# It’s Just a Date: A Guide to a Sane Dating Life

Greg Behrendt, Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt

A fabulous new guide to dating co-authored by Greg Behrendt, former writer on Sex and the City, who won women's hearts with his three million copy bestseller He's Just Not That Into You.What ever happened to dating?Used to be that a guy would ask a girl out. He'd pick her up at her house and take her out for dinner, a movie, or a cup of coffee and some conversation. Then both parties would decide if they wanted to do it again next week. There was protocol. A standard set of guidelines to follow for this age-old ritual.These days who even knows what dating is?It's Just a Date gives you tools, not rules that you can use, while also opening you up to new ideas about how to date and who might be right for you. The book shows us how things have changed on the dating scene and what we need to do to adapt, including –• How the digital age has changed dating, from texting (the new not calling) to online dating.• The compromise: hooking up, booty calls and quasi dates – was it or wasn't it a date?• Exit strategies – how to pull the plug when the dating isn't working out.Dating doesn't have to be hard – in fact, if not taken so seriously, it can be seriously fun.

Greg Behrendt and

Amiira Ruotola-Behrendt

### It’s Just a Date!

How to… get ’em, read ’em and rock ’em


## Contents

Introduction


Part One

Prepare Yourself For Dating Excellence

Warning

1 The Principal Principles of Dating for Winners

2 Principle #1: Like Yourself and Know You’re Worthy

3 Principle #2: Get a Life, Have a Life …

4 Principle #3: Pretty is as Pretty Does

5 Principle #4: Don’t Accept Less than an Actual Date

6 Principle #5: Don’t Freak People Out with Your Need

7 Principle #6: Doormats Finish Last and End Up in the Dirt

8 Principle #7: Don’t Show the Movie Before the Trailer

9 Principle #8: Not Every Date is Going to Turn Into a Relationship


Part Two

Carpe Datem—Seize The Date!

Warning

10 The Essence of Keeping it Cool

11 Essence #1: There is No One Place to Meet Guys

12 Essence #2: The Power of Suggestion

13 Bonus Section: Internet Date-tacular!

14 Essence #3: It’s Just a F*#king First Date!

15 Essence #4: First Date Follow Up

16 Essence #5: 2nd Date and Beyond

17 Essence #6: Sexclusivity

Closing Words


Also Available

Copyright

About The Publisher

### introduction. A Call To The Winner. Dater Within

So your dating life is in the crapper and you’ve just about given up on the idea altogether at this point. And seriously, what’s with guys, right? Why don’t they ask women out? Why does it have to be so damn hard to date? Or what ever happened to dating, for that matter? Used to be that a guy would ask a girl out. Then he’d pick her up at her house, take her out for dinner, a movie, or a cup of coffee and some conversation. Then both parties would decide if they wanted to do it again next week. There was protocol. A courtship. A standard set of guidelines to follow for this age-old ritual outlined by our “Foredaters”. Now who even knows what dating is?

### WHAT IS A DATE?

If you hook up at a bar and go home together are you dating? If he text-messages you, “what are you wearing?” are you dating? If he tells you where he’s going with his friends after work and tells you to bring your friends, are you dating? It’s not cut and dried anymore—in fact it’s become completely absurd. Sadly, dating has become somewhat obsolete, having been edged out of the line up by hooking up, hanging out and casual sex. Why is that? Because both men and women have said by their actions and willingness that they don’t need the formality of a date to give their time, the privilege of their company and sometimes even their body. We’ve become a world of non-daters and, judging from the masses of unsatisfied singles that we hear from and about, we’d surmise that the whole non-dating thing’s not going that great. It’s too confusing, too casual, too grey and not enough black and white. Courtship has gone so far astray that it’s come down to proximity and laziness. Like if you stand next to someone long enough at a party then eventually you’ll pair up and be in a relationship with them without any actual effort, action or decision having been put into it.

