The “take no crap” approach was refreshing, but I just couldn’t agree with the advice to always let the man do the work. Unfortunately, I can’t produce any personal experience to refute this idea. It so happens that my husband pursued me and that past relashionships where I aggressively pursued someone crashed and burned terribly.

My general advice would be to make eye contact (without staring!), smile a lot and be yourself.

I didn’t do any real dating until after university, and then I signed up for lavalife. I probably went on dates with close to 100 people (all through lavalife). The majority, it was just a first date and thanks see you later, others it was a few dates, and a handful it turned it to months or year long relationships. And the last one is the one I ended up marrying (I was the first person she met online, so her standards must’ve been pretty low).
I don’t regret it for a second. Sure, I spent a lot of time in coffeeshops. But I met a lot of great people, some I am still friends with. And if you go through enough dates, you actually get pretty good at the whole interview process and interacting with strangers. That was something I wasn’t good at before, so if I got nothing out of it, at least my soft skills improved.

Definitely, what you are looking for changes over time. It used to be a slim, classy, intelligent girl. Now it’s someone who can make me laugh and has great relationships with her friends and parents. It changes as you meet people who you thought were perfect for you end up feeling hollow. Or when you meet someone you weren’t expecting to hit it off with, but you discovered what you were really looking for in a mate, but didn’t know it.

I agreed to dinner with him because he seemed like a decent guy and I needed a distraction. My guard was down and I made no effort to impress him whatsoever. It turns out he liked me for who I really was. The feeling shortly became mutual, and 3 kids and a total of 20 years or so later, we’re still here.

The moral is, if you are true to yourself and find someone else who is the same way, there will be no nasty surprises years down the road. To this day, I cannot understand why my husband finds some of my more annoying qualities so amusing, but he does, and I’m really grateful for that.

So it’s a numbers game – is what you’re saying, yes? The more you put yourself out there, the more likely you are to get a yes amidst the no’s?
Pretty much the same principle salesmen and cold callers base their pitches on – huh? Is being persistent what its about?

Before we were even dating, my now-husband informed me he was going to marry the crap outta me.

He did.

TMW: “Up in the Air” was fantastic (and you’re right, that was a great scene). Making your intentions clear is good advice…