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She Gave Me Her Number… Should I Ask Her Out On A Date?

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Making a move on someone you’ve known awhile can be frustrating. Where do you start? How do you know when the right time is? What do you say?

The question of whether to ask them out is a huge one. Should you or shouldn’t you?

Dear Dan and Jennifer,

Hi, I have liked this girl for about a year. Last Friday I told her how I felt and she didn’t say ‘no’; Here’s what she said “David I think of you as a brother, but I don’t see why we can’t get to know each other better, and I’m not trying to raise your hopes and I can’t promise you anything”, and then she gave me her phone number. Should I leave it as it is for a while, or should I make a move?

–David, CA

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0bC6hFKpafg[/youtube]

Is the Door Open or Closed?

Take a look at the situation from an outsider’s perspective. Look at your crush’s body language and their mannerisms toward you. Are they flirty? Do they seem to show interest in you? Have they given you their number? If you’re noticing these types of behaviors, your door is most likely open to make a move.

If their body language or mannerisms towards you are cold, or unresponsive to you, you’re probably facing a closed door. Before you ask your crush out, take some time to really feel out the situation and use your intuition and perception to judge as best you can how receptive your crush is to you. If the door seems open, go for it!

Getting The Date

If you’re lucky enough to snag a date with your crush, congratulations! Now it’s time to show your crush how much you’re into them. Don’t try to be buddies with them, because they might end up thinking of you as just a “buddy.” Don’t be standoff-ish either, because you might get the cold shoulder in return.

Let your crush know you’re happy to be on a date with them and be casually romantic. Let them know using your language and body language that you’re not trying to be buddies or anything else but romantically involved with your crush. If you try too hard to be friends with your crush, you might end up getting yourself stuck in the “friend zone.” This is never a fun place to be when you like someone!

If you snag a date with your crush, it’s important to let them know right off the start that you enjoy spending time with them romantically and that you’re even sexually interested in them.  Take it easy and don’t put pressure on them, and you’ll find that the relationship develops romantically over time.

Don’t Pass Up The Opportunity

It’s important if you see an open door when it comes to asking your crush out, that you take it. Many people are so shy or so caught up in the crush that they fail to realize that their crush is literally holding the door wide open to be asked out!

Some people are hard to read, but if you give it a little time and some effort, you can use their body language and their general attitude towards you to figure out if they’ll be receptive to you asking them out. Taking the plunge and asking your crush out on a date might seem really intimidating at first, but if you have an open door, go for it!

There’s a slight chance of rejection but that’s usually the case no matter who you’re asking out. If the door seems closed, you can wait and see if it opens later. If your crush acts cold to you though, or generally doesn’t give you any reason to believe they’d be interested in having you ask them out, you’re better off expending your energy on another fish in the sea.

With a bit of patience and some courage, you might find yourself dating your crush sooner than you expected!

First Date Dilemma

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Singles muddle through mixed messages, fuzzy intentions, and changing social mores. 

Gone are the days when a man and a woman meeting over a drink knew the outing was undoubtedly a first date. With lines blurring between the platonic and the romantic, defining what constitutes a first date has become a guessing game, as maddening as catching a gnat with chopsticks.

The various intentions behind a first date, from finding a mate to bedding a casual-sex partner, has forced many singles to define exactly what it is.

Check out First Date Dilemma, a great article from Mark de la Vina of the San Jose Mercury News. Not only is Mark’s article entertaining and well written…

It also features extensive quotes from your favorite Dating & Relationship advice columnists, Dan and Jennifer. Yes, we’re biased. :-). Go check it out.

6 Ways To Make An Office Romance Work

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Most people have either dated a co-worker or have thought about pursuing a co-worker, but there seems to be an underlying hesitance to do so because of the “sexual harassment” fear.

If you do decide to take the leap, here’s a great article from our good friend Jane May at www.CareerRamblings.com.

"6 Ways To Make An Office Romance Work"

Just make sure you’re doing it for the right reasons…

It’s really easy to get infatuated with a co-worker because it seems that they care about the same things that you do, when in reality work may be the only thing you have in common.

I’ve seen too many people throw away marriages for an office fling.

Having said all of that… Dan and I met at the office :-).

Is Your Partner Cheating on You? Are You Sure?

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Jealousy… Anger… Fear… Frustration… Confusion…;

These are the most common first emotions when you first suspect your partner of Cheating.

Do you think your partner may be cheating on YOU?

Do you trust your partner completely and think there’s absolutely no way they would ever cheat?

Well, think again…

More people than ever before, thanks to the internet, are cheating on their partners.

With online dating sites, social networking sites, video chat rooms, email and instant messengers, it’s easier than ever to meet someone, have an affair – and get away with it.

Check out these really scary statistics from CheaterCheckers.com.

  • 1 in 2 people in a relationship cheat on their partner
  • 9 out of 10 women who feel their partner is cheating are correct
  • 50% of men who feel their partner is cheating are correct
  • 57% of women cheat on their partner
  • 3 in 4 married men cheat on their partner
  • 2 out of 3 people being cheated on never find out

If you’re like me, you know that people cheat, but those numbers are much, much, much higher than I ever would have guessed.

