Menu Dating: Taste-Test Your Way to the Main Course

introduction »

THERE’S NO SUCH THING as a bad date. And I should know. I’ve been on at least a thousand of them. Now, I’m not suggesting that every date I have been on was a fairy-tale skip down Bliss Lane. While lots of them have been fantastic, in truth many of them have been so pathetic that they’ve been first and last dates all rolled into one, ending by nine o’clock. I’m even quite certain that several could have been the premise for highly rated episodes of Sex and the City. One date in particular was sooooo pitiable that it landed me in the bookstore middate buying a gift for that evening’s loser: Dating for Dummies. True story. Nevertheless, not even the rudest guys, the most absurd experiences, or the many times I’ve had my feelings steamrolled over leave me believing that dating sucks. In fact, I feel just the opposite about it—I f*&ing love it!

I love dating for the natural adventure that it is. I love that you never know what may come of a date. I love how dating forces you to open your mind. I love the comedy of interaction between the sexes. I love how each date teaches you something new about the way that guys think . . . and what you think about the way that guys think. I love swapping dating stories with my gal pals during Sunday brunch. But most of all, I love dating because every date is an opportunity to discover something about yourself and to become clearer on who you want as your future copilot on the ride of life, certainly not a decision to be taken lightly. This investment of time and thought will have a huge payout in the long run, but the way I see it, all work and no play makes for one dull dating journey, so you may as well have fun along the way, too!

My dating philosophy was developed over the course of many years and countless dates, but it is really a rather basic one—like anything in my life, the more I do it, the more comfortable and confident I become, the better I get at it, and the higher are my chances of success. It’s as simple as this—dating is a game of numbers, and to win, you need the right attitude, the right arsenal of techniques to score countless dates . . . and oh yeah, you need to get out into the game and, more important, be smart about and in control of the game. This, ladies, is what this book will provide—a guide on why and how to become an expert menu dater so you can taste-test your way to the main course.

This is not a miracle Thirty Days to Marriage book filled with reasons to lower your standards or offering up a host of man-manipulation tricks. It won’t teach you how to magically morph into every man’s fantasy woman, and it isn’t about dating like a man. Nope. This book is for real women who live in reality and are looking for the real thing. It’s for those new to the dating game as well as those who are certifiable veterans. It is for women who are ready to tackle the dating game head-on, with fearlessness and open-mindedness. It is for women who love themselves enough to risk error and learn from the trial. It is for you, your sister, your BFF—for fabulous women of distinctive character worthy of great love who are not willing to settle for anything less. It is for women willing to do the work to get there.

Truth be told, I wasn’t always a dating maven. In fact, the foundation of my attitude toward love positioned me perfectly to sit across from Dr. Phil for some rescue me therapy. My parents split up when I was two. To this day, they barely speak. I say all of this not out of bitterness. Far from it. In fact, I am grateful for their being together and their divorce, too. As a result, I got to see a broken relationship, and not one but two new, loving partnerships in my dad and stepmom and my mom and stepdad. I got to see how not to do it and how to do it . . . albeit in disguise, one of the truest and most valuable blessings of my life. I mention this to simply reassure you that if you have had fuzzy views of and/or poor previous experiences dating, you can still be successful at it without a visit to Dr. Phil. I am living proof.

I didn’t discover my true dating potential until Todd. Todd is my confessional. I can tell him anything, and he will always give me honest feedback and advice, even if it makes me cry. He is my best friend, not my boyfriend, and I’ve known him virtually my entire life. We grew up together. At eight years old, we chased each other on the playground. At eleven, I developed a short-lived, unreciprocated crush on him. At twenty-five, we became roommates. At twenty-six, after about two too many bottles of wine, we had one awkward, drunken, LOL kiss, followed by a life-changing pinky swear that committed us to each other . . . but not in the way you think.

For four extraordinary years, Todd and I had a designated date every Sunday night when we exchanged stories of life and love over a bottle of wine (or Jack Daniel’s for the rougher weeks), relying on each other for candid advice and someone to laugh away our dating debacles with. On one of our very first Sunday confessionals, we mutually agreed to turn the process of dating into a boot camp. We devised a dating experiment whereby we bestowed the power of a dating coach upon each other. We vowed that for three months from that day we would serve as each other’s compass while navigating through the dating jungle. We would do nothing without the other one’s approval, from selecting who to date, to determining when to call, to when to have sex and with whom (honestly, though, that one was violated often), to when and how to break it off . . . and everything in between. We deciphered man/woman speak into plain English for each other. We picked out date outfits for each other. We managed each other’s dating calendars and forced each other to date at least three different people per week! We encouraged each other to date outside of our respective types. We scripted e-mails to and role-played phone conversations with our respective crushes. And, of course, we served as the ultimate wingman/woman to each other.

Todd and I trusted each other’s advice and subsequently dated largely and lively, enjoying each and every moment of it, collecting eye-opening experiences and lessons along the way. Then, after we found great success in helping each other, we tested our theories out with friends and friends of friends . . . all across the country. At age twenty-nine, about three and a half years beyond our initial ninety-day commitment, I began writing this book to bequeath what we learned upon single women across the world who deserve a happy, fruitful, and purposeful dating life.

I am not a celebrity. I am not a psychiatrist. I am definitely not your all-knowing mother. So, why listen to me? It’s simple, really. Because I am an everyday girl, just like you, faced with everyday love challenges, looking for everyday solutions. I’ve had the same dating disasters and victories as you’ve had; the only differences are that I had Todd to help me understand the dating world from the boy’s-eye-view perspective, and that I took the time to analyze my experiences, learn from them, and not only achieve success personally, but now have a forum to share these discoveries with you.

