I know, that was a silly question because everyone likes ice cream. One of the things we love about it are all the different flavors there are to choose from. Whatever kind of person you are, sweet or savory, there is a flavor for you.

In dating, like ice cream, there is an abundance of choices available to you. (Do you have an abundance mindset?)

Now watch this video and talk amongst yourselves in the comments below.

Okay, I don’t know if those are the lyrics at all, but I know that it’s all about the sound of silence.

For so many of you, when you’re out on a date or in a new relationship, the sound of silence really bothers you. But in reality, there never really is any silence. You can be standing there looking out at the water on a date, listening to the ocean, and feeling the need to talk, but in reality what’s the issue? If you just stood there and looked into the water together you’re forming a memory, you’re forming a union, and you’re both enjoying nature.

There are so many beautiful sounds that are around you at all times, there’s never really complete silence.

Don’t be afraid of the silence. Enjoy it. And after sitting next to your date in “silence” for 20 minutes, listening to the ocean, look at her and say, “God, that was amazing. I love listening to the ocean; it’s such an amazing, rhythmic, incredible sound.” You can share silence together; you don’t have to be afraid of it.

It’s amazing how we always feel the need to talk, or to fill the airspace with words, or thoughts, or anything. But through silence we actually get deeper in touch with our emotions and we connect back to the Mother Earth; we connect back to the way things really are.

I’m writing this as I’m sitting on Miami Beach listening to the water, listening to the birds, watching the people leave the beach, watching the sun get lower into the sky, checking out the art deco buildings, looking at the way that these lifeguard stands are painted, and just listening to the water and to the sound of the ocean.

It’s that easy. Get peaceful. Learn to enjoy the silence.

So it’s the middle of the week. I love the middle of the week because it gives us an opportunity to look at the first couple days and see what we can do better, then go and kick ass for the rest of the week.

There were some of the best play off games ever this past Sunday. What kind of chatter do you think is going through Billy Cundiff’s head?  You guys think you have issues. You look at a woman and you can’t walk up to her.  Imagine right now being Bill Cundiff of the Baltimore Ravens and hooking a 30 yard field goal and giving the Patriots the Super Bowl.  Imagine being Lee Evans and dropping a sure-fire touchdown pass, directly in your hands.  Dropping the ball to the ground because you weren’t focused in the end zone.  Imagine being him.

Don’t you think he’s got a lot of monkey chatter going on in his head?

Now I want to fast forward to your life. Life is about repetition and believing in yourself.  Here’s the deal guys: you’re not playing in front of 70,000 people.  There are not 70,000 fans whose heart you might be breaking when you drop a pass or hook a field goal.

Let’s put it in pick up terms: when you approach a woman and you hook your words and you don’t go anywhere with them.  The reason why you’re hooking your words, the reason why you’re dropping the easy ones, is because you’re not going out and doing the work every single day.  In order to become amazing at meeting women, you need to go out every single day.

It’s hump day fellas. Set an intent. Set a goal.  Write down: I’m going to approach 15 women per day for the next seven days.  I guarantee you that if you do that and you check back the following week, things are going to be a lot better for you.

Life is about repetition, and in order to become good at something, you’ve got to practice, practice, practice.  So get out there and practice.

. . .

PS. Don’t look at practice the way Allen Iverson does.

PSS. All jokes aside, do you go out there and play every ‘game’ like it’s your last? Food for thought…

So you are out on a date with somebody, it goes fairly well. Pretty soon, you’re waiting for them to call you back and you become obsessed about that person. You call up all your friends to try to figure out what you did right, what may have gone wrong, when they might call you, or why didn’t they haven’t called you yet.

“How come they didn’t call! What did I do wrong?”

And then all of sudden it’s six weeks later, you’ve been talking about this person constantly, and you haven’t dated anybody else since that date. You basically just wasted six weeks of your dating life.

Here is the deal: if you go out on a date and your date never calls you back afterwards––it’s over. Once it’s over, there’s no reason to think about it ever again. That person was not your dream person, that person was not your soul mate, that person was not the person you really wanted them to be since you went out on that date.

What you need to do is realize that all of that time that you’re wasting being obsessed about somebody you once dated and who doesn’t feel the same way about you is really just time wasted not going out and meeting anybody else. It’s time wasted not living your life the way you want to; time wasted on somebody that doesn’t give a damn about you; time wasted on a person who won’t even give you the time to call you back.

