Tim Molnar [00:00:00]:
And if I see someone online and they went to maybe a great college and they have an impressive job and they have attractive photos and interesting hobbies that very well could be someone that I would be a good match with, that you might be a good match with, or one of your listeners could be a good match with. But the things that we know from research actually lead to happiness. None of those are captured by any of those indic.
Connell Barrett [00:00:36]:
Welcome back to the how to Get a Girlfriend podcast. I am your host, dating coach Connell Barrett, here to help you gain confidence, flirt with authenticity and find yourself an amazing girlfriend. No pickup artist moves needed. And today I have a brand new guest and he’s got a brand new book out today. My guest is Tim Molnar. Tim is the author of Date Smarter A Strategic Guide to Navigating Modern Romance. Tim’s a really interesting author and guest because he’s a former Fulbright teaching fellow and a university lecturer. My old job, Just kidding.
Connell Barrett [00:01:12]:
Tim helps single people figure out dating, date smarter and make real genuine connections. He can help you with things like motivation and having better results on dates and momentum. And also he has a lot of data about dating and I’m really excited to talk to him. He’s got a research backed approach that’s going to be really fascinating to get into. And you can order Date Smarter at Timothy’s website, TimothyMolnar.com and you can also find it on Amazon. Tim Molnar, thank you for being here on how to Get a Girlfriend.
Tim Molnar [00:01:50]:
Connell, thanks so much for having me on. Really enjoyed the podcast and just a pleasure to be here talking with you today.
Connell Barrett [00:01:56]:
Awesome. It’s author meets author. Let’s see if we can make this good, good podcast content. Tell us about Date Smarter. How can people date smarter? And how can your book help people date smarter?
Tim Molnar [00:02:12]:
So I may just begin with a little bit of a backstory here and talk you through the genesis of how this project came to be. I think like many of your listeners, I was at a point with dating where I felt frustrated. I felt like I didn’t have the confidence to go up and approach people in a way that was going to bring about results. The results being I wanted to find a life partner, someone who’s going to be a great fit, someone who is going to make me feel seen, someone who is going to be kind and loyal. And at the time I was in graduate school and was working with first a behavioral economist and then a sociologist. So studying a lot of human behavior. And I figured I’m spending all of this Time going through these different academic journals, I wonder what’s been written on relationship science and if there are different theories that we can co opt from these different studies of how humans behave to be able to date smarter myself and, and in the research field, we often like to say that research is me search. And I think that was really true for where I was at at the time.
Tim Molnar [00:03:25]:
So I started to kind of work backwards from the goal that I wanted that life partner. And I realized, you know, before that was going to happen, I was going to have, you know, at least a girlfriend, maybe, maybe several girlfriends. And before that there were going to be some dates. Before that I was going to have to find a way to go on dates. And I started trying to figure out, you know, if I, if I went up and had the confidence to approach someone, you know, what might I say? Are there, are there ways that I can do this with, with better efficacy, with authenticity? And are there? Research studies have been done when guys are going up to women and asking them out how often they might typically get a yes and are there some type of numbers that I can assign to this to eventually be able to set a goal and say, great, if I go on, you know, if I set a goal to go on 60 dates, hopefully I can just go on one date and find my right person. But if I don’ that’s okay. I’ll just view this as great. Only 59 more.
Tim Molnar [00:04:18]:
Only 58 more. Recognizing that there’s this sense of rejection along the way, but that that’s an inevitable part of getting to this thing that we all know is fundamental for our well being, for our happiness, for our longevity, which is, which is healthy relationships, and particularly one of those healthy relationships that you’re going to have with a life partner. So I went through this journey myself, eventually meeting my person who I’ve been with for almost five years now, and other friends would begin to ask me about my approach. That sort of led into coaching and eventually this book, which, you know, Date Smarter is basically a look at how behavior science, how math can help us understand how to date more strategically in a way that feels authentic to us, but also in a way that leverages cognitive biases that we might have. And like, how do we overcome these biases to be able to do this in a way that improves the probability, that improves the chances of us finding what it is that we’re really after.
Connell Barrett [00:05:26]:
What are some cognitive biases that get in the way of singles, especially men who are trying to get a girlfriend, trying to have success what are some of these biases?
Tim Molnar [00:05:37]:
So one of them that I like to talk about is called the primacy effect. And the primacy effect stems from this idea that how an interaction starts really disproportionately impacts how the other person perceives the remainder of the experience. And so, as an example, if you show up to a date and it’s totally natural to feel nervous, to feel a bit anxious, you’re doing this incredibly vulnerable thing, which is showing up in front of somebody and saying, this is who I am, yes or no. And from that place, we might make an awkward joke. And so now, while that’s totally normal, the rest of this interaction has the ability to be perceived through that lens. We are looking to confirm our kind of our confirmation bias steps in, and every time there’s a little, A little, like a little wink, a little nod, we’re thinking, is that just further indication that this is an awkward person? And so one of the ways that I would suggest listeners who are hearing this and thinking, gosh, it sounds, you know, I’ve had that experience before, showing up to that date, and I knew within a first couple of minutes, like, I didn’t make the best impression is instead of going into this job interview mode, which I think can feel very comfortable and saying, you know, what do you do for work? And, you know, how many siblings do you have? It’s really showing up with, you know, story or, like, something to share so that you’re almost catching up like you would with a friend, and you’re like, oh, gosh, Connell, on the way over here, you know, like, I was riding a scooter and, like, I almost ran over this pigeon, and it was kind of crazy. And, you know, then this car had to slam on the brakes, and all of a sudden you’re sort of disarming the other person, and they’re like, oh, we’re just catching up as friends. We’re not in this evaluative job interview mindset.
Tim Molnar [00:07:31]:
So you can really seek to overcome that primacy effect when you bring in that nervous energy and then on the other side end of things, to be able to make someone else feel comfortable. Because I think one of the things that’s easy to forget is we show up to this date very focused on ourselves, thinking about, gosh, like, am I going to be good enough? Am I going to be funny enough? Am I tall enough? Am I handsome enough? Whatever insecurities or feelings we might be bringing to this, that the person on the other end of the table is experiencing those same feelings, and so we can extend grace to them and say, gosh, if they’re showing up and falling into this job interview mode, we can just kind of quickly redirect the conversation and say, I love that. And I want to, I want to. I want to dig into that. But first, I just need to tell you about this, you know, interesting movie that I saw yesterday. And it, like, reminded me of this because, you know, X, Y, or Z.
Connell Barrett [00:08:21]:
Right.
Tim Molnar [00:08:21]:
So I think those are some of the ways that we can learn from. From behavior science, like, on this first date, to be able to overcome this primacy effect and overcome some of these traps that, that we are hardwired to fall into.
Connell Barrett [00:08:35]:
So if you’re following this, this idea of the law or the rule or guideline of a primacy effect, you want to make sure that you hit. Try to hit the ground running on that first date in the first five to ten minutes you want to set. You want to make a good first impression, or at least you want the date to start off reasonably well, and that’ll help the rest of the date go better. Is that what I’m hearing?
Tim Molnar [00:08:56]:
Absolutely. And I think just to expound on that a little bit, there’s also the concept of the recency effect, which is what has happened most recently is going to shape how we view that experience. So you can have a really nice dinner, and you finish it with a dessert, and you’re like, we finished this on a high note. And there’s a very particular reason why that’s how a typical meal goes. And you look back and say, wow, what a great meal that was. You leave on a high. You have that little sugar rush. And so it’s also thinking about how we can carry that through to the end of the date.
