Lately, I’ve noticed that there is a lot of bad dating advice out there, even coming from other relationship experts.
While it’s all well intentioned— lots of the time these ideas keep women stuck and in pain. Today, I want to spare you from that.
Here are 19 of the worst and most damaging pieces of bad dating advice for women.
1. “Play” hard to get.
I’m sure you’ve heard this piece of bad dating advice. Pretend to be super unavailable. He will love it when you don’t return his calls. He will be driven to pursue you harder.
Not so fast. Acting uninterested is not the key to success with men or anyone else.
Given the choice, most people would much rather date someone who shows some interest in them.
However, there is a huge, life-changing difference between “responding enthusiastically to his suggestion of a date” and “hanging on his every word.”
Men like it when you have a full life with your own hobbies, activities and interests. They don’t like it when you turn them into your sole source of entertainment and life fulfillment.
2. If you don’t feel a spark immediately, you shouldn’t accept a date.
It is counterproductive to write someone off immediately because you don’t feel a spark right away.
It is common for people not to feel a spark at first and notice that they are very, very attracted and in love sometime later. This can only happen if you give them a chance.
Research supports the idea love and attraction can grow as you get to know someone.
If you’re downright repulsed, annoyed or afraid of someone, don’t stick around, but if you’re simply “not sure” yet, give yourself the opportunity to get to know them and see what happens.
3. Wait 3 days to get in touch.
The dating rule that people should wait 3 days to get in touch is unhelpful.
Expecting and trying to conform to arbitrary dating rules like this tends to make people act weird.
In the end, you probably aren’t going to get ghosted because you only waited two days instead of three.
You’re probably more likely to be ghosted because you think it’s important to stick to strange dating rules like this.
4. If he’s truly interested in you, he will ask you out.
I see the other side of this dating myth all the time when I work with men in coaching.
Whether or not a man will ask you out depends on so much more than whether or not he really wants to date you.
Being the socially accepted person (man) to initiate in dating comes with a ton of baggage. Often it has nothing to do with you.
He must overcome his anxiety and fear of rejection.
He must get past any strange ideas he made up about you about why you may or may not be available to date.
He must be in a headspace where he has time and resources to devote to dating.
He has to figure out how he will approach you and how he will go about it. There’s probably more that I’m leaving out right now.
The point is that it’s not simple as “if he likes you, you will know.” This leads me to my next point.
5. Men should always be the ones to initiate.
Usually when a man in his masculine energy successfully initiates, he has already been signaled by the feminine partner that his advances may be welcome.
This is not a rule or a suggestion, this is what happens.
There is a masculine/feminine or yin/yang energy dynamic at work in romantic relationships.
Someone does the giving and someone receives– potentially flipping back and forth many times during any interaction. Their human genders don’t always have anything to do with who is playing which role.
This is because all human beings have access to BOTH yin and yang energy sources.
In my experience, problems crop up when both people are using the same energy source.
If you are both trying to initiate at the same time, no one is receiving. If you both are receiving, no one is giving.
6. Men should always pay for dates.
Modern etiquette says that the person who asks is the one who pays.
In courtship it works well to aim to give back after you receive. For example, he takes you out to dinner and then you get the ice cream for dessert.
Or, he takes you out and then you suggest another date that you pay for.
It’s not about meeting the other person dollar for dollar or going Dutch and splitting everything. It is about everyone showing interest by contributing.
In a partnership, both people reciprocate and bring resources to the relationship.
7. Men only want one thing.
Men think about a lot of other things besides sex. They are not automatically one-track minded.
A man can go on a date to get to know you and enjoy your company without automatically requiring an opportunity to take you to bed.
He might want to get to know you. He might not feel like jumping into bed right now. He might want a taco. It varies. Just like you.
Let’s stop being insecure about whether our value as women is only as sexual objects. Also, it’s disrespectful to go around treating every man you encounter as though he’s only interested in one thing.
8. You should be ready to jump into bed by date 3.
Here’s what I told a reader who asked me about this dating myth:
I’m not sure where this idea came from but it’s really dumb and damaging.
This arbitrary 3 date rule about intimacy is brain washing meant to take away your natural decision-making process on when you want the relationship to progress.
The whole idea is meant to make you anxious that if you don’t put out, it will your fault that he withdraws because you were the one who didn’t put out fast enough.
Stop buying into this nonsense right now.
There’s no doubt about it— there is a huge, crappy double standard about “rules” for intimacy between men and women.