That’s the reality of it. This person who you’re obsessing over did not care enough about you to call you back. So now what do you do with that? You stop thinking about that person, you stop obsessing over that person, and you start realizing that there are so many more people out there. The world is abundant. There is an inventory of amazing single people to date everywhere you look.

I’m tired of the complaining, I’m tired of the obsessions.

Now is the time for you to get real with yourself, and stop the complaining, the whining, and start reengaging with the people around you.

Look at your life right now. Look at the people you’ve dated that didn’t work out. Look at how many hours and how many days you’ve obsessed about those people and think to yourself, “Why did I do it? Why did I drive everybody crazy talking about it?”

Stop.

. . .

It’s 2012. You’re all growns up now. Let the past be the past. Look around you and be grateful for all the attractive people you’re going to be dating soon.

Now get out there and engage life. Stop obsessing and get into your best relationship yet.

You deserve it.

PS. Whatever you do, don’t be this guy.

Yeah, I know what you’re thinking right now, “Another blog post from David that has nothing to do with dating.” How do you know? How do you know this has nothing to do with dating, because—let me tell you something––it can have a ton of things to do with dating.

First off, when you sell something on Craigslist, you never know who’s going to come over and buy it from you. It could be love at first sight. Secondly, when you buy something on Craigslist, you never know who you’re buying from. She could be super hot, maybe she likes clothing swap parties, and the next thing you know, you guys are swapping clothes in your bedroom after meeting on Craigslist.

Yes, I said it. You can meet people on Craigslist. And it doesn’t have to be one of those cheesy Casual Encounters ads either.

But, I digress.

So, I’m selling my iMac on Craigslist and a guy writes back and tells me that he’s paying in CASH. Uh, well, what do you think we’re accepting on Craigslist? Credit cards? PayPal? Money order? Traveler’s checks? Of course you’re going to pay me in cash, dude—it’s Craigslist!

People are very funny. What, am I supposed to be impressed because you’re paying in cash? It’s just a way of negotiating. When I negotiate, I always tell them that I will come over with (usually much less than) what they’re asking for right now—no hassle, nothing. “It’s $500? Okay, I’ll be over there in 20 minutes with $400. Cash.”

That’s how you negotiate. You tell them you’ll be there in 20 minutes because they’re already dreaming about the money. And, they already know where the money is going. Maybe they’re getting a new computer. Or maybe it’s the Craigslist in LA and they have to pay their ridiculous rent for the month. Either way, they’ve already got that money spent in their mind and it makes the deal go so much smoother for you, the buyer.

So that’s the key to negotiating on Craigslist. And as for dates, well, you never know who’s on the other end.

Share with us today if you have any Craigslist stories. Any people that you’ve met on Craigslist via putting up an ad or if you absolutely fell in love with the person who you bought your car from or your new Mac computer.

You never know.

They had good pedigree. They were successful and age appropriate. They were good-looking. They followed up with phone calls. Then all of a sudden—poof—they just vanished.

You’re in shock. You can’t believe that this one went away. You felt like it was the perfect kind of a relationship. You really felt like you were ready for it. You really needed this relationship because you were so tired of dating. You were tired of putting yourself online and having nothing happen. You were tired of going to the parties and heading out to the same bars and restaurants. You felt like this was the one.

Here’s the deal: everything that you’ve ever known about dating is wrong. During those three weeks you never kept a dating journal. See, Mr. and Mrs. Perfect do not exist. What we do when we date is we get caught up in what I call the oxytocin moment. We get caught up in this wave of emotion, like a drug is released in our bodies.

It feels so good to be rescued from being single. But in reality, the warning signs are there from the beginning. I tell everybody in my very new book, Naked, to keep a dating journal, and write down how you feel at the end of each date. How does this person make you feel? Do you feel desired? Do you feel excited? Take it even deeper. Do you keep a journal where you know exactly the way you need to feel in a relationship?

My new book Naked goes really deep into dating. It gets you to fall in love with the most important person in your life: you. Because when it comes down to dating, most of us date based on needs. I need to have a relationship. I need to no longer be single. I need to find somebody different because the last person didn’t treat me well.

What Naked does is it takes everything down to the root and allows you to forgive everything that’s gone on in your life and allows you to embrace all the lessons you’ve learned. But more importantly, it gets you to fall in love with who you are as a person. It allows you to realize that you’re an amazing catch.