Tim Molnar [00:09:27]:
And this is not saying, like, great, just be perfect the whole way through the date. But it is saying there are ways that you can, you can prepare, you can practice, you can, you know, run dry runs with your friends if you need to. But say, I’m going to come into this day, and if this isn’t something that comes naturally to me, here’s a way that I’m going to start things off. And here’s a, Here’s a comfortable way that I. That I’m going to end this. Hey, you know, I had a really nice time tonight. Would love to follow up and get something scheduled for another day if you had a nice time. Just something simple like that.
Connell Barrett [00:09:54]:
Do you have any good anecdotes from your dating history? Or maybe there’s something from the book, perhaps there’s an anecdote or a scene of somebody, you know that shows us. Here are some ways you can make sure that the first five to ten minutes of a first date goes well.
Tim Molnar [00:10:11]:
Yeah, well, I certainly have an anecdote of what not to do. So maybe we can learn. That’s good too.
Connell Barrett [00:10:18]:
Maybe we can learn more valuable. Do the opposite of that.
Tim Molnar [00:10:23]:
And the protagonist of this one happens to be me. So I was in the midst of this dating journey that I had kind of alluded to earlier in the conversation where I had set a certain goal, or what I had called the date number. A number of dates that I was targeting to go on again, just to sort of, like, build resilience for when it didn’t end up being that first date or the second date or the third date. That I wouldn’t say, gosh, this isn’t really happening. It would just sort of normalize the fact that, like, yeah, it makes sense that you might need to go on 10, 20 dates and. And, you know, bruise your knees a little bit before. Find the person who you can really hit your stride with. And to that end.
Tim Molnar [00:11:02]:
And yes, I was a researcher, and so, you know, I was. I was into collecting data. And this would have been more qualitative data of, you know, go up, have a conversation with someone, write down what went well. What didn’t go well was I, you know, looking at my feet, and did I not come across super confidently? Did I feel really nervous? And so, you know, I rushed what it was that I was saying to this person. And there was one time, pretty early on in the journey where I had seen this woman on the street and went up and told her that I thought she had a nice energy and was interested if she would be up for grabbing a coffee. And she holds up just this giant, oversized, almost cartoon wedding ring in my face and was like, ah. And has, like, kind of, like, thick Eastern European accent, which I think just kind of added to the whole. To the whole experience and was like, oh, you know, like, I’m married.
Tim Molnar [00:11:55]:
And I was just thinking, gosh, right? Like, I’m at that age where I need to start looking for wedding rings here. And it was just a simple little, you know, oversight, but it was something that I learned from. And I think there are so many ways that we can learn from those first dates where, you know, maybe you’re listening to this and saying, gosh, okay, so I’m gonna come in with this story for my next first date, and you show up and you’re like, gosh, for whatever reason, like, that story just didn’t hit. Like, I could feel the energy and the way I showed up, like, it just didn’t deliver, like, the full charisma that I bring. And to those people, I’d say, like, we’re not great at anything the first time we do it. And whether that’s, you know, learning Mandarin or playing the viola, you’re not going to be good at it the first couple times you do it. But you keep going and you build up those calluses on your fingers and you learn those, you know, Cantonese intonations or whatever language it might be. And over time, you develop skills.
Tim Molnar [00:12:55]:
And dating, similarly, is a set of skills that allows us to be able to form what we are naturally wired to do, which is love and human connection. And we have that innately. But these skills, particularly in this digitized world, aren’t things that we were evolved to inherently understand how to do. So be gentle with yourself if you’re feeling that, and also recognize that you have agency to be able to hone those skills and improve for the next date.
Connell Barrett [00:13:29]:
Here’s a tip I like to share with my clients for first dates. The first five, ten minutes of a first date, so you can see you can ace the primacy effect. Get to the venue early, earlier, 10, 15 minutes earlier. Make sure you grab a seat for the two of you, you and your date. Maybe you’re sitting up at the bar, maybe you’re at a restaurant, whatever it might be. And then don’t sit there on your phone thinking, oh, my God, how’s it going to go Talk to somebody, talk to the bartender, talk to the people next to you, get into some social momentum. What I found, Tim, and I’d be curious to see if you ever tried this or have seen, have it have a similar or different viewpoint. If you can get into some social momentum before your date walks in, you’re already in the social flow, and that’s going to help a date.
Connell Barrett [00:14:19]:
It’s going to help you feel a lot more present, and you’re already in a social conversational mode, so that when your date walks in, not only are you in the social flow, she might actually see you chatting with the couple next to you or holding court with the bartender, and essentially you’re out of your head and you’re in the present moment, which can help a date start better. What are your thoughts on that? And you’re welcome to disagree. That’s what I like to do.
Tim Molnar [00:14:42]:
Well, I’m sorry to disappoint You. But I’m going to agree because I think it’s great advice.
Connell Barrett [00:14:46]:
This podcast is over. Keep going.
Tim Molnar [00:14:50]:
No, I think it’s wonderful advice. I think it makes a lot of sense, and it really is a way to harness that social science principle to be able to say, great, let me warm up my social skills and let me prime myself for this experience that I’m about to have. And to your point, you might be able to very naturally segue into, oh, yeah, I was just talking to this fun guy at the bar, and he was telling me that, you know, he was just on this, you know, flight to the stratosphere, and he was telling me all about, you know, that, and, you know, it’s like. And you have this, like, natural in to the conversation. So I think there’s a lot of value from that. And I also think that it dovetails with some advice that I give to my clients, which is when we show up to a date, you’re. You’re so right to say, like, the energy that you’re carrying with you is instrumental in how that experience is going to go. And there are a lot of little tips and tricks that we can do to prepare ourselves for that.
Tim Molnar [00:15:52]:
I love that idea of showing up early so that you’re not coming from, like, gosh, I was weaving through traffic and I couldn’t find a parking spot, and now I’m wondering, gosh, am I going to be judged for being late? This isn’t who I am. But, you know, I just did too much traffic here. And so you’re. You’re overcorrecting for that. And instead of coming right out of a work meeting and maybe hopping on a zoom date, and you’re like, great, I’m just going from one work call to the next. You’re bringing in that energy of stressful corporate life into this date. And then you’re like, yeah, you’re having the same conversations about KPIs and whatever other corporate jargon, and you’re like, yeah.
Connell Barrett [00:16:28]:
If you want to get friend zoned, say KPI’s to your date. Almost guaranteed. Unless KPI stands for kisses per instant. And then that’s something different. You struggle with dating, right? Sure, you have a good job and cool friends, but you just aren’t sure how to flirt. The apps don’t work for you. And sometimes women put you in the friend zone. It’s frustrating.
Connell Barrett [00:16:57]:
Hey, I struggled with dating, too. As an introvert and a total nerd. I. I didn’t just live in the friend zone. I owned real estate There. But I escaped using the dating philosophy of Radical authenticity, which I’ve used to help thousands of men in 17 countries find love. It’s what I wrote about in my best selling book, Dating Sucks, but yout Don’t. And Radical Authenticity is why Psychology Today called me the best dating coach in America.
Connell Barrett [00:17:23]:
And now I want to personally help you attract your dream girlfriend. So go to datingtransformation.com and book a free call with me. On our call, I’ll tell you how my one on one coaching will help you find your dream girlfriend. And you’ll be doing it by flirting with confidence and authenticity. No creepy pickup tricks needed. So go to datingtransformation.com, book a free call today and let my personalized coaching help you get a great girlfriend.
Tim Molnar [00:17:53]:
Yeah, exactly. So.