### BACK TO BASICS

It’s time for a change and, aside from non-dating, the only other option to dating would be arranged marriages or marriage by lottery system. So it seems like now’s the time to figure out how to date again, because you may not like ending up with #4 8 15 16 23 42. You obviously like yourself enough to pick up this book and consider the idea of improving your dating or non-dating life, and for that we love you. Hooray, we just hugged! Now, having said that, we will not coddle you. This is not a touchy-feely “you’re great so everyone should think you’re great” book. This is a “how bad do you want it and to what lengths will you go to achieve what you truly deserve and then be willing to throw it all away because after all It’s Just a F*#king Date?!” kind of book. We have made our living being straight with you about our experiences and we’ve done it wrong ourselves enough times. But ONLY after you’ve done it wrong so many times will you have that moment of awakening, of clarity, where you admit, “I do it wrong. I need to do it differently.”

By reading this book you are entering a no-bullshit area. Unlike some of your friends we will not sign off on your questionable behavior and will continually demand better of you. We will not be buying the rationalizing that you do to make it okay nor the excuses you make for yourself or someone else that’s giving you less than you deserve. Now is the time to redefine what kind of dater you are and how you date. So buckle up ladies because you’ve come to the right place. You know what we’ve got? We’ve got answers and we’ve got plans for you.

### REALITY CHECK!

The reality of dating is that almost every date you go on is not going to work out or turn into a lasting and meaningful relationship. In fact every date and relationship won’t work out until you find the one that does. That’s how it works. That’s how life works and dating works. There are no shortcuts or loopholes and absolutely everyone is in the same boat as you. The only difference is how you approach these dates, the attitude you have when you get there. You can continue to dread them, be annoyed by the whole process, have expectations that are sure to disappoint you and project the futility you feel about the whole thing. OR you can let go of all of it, tell yourself that It’s Just A Date! not the rest of your life, that it probably won’t work out in the long run but might be fun nonetheless. With those expectations you’ll have a much better time than you thought you would. Because that actually is the point of dating: an opportunity to spend time one on one to see if there’s a spark. That’s it. Dating was never meant to be a tortuous obstacle course that you had to suffer through, nor the culmination of all our dreams that aren’t being fulfilled crashing down again when it doesn’t work out. And if that’s what dating is for you—then you’ve got to ask yourself why are you doing that to yourself? Then you have to tell yourself to knock it the f*#k off. You control how you date, not anyone else—including the person you’re on the date with. So let go of the old dating patterns that aren’t working for you and embrace the ideals of dating like a winner and being the best you that you can be.