Now if you know Dan and me very well, you know that we don’t believe in the whole partner ownership thing.

However, if you have made an agreement with someone to stay completely monogamous (Yes, you actually talked about it. Not just ‘assumed’ that’s how it would be.), and then you go behind your partner’s back with another person – that’s lying and you’ve broken the trust between you and your partner.

Without trust, you cannot have a truly intimate and loving relationship.

Our thoughts are that if you really find another person incredibly attractive and it will bring you joy to have sex with them – talk to your partner about it and if it seems like a good thing to do and both of you are OK with it, then go for it.

Again, we don’t subscribe to the whole ownership and jealousy thing. You cannot own another person, and if you really love them unconditionally, you will want them to do whatever brings them joy and happiness.

Unconditional Love means that you place no conditions on your partner (or anyone else for that matter) as to how they must behave, or who they must be, in order to receive love and acceptance from you.

Here’s a great article and another perspective on unconditional love from Roy Klienwachter, author of several books and hundreds of articles on the subjects of New Age Philosophy and Spirituality.

"What Does Unconditional Love Really Mean?"

What we find most of the time is that when we are attracted to another person, it’s mostly the thrill of the chase…

Talking about it openly with your partner will very often diminish the perceived excitement of the other person because suddenly it’s no longer taboo or forbidden. Also, we’ve found that if you talk about what you find exciting about the other person, you may both get so aroused you’ll have the best sex you’ve had in months.

If of course, you can get past the whole jealousy ownership thing…

Trust me, it’s better to just to be open and honest with each other.

If you want to find out for certain, right now, if your partner is cheating on you, download How To Catch a Cheating Spouse today.

First Serious Relationship… Should We Date Other People?

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The Question: My boyfriend and I have been dating for almost seven months now, and I love him a lot. He says he loves me too, and I believe him. We’re already talking about getting married after we graduate from college, but I feel uncomfortable sometimes because this is my first serious relationship. He, on the other hand, has had actual girlfriends before, and a lot of them. In fact, he started dating me about a week after his previous girlfriend broke up with him.

Maybe this shouldn’t bother me so much, but it hurts so much whenever I think about how he’s loved multiple girls before me. It just feels like if we broke up, he’d begin dating someone else right away. He promises this wouldn’t happen, but I’m not so sure. It wouldn’t bother me so much if I was his first girlfriend also. I feel like if we end up getting married, I’ll have wanted more dating experience.

I thought I should talk to him about this, but honestly, what good would it do? I can’t change the past, and I’m sure he doesn’t regret dating any of his past girlfriends, but I regret not having had more serious relationships. I thought maybe I could talk to him, and we could take a break for a month. I haven’t said anything to him yet, but I do want to know whether he’d date other girls during that month, or wait for me, proving he loves me.

I know it’s stupid and he shouldn’t have to prove his love. And maybe I’m just being paranoid, jealous, and vindictive… but it hurts, thinking of all his ex-girlfriends. What do you think I should do?

The Answer: First serious relationship or tenth serious relationship, the feelings that you’re feeling are perfectly normal. They’re feelings of ‘wanting control’. We all want to subtly, and some times directly, control other people – our friends, our parents, our boyfriends, our co-workers. We want to make them do, act, and say the things that we feel is best.

The easiest solution here is to try to let go and understand that you simply can’t control another person. You can love them, and they can love you, but you simply cannot ever control them and make them act the way you want them to. This is an illusion that has shattered countless relationships.

One of the biggest underlying problems in troubled relationships today is that people feel like they "own" their partner. This is the real reason behind jealousy and similar types of feelings. The best thing to do is to just allow other people to be themselves and love them for who they are and not who you want them to be.

It doesn’t matter who he’s been with before. It’s those decisions and those relationships that have made him the person you’re in love with. In the same respect, it’s your experiences, or lack of experiences that make you the person that he loves today.

If you want to date other people, then that’s cool. Just be up front about it, talk about it honestly, and make sure that it’s something you both want. But you shouldn’t set a double standard and definitely don’t use it as a test to see what he’d do. If you bring it up and he honors your suggestion, then that’s the deal. Simple. Just be prepared to accept the outcome. If you let the birdie out of it’s cage to see if it’ll fly away… it just might.

I’d stay away from the marriage talk for now. If and when the time is right, you’ll know. Some people get so excited about getting married quickly, we joke that it’s almost like locking in a low mortgage rate… "quick, sign here before the rate goes up".

Guess what? There’s no requirement for every relationship to turn into marriage. In fact, a lot of relationships sour that way because we all grow and change. Many times, we grow and change in different directions, regardless of what the legal marriage document says. It’s a good idea to take enough time to be sure that you’re both growing in the same direction.

Live your lives together, enjoy each other, and be happy on your journey together. Tomorrow will come soon enough and in it’s own time. Until then, enjoy what you have now.

Related Link: Are you just getting back into the dating scene? If you are then come check out a free personals site where you can browse through singles in your area or even find date ideas.