Connell Barrett [00:17:56]:
Before I forget, I want to ask you one more question about the primacy effect. Does it go for approaching as well? Sounds like it does with your story about the woman with the wedding ring. Assuming it does, how do we make sure the first 15, 30 seconds of an approach goes well so we can use the primacy effect to our advantage when out meeting people in real life?
Tim Molnar [00:18:17]:
Yeah, I love that question. So I think yes, 100% it does. And I’m going to refer to it by the principle of the foot in the door approach. So this is something that I talk a little bit about in the book and it comes from the old door to door sales tactics where if you could ask for a small favor and very literally get a foot in the door, you were much less, you were much more likely to have success asking for the bigger favor. And so there are a lot of different ways this can play out. And so you can imagine you’re at the dog park and you can just ask for very simple attention. I think it’s a good practice just asking for very simple things. Hey, you know, is that Ozzy or you know, I love your golden retriever.
Tim Molnar [00:19:01]:
Like what’s your golden retriever’s name? Is your golden retriever friendly? You know, and can I say hi? Just these little things that when you see people walking up to others on the street and like initiating conversations in a non romantic context, this is a totally normal thing to do. It’s very disarming. And it’s that small favorite. That small favor now puts you into this circle of like security. And now when you say, hey, I’ve really enjoyed this banter and like, I just love the energy that I’m picking up on here. I don’t mean to be Too forward. But would you be up for going for a walk sometime? Would you up for, you know, give me your number, whatever it might be that. I think it’s.
Tim Molnar [00:19:43]:
It’s very closely related to the primacy effect, but it just. It just kind of goes by a slightly different name in this context. Or I’m. I’m putting it into a slightly different. Different box here, but the two are very closely tied together.
Connell Barrett [00:19:55]:
I agree. Like your, Your approach with the woman from Eastern Europe, I would call that. It’s kind. It’s pretty. It was fairly direct, like she knew why you were there. Right.
Tim Molnar [00:20:08]:
Absolutely right.
Connell Barrett [00:20:09]:
And I call that a direct approach. And I have no problem with the direct approach at all. If you’re feeling confident and if that’s congruent and authentic with how you feel, that can be very attractive. The thing to remember, though, dear listener, is when you go direct, when you approach, you’re either going to get a really big thumbs up or a really big thumbs down, or in Tim’s case, a really big wedding ring staring him at the face. And you got your answer right, which is fine. Nothing wrong with that. But what I like about your foot in the door concept is it sort of takes. It’s hard to reject a question about that woman’s dog at the dog park.
Connell Barrett [00:20:47]:
What is she gonna say, how dare you ask me how old my poodle is? No, you’re gonna have a very high number of at least social, socially well accepted approaches because you’re not even putting a romantic card on the table right away. It’s a bit more social, which is why I like it, because it gets you into lots of conversations with people and it takes so much of the, quote, fear of rejection out of the equation, or at least it minimizes it.
Tim Molnar [00:21:14]:
And just to add on that a little bit, because I have this research background and I like to read journal articles, there’s an interesting study that was done by a French research team looking at exactly this. How much more effective are we when we start with this small favor first approach? So what the professors did is they sent a team of about 300 undergraduates out into the. The field, so to speak, you know, a crowded area, and they tasked them with asking people on a date. Just again, like, to your. To your point, to use your language, like a very direct approach.
Connell Barrett [00:21:48]:
Yeah.
Tim Molnar [00:21:49]:
And they recorded first, like, you know, men approaching women, and then also like, women approaching men. And what were the efficacy rates around that? And like a lot of these research studies, it was like a strictly heterosexual population. And like, there’s a lot more research that like, fortunately, like, coming through on, like the LGBTQ community. But. But it’s still. It’s still like, fairly sparse. And so this one looked kind of like strictly at that. And one of the things that was interesting is they found when you started with.
Tim Molnar [00:22:20]:
And this is. This is France. So, like, every second person there smokes. So they started, you know, hey, can I get a light? Or other people were. Would start if, you know, you know, can I get directions? You know, where’s the Eiffel Tower? Wherever they were in France. And There was a 5x success rate for the men who started with the small favor first approach. So they’re like, where are directions? And then like, hey, would you be interested in going out versus just the direct, you know, I saw you thought you’re cute. Would you want to go out? And to me, when I read that, it reinforced, I think, what we intuitively know and like, what you connel in your work with, like, all of your clients and all the people you’ve helped under, like, inherently understand, like, yeah, it’s disarming.
Tim Molnar [00:23:01]:
And you just kind of sense that it’s better. And it’s fun to be able to tie the research to it and say, wow, five times as effective. That’s pretty.
Connell Barrett [00:23:11]:
So what was the actual experiment? Was this men talking to women in a. In a romantic context or was just more just a social connections with people or both?
Tim Molnar [00:23:20]:
It was asking for dates. So they would. Oh, it was. And this really dates out. And they’d say, yeah, they would say, your job is to ask for a date. And there were two approaches, basically two groups. One group that would say, would you like to go on a date?
Connell Barrett [00:23:32]:
Yeah.
Tim Molnar [00:23:33]:
And then record the answers. And then another group would say, can I have a light? Thanks so much. Would you like to go on a date? And maybe there was a little bit more in between that. Right. But effectively the idea. And then they just compared those two different study samples and found pretty significant difference.
Connell Barrett [00:23:52]:
Right. This was in France.
Tim Molnar [00:23:54]:
Yeah. Yeah. I don’t know if it would pass. Like, the IRB reviews the ethics here in the U.S. so I’m like, you know, you hear these, like, fascinating studies from psychology from, like the 1950s, and they’re doing these things where you’re like, no chance would a research board let you do that study today?
Connell Barrett [00:24:10]:
Right. If I was dating in France, I would just walk up to women and say, do you like Jerry Lewis movies? And then that pro. I’d probably get an instant yes. That’s my guess. That’s so cool that the French are doing this kind of social dating science research.
Tim Molnar [00:24:26]:
I love that.
Connell Barrett [00:24:28]:
Okay, yeah. So speaking of research, what I love about your book and your book really is just a goldmine of research backed advice. There’s so much great science and research and numbers in it. I wondered if we could segue into online dating and can you share any research or data or numbers to give our listener hope? Arguably the biggest, one of the biggest pain points for people today and men in particular, I think. But people in general is they feel like, you know, the apps just don’t work. It’s all women, women have all the power, women get all the matches, great looking guys get all the matches. But I’m really struggling. Can you share whether it’s from your book or your own personal knowledge and insight, can you share some numbers, some research to talk about what does and doesn’t work on the dating apps?
Tim Molnar [00:25:23]:
Absolutely. So there were a few interesting findings that I came across, some surprising some that aligned with my pre existing expectations. When I, when I started digging into this more from an empirical nature, one was just to be able to understand what individual experiences were. And so, you know, there were some interesting Reddit threads that I had just gone through where people can post their Tinder statistics. And there was a programmer who had put together a Python script that would basically give you a chart that would start with, you know, you’ve been ON TINDER for two years, you’ve swiped 113,000 times. You know, 37% of those were write swipes. The others were left swipes. This is how many matches that led to this is how many dates that are, excuse me, conversations that led to this is how many dates that led to.
Tim Molnar [00:26:19]:
And you get to see this funnel basically from swipe down to actually meeting up for dates. And I talk in the book and a few of these are the more egregious examples. But I really don’t think that they’re complete anomalies. And I’ll explain why in a second here. But so there are a couple people that I talk about in the book who had swiped upwards of 100,000 times over four years and that had landed them maybe a couple thousand matches and that had landed them a couple hundred conversations which ultimately led to zero dates.