### MY NAME IS AMIIRA AND I’M A BAD DATER

It seems like I should have figured that I was doing it wrong after the fiasco of my first marriage. Want to talk about going fast? I met him and it was love at first sight … except for the fact that he had a girlfriend. It was a matter of months before they broke up and we got together, so to make up for lost time we spontaneously got married in Vegas by an Elvis impersonator. That’s good, right? I had never been to his home, we hadn’t met each other’s families and probably didn’t know each other’s middle names. We did have similar record collections, so that, along with our young love, should have been enough. Well, not surprisingly it turns out that we didn’t really know each other that well among other biggies that eluded us like similar values and the desire for children. So that didn’t work out but I learned my lesson about jumping in too fast. Right? Or did I, as my next relationship went straight from “Nice to meet you” to “We should go to Barbados on vacation.” At least I had seen his house before packing my bikinis and we did have similar record collections. But ultimately we got too intense too quickly and it we burned out on each other. Strike two! It’d be nice if there wasn’t a strike three but there he was and who could resist the best friend that proclaims his love after too many Heinekens? Not I. So into instant boyfriend I fell. You know what happens when you go from being best friends to instant boyfriend/girlfriend? You realize that you probably weren’t meant to be boyfriend/girlfriend but are trapped in a relationship with a person you love but “not in that way.” That didn’t end well. So at this point I was recognizing that speed was my foe and the way I dated wasn’t working for me. The relationships I got myself into were plagued by the lack of certainty from rushing myself or someone else into feelings that weren’t fully there. Then I met Greg Behrendt, who must have been doing the same thing in his life because he was Mister Take It Slow. Nice. We went out on our first date, which was very good, in fact we decided that we would go out again while still on the date. But then I broke up with him. Huh? It’s a long story involving an ex-boyfriend that wouldn’t go away. However he said the most amazing thing upon hearing my true but cockamamie sounding story about the ex-boyfriend on my lawn, “It’s also okay if you don’t like me like that.” What?! Who the hell was this completely self-possessed guy? I told him truly that I didn’t know yet whether I liked him but would be interested in finding out. So we dated, the old-fashioned way. He called ahead, asked me out, plans were made and we went on dates. We also dated other people while dating each other. There was no hopping in the sack, no racing to lock it down, no panic about what the other was thinking, feeling, doing. Then one day he said something mind-blowing, “I’m not going to date other people. I only want to go out with you but I don’t expect you to do the same until you’re ready to.” What?! Who the hell is this guy who is going to stop dating other people but not demand I do the same? So we continued dating and soon after I came to the same conclusion that he had … I didn’t want to date other people. So there we were as boyfriend and girlfriend because we both truly wanted to be that and had figured it out at our own pace. Revolutionary! Then shortly thereafter he says those three magic words followed by the even more magical words that I had never heard before, “I Love You. But you don’t have to say it back. You don’t have to be at the same place emotionally that I am but I know that I love you and I wanted you to know it.” Holy crap!! Are you kidding me? Where did this alien creature come from that is so comfortable in his own feelings that he can allow me to have my own feelings? That’s how foreign the idea of taking things slow and actually figuring your feelings organically was to me. Normally at this point in a relationship I would have felt obligated to blurt it right back and hope that I grew into the feelings later, but because he was so self-possessed it made it effortless for me to be too. That being said, when I actually experienced having a relationship in real time, on my time, it became the one that has lasted the longest and burns the brightest because it’s real and taking place in actual time. We’re on this journey together side by side instead of one dragging the other behind. Our story is the reason that we decided to write this book because we know what is possible if you learn to do it right.

