Ten More Dating Tips for Men

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Hey, good morning, everyone. It's Jon. It is a beautiful day here in the Hudson Valley, and I know many of you wake up to a warm cup of coffee to start your day off.

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Hey, folks. You know I'm not much of a coffee guy, but my wife, she's a coffee snob in the best way possible.

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Grab yours now at etpcoffee .com and spread the word. Invite your friends to join the mission at etpcoffee .com.

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Let's drink coffee that changes lives. Okay, with that, we're going to get started with the podcast. I just have 10 different principles or tips to offer men when it comes to dating.

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Now, I've already given 10 tips, and I also have given 10 principles, and here's an extra 10.

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And the reason I'm doing this is because I have had some good feedback on this. Now, there's some people who don't care for it.

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It's not where they are at in life necessarily. They've heard it before. If that's you, that's fine. You can go ahead and skip this podcast.

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But I've had enough positive feedback from people that it's actually helped in the real world that I figured I would do another one.

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So, 10 tips for guys when dating. Number one, don't obsess over her.

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Don't obsess over her. It's good to have interests. It's good to have goals. It's good to even have hobbies and friends and family and activities that you're involved with that might not even include the girl that you're dating.

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In fact, you need those activities sometimes so that you can include her down the line.

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If you dump all of those things and your whole life is completely obsessed with her, and she's the center of everything, that's not the kind of girl, if she wants that, that you probably want.

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You want a girl who actually wants you to have a life, wants you to be with friends and family, wants you to have goals, wants to be there beside you at some point so that she can be part of all of that.

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But she doesn't want you to just forsake all of those things for her. And I'll tell you what, if you continue down that road into a marriage, it doesn't really change.

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You're setting a very high expectation that she will want you by her side, and you might end up being an appendage, and you don't want to be an appendage.

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So, you play into that when you start obsessing over a girl. And this is related. Number two, don't get clingy or needy.

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Let me give you an example of that. If you text a girl right after a date or call a girl on the phone, and you just can't get off the phone, and you're checking your phone every two minutes, and you're making sure that she's liked every post that you've made on social media, and you're texting her paragraphs, and you need affirmation because you just can't survive, your whole self -worth is wrapped up in what she thinks of you, and what she thinks of the smallest, most minute things that you do, then you are getting clingy and needy.

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And a mature girl's not going to want a guy like that. They want a real man, not someone who just needs them to affirm everything about them.

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Girls who do want that, you're probably not going to be interested in. That's going to continue into a marriage, unless something matures you both and it stops.

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So, don't do that. You can certainly text her, but say things like, I had a good time, and I would love to do it again.

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Or, I hope you're doing well. The relationships where the last thing that you say during the day is to her, the first thing that you say in the morning is to her, everything in between is to her, that's kind of a red flag.

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And you can really make the infatuation hit such a high level that there's really nowhere to go from there.

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And if you do pull back, then it feels like a breakup. And a lot of relationships don't survive that.

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Number three, want her best, even if it's not you. This is a hard one, but I think it's true.

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You should want what's best for her. Christ sacrificed himself for the church. This is going to carry into a marriage.

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If you are dating and it becomes obvious you're not the best choice for her, and maybe she's not the best choice for you, then you have to be honest about those things.

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And you have to be okay with your feelings getting hurt a little bit if that's what it takes to produce the best outcome for the kingdom of God, for her life, even if that's not exactly what you want.

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Number four, bounce things off an older guy. If you don't have a father figure, a mentor figure in your life, find one.

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And I know there's a big backlash against boomers. They don't understand and this and that. Well, I'll tell you what, there is something that doesn't change and that's called human nature.

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And even if conditions have changed as far as maybe the percentage of girls who are affected by feminism and that kind of stuff, it's not like people who are baby boomers have never come across similar situations.

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Human nature doesn't change. So it's good to find someone who has been there, done that, and can give you advice.

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Number five, say I love you when you actually mean it. Don't use I love you as a pickup line.

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Don't use I love you to try to accelerate the relationship. Don't say it because you're insecure and want to hear it said back.

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Say it when you actually mean it. Now, I was a bit premature in my own relationship with my wife,

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I think. And the thing is, I actually meant it when I said it and I still know

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I meant it when I said it. But it was with all things, when you have love, it has to grow. So yes,

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I probably should have waited until it grew a little more. I said it pretty early on in the relationship and it probably did cause a little bit of a stir.

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But I can honestly say I meant it. There are guys who will say these kinds of things when they really don't.

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And maybe they don't even know what love is. That's why it's good to also have a mentor figure, an example, so you can bounce those things off of them.

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Number six, notice the small things. Girls like it when you notice the kind of jewelry they like, the kind of coffee flavor they like, so you can order for them.

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It means that you actually are interested in them, and not just a template.

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You're not just after a girl because you want a girl. Number seven, put away childish things.

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It's not very attractive to the kind of girl that you likely want, when the activities you're involved with are fairly frivolous, and they don't actually accomplish much.

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So I'm not saying it's wrong to play video games. But if you're just really into video games, and that's kind of your thing, or comic books, or any of the things that are associated more with juvenile behavior, childhood stuff, those are things you probably want to start phasing out.

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If you haven't grown up, you want to grow up. It doesn't mean you can't have somewhat of an interest, but your interests need to be tempered.

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And you should find other interests that are probably more mature, in that case, that help you with the goals of life, because you want to send the message that you're serious, that you actually desire to have a family, and take responsibility, and that kind of thing.

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Number eight, don't treat your buddies like girlfriends. Don't treat your buddies like girlfriends.

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I've seen guys who do this, where they will treat their buddies like they are lovers.

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It's a little weird sometimes. They will just really compliment each other so much about how their physique looks good after the gym.

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And I'm not saying you can't compliment at all, or there's a lot of PDA that's just kind of weird.

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And I don't want to get into psychologizing all of that. I'll just say, just don't do that.

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Just don't do that, especially around a girl that you like. It's a huge turnoff for a quality girl when she sees guys behaving that way, because it looks like there's no room for her.

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And frankly, it just looks a little queer, looks a little twisted. And you're trying to form a relationship with a girl here, and if there's no room for her because your guy friends are doing all the things that eventually you hope to do with her, then it's just a little strange.

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Okay, number nine, show her a realistic vision for the future.

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Show her a realistic vision for the future. Now, this is important because there's some guys who will try to sell girls on pipe dreams, that they want to have a future, but they're not working towards that kind of a future.

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They want to offer so much to the girl, but there's no steps they're taking to get there. You don't have to be a rich millionaire.

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You don't have to be the top 5%. I know I hear that a lot. You got to be the top 5 % or else she won't look at you and stuff.

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Quality girl, you don't need to be the top 5%, but you do need to have a realistic vision. And that means you have to be taking steps to get there.

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You want to have a family. You want to have a life together. You're going to have to be able to provide somehow for that.

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Now, it doesn't have to be, like I said, being a millionaire. Maybe that is what you want, but it could be a blue collar job of some kind, but you got to at least get the training, get the education, get the certifications, get the jobs that are a stepping stone to that job.

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You got to be showing some initiative here and you should have a basic idea of what you want in life.

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It doesn't have to have all the details fleshed out, but show that you have the ability to take initiative and to pursue a goal.

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That gives her some security. That shows her that your character is such that even if you lose your job, you're going to find another one because that's the kind of guy you are.

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Okay, number 10, be patient on secondary concerns. Be patient on secondary concerns. Now, what's a secondary concern?

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Something like the girl doesn't match every single thing that you want in a girl, but she's going in the right direction.

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I've seen this before. I've seen guys discount girls because she wore a piece of clothing that they found to be, they didn't like, they thought it was maybe too worldly.

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Well, if it's rank, if it's obvious, then maybe that reveals her character, but sometimes it doesn't.

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Sometimes you have girls who are coming from different traditions and backgrounds and sometimes there's even ignorance there.

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They're going in the right direction. They love the Lord and you don't want to just discount someone because they don't cross every

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T and dot every I the way that you would like further on down the road. This is actually an opportunity for you to discuss an issue, to actually shepherd in a way, and to see if she's willing to follow and if you have the bedside manner to actually be able to address some of those things.

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Another example of a secondary concern might be that,

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I don't know, she does something annoying and you're just like, man, I don't know if I can live with that the rest of my life.

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If that kind of music, oh my goodness, that's what she listens to or she has this habit of chewing and it's just, those are all things that are correctable.

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You can actually have conversations about those kinds of things. You don't have to always listen to her music.

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These are the kinds of superficial things sometimes guys will say, oh, it's not working out and it's like, well, what kind of picture did you paint of what life would be?

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You're going to have these things. You're going to discover things after you're married that you're like, oh, that's annoying. I didn't know she was going to do that and she's going to discover things about you where she's like, man, that's the typical joke about leaving the toilet seat upright.

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So that's actually an opportunity to work through things and then that's the real test. If you can't work through it, then you might have some cause for, okay, maybe this isn't right.

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But if you work through it, that should actually develop some trust in the relationship. So those are 10 extra tips for dating, courtship, pursuing marriage.