Men are told to go out and get as much as they can as fast as they can, then fault the woman if they put out “too soon.” You get around this by honoring YOUR desires and requirements, not some B.S. “rules” meant to make you afraid.
A man who truly wants to push this on you either doesn’t care about you enough to respect the relationship’s natural timing or he’s so inexperienced that he’s mindlessly following dating rules he learned on TV.
Or the internet.
Or… anywhere except the real life human being in front of him.
Either way, honor your own timing and communicate that with your dates.
9. Wait months and months to be intimate.
Just like the three date rule above, completely withholding sex for months artificially to “see if he’s really into you” is another unhelpful way to manipulate the situation.
But, I just said to pay no attention to the three date rule, so what are you supposed to do?
When is a good time to be intimate?
Go to the bedroom when it feels right, you truly want to and you have both defined what you want the relationship to look like.
Only you know what that is like for you and it also depends on the relationship.
Plenty of women have waited months or years and others have established marriages after having sex on the first date.
The time period is way less important than your attitude around what you are doing.
10. The only way to get over someone is to get on someone else.
There is a giant difference between wanting to move on and using someone else to feel better.
Using someone else’s company for approval so you can feel better will backfire. You don’t have the time or opportunity to process your feelings about the breakup.
Moving on because you want someone new in your life is a separate focus and the reason why sometimes rebound relationships work out fine.
11. You should only date to attract everlasting love.
The idea that you have to be ultra super serious about dating otherwise you should be just alone is ridiculous and unhelpful. You don’t have to choose one thing to want and then only do that.
Wanting to get out and go on dates is not wrong.
Wanting everlasting love is not wrong.
Wanting a fling is not wrong.
Wanting to date multiple people and explore polyamory is not wrong.
You can go out and date people for any reason you want.
What causes problems is being dishonest or unclear about your reasons for dating.
10. You’ll attract the one solely by using the law of attraction.
The law of attraction is simply that “like attracts like.”
There are no “therefore” instructions included or implied in the law of attraction.
In my experience, trying to manifest love using the law of attraction is where many, many people end up getting distracted with thinking about what they want and using various manifesting techniques, but nothing happens.
For example, say I want to be a professional hockey player. I think that hockey players probably know a lot about hockey.
I don’t know exactly where to start, so I start learning all about the game of hockey.
I buy the best hockey gear. I read autobiographies by professional hockey players.
All of this gets me closer to “hockey player” mindset. That’s fine– but if I mistake learning about hockey for playing hockey, it doesn’t matter what I think about. I have to go play hockey.
What professional hockey players are doing is PLAYING HOCKEY.
This is what people get wrong about the law of attraction and what holds them back from manifesting what they want.
Once you know which direction you want to travel in, you have to get on the road.
If you want a real, live human partner in your life, you must actually go out and do something AFTER you decide that’s what you want.
This includes dating, flirting, and getting out there. Even if you don’t meet your soulmate at the 40th speed dating round, you will meet someone eventually.
They may or may not be the person of your dreams, but if not, the only thing to do then is repeat the process until something desired happens.
11. If you really want to find love, you should be single for (some variable) amount of time first.
The kernel of truth here is that desperation to be in a relationship doesn’t usually help us create great relationships.
However, there are no rules about how long you should be single before you fall in love. People are highly individual. Some truly are fine moving on with someone new right away and some take longer.
Let’s stop judging each other’s processing around relationships.
12. You’ll finally meet someone when you aren’t looking.
I think what people really mean when they say “you’ll meet someone when you aren’t looking” is that you’ll meet someone when you aren’t feeling needy about meeting someone.
Real talk: I have only ever met someone when I was at least OPEN to meeting someone.
This meant that I had the dating profile and I went out on the date even if I didn’t necessarily feel like it just then.
Whenever I became overwhelmingly bitter or needy or desperate to find love, dating was a disaster.
Basically, get your amazing self out there. Don’t bother with mental gymnastics like, “not looking while looking.” It’s mentally draining.
You wouldn’t try to get a Ph.D without attending a university. In this world of form, you get stuff when you try things. You never know which bridge of incidents will lead to what you really want.
13. Find out where he stands on commitment right away.
Your biological clock might be ticking so loud it rings in your ears, but you should not sit a man down on the first couple dates and find out whether he’s “serious” about finding someone.
It’s fine to have a standard for the way you want your life to look.
What doesn’t work very well is trying to figure out if the human in front of you sees that future WITH YOU before they are ready.