### THE GOOD THE BAD & THE SKILLET OR WHY I TRIED DATING by Greg

The decision to start dating was a simple one. It started with a skillet. Not even a nice one, but one of those gun metal grey now singed black, workhorse skillets that you burn fried eggs with. “Wait Greg, are you telling me the interested reader that a dirty skillet got you dating? I’m not convinced.” Yes I remember thinking as the greasy black pan was heading towards my skull, “This might not be the right relationship. I’m not choosing the right lady for me.” Here’s what happened. I was newly “drinks free” (I like that better than sober because it almost sounds like free drinks and that makes people happy) and had been set up with a girl who was also “drinks free”. She was foxy and funny with a little edge. Anyway we went on two dates, one a formal dinner and the other we hung out at a thing then had awkward sex too soon and became girlfriend-boyfriend. We didn’t really know each other but because we had had sex we felt beholden to one another and after all, this is how most of my relationships started in the past. Why should this be any different? Ever since college the recipe had been the same. Meet someone, take them out twice, have sex on the third date, become a couple, then fight until done. Ding! It wasn’t either person’s fault it was how the game had been set up. I had a pattern, it didn’t work and I was sticking to it … until the skillet. I remember calling my mom that day and saying “… you know what? Maybe I don’t end up with anybody. Maybe I’m just destined to be a bachelor. And if that is the case then I’m gonna bachelor the shit out of it.” I went at it like a sporting event. I got my own apartment. Taught myself how to cook and to clean. Picked out my own furniture. I went to movies by myself, ate at restaurants by myself and bought my own clothes. I began to teach myself to live as though I might never meet someone but if I did they’d be blown away by how self-sufficient I was and by my matching bamboo end tables. Like Field of Dreams. If you build it they will come. And then the weirdest thing happened: I started meeting girls. Everywhere. Department stores, flower shops, cafés, softball games and hair salons. See a pattern, fellas? Go to where the girls are. But don’t go just to go. The fact that I was now not actively looking for a relationship made me appear to just appear. And for the first time in my life I had the opportunity to date more than one person. And I took it. I’d never done that, so why now? Well, I was at my parents over a Thanksgiving break and I was in my mom’s office looking for something when I came across an old date book of hers from when she was dating my dad. I flipped through it and I noticed something almost revolutionary. She had begun dating my dad in May. I know this because his name appears periodically through out the month. Thursday Richard. Saturday Richard. But there are also two other names that appear throughout the month. Steve and Aaron, but as we get to June Aaron drops off like a stone and Steve’s name appears less and less until it fully goes away in July. My dad kicked some dating ass, but the real lesson was my mom wasn’t limiting her options until she was sure. I asked her if my dad knew about the other guys. “Not at first. But you didn’t ask in those days. It was just assumed that you were dating.” “Assumed you were dating? And he was cool with that?” “He didn’t love it but he respected it and in some ways I think it made getting me all the sweeter.” Dating!? What a great f*#king idea. Imagine, just going out with someone a few times to see how you really feel about them. So I decided to give it a try. And I found that I liked it and that I was pretty good at it. Were all the dates good? Hell no! There were some nightmares you will read about later on in the book. Did you get your heart broken? Not as badly as if I had tried to turn them into relationships. But it led to the best relationship I ever had with another person on this planet. And that’s why I wanted to write this book. There is an option out there and it’s the only one we have besides arranged marriages. Wait—we don’t have arranged marriages. But I have supplied a petition at the back of the book if you want to lobby for arranged marriages. So why go on a date? Because they work, because dating is the best way to get to know someone you don’t know and someone you do, because it’s a great way to set the tone and speed for a relationship, because there are snacks, because you might make a friend or meet a future business partner, because you might have the worst night of your life and that could lead to you writing the next great novel, because you’ll never know if you don’t, because it’s just a f@#king date.

### WHERE WOMEN BLOW IT by Amiira

Women always have and always will continue to date a man’s potential instead of his reality. We can’t help ourselves. It’s in a woman’s nature to be hopeful and to see the possibilities, the greatness that people possess. Hooray for us, aren’t we lovely? We are, but dating someone’s potential is probably the biggest mistake women make in relationships and certainly the one that leads to our romantic downfall. That’s because there are three types of men: the ones that find our faith in their potential to be appealing, the ones that find our faith in their potential to be a burden … and the ones that find it appealing at first then are crushed by the burden of their un-reached potential and resentful of the woman they once adored for that very faith.

The problem is that we don’t know which of the three the man of our dreams is going to be until it’s often too late. Once you’ve unintentionally crushed a man’s ego (read: once he decides that he doesn’t want to reach the potential you have for him) it’s hard for him to be excited about you anymore. Then it’s just a matter of time before the sex starts diminishing, there’s bickering where there wasn’t any before and the distance between you begins an expansion that is unwieldy.

More often than not, dating a man’s potential is the long road to disaster—so listen to who he says he is and take him at his word. If you can love who he is now and not have your attraction be based on who he might become then you’re in good shape. If you’re not, well then you best keep looking because most people have different aspirations than you might have for them.

Love isn’t swimming upstream.

Part One

prepare yourself for dating excellence

## WARNING!

You are now entering a new way of dating and living. Old habits are not welcome and failure is not an option. Those not willing to make some serious changes should turn back now and get a few cats to keep you company.