Naked is almost 200 pages of daily exercises that help you no longer date out of need, out of frustration, or out of desperation. When it comes to love, in order to find someone to love you the way you need to be loved, you need to love yourself first. You need to take yourself out on dates. You need to do things for yourself. You need to feel amazing and wonderful and you need to strip yourself down of all your fears and become naked. You need to forget about past failures and learn from them.

But more importantly, you need to know exactly what you want going into that date, emotionally. Because when it comes down to dating, all it is is based on feelings. How did you feel at the end of a date? Most of us have never asked that question, because we always date based on wants, needs, and desires.

It’s time to change the way you date. It’s time to get naked.

Today I want to talk to you about something that a lot of guys already know on the inside, but they forget when they’re out in public or they’re in the presence of a woman they’re attracted to.

It’s something that I talk about a lot—it’s the fact that you have to have fun whatever it is that you’re doing.  And if you’re in a situation that you feel uncomfortable in, either find a way to make it fun for yourself or stop doing that and go do something that you actually enjoy doing.

Ditch your friends if you have to.  If you’ve been going downtown to the clubs, but on the inside you actually feel like the artsy hipster girl is a better fit for you than the dolled-up high heels girl, start hanging out with the artsy hipster crowd.

The internet is so full of information about this and that.  I was watching a video this morning that revealed 10 secret places to touch a woman when you’re on a first date.  What?  10 places?    What is this, the game “Operation”?

When I’m on a date, I hold a woman’s hand during the date, and then I kiss her on the lips at the end of the date.  That’s it.

It’s funny how quickly we forget about the basics.  Going out and meeting women is not that difficult.  Going on a date and engaging the woman you’re out with in great conversation is not that difficult.

So why can’t so many guys do it?  It’s because they’re not having fun.  They’re not engaged in the conversation at hand.  They’re thinking about whether or not they bought the right Axe body spray out of the 38 varieties on the shelf.  They’re thinking about whether they’ve touched the girl on secret place #6 yet.  They’re trying way too hard and they’re just not being themselves.  And the most frustrating part about it is that most guys are actually aware that the only thing holding them back is themselves.

So what do you do?  How do you solve this?

You tell yourself that you’re going to enjoy yourself no matter what.  You don’t worry about making the best impression possible.  You don’t worry about getting laid.  Don’t even think about trying to get laid.  You’ll get there eventually.

Go out to a place you like to go out to.  Smile at everyone.  Wink at the hot ones.  Eat what you like.  Wear what you like.  Talk about what you like to talk about.  Tell jokes that you like.  Laugh when you feel like laughing.   If something goes a little awry…laugh at that, too.

And why do you do it this way?  Because the #1 key to attracting a beautiful woman is by being yourself, and I truly believe that it’s impossible to simultaneously have fun and not be yourself.

When you’re out this weekend, I want you to feel like this guy:

If you’re feeling a little uptight, play this on your phone.  Forget about other people looking at you.  Stop behaving the way you think others want you to behave.  The reality is that nobody is really looking at you and nobody really cares about how you behave.  Let loose.  Have a drink, for chrissakes.  Approach the entire situation like you’re having a blast, like you’re just having the time of your life.  That’s what makes you an attractive personality, and that’s what’s going to make women want to be with you.

Remember that this whole thing is not that complicated.  The weekend is here for you to enjoy, so go out and have fun!

I remember I went on an online date a couple years ago, this woman looked so great and amazing in her picture. Her profile described her as “fit and trim.”
Then when she showed up for the date, she was walking with a limp. This fit and trim athletic woman was walking towards me with a limp. And as she got closer, her shape got bigger and bigger. And pretty soon I realized that it wasn’t a limp she had, she was walking that way because she was carrying an extra ass with her.

She sat down to the table all nervous, fingernails bitten raw. The woman I saw in the picture looked glamorous. So I asked her, “How have you been?”
She said, “Man I’ve been really brutal lately. I’ve got this thyroid condition and I’ve just been putting on a lot of weight. I’m so sorry that I look this way. I really will get back to the way that I looked in those pictures, I swear I will.”

