Say you are looking at a sushi bar and you say to her, “Man, there’s a lot of different colors here” and she ignores you. What do you do next?

A lot of guys run. They play the “oops I spoke and you didn’t respond right away so I’m going to run and hide” game. The guys who run in this situation do so without realizing a lot of things.

They do so without realizing that the person they talked to might be shy. In fact, that person might even be shyer than you.

You might have taken her off guard, and she wasn’t ready for a conversation. She might have been thinking about something else. You have no idea because you are not inside her head.

So let’s go back to the sushi scenario. In that situation, here is how I would handle it.

If when I say the observation about the colors the woman looks taken aback, then I would say to her, “What are you getting? What’s good here?” I would give her the opportunity to respond.

Think about yourself and how many times you are out somewhere — at the market, a coffee house, a clothing store or wherever — and you are trapped in your own thoughts. You might be thinking about your day, about work, about what you have to do when you get home or even about your underwear. Who knows?

Just think about how many times you are stuck in your own thought process. So, with that in mind, give someone another shot to respond to you before you bail in these situations thinking someone blew you off.

You may not be getting blown off at all. You might have just caught her stuck in her own thoughts and shocked her for a moment.

That is all it takes. Give it another whirl. If she still ignores you, then maybe she isn’t interested.

If that is the case, then you move on and say “no chemistry” to yourself. Then you think, “They weren’t interested. Who cares? Next!”

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Then I tried to get one of the Southwest vouchers. The problem is that they only allow a certain number of people per flight to use a voucher, and I missed being allowed on one flight I needed to get another flight, so I couldn’t work that out.

Then I called up American Airlines, and American told me we’ve got award travel miles (12,500 for one way and 25,000 the other way) available so the ticket would cost an additional $100.00. If two people fly, though, you can get it for $120.00 but only if it comes out of one mileage account. If it comes out of two separate mileage accounts, then it costs $200.00.

So then I called up United Airlines, which was the best one so far. They could get us there using 25,000 airline miles, except that we were short some miles in my account. So I asked if I could transfer some miles into my account (which they could), but they said the transfer takes 48 hours and I needed to be on the flight before then.

Since I was already on the phone with them and they could see on their computer screen that the miles I wanted transferred were there, I asked if they could just do the transfer right then and there so we could get the tickets. They said no, they couldn’t do it because the 48 hour thing is a rule.

It’s unbelievable the amount of rules that are out there.  People are robots. Nobody can break a rule . . . or even alter a rule.

Last night we went out to dinner to talk about this wonderful day spent finding airfare. We were at a sushi restaurant, and I wanted one piece of uni. At this restaurant, uni comes two to an order for $8.00. I asked if I could order just one piece of uni, and the waiter said no (because they only serve it in orders of two).

So, basically, the restaurant didn’t want to make $4.00, and they didn’t want to split the order up because it would break the rules. I talked to the manager to see if he would be willing to break the rules, but he said he wouldn’t break the rule because it’s a rule and he had to obey the rule.

People are such robots. Nobody can ever bend a rule even a little bit. I know the airlines have to have certain rules, but the problem is that they have so many different rules — and the rules change so often — that no one can figure out what all the rules are.

Can you bring on carry-on luggage or can you not bring on carry-on luggage? Now, all of a sudden, you have to pay to check your luggage.  Because of that, everybody’s trying to just have carry-on luggage (leaving no overhead space on the plane).

The “rules” say that the plane should have a certain amount of overhead space per person, but most people put their suitcases up there with the wheels sideways so only about half as much luggage actually fits up there. Isn’t there also a “rule” about which direction the wheels should go in the overhead containers? How come no one follows that rule?  

We all are robots.  We all follow rules in life. So what does all this have to do with dating?

Well, a lot of people think there are rules in dating. I can’t tell you how many times I get an email from someone asking something like, “David, I read where you said that you should lean in on a date when you’re talking to a woman, but someone else said you shouldn’t do that. Now, isn’t that a rule that you’re not supposed to lean in like that?”

It’s unbelievable. What about intuition? What about doing something just for the sake of doing it? What about trusting your own gut?

What about bending and breaking the “rules” sometimes? Why does there have to be so many rules? Why are we such a rule-driven society?

It’s amazing how many people have trouble meeting and dating the opposite sex because they believe there have to be rules. Hmmm, she flipped her hair on the left side, which means I should not kiss her tonight. Really?! Where did you read that . . . in some “10 rules for dating” article somewhere?

Whatever happened to just doing things because they feel right in the moment. Now, I’m not talking about a rule-less society, but every once in a while can’t we just give up that one piece of uni, allow someone to transfer a few airline miles or go in for a kiss without reading a textbook about it ahead of time? If we did, we might all actually live a little longer.