[1]

### the principal principles of dating for winners

The 8 Super Extraordinary Principles For Ultra-Successful Winner Dating™

You probably were skulking around the bookstore mumbling to yourself, “My dating life’s a mess—I sure wish I had some guidelines for dating more successfully.” Well today’s your lucky day, so buck up Sugarpot because that’s exactly what we have for you! Super Extraordinary Strategies for Ultra-Successful Winner Dating™. We know that dating has become a confusing mess for most single folks out in the world, and quite honestly it shouldn’t be that way. Dating was one of the most well structured, well thought out things that our generation inherited. How we managed to f*#k that one up is a mystery. Or is it? In fact it’s not a mystery at all. In our natural evolution as humans and as we’ve become a more liberal society we’ve rid ourselves of ideas or thought processes that don’t work. Certainly there are formalities and expected behaviors that do need updating and revising to keep up with the contemporary times, but dating, as it turns out, may not have been one that needed much. The radical revision of dating that followed the sexual revolution and its continual morphing that has come with the advances in communication technology (like emails, texting, etc. …) has turned dating into a blur of booty calls and ambiguous hanging out. And the result is a lot of unhappy and unclear people that are in complete disharmony with their romantic universe.

What women are craving is the formality of dating because of the clarity that it would provide for them. Think about the collective sigh of relief from just the knowledge alone that when you’re asked out that you’re actually on a date. Instead of spending the time trying to figure out if you’re on a date, just hanging out as friends or being sized up as a candidate for casual sex. Dating is something that YOU have control over so if you want it to change, if you want to take control of your dating life you have to take it upon yourself to be very serious about and completely committed to HOW you date. You have to have a set of standards that you live and date by without exception. Which means formulating a dating strategy and instituting dating policy for yourself, then sticking to it. It sounds ridiculous but it’s not. In fact, had you done it earlier you might be in a very different place with your love life and been able to save that $19.95 (or whatever this book costs) you spent on this fantastic piece of literature, put it into a high yielding mutual fund and turned it into at least $1,047 billion dollars by the time you retire. (These numbers are guess-timations made by two book writers that have no experience or financial expertise and cannot be held accountable for the way you spend your money.)

We know the word strategy in relation to dating can sound like an underhanded manipulation of another person and that is NOT at all what we’re talking about. Strategy, in the dictionary, is defined as: 1. The science or art of planning or conducting a war or military campaign. (Nope!) 2. Carefully devised plan of action to achieve a goal or the art of developing or carrying out such a plan. (Wrong again!) 3. An evolutionary theory, a behavior structure, or other adaptation that improves viability. AHA! Bingo! Now we’re talking!

There’s an element of strategy in everything that we do in life and there’s nothing wrong with that. There are choices, actions and consequences. That’s what everything in life is and dating is no exception. Like the time you agreed to let the drummer for “Mighty Lemon Phillipshead” come up for a nightcap—that’s a choice. Then woke up the next morning to find him in your room-mate’s bed—that’s a consequence. To be fair, it was dark in your apartment but still … No, no, no that’s just another excuse you make to cover for making bad choices. The truth is you actually liked him and hoped to go out on a second date and had you said goodnight at the front door you might’ve had a chance. So let’s embrace the idea of creating a strategy for dating and your life so that the choices you make are better. As they say in that popular book that features that guy Jesus, “Faith without works is dead.” Meaning you can believe you want a better dating life but unless you’re willing to do the work, nothing will change. “Wow you got all serious on me. I didn’t think Jesus went on dates.” Well now you know why people got so mad about The DaVinci Code. But let’s get back to you …

If your experiences are anything like the throngs of emails and letters we get complaining about the state of dating then you know that for most men you encounter, dating is something they only have to do if they can’t get away with hanging out under less formal circumstances (or they can’t get you to fool around with them at the bar). It’s probably the single most frustrating thing we hear about in all of our varied “What’s the deal with men?” conversations. The deal is that THEY FOLLOW YOUR LEAD. That means if you give them the easy way out, that’s what they’ll take.

It’s important to recognize that while you can change the way a man dresses, you can’t change the way he approaches dating. You can only inspire him to want to change that for himself so that he gets to spend time with you. The thing you determine is the value of your time, the value of your company and how you date. Those are the only things you are in complete control of, but that’s enough to turn the tide. Think about it … it’s only when you set the value of your time low and you agree to non-dates that they can exist for you. However, if you maintain a high standard for how you date and you don’t accept the premise of quasi-dating, non-dating and hanging out then you leave him with only two choices: to ask you out on a proper date or to do without your company. And if he chooses the latter then you’re better off anyway because getting to spend time with you is a gigantic prize.