Connell Barrett [00:26:55]:
Wow.
Tim Molnar [00:26:56]:
And just to kind of break that down from like top to bottom again, it was like four years, 100, call it 13, I think. Was the number,000 swipes, zero dates, and.
Connell Barrett [00:27:07]:
You’Re talking hundreds or was it thousands of matches or hundreds of matches?
Tim Molnar [00:27:11]:
They had gotten. I think in this case, it was like 200 and I’m blank on the numbers, but let’s call it 237ish matches.
Connell Barrett [00:27:18]:
237 matches for this person and 0 in real life dates.
Tim Molnar [00:27:24]:
Yeah. And so I think hopefully this normalizes some of the experiences of people who are feeling like, gosh, you know, like, I’ve been swiping and swiping and swiping, and then, like, occasionally I do get a match and. And then we’ll message for a bit, and then maybe it just stops and I’m getting ghosted. And certainly, like, other people do have a lot of success. And so, like, before I kind of tie a bow on this, I just want to also acknowledge Michael Rosenfeld, who’s a sociologist over at Stanford, runs a study called How Couples Meet and Stay Together. And back in 2017, there were 39% of new relationships that were formed meeting online. And today it’s closer to 50%. So it’s a statistic we hear thrown around a lot.
Tim Molnar [00:28:07]:
And what it tells us is when people ask the just binary question, do apps work? Clearly, they’re working for a lot of people if we’re saying that the goal is, you know, relationship, and not discussing, like, some of the other, like, frustrations and whatnot that come through with this. But to get back to this Tinder plot and kind of going from all of these swipes down to, like, very few or sometimes zero dates. What’s going on there? Well, when I dug into this a little bit more, Tinder had released a statistic around the success of men getting a match on dates. And it was somewhere in the ballpark of two and a half percent.
Connell Barrett [00:28:49]:
Two and a half percent. Can you clarify that stat? Two and a half percent.
Tim Molnar [00:28:54]:
So when they swipe right on someone, There was a 2 1/2% chance that they were going to match with someone.
Connell Barrett [00:29:02]:
Oh, I see. 2.5% chance of swiping. Right. And getting a match.
Tim Molnar [00:29:07]:
Yes. So say you swiped on absolutely every pro. They swiped right on 100 profiles. Right. You would expect 2.5 of those people to swipe. That’s your.
Connell Barrett [00:29:16]:
That was the. That’s your average man according to Tinder in this study.
Tim Molnar [00:29:21]:
Exactly.
Connell Barrett [00:29:22]:
Okay, proceed. Just getting my. Make sure I’m following you.
Tim Molnar [00:29:26]:
This is great. Yeah. And I’m only getting into the weeds on this. I know a lot of your audience is a little bit more right brain, kind of like I am in these ways. So I think it’s really interesting to understand there’s this idea where we have a few men who are maybe very conventionally attractive who are getting much higher success rates. So instead of two and a half percent, they might be getting closer to 50%. And I talk in the book about a theoretical sample size where this actually totally makes sense, where you have a handful of men who are doing very well and getting a lot of these swipes, and then a large swath of them who are getting zero or very few swipes, and it averages out to 2.5%. But it’s what in mathematics we call a bimodal distribution.
Tim Molnar [00:30:13]:
Basically, there are two modes, there are two averages. There’s the big group of people who are getting almost no matches and then another group of people who’s getting a high degree of matches.
Connell Barrett [00:30:24]:
Right. So 1% keeps getting richer and the 90 something percent get poorer.
Tim Molnar [00:30:29]:
Exactly. And so getting back to your point of, well, great. Like, let’s figure out, like, where is the optimism in this? You’ve told me that these are really difficult platforms. Again, just to revisit the Rosenfeld statistics. Like, yes, about half people, half of new relationships start online today. So there, there is a lot that we can do. And what are those things that we can do? Well, I really like the work. There’s a woman by the name of Logan Urie who’s a behavioral scientist over at Hinge, and she does some great work with leading up their behavioral scientist team on what are some of the tangible things that we can do with our profiles to increase the probability of success.
Tim Molnar [00:31:10]:
Some of them I think you’ve probably spoken about at length on here. But some of the biggest ones are, you know, the first picture is really your. She’ll refer to it sometimes like a billboard, your billboard, your advertisement of what you’re putting out into the world.
Connell Barrett [00:31:26]:
Right.
Tim Molnar [00:31:26]:
And so you want to make sure that there’s a clear picture of your face. You want to be smiling. And this is something that I think makes sense to put a lot of effort into or put some effort into. And this could be, you know, hiring a professional photographer. It could be just like asking a friend with a good smartphone to shoot you in some good light. But that’s super important. You want to keep your number of pictures between about 4 to 6. Have some that are showing you doing activities that you care about.
Tim Molnar [00:32:02]:
You want others that have a full body shot so someone can get an idea of what the full you looks like. And so I think that’s a lot in terms of profile design, especially with pictures. With any of the prompting, I think you Want to be writing questions or answers in a way that initiates conversations. So one way that I could think about responding to, you know, if I’m into the outdoors, I could say, you know, I love to ski. And it gives you a data point about me. And maybe if you’re really interested in my pictures, you might write back and say, cool, you know, have you ever been up to Whistler? Or, you know, have you been out to Tahoe ski over in Europe? But a different way that I can pose that same thing is, you know, are you interested? You know, like just got back from a trip to Japan, like amazing powder and sushi. And someone who’s in the ski community understands that they read between the lines and like maybe even a question at the end, like, you know, like, let me know if you’re up for sushi, so that you’ve given a leading question to someone on the other end that they can more easily respond to.
Connell Barrett [00:33:13]:
Nice. That’s also an example of showing not telling which as a writer, you probably or anybody listening might remember from college English, high school English. My old teacher used to say, come on show, don’t tell, don’t, don’t tell me something, show me something. And as a reader, I’m going to feel it more. So with online dating, sure, your prompt or your bio could say, I like to ski, but a more vivid way to show that would be, oh, I feel amazing swooshing down the black diamond. The powder is amazing. Instead of saying, I like nice restaurants. Oh my God, the spider roll at such and such place makes life worth living.
Connell Barrett [00:33:57]:
So we can infuse some specificity and some emotion into our bios and prompts. We can have them come, come to life a little bit more. That’s what I’ve found.
Tim Molnar [00:34:06]:
Yeah, I love that. I think that’s absolutely right.
Connell Barrett [00:34:08]:
I’m hungry for sushi all of a sudden. This is great. So. So I think some of our listeners might still be doing shots of vodka because they’re depressed at the number of matches they think they’re gonna get based on that stat. You gave us about two and a half percent. And then most of those two and a half percent are going to maybe better looking guys. But here’s what I want to throw in here and tell me if you agree and even if you don’t pretend like you do for this podcast. Just kidding, just kidding.
Connell Barrett [00:34:37]:
No, what I say to a guy is, yeah, don’t worry. The majority of men who are on online dating are. They have underwhelming profiles. They have A first photo, that’s sunglasses and, you know, a hoodie making them look like the Unabomber. They have really boring, lame prompts. And if you can just get your profile into the top 10% in terms of editorial content, good photos, that good opening billboard. You mentioned a couple prompts, show some personality, some humor, then I anyway, feel free to agree or disagree, Tim. I feel like, okay, you might not be 6 foot 3, male model, 6 pack, AB guy, but you’re still going to elevate yourself above 90% of most men on dating apps and start to get some matches and some dates.
