Meet Steve Dean— The Online Dating Consultant
Online Dating consultants exists?