People need to start dating again and not participate in the non-dating if they want to find a real relationship rather than someone to have confusing sex with. “But how do I date amongst all the confusing confusion of dating?” We’re glad you asked, because there is a definite right and wrong way to date and if you want to get good results you have to start dating smarter and better. There’s a reason why you’re not having success: it’s because what you’re doing isn’t working for you. It’s time to change your game. “But I don’t like playing games. Dating should not be about game playing.” Yeah, yeah … We’ve heard it. The reality is that there is a game to be played when dating and it’s called RESTRAINT. Quite frankly, when you reject that idea you yourself are playing your own game. It’s a game of refusing to look at human nature and the things you already know about friendships, work, eating and every other thing in life where you take the time to responsibly think to yourself, “I need to do this right. There’s an order in which everything happens. If I mess with the order the whole thing will fall apart.” Why would you single out dating as the place to say, “Ah, f*#k the order! I’m not going in order. I’m going to just tell them now that I love them, blow them in the bathroom (or whatever impulsive thing that you know you shouldn’t do), because that will either make him want t o be with me more or bail but at least I’ll know now!” It makes no sense. You don’t walk into a job interview and ask where your desk is. You don’t make a new friend then, after week one, tattoo their name on your neck. You don’t eat shitty all week and wonder why your pants don’t fit. Do you see where we’re going with this? There’s an order to things and dating is no exception.

So what we’ve devised is a set of guidelines, or rather Super Extraordinary Guidelines For Ultra-Successful Winner Dating™. These are the key to turning your dating life around and setting the new standard for HOW you date. Like we stated earlier, you get to determine the value of your time, the value of your company and, most importantly, how you date and how you absolutely do not date. Grab a fork and dig in, sister, because you’ve got some dating to do!

Here’s a preview of what dazzling principles you’re going to have drilled into that pretty little head of yours.

### The 8 Principles of dating success:

Like yourself and know you’re worthy Start with giving your thighs a break. Why can’t you just like them for once after all these years they’ve supported you?

Get a life, have a life … … and don’t throw it away when every Tom, Dick and Agnes comes along.

Pretty is as pretty does Get real about what you’re putting out into the world.

Don’t accept less than an actual date Seriously. Stop hooking up with bozos when you’re drunk.

Don’t freak people out with your need Crazy + Sexy doesn’t always = Cool

Doormats finish last and end up in the dirt Have some standards and ditch the deal breakers.

Don’t show the movie before the trailer Make sex an event, not a given.

Not every date is going to turn into a relationship And a worthwhile one is a journey, not a race.

### HERE’S THE DEAL …

It’s Just A F*#king Date! It’s a philosophy and an attitude all rolled up into one great big package. It’s the difference between expecting something to happen and being surprised when it does. It’s letting go of the whole process but not letting go of you. There are things in life you can change. Your weight, your appearance, your mindset, etc. … but there is one thing you cannot change and that is other people. Try as we might we cannot get people to love us. Even when we are the coolest, best version of ourselves someone is going to say, “Not for me.” But if we feel good about ourselves we shrug it off and say, “It’s Just A F*#king Date” and know that there will be others.

When you really want something and you’re doing everything you can to make it happen and it’s not coming to fruition, you have to let go of the result and do the work anyway. You can’t live inside of a result because it will always disappoint. But if you work towards the goal and let go of the result then you’ll not only get what you wanted but will probably get something that’s better and different than how you had imagined it. That’s how life works. Life comes in a different package than you expected it to. The same goes for dating. You need to show up and see what happens. Well now, that doesn’t sound so hard—but in fact it is.

This book is going to demand two things from you that may seem to conflict. We are going to ask that you be vigilant in your attempts to better yourself AND not take dating so damn seriously. “So does that mean I have to get all dressed up and try even if I’m not supposed to care about what happens?” Exactly. And you’ll be a better person for it.

So pull it together woman, and let’s get ready to date!