Over the years, many fabulous women have adopted the simple philosophies and methodologies explained in this book and have proven them to be successful. Every viewpoint and technique in this book has not only been tested repeatedly on women, but also been given the boy seal of approval. Once you read this book, you will come to realize your power as a woman, your freedom in relationships, and your undeniable dating potential . . . and you will be entirely ready to face the dating game head-on, focused and armed for success.

Before we go on, there is one more thing: I ask you to make a few promises to me and to yourself, or this whole book will be time and money wasted. Promise that you will get out of your own way by being open to reconditioning how you think about dating. Promise that you will try to abolish the old-school mentality that dating fruitfully makes you a noncommittal slut—it does not. It makes you empowered, experienced, and knowledgeable. Promise that you will begin to think of dating as a fun, moment-to-moment adventure, as an opportunity to live, to learn, to laugh, to grow, and not as a daunting means-to-a-marriage end. Promise that if you do have sex, you will do it safely. And most important, promise me that you will e-mail me if you get stuck, and in return I promise to be your compass in the dating jungle.

Welcome to love’s buffet!

Happy taste-testing,

Tristan

tristan@menudatingonline.com

phase 1 »

Cleansing Your Palate . . .

jumping aboard the MENu Dating program

MENU DATING IS THE practice of dating in small bites with great abundance, great purpose, and great variety. It is about flavorful, short-term experiences that offer long-term lessons . . . and even longer-term results. It is about tasting all that like and love have to offer in an effort to make a solid life-partner decision—rooted in meaningful experiences and subsequent confidence.

Just as you change your food habits when you want to lose weight, you need to change your dating habits when you want to lose the losers and gain true love. MENu Dating is just like any other lifestyle change in that it takes a relatively strict regimen to garner results. Unlike dieting, though, this program demands that instead of depriving yourself, you consume as much as you can! With this regimen, however, it’s men, not food, that you order up and practically gorge yourself on! As many men as possible will become your mission, and your mantra will be More is more! Lots and lots of filling, delectable men. In fact, this program demands that you pig out on men!

As with any successful lifestyle change, your regimen requires focused commitment and must be enacted methodically, not recklessly. Furthermore, just like with a great diet, the thorough adoption of the MENu Dating Program’s philosophy and techniques will allow you to reap multiple benefits beyond the primary goal, inside and out, from your head to your heart.

This book is organized similarly to a diet book whereby you will graduate from phase to phase. While this program doesn’t have a time line per se, many women who have been through it report that they stick with it for approximately half the time that they were in their last relationship. Whether you are just emerging from a long-term relationship, have had a string of bad dates, or just feel unlucky in love, MENu Dating, executed with diligence and dedication, will get you in the mental shape needed to live up to your dating potential. That’s right; it’s much more about your mental state than it is about having the cutest outfit or the right flirting techniques. While those elements are indeed a part of dating success and will certainly be addressed in MENu Dating, being in great mental shape is the umbrella that will cover all your tactical skills.

The goal of phase 1 is for you to cleanse your mental palate and to convince yourself that you do not want a boyfriend. Yes, you read it correctly. In order to be successful on the MENu Dating Program, you need to wholeheartedly subscribe to the theory that your current dating methods, or lack thereof, are not getting you to your happily-ever-after. That’s why you picked up this book! Freeing yourself from the mindset that you need a boyfriend will be a mission critical to your dating success. I know, it may sound counterintuitive, but it is not. Trust me. Now, repeat after me—I do not want a boyfriend. And again, I do not want a boyfriend. OK, now in front of a mirror—I do not want a boyfriend!!! If self-hypnosis through verbal repetition doesn’t do the trick, let me spell it out for you, plain and simple, with one, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine reasons why you absolutely should not want a boyfriend right now and, instead, why you need to indulge in a buffet of men, through the practice of MENu Dating.

1» dating is a game of numbers

All the good guys are taken or are gay. Yeah, yeah, yeah . . . I’ve heard it a million times, but the truth is that there are infinite numbers of single guys out there for you to date.

Here are the facts: There are roughly twenty million single men in the age range of twenty to thirty-nine in the United States. Twenty million! With a population so big, how could you ever feel as if there are no single guys out there? If you can’t find them, either you aren’t looking in the right places, you don’t know how to spot them, or you just aren’t trying. After all, they don’t just walk up with a sign that says: I’M THE ONE. SIGN UP HERE.

The point here is two-fold. First is, to wake you up to the plain and simple facts! If you’ve been in a funk thinking that there aren’t any single guys out there, you need to snap out of it, because you couldn’t be more wrong! Second, and perhaps more important, is to make you realize that because there are so many single guys out there, there is absolutely no reason to settle for anything less than the absolute very best match for you. Figuring out what you want is what MENu Dating is all about, and this book provides you with the smarts, the techniques, and the attitude to get there—and it just so happens to take a lot of tries to get it right. Dating success is very much a matter of odds—the more you play, the better your odds of winning. I mean, come on, whoever got a bull’s-eye on the first shot? No one! Whoever hit the jackpot on the first roll? No one! Whoever found the perfect pair of jeans on the first try? No one! Bottom line, ladies, is that you may need to kiss a lot of freaking toads and a few princes, too, before you find your king! It’s as simple as