Tim Molnar [00:35:28]:
I completely agree. I think we have so much more agency than we give ourselves credit for. And like you’re saying, putting a little bit of effort into that differentiates you from a giant swath of the population who’s not taking the time to do that. And then in terms of how we’re actually engaging once we connect with someone is also going to be really indicative of whether or not this leads to meeting in real life. And so one of the things that I think is just as simplest from here is recognizing these tools. I mean, they are tools, they’re great servants, terrible masters. And so if we’re using them the way they’re designed to be used, or I won’t even say designed the way that they can be used, we can move relatively quickly from a brief back and forth into a date. And I think that’s really what we want to set the goal at here.
Tim Molnar [00:36:27]:
We, we don’t want to have these endless pen pal relationships where we’re writing and writing for, you know, days and days and weeks on end. That’s not why many people are on the apps. And if you are, find another platform. So I think if we’re using these intentionally and thoughtfully, we can do a lot to differentiate ourselves and move more into that other group bimodal distribution that I was talking about of people who have had a lot of success on the apps and are going on dates with interesting people.
Connell Barrett [00:37:06]:
What else from your book can you share with us? What’s a jaw dropping stat or a piece of research that nobody’s ever heard before that your book will unearth for them that can give them motivation or just tell them the truth about dating and give them some hope and some help.
Tim Molnar [00:37:28]:
So there’s a concept that has been talked about a bit before that I expand on in the book, and it’s this idea known as the secretary problem. It discusses when do we know when we should stop dating? So we run into this paradox of choice sometimes on the apps where there’s so many options and there’s the temptation to continue swiping to try and find this partner who’s as good looking as this ex and as funny and charismatic as this axe, and whose in laws you got along well as this other X. And if you don’t find them in this date, there’s the temptation to just swipe the grass is greener on the next date. We know that’s not the case. We know there are a lot of fallacies and cognitive biases built into that thinking. And so then the question becomes how do we know when to stop? How do we know when enough is enough? When we’ve met someone who’s met the, you know, three or four, like really fundamental criteria that we’re looking for Someone.
Connell Barrett [00:38:28]:
Someone who, when you say stop dating, do you mean give up on dating or do you mean say, this is the person I want to be with?
Tim Molnar [00:38:34]:
Excellent question, the latter. So when do we decide? You know, I’ve been on some dates and this is the person who I want to commit to. So there was this math riddle that circulated in like the 1950s known as the secretary problem. And the idea is you’re hiring for the position of a secretary and there are a hundred secretaries out in the waiting room. One of them comes in, you interview them and decide yes or no. If you say no, then that candidate is forever gone and you continue on with the interview process. Of course you want to select the person who’s going to be best for the job. You can make two mistakes.
Tim Molnar [00:39:11]:
One mistake is you don’t interview enough people. So you interview two or three people. You say, yeah, this will do, and you leave the other 98 or 97 sitting out in the waiting room. The other mistake is to wait to the other end of the distribution where you said, gosh, I’ve interviewed 95 people. At this point, I only have five more choices and there are actually some pretty good ones now that I’m looking back on things. So how do we more intentionally, more thoughtfully think about optimizing our chances of finding the best secretary? And there are no guarantees, but from a statistical standpoint, the way we maximize that is to interview the first 37% of candidates, identify who the best fit was, call that our baseline, and then continue to date. Once we find someone who’s better than that baseline, that’s our person to settle down with. So this is a riddle that’s been likened in a dating context in different places Logan Urie talks about in her book I’ve heard it talked about in algorithms to live by.
Tim Molnar [00:40:09]:
Again, it’s an old math riddle. I think maybe Hannah Fry does a TED Talk on it. And my thought was it’s an interesting corollary for the dating world, but there are a lot of simplifying assumptions that don’t actually make it a great fit. My thought is, if you have a qualified pool of 100 people, you know, you’ve decided, great, I swipe with this person, they meet all these like, initial criteria that I might have and we go and meet on a date within a group of 100 or 200 or whatever it might be people here, there are probably quite a few who you could choose to build a great relationship with and say, great, as soon as I find someone who makes me feel awesome about myself, who is caring and generous, that’s someone where I really want to invest and decide that I’m going to make this relationship work. And so I came up with a variation to this which comes from this, this idea of being a, what’s called a satisficer. So when we make decisions, there are a couple different ways we can go about making decisions. One is to be a maximizer. Maximizers are the people who want to optimize for the best outcome, the absolute empirical best outcome.
Tim Molnar [00:41:26]:
So they’re shopping for a car and they’re going to test drive 130 different cars before they make a decision, as opposed to saying, great, once I get one that, you know, has a pretty good safety record and has a decent, you know, 10 year, 100,000 mile warranty and is able to accelerate as fast as I need to to, you know, merge onto the highway. It may not be the absolute best one, but it’s a really good choice. And I’m going to choose to be happy with that, that, that decision. And so that is sort of the maximizing versus satisficing idea. The maximizer want to find like the, the objectively best choice out of all 130 cars. And the satis. Let me set a few criteria. And then once I find that, and maybe it’s after test driving seven cars, great, I’m going to go ahead and put the down payment on and make it official.
Tim Molnar [00:42:17]:
And so what the research shows us is that the satisficers are much more happy with their decisions. And I think there are a lot of important lessons for us in a dating context, which is it is not necessarily finding the person who is the funniest or the most attractive or has the best salary or, you know, has the dog that you get along with the absolute best. It really is about understanding what are your core values and getting clear on what those are and understanding when you have met someone who has those. So I have kind of this extension to the secretary problem called the satisficer solution. And I have a calculator that you can find off my website, TimothyMolnard.com calculator where you can change around the parameters of the secretary problem and basically say instead of 100, you know, if we want to consider there are still a hundred people in the waiting room, instead of just one person that we could be happy with, maybe we imagine we could be happy with 20 people or 10 or 5. And then you can play around with the number of dates you would need to go on to likely meet that person. So it gives you a probability where it would say, you know, after you’ve gone on seven dates, if you decide there are 10 good matches out of these 100, then it will spit out the probability that you’ll have met them after that, after that seventh date. And so for those listeners who may be a little bit more mathematically inclined, it may be a fun thing to just kind of play around with and it gives you some ideas for, you know, playing with some parameters and understanding what the probabilistic implications are.
Connell Barrett [00:43:52]:
You just gave me the headline for this podcast, how to find love by using a Calculator. Oh my God. So cool. As somebody who hated math in high school, I love that tip.
Tim Molnar [00:44:04]:
That’s great.
Connell Barrett [00:44:04]:
By the way, it’s TimothyMolnar.com and that’s spelled M O L N A R. And that’s where you can find the book and also this calculator. I love that. I love that. That’s so cool. Speaking of your book and stats, I just wanted to ask you to talk about one more. One or two more stats from the book. I found this checking out your book before we hopped on today’s podcast, which is a fact that paid dating app users, people who pay for the app, are 50% more likely to find a partner.
Connell Barrett [00:44:35]:
According to DateSmarter, page 137, quote, partnered adults who paid for dating site features were more likely to meet their significant other online. 52% of paying users versus 34% of non paying users. Sounds like good bet is to go with the paid option assuming you have a relatively good profile. Can you talk a bit more about that stat?