Meanwhile I’m thinking to myself, I’ve only known this woman for 15 seconds. This is going to be one of those half an hour dates where I pretend that someone texted me from the office and I’m going to go back.
So I said, “No, don’t worry about it, we all go through rough times. She said, “Rough times, you wouldn’t believe how this year’s been with my mother.” And then she went into this whole story about how her mother told her that she was gay. And how her mother now has a lesbian lover, her father got depressed and had a nervous breakdown. And she dumps all this on me in the first three minutes of our date.

So I start thinking to myself that would it actually be pretty rude to just check out and pretend I got a text from my office right now because I am terrified to know what the other 27 minutes are going to bring. So I did something which I think all of you should do.

When you have a crazy online date–and you will have crazy online dates–give the person a little bit of your time and attention and realize they might just need somebody to talk to. They might need an ear to listen to their stuff and unload on.

I like to be as nice as I possibly can. Why? Because I truly believe in karma, and I believe that being nice and authentic and amazing to people is the only way to treat people. You’re going to get brownie points in this world for doing that.

And then at the end of the date, look at her and say, “I’m so sorry, I’ve got to get back to the office. I really enjoyed talking to you and I wish you all the best.” It’ll make her feel good. She knows you’re not going to see her again. She’s done this on every date for the last probably three, four, five months.

You want to be the one who makes her feel good. Because you might run into her again. She might have a hot friend, and you don’t want to be the ass who basically blew her off on the day that she really needed to talk to somebody more than anything.

It’s about treating people with compassion. It’s about treating people the way you’d like to be treated. I hope you never go on a date and complain about your thyroid condition, how you’ve put on weight, and how depressed you are right now. But if you get that crazy date who unloads that on you, have a little compassion and you’ll see it will take you a long way.

Kids are babied nowadays more than ever. The other day I was driving down the street, and I saw a kid on a tricycle with a helmet. A helmet. On a tricycle. There’s no way that tricycle was going to fall over and the kid was going to hit his head on the concrete. But yet the kid had a helmet on.

I think that can really serve as a metaphor for what society is nowadays. Society is all about babying every single step of our lives from the second we’re on that tricycle with a helmet for no good reason, all the way through high school and college, and then even while you’re off on your own.

I think that we’ve got a generation now that is full of people who have been absolutely babied every single step of the way, and that’s why they’re so afraid of conflict. I’m hoping that this blog pisses you off, makes you angry, and makes you realize some things about your own life, because I want to see you angry. I want to see you full of conflict, I want to see you really raging and fuming on the inside right now.

I want to see you sick and tired of the situations you put yourself into, over and over again.

Can you motivate yourself enough to keep yourself moving? Can you motivate yourself to face conflict and face your own fears head-on?
We’ve got boot camps coming up all next year. We’re doing one in each city, and that’s it.

You want conflict and growth? You get your butt to one of these boot camps. To check out next years schedule click here.

And if you can’t afford a boot camp, what are you going to do to change the mindset that you’ve put yourself in right now? How are you going to grow? Who is going to push you? Who is going to push you so far that you can grow through the conflict and start to work on yourself to get this part of your life handled?

And I was thinking to myself, how should I address this person? Is he a “Hey” guy or a “Hi” guy?

All my e-mails always start with something like, “Hey Joe,” “Hey Amy,” “Hey Tom.”

But some people are not “Hey” people. Some people are a little more formal, and should be addressed with “Hi Tom,” “Hi Mary,” “Hi Joe”—that type of thing.
So I was thinking that when you send an e-mail, you really need to know the type of person you’re writing to, because a “Hey” may turn off a Hi person, and a “Hi” may turn off a Hey person.

A lot of people also have these signatures at the end of your e-mail. Some people have a “Thanks”, some of you are “Talk Soon,” and some of you write “Bye for now.” Some people write, “Regards.”

But the thing is, we wouldn’t actually refer to each person we write to with a “Talk Soon,” a “Regards,” or a “Hey There.” So many of us are not personal at all in our e-mails. We’ve got a “Hey” for everybody, a “Talk Soon” to everybody, or a “Thanks” to everybody.

Why don’t we kind of just kind of sign off and sign on the way we would in person? You don’t walk up to every single person and go, “Hey,” “Hi,” and end every conversation with a “Talk Soon,” “Regards,” “Thanks.”

We’ve gotten really lazy, and we basically try to take every shortcut with technology. I guess sometimes shortcuts aren’t good. Maybe it’s time to personalize things just a little bit more.