In my experience as a coach, people think they know what they want and they change their mind.
They say they never want to get married and then propose 2 to someone months later. They announce they are falling in love and then disappear.
What someone tells you and thinks they want is much different than what they actually do.
He has to get to know you before he knows what to do with you.
Feeling him out about commitment can seem like you’re looking for a placeholder man to have a family with and not a life partner.
14. You’re being too picky, maybe he’s good enough.
There is a giant difference between running away when you feel afraid and knowing someone is not right for you in a way that you can’t quite put into words.
There is a ton that goes into chemistry, attraction, love and compatibility that isn’t rational or logical.
If you suspect you might be settling, then trying to talk yourself into it by using the rationalization that “you’re just too picky” will end badly.
In my experience, the internal voices and felt sense of “hell yes” and “hell no” sound and feel much different.
In can be more tricky to tease out the difference between:
- “Yes, but”
- “No, but”
- “I would like this more, if ___ was different”
- “Yes, but I’m afraid”
- “No, but I’m afraid”
- “I’m not sure”
- “I’m not sure and now I’m concerned that if I don’t choose soon someone will be upset and that’s a problem.”
It’s interesting to me that I’ve never fallen in love with anyone who I had a “hell yes” feeling about on a first date. But I have fallen in love with people who simply were not a “hell no.”
Both people in a relationship should feel like they’re getting a good deal by being with the other person.
Being true to yourself (and not your anxiety) is one of the keys to a life of love.
15. Men don’t like smart women.
No, the wrong person for you doesn’t like smart women.
What most people don’t enjoy is being around massive egos who believe they are smarter than everyone else and want to prove it.
Why would anyone want to date someone whose idea of a good time is hanging around idiots? WHY?!
Dumbing yourself down for anyone is a massive mistake. First, I don’t know anyone who can hide their intelligence for very long.
Second, if you are smart, do you really want to spend your precious life with someone who does not enjoy deep, intelligent conversations?
I highly doubt it.
Don’t start thinking you’re doomed because you’re too smart to have a great relationship with a high value man.
16. Men don’t like successful, educated women.
According to research published in Economics of Education, men on Tinder are not intimidated by highly educated women.
You don’t have to compete with a man or think about “what you bring to the table” in the success department. A good relationship will be a partnership.
If someone is so fragile and threatened by your success that they are not interested in continuing to date you, let them go off to be insecure by themself.
Trying to make something work will just drive you both crazy in the long run.
Being successful in the career department does present some genuine logistical challenges.
When you’re truly successful at work, there are not usually enough hours in the day for you to also be a trad wife at home.
For example, modern life involves a lot of chores and responsibilities that someone (hopefully not only you) must attend to. This is just reality.
You will have to discuss and negotiate with your mate how things like childcare, home maintenance and the laundry will be handled in your home. And maybe hold the line and have strong boundaries around what you will and will not do.
Otherwise, trying to adhere to some patriarchal traditional gender role at home will have you doing absolutely everything and working successful person hours at the same time. It’s a recipe for exhaustion and burnout.
17. If he really likes you he will “just know” what you want from him.
Enjoying your company does not make him a mindreader or require him to act how you would like.
He might be able to imagine, guess, and ask your closest friends and family what you might want.
However, thinking he is not truly interested because he doesn’t automatically act the way you desire is ridiculous and not based in reality.
18. Love conquers all.
Believing that love is unconditional and things will all work out perfectly if we just love someone can make us blind to the cold, hard realities of life.
The idea that love conquers all is problematic because it can lead people to rationalize awful behavior by themselves or their mate.
Not every love relationship is destined to survive everything that life throws at it.
Relationships are delicate things run by fallible humans. There are things that can’t be taken back. We might fall in love and pick partners who are bad for us.
People are flawed and make bad decisions. Relationships– even when there is true love– are not exempt from self sabotage, bad choices and general mishandling.
19. If it’s meant to be, it will be.
Your interest or love for each other might just be there, but a relationship requires an effort from everyone involved.
Relationships are the only area of life that people advise each other to improve by giving up.
It’s no accident when people overcome their personal brand of unhelpful thoughts in order to coexist peacefully and happily with their partner.
Effort is involved.
People who get things in life make a focused effort to earn and maintain them.
To find out what might be keeping you from manifesting the love you have always wanted, join my free masterclass, Overcome the 7 Blocks to Manifesting Love.
MORE: 47 Essential Pieces Of Relationship Advice For Strong Women
