re doing an activity date it takes all the pressure off of you having to sit there and analyze one another. Not only that, for women, dating is about an adventure. You want to create an adventure the first date. You might go hiking, you might take a walk on the beach, you might take a walk with your dogs. Second date you might grab some dinner at this cool little stand because now they’ve got great food trucks all over the place where you can sit, stand outside and eat. You’re creating a movie for them. You’re creating the moment.

So stop trying to impress on a date, and start having fun on a date.

So when we walked into Sears, I told him to watch and learn just how playful you can really be.

So when I walked into Sears, Passion Optical, ready for my glasses to be done with repairs. I walked in, and this woman behind the counter says to me, she goes, “Are you here for a pick-up?”

I said “Absolutely, I’m here for a pick-up.” She goes, “What’s your name?”

“No, I’m here to pick you up,” I replied.

Then all of a sudden she realizes what’s going on. Little did she know the ulterior motives I had with my client watching but when I said so, she came crawling back, talked with me even more, and was cracking up the entire time.

Think about all the times you go and you pick up something at a business.

How To Meet Women At Sears

In a restaurant, you walk in and they go, “What are you here for?” “I’m here for a pick-up.” And they go, “What’s your name?” “No-no-no-no, no. I’m here to pick you up. I didn’t order any food. You asked me if I was here for a pick-up. Absolutely, I told you, I am here for a pick-up.”

Think about how much more fun you have and think about how creative that is. It’s about being goofy, having fun, and really just admitting why you’re even there in the first place.

So the next time you go to a restaurant and they ask you if you’re here for what you’re here for, just tell her you’re here for a pick-up, and then they’ll wonder what name. Just don’t fumble it, and get your own name wrong!

Think about the moment when you see “that guy” — that confident, good-looking guy — who walks over to you and says something really cute and clever. Maybe you were in Starbucks looking for something to eat, and you were indecisive about whether you wanted a muffin or a scone.

He reads your mind and he read the moment, so he looks at you and says, “Indecisive today? If you could have anything in that case, which one would it be?” Okay, it’s something a bit stupid, cheesy, and funny . . . but something in the moment. It is kind of like what I teach men to do — to just be really present.

I always tell men to walk over and allow a woman to have a moment like this that she so desires. If the world was a perfect place then every man would embrace all of my teachings, become very natural, and allow the woman to experience that magic moment she craves.

The man, because he is able to create that moment, will then become satisfied because I truly believe that all men need to have that feeling of conquest. They like to have that feeling of conquest. They like to feel like they selected that woman.

They like to feel like they selected her, and she fell for all of the things he said. He said all of the right things at the right time, and they have this instant attraction.

How To Meet Rich Men

So in a perfect world men would be doing this every single day, women would be falling for it every single day, and people would be falling in love. People would have a sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and they would really start to see how easy life can be.

Since this is not a perfect world, however, why not try reversing the roles a bit if you are a woman? Why don’t you become a hunter, so you don’t get the guys you’re not attracted to anymore, i.e., the passive guys?

The guys you are really looking for are the ones you need to select. When a woman decides to be a hunter, there are a lot of different ways to do it — and I know all the guys appreciate this.

Guys appreciate it when a woman becomes a hunter in any way. Maybe a woman walks over to you in that coffee shop and helps you in that magic moment. Maybe a woman makes a comment on something or asks you for your opinion. Maybe a woman cracks a joke about what you have on the conveyor belt at the supermarket, and she challenges you to bring out the hunter in you — to bring out your confident side.

I used to love meeting a female hunter when I was single. It made my job a lot easier. It was also a lot more fun, because it felt like I was meeting somebody who was playful, enjoyed life, and who was not living a life full of fear and excuses.

So when you’re out and about, try being the female hunter. Smile and bait the man a little bit. Walk by, look at him him again, smile again, and bait him a little bit.

Do this, and maybe you will start meeting a different type of man. Actually, not maybe — I know you will meet a different kind of man.

Just start saying hello to guys. Make it that easy. Then maybe make a comment here and there.

Start becoming the female hunter, and you will finally be satisfied in dating because you will start meeting the guys you really want to meet. You can pull any guy out that way. Men are just looking for a little hint — a little validation — that you are interested.

Also, just wait until you check out the sex with this new kind of man you will be meeting. When you have sex with someone you actually hunted, the passion is going to be ten times that which you have experienced in the past.

You can not believe that you have made it this far.

The date that you have planned for tonight? Well, it’s worked out. Oh yes, you know everything about it! It doesn’t matter that it’s presently 2011–it doesn’t matter at all. You can see the future. Years down the road, you’re able to look into the future and know exactly how that date’s going to go tonight.

Aren’t you relaxed now? Isn’t it amazing knowing that THIS is the person you’re going to marry in a couple of years? Can’t you now just relax on this date and not obsess so much about it? The date you’re on is in 2011. But in your head, it’s 2017. 2011 has merely called back to you six years later to tell you how well the date you’re going to have tonight worked out.

What am I talking about here? Future people! Future men and future women, that’s what I’m talking about it. You’re the person who’s such a nervous wreck about a future date that you spend your entire time leading up to that date obsessing about what to do! You even talk to friends: “What should I talk about? What do you think I should tell my date about me, hm? What do you think I should talk about on this date?” Once you’ve set the date, you think about how many times you need to text him or her until the first date to keep their interest level up. You strategize about the date ahead of time. You wonder when to kiss ahead of time. You think about the right moment to hold her hand ahead of time.

You think about when to flip your hair to show him you’re interested. You think about interesting topics to talk about ahead of time.

That’s not a date, that’s just worrying! You’re making it so hard on yourself. Here’s the deal: you set the date, you confirm the date the day before, and then you meet them at the place you confirmed. You don’t think about what signs to look for or what to say. You don’t plot out a whole conversation. You don’t think about when the perfect time to kiss is. You stay present in the moment. That’s what you do. You have a conversation as you would any conversation with any other person that you’ve met.

You need to stop worrying about what this person is going to be in the future, because when you worry about the future, there is not going to be any future. There will be no future at all. So many people, all the time, worry so much about what to say on a date. When you go out with your friends, do you plot out an entire outline of things to talk about, or do you just stay present and have a good time? The most powerful thing about a date is that the person you’re with can really get to know who you are. They can get to know your interests, what you’re about, have a conversation, see if you two really connect.

The absolute worst thing you can do on a date is water yourself down. Just be yourself, talk, and listen. And of course, on a date don’t talk about how wounded you have been from past relationships. Keep it positive, talk about the good times. Stop obsessing about whether or not she thinks (or he thinks) it’s a date or if you’re going out as friends.

It’s a date if you set it up that way. If your intentions are clear, if you’re not hiding a secret agenda, it’s a date whether you’re taking them out for dinner, for coffee, for a drink, for a walk in the park—as long as you set it up as a date. Stop obsessing about what to do.

Don’t try to get to know the “future him” or the “future her” or “future both-of-us-together”. Play it cool and really just get to know her. And to the women right now reading this, get to know him.

Check out how this guy decided to approach first date honesty.

How about if you could really just let go and be yourself on a first date.

Could you imagine doing what she just did.

Enjoy your Saturday and I hope these put a smile on your face.