Tim Molnar [00:45:00]:
Yeah, absolutely. I think there can be this temptation to want to always use the freemium version of whatever software it is and feel like we’re gaming the system and we’re getting the free version of Zoom, we’re getting the free version of Hinge, we’re getting, well, Netflix is a little bit different because maybe we’re using our friend’s grandma’s account or something, but just to bring it back to these more standard freemium features, there can be a real temptation, and I find myself falling into that as well. But I think a good question to ask yourself is, what type of value do I put on this? And finances are a really personal thing. And so I don’t like to give blanket advice of you should or should not like, it’s not this binary thing for everyone. There are a lot of things to consider. But I think I do like to think about it this way, where if we assume that a dating app premium feature costs, you know, maybe $50 or $60 for some of your listeners who are working engineering jobs, it’s not unreasonable that they’re making that per hour. They’re saying, you know, is it worth one hour of my time, the equivalent to be able to increase my chances by 50%? It’s a question to ask yourself, right? I don’t want to say that there are unequivocal answers to it, but I think it’s worth thinking about that, that opportunity cost of, you know, if I continue to date and how many more, you know, dinners do I need to buy? How many, how much more time am I spending, like, scrolling through these apps? How much. How many more like, approaches do I need to prepare myself for? And this is by no means to say that if you do pay, you will for sure have success.
Tim Molnar [00:46:39]:
But it’s saying, like, I think the whole idea behind date smarter or big core tenant of it is how do we increase the probability of finding success? And I just always go back to the fundamental idea of having healthy relationships in our lives is the single biggest contributor to our happiness. And so for me, investing in those and whatever that looks like always seems. Seems worth it from where I sit.
Connell Barrett [00:47:09]:
I mean, for the price of a couple of fancy cocktails each month, you can upgrade to a paid version of a dating app. And assuming you have a pretty good profile, then you’re going to be shown to more women and have a better chance of getting more matches and potentially more dates. And another stat from your book that I thought was telling, which is you write that Hinge reports that their Hinge X users, the premium feature, in other words, go on three times as many dates as people who use the free version of Hinge. So it’s all backed by data, right?
Tim Molnar [00:47:48]:
Yeah. And again, I do think that the behavioral science team who’s collecting a lot of that data over at Hinge, does a really nice job. And so I think if you’re hearing that and feeling frustrated and feeling like maybe you’ve had some messages, some dates, it’s a worthwhile experiment to try. It can be a worthwhile experiment to try and say, great, I’m going to do this for a month. I’m going to set a reminder on my calendar for 27 days from now to cancel this or to revisit the idea of whether this has made a difference. But I approach this from a scientific perspective and in my coaching, I like to do a lot of experimentation as well and say, let’s just run a very simple experiment. We’ll a B test. This last month you had the freemium version.
Tim Molnar [00:48:30]:
This month you’re going to pay the 50 odd dollars and try the paid subscription. Did you have a different experience? If you did and it was notably better, was it 50 odd dollars better? If so, great. And if not, then revisit that too.
Connell Barrett [00:48:45]:
A lot of people listening to this episode or listening to this podcast, they don’t date much at all. Dates are few and far between for them. And another quote from Date Smarter quote you. I’m quoting you, of course. I managed to generate only five potential partners in the first three decades of life in just two years I went on. Then in the next two years, I went on dates with 47 women. So can you talk a little bit about how you went from five dates through age 30, roughly, to 47 dates in two years? How did you. I call that abundance.
Connell Barrett [00:49:22]:
I want men to have an abundance of options so that they can choose a great girlfriend from some nice options. How did you go from five dates in 30 years to 47 dates in two years?
Tim Molnar [00:49:33]:
Yeah. So, first of all, thanks for doing your homework here and asking that question. It’s a fun one for me to answer. So it’s not something I talk about a lot, but I think it has the ability to really help individuals who are similarly situated where I was, which was not having a lot of dates, not necessarily having the confidence I thought about what is really, truly holding me back. What are the roadblocks?
Connell Barrett [00:49:58]:
Okay.
Tim Molnar [00:49:59]:
And for me, it was that I was not going and saying hi to people. I was not going up and making that comment about the, you know, ozzy at the dog park or the chicken pot stickers and aisle five over at Trader Joe’s. Just like something simple. And so I thought to myself, what is holding me back from doing that? Probably confidence, self esteem, something wrapped up in there. And then I said, what research backed practices do I know can help me overcome that? And so I turned to both affirmations and visualizations, kind of borrowing from positive psychology. And in the morning, I would sit on my floor for about five minutes and I would close my eyes and I would picture myself in various settings. So maybe it was over at the rock climbing gym and I saw someone who I thought seemed really interesting and I wanted to go chat to. And I would picture myself going up and just saying like, hey, you know, would, would you, would you want to belay on this, on this next route? And even from the floor of my bedroom I would start to get that, like, that tightness, that anxiety like in my, in my chest or in my stomach.
Tim Molnar [00:51:14]:
And I would just take like a really deep breath and I would do it again and I’d start the visualization and I’d go up to the same person and would ask the same question and the tightness would still be there and take that breath, do it again and slowly over time. And I don’t want to say slowly over like three years, like slowly over like probably like a week and a half, two weeks from when I started this to when I asked really the first person out that I’d ever really asked out. And I had had like kind of that, that five number that you brought up was like girlfriends who I’d met through, you know, clubs or whatever, but in terms of like going up to someone who I really didn’t know, who was a stranger idea, I hadn’t done that really in the first, first three decades of life. And so that visualization practice combined with affirmations of, you know, I get to go make someone’s day. And really I think that’s a key thing. And I know you’ve talked about this before for listeners who maybe haven’t listened to one of those episodes where you’ve mentioned it is you have the ability to make someone’s day, to go up, make them smile, to be able to tell their friends later, hey, yeah, this nice guy came up to me today and started talking about, you know, frappuccinos in the, in the coffee line. And you know, we had a really nice chat and I think again, we just, we get very much in our heads about, you know, how does this make me feel the discomfort and all of that and, and lose sight of that. So that was something that I would just continue to remind myself of, like, you know, I’m enough.
Tim Molnar [00:52:54]:
And someone would be fortunate to, like, have a nice conversation. And in this era of social atrophy, where loneliness has never been higher and we have the surgeon general declaring it a pandemic, we have countries like the UK and Japan appointing ministers of loneliness. People crave this social connection. And it really could be the highlight of their day, perhaps their week, for you to go up and offer to play them in the climbing gym or ask them what they’re reading on the bus. And for me to actually bring myself to actualize that and to recognize this discrepancy from, like, sure, it sounds great, but, like, how do I get myself to do that? It really was the combination of these affirmation and visualization practices. And then I. You know, it was the difference between not being able to do that and then being able to walk up to someone in Trader Joe’s, and I made some stupid comment about salmon, and we got chatting, and we ended up going on five great dates. And it didn’t end up being, you know, a forever fit, but that gave me the realization that, like, yes, I can do this, and I can do this again.
Tim Molnar [00:54:04]:
And certainly there were times where after that I’d be like, great, okay, I’m gonna go up and do this. And I chicken out and say, like, great. Some days I just don’t feel quite as confident, and that’s okay. I needed to extend grace to myself. And other days, you know, I’d be feeling great, and maybe we’d chat to a number of people.
Connell Barrett [00:54:20]:
So these 47 dates. I’m sorry, 47 women you’ve met in those two years. Do I have that number right?
Tim Molnar [00:54:26]:
It was 47 first dates.
Connell Barrett [00:54:28]:
47 first dates, yeah. Got it. So obviously, 47 different women, right?
Tim Molnar [00:54:33]:
Exactly.
Connell Barrett [00:54:33]:
So if you were to give me the pie chart of these 47, what percentage did you meet in real life by walking up to them and just finding them throughout your life versus online?
