Dating Rules

A commenter on "Why Chasing Women Doesn’t Work" writes:

“just over a two months ago i was intruduced to a girl by a couple i know, started off texting and getting to know each other. when we first met it was fantastic, got along great , we have met up every weekend since. As we have got to know each other a bit more and opened up to each other, she has a few issues with one of her ex partners who she left for stealing from her. (she was engaged to him )

she is in the process of talking to him again and getting her stuff back, but now i feel on the outer with her , hardly talks to me ect. i feel ive done somthing wrong i dunno, it all started great ,told each other how we feel , she stated she isnt ready for a relationship 'just yet', which i respect and kinda understand. I dont no if i should keep trying to talk to her or just give her a break and wait till she gets in touch with me .”

Now, for this commenter's situation specifically of course, the problem's compounded by a lack of moving fast enough and attraction expiring. Those will cause the slow death of a potential relationship every time, ex-boyfriend or not.

But when her ex-boyfriend is in the picture, this is particularly exacerbated - because everything you have the might be good with her is less good, and everything that isn't the best gets worse.

Ex-boyfriends, in any way, shape, or form, are invariably bad news for any kind of relationship you want to get going with girls.

We now present the 18th Edition of the Carnival of Dating Advice... now fully legal (age of consent joke there), bringing you some of the best articles on pickup, dating, seduction, psychology, relationships, and other fun, related things from across the blogosphere.

This name of the game for edition's articles is "practical" - from Jon Rhodes's piece on spotting a liar, to Liz Leia's piece on spotting gold diggers, to Sulagna Dasgupta's on spotting which men are interested (for the ladies, that is), you'll be walking away from today's collection of articles with your antennae pricked and your senses trained to interpret all manner of different signals from the people around you.

Without further ado then, on with the carnival...

Welcome, friends, to the 17th Edition of the Carnival of Dating Advice, bringing you the latest and greatest articles in dating advice, seduction, psychology, relationship, and more from the four corners of the web.

Today we have on offer a couple of interesting pieces on psychology; a guide to one of the key elements of emerging from heated arguments unscathed ("Stay on target"); a reminder about smiling; and a short review on that new Facebook phenomenon, "Bang With Friends."

May I present, for your reading delight, our carnival...

Welcome, once again, to the Carnival of Dating Advice, Edition 16, bringing you the latest and greatest from all over the web on dating, relationships, seduction, and more.

I had to sift through some chaff to get to the wheat this time, including some pretty sales-y articles and a bunch on finding a Russian bride (link to Russian bride website dutifully included several times per article). That said, I did find some wheat.

Your articles today run the gamut from basic to intriguing to roundly exciting. I'll let you decide which is which, but there's something here for just about everybody. I actually thought starting out this was going to be a lackluster carnival, but the deeper into the submissions I got, the more colorful and interesting a carnival it turned out to be.

So here we are, without any further ado...

Here we are, with Carnival 15 of the Carnival of Dating Advice. This is (I think) the biggest carnival we've had yet, with a total of 11 articles making the cut. Looks like submitting to the carnival made it onto some folks' new year's resolutions this January.

Today we've got a panoply of articles, including some great reads. The ones in the pickup section were two of my favorites, and I was a big fan of Tamika Lanelle's contribution this time, presenting a perspective on relationships I hear few people discuss. But there are a ton of solid pieces here, and enough good material to keep you reading, thinking, and learning for a while.

Let's dive in...

A couple of fellas have asked on here about cutting contact recently. Here's Matt's comment from the article entitled "Your Mental Model is Flawed":

“Can you explain cut off marks (ie, cutting off contact with a girl... say if she doesn't sleep with you or is not responding well) in more detail? You've talked about that before in several posts, how now if a girl does not sleep with you on the first date, you usually end things with her and are not going to up forth the effort because you have many other options. Do you just delete her number? Richardus talks about keeping "bad" numbers and then firing off texts to all of them in the future and see who bites. What's your opinion?

Maybe a more nuanced guide of cut off marks for every level (beginner, intermediate, advanced) would be helpful. Also I'm a little confused about how persistance seems to contradict this. Hopefully I've made some sense!

Matt”

Sure thing, Matt.

This is kind of a delicate issue. It's an issue that normally, you want to treat with tenderness, care, and kid gloves.

You kind of want to walk people through it... guide them, kindly and gradually, you might say... help them understand things without being too harsh, or abrasive.

You know... easy on the offensiveness.

Unfortunately, we're going to tackle this one how I want to tackle it: like gangbusters, with a sledgehammer and steel-tipped shoes.

So here we go.

It's time for our first new carnival of the new year - Carnival 14 of the Carnival of Dating Advice, bringing you the best new

Today's articles include some on talking to women and what to say; one on shyness; and even articles on the impact of money on relationships and the differences in concerns between married and unmarried couples.

Let's proceed with the carnival...