Tim Molnar [00:54:45]:
So I had met, I think, 31 online and 16 person. But what I talk about, and maybe where you’re getting to here, and kind of the interesting finding was I tracked did we go on a second date? And that was really interesting to me. And if we had met online, did we go on a second date? And if we had met in person, did we go on a second date?
Connell Barrett [00:55:10]:
I’m on pins and needles. Go, what is it? I’m going to make a guess. Okay, okay, I’m gonna guess. I’m not gonna guess the percentage But I’m gonna say it was a higher percentage of second dates or with women you met who you had met in person or approached, quote, unquote, in person.
Tim Molnar [00:55:27]:
Yeah. And it wasn’t just a small effect size. It was 10x as much success. So about 70% of the dates that I went on with someone I met in person, we went on a second date. And a lot of them was like at least like three, four or five dates. It was like, like really, like pretty, pretty decent connections. And there were only a handful from the 31 who I’d met online that led to second dates.
Connell Barrett [00:55:53]:
How did you. What does that give us meaning to that? What does that mean or what did it mean to you?
Tim Molnar [00:55:57]:
Anyway, so the researcher in me and the statistician wanted to see if I could run what we’d use like a statistical regression to understand, like, is there statistically significant difference between these sample size? And unfortunately, the sample size is just a little bit too small to be able to register on those charts. I was like, I really want to talk about that in the book. But it didn’t quite, quite check out on the little Z test I was running. So what it did tell me though was there is a lot that we bring in person that we just couldn’t possibly ever perceive, even with the most honest and authentic profile. And when you’re in line at the grocery store and the person in front of you pays a really genuine thank you to the person bagging your groceries, gives them a smile immediately I’m thinking, gosh, this is a person who sees the little people in life and treats them well. And when no one’s looking, they’re doing the right thing. And that’s the kind of person I want to be with. And if I see someone online and they went to maybe a great college and they have an impressive job and they have attractive photos and interesting hobbies that very well could be someone that I would be a good match with that you might be a good match with, or one of your listeners could be a good match with.
Tim Molnar [00:57:20]:
But the things that we know from research actually lead to happiness. None of those are captured by any of those indicators. They’re nice to haves, but they are not predictive of whether or not you are going to be in a relationship with this person in 1, 2, 5, 10 years. We have great research from John and Julie Gottman on this. And for those of you listeners who aren’t familiar with their work out of the University of Washington, and they’ll have couples come into their love lab and they’ll hook them up to all sorts of biometrics to understand. And basically they’ll be in the apartment for me 24 hours, sometimes 72 hours. They’ll test urine to be able to understand cortisol levels, when are they feeling stressed, and they’ll code all kinds of facial expressions to be able to understand. Running this as a longitudinal study, what is the likelihood that this couple is together again in a year, 10 years, 20 years, whatever it might be.
Tim Molnar [00:58:17]:
And they’ve been doing this for decades. And they’ve reported that with nearly 90% success. They can tell just by watching this couple interact for a very short period of time whether or not they’re going to be together. And from that they’ve distilled down the core things that really do lead to happiness and marital satisfaction. And none of those are how tall this person is. None of those are what job this person has. None of those are whether this person went to college X, Y or Z. It’s really things like loyalty and generosity and kindness and emotional stability.
Tim Molnar [00:58:57]:
And these are things that are just very difficult to pick up on apps. And that’s what I think I could more intuitively sense. And I think what your listeners will be able to more intuitively sense what the other person on the other side of this interaction can intuitively sense.
Connell Barrett [00:59:14]:
We have time for just one more area, but this is an important area, something that might be the single universal, most most popular universally asked question in dating, at least from men, which is when talking to a woman in person, texting, basically communicating with women, how do I talk to women, how do I flirt, how do I make a romantic connection? And I’d love for you to feel free to make this research backed if you have research on it, or maybe this is a bit more art than science, but when you were going on these 47 dates in two years, 47 first dates, not to mention all your second dates, what did you find worked well for you in terms of conversation and making romance happen in a win win way? I ask you this because I feel like our listener is a lot like you, Tim. I feel like our listener is an analytical gentleman and is fascinated by data and research. And I’m not saying that does or doesn’t help somebody on a date, but I’m just curious what worked for you and what didn’t in terms of talking to women and making some romance happen.
Tim Molnar [01:00:27]:
So I think a really important piece of this question is how do we get ourselves in the ring? How do we get ourselves a shot from when we’ve matched with someone on an app to be able to actually meet up with them in person. Because anyone who’s used these knows there can be a really big divide between those two things.
Connell Barrett [01:00:45]:
Right?
Tim Molnar [01:00:46]:
So one of the things that I talk about is using what James Clear, who wrote Atomic Habits, refers to as implementation intentions. And it’s really a specific behavior date, time of like what we’re going to do or in this case just specificity around when we’re going to meet up. So you send over a plan, an invitation and instead of like, hey, would you want to get together sometime? That’s a really vague question because I don’t know if I’m agreeing to a all day hike. I don’t know if we’re going for coffee. I don’t know if that’s at 7 in the morning or 2pm on a Saturday or on a Thursday. And contrast that with, hey, it’s been really fun chatting back and forth here. I’d love to take this to a coffee shop. Are you free? Thursday at 6pm there’s this really fun coffee shop that I’ve been loving downtown called Whatever.
Tim Molnar [01:01:55]:
And now the person on the other end of that has all the information that they need to make that decision and it’s possible that that decision is. No, actually like I was really comfortable on the app and I’m really not looking for meeting up with real people here. I’m you know, doing this for self gratification or other types of reasons to ward off loneliness to, you know, as a numbing effect for some anxious feelings that I’m having. But that’s a lot better to figure out at this stage as opposed to continuing to draw the conversation on for days and days and days. And so I think it’s a lot specificity. I think it’s about clarity of intentions and yeah, I think it’s like people want someone who’s fun too. So the more that you can let your personality shine through and think about, you know, what are some things that are exciting to you? How do you ask interesting questions? I think all of those contribute to positive communication that can help people move the needle and improve their chances of having success.
Connell Barrett [01:03:02]:
Give us a story. Give us a success story from your dating past. A date you had that went really well, you asked great questions, you really clicked with her. Any specific moments, memories jump out to you?
Tim Molnar [01:03:18]:
Yeah. So the first real date that I had with my now partner Paige, we went over to the Boulder Reservoir and we decided to bring a picnic. Probably met up around 6:30 or 7. And immediately I knew there was something special. She had made this, like, beet hummus because she had this csa, so she’d get little produce once a week. And she had taken the time to cook these beets, blend them down, blend up the chickpeas, and. And I remember just being really taken with that. And from her perspective when she talks about the date and when it really clicked for her was we got into discussing our morning routines.
Tim Molnar [01:04:11]:
You know, when we get up in the morning, what do we do? And she would say, well, you know, like, I like to start my day with like a green smoothie. I was like, well, what goes into the green smoothie? And I was always, like, genuinely fascinated. My dad was into these for the longest time and. And so I was curious, you know, I’d done little green smoothie kick myself at one point. And you know, she’s talking about, like, okay, well, first I need, like a thickener. So I put in, like, I put in yogurt. I was like, is it Greek yogurt? And she’s like, oh, yeah, it’s gotta be chobani. And I was like, blue top, red top, like, which one are we thinking? And I was genuinely curious to know, like, what went into that.
Tim Molnar [01:04:49]:
And she said, like, in that moment that was sort of her beet hummus moment. She was like, gosh, like, this guy wants to know whether I use the red top Chobani or the blue chop chobani. Like, he actually cares about me and what’s going on. Like, I feel seen, I feel heard, I feel understood. And neither of us were trying to put on an act of, oh, I’m gonna put together this hummus because maybe I’ll impress him. It’s like, no, I love this csa. I love fresh produce, and I wanna, like, make this hummus. And like, you know, if nothing else, like, I get to have a good tasty snack even if he doesn’t like this.
Tim Molnar [01:05:19]:
And for me, I’m like, gosh, like, I just. This is so fascinating, like, what goes in there? So. So I think just that ability to show up with a genuine curiosity. And this goes for so many conversations and interactions that we have. That’s not just dating related, but it’s meeting people in a professional context, meeting people on the bus. You never know where something might lead. But I’ve had fascinating conversations with people who started medical centers and the guy who used to run the Tokyo Stock Exchange. And these weren’t things where I was like, gosh, like, this seems like a really important person sitting on this bench, it was just like, here’s a nice person, like, I’m gonna say hi and then like ask some interesting questions about what they’re doing.
Tim Molnar [01:06:04]:
And, and sometimes like, they might not be, you know, they might be busy, they might be doing other stuff, they might have things going on, they might have had a death in the family recently and might just be having an off day. But more often than not, we’re starved for that connection and people really appreciate that. Genuine curiosity.
Connell Barrett [01:06:22]:
I love that story. But you asking Paige yogurt based questions, coming from a place of genuine curiosity.
Tim Molnar [01:06:31]:
Yeah. I don’t know why it was so fascinating to me, but it was. And I just kind of kept pressing. And so I think for someone listening to this, they’re like, I really don’t care about yogurt. There’s something else that they do care about and that they’re going to be able to find common ground on and going to be able to probe a little bit more deeply on.
Connell Barrett [01:06:50]:
I think that’s a great example of the power of showing genuine interest. And what I love about that story is one of my big pet peeves is this whole idea of don’t ask questions, avoid interview mode. I say you can interview all you want. If your interview questions are good ones, if they’re interesting to her, if they’re about her because you’re curious about something, if it’s coming through the lens of I’m going to ask her questions because I want to know what makes her tick, what makes her who she is, that’s. That can be absolutely magnetic to women because you’re at, you’re genuinely curious about her. I had a first date once. She’s now my good friend Rebecca. But at the time we dated briefly and on our first date I was feeling pretty introverted, pretty shy, and I defaulted to questions.
Connell Barrett [01:07:43]:
I just wasn’t in the zone, didn’t have a lot of energy. I sort of defaulted to interview mode. But I asked pretty good, pretty interesting questions. This is before I ever became a dating coach. And I would say she did 80% of the talking. And I didn’t really share much about myself, but I asked good questions. I had not yet gotten back home. We parted ways, had a quick little goodnight kiss and I got back home.
Connell Barrett [01:08:07]:
And before I’d even gotten home, she sent me a text that said, you’re the most interesting person I’ve met in so long, yet I didn’t say anything about me. I was helping her feel seen. And I think that you’re Sharing a similar story about how you, in part, a little window into how you and Paige connected as you were genuinely curious about her. Women love a man who is curious.
Tim Molnar [01:08:31]:
About her, and we love people that are curious about us. Like, I feel great in this conversation. You’ve been asking me great, thoughtful, well curated conversations for the last 45 minutes, and I feel awesome. Like, gosh, Kyle’s like, he’s such a nice guy. We’re having this great conversation. Gosh, Like, I feel so interesting because you’ve made me feel that way. You’ve given me space to talk about myself. So I think for people who are like, gosh, like, what is it that I say? I need to come with a.
Tim Molnar [01:08:58]:
Like, the best story or do this right. Just a reminder that people care more about how you make them feel than the things that you necessarily have to share. And, like, those things will come, but the better you can show up and just be genuinely curious. That knocks so many doors.
Connell Barrett [01:09:19]:
It’s also a nice break in someone’s normal conversational habits to talk in a deeper way about something so freaking dumb, like yogurt. My first date with Jessamine, my girlfriend, Jessamine, we did a deep dive on why she hates ketchup and why I hate mushrooms, and it was fantastic.
Tim Molnar [01:09:44]:
Okay, well, now I need to follow up, so.
Connell Barrett [01:09:46]:
So what are the reasons I hate mushrooms? Because they were created by the devil. They’re slimy. They’re. They taste terrible. They’re literally fungi. And her ketchup issues are a little bit. She’s like, eh, there’s so many better sauces than ketchup. We can do better people.
Connell Barrett [01:10:03]:
But it was fun talking about the littlest things in a really committed way. I think that’s why Seinfeld is such a fun show to watch. You know, it’s a show about nothing. It’s not about nothing. They just. They take a deep dive into the most trivial things, but to them, it’s important. Just something about that makes the. Makes the brain happy, I think.
Tim Molnar [01:10:24]:
Yeah, I couldn’t agree more.
Connell Barrett [01:10:27]:
Well, we’re out of time, Tim. I could keep talking to you, and I’d love to have you back. This is fantastic. Your book really is a goldmine of stats research. I’m fascinated by so much of what you have in your book. Date Smarter A Strategic Guide to Navigating Modern Romance. You can go to TimothyMolnar.com, you can order it. There’s.
Connell Barrett [01:10:47]:
You can also go to Amazon. And do you have any parting words? I like to sometimes end the Podcast by saying to the listener, hey, don’t just consume this information. Although I’m proud of it, Dating success is about. At the end of the day, it’s about taking action. It’s about going out into the world and doing something. Any final parting words for the gentleman listening to this episode?
Tim Molnar [01:11:13]:
Absolutely. So I think we have a lot more agency in this realm of life than we give ourselves credit for. And I think it’s easy and sometimes, like, cliche and a little bit trite to be like, oh, yeah, just go ask someone out tomorrow. That can feel like a really big jump. If you feel like you’re at a place to make that happen, then great. I think that’s a great next step. If you’re like me and where I was, I think a really great next step is do you have five minutes today? And can you sit down and visualize yourself doing something that feels hard or scary for you, that could be approaching someone, that could be meeting up for a date, that could be sending a message that feels a little bit vulnerable? Whatever it is, visualize that process. Feel where that discomfort comes up.
Tim Molnar [01:11:58]:
Repeat that and just spend five minutes doing that today, and that can be your first next step.
Connell Barrett [01:12:04]:
I love it. Yeah. That daily ritual, you sat on your floor and visualized. I have clients. I call it the confidence kickoff, where you sit down every morning, or maybe you go for a walk, or maybe you do it like I do in my swimming pool, going for morning laps. You visualize, you focus on things you want to achieve, things you want to feel. And also getting in touch with your worth as a man. The value you’re going to bring to some woman’s dating table.
Connell Barrett [01:12:29]:
And doing that, at least for a few minutes every day, is a great thing. It’s a great way to start your day. Tim, thank you so much for coming on the podcast.
Tim Molnar [01:12:37]:
Connell, thanks so much for having me. Your listeners really do have a treat being able to show up and listen to you episode after episode here. It’s been fascinating chatting with you, and I would love to come back and chat again sometime.
Connell Barrett [01:12:49]:
Right back at you. As long as we don’t talk about mushrooms in a positive way, only in a negative, critical way. Thank you for listening to an hour plus of Tim and I. Look, there’s millions of podcasts out there. Thank you for spending an hour with Tim and myself. And don’t forget to your dream girlfriend. She is out there and she’s gonna love you. She’s just.
Connell Barrett [01:13:10]:
She’s just gonna want to meet the real, authentic you because that is you at your most attractive. So go out there, take action. The very least, do some morning visualization and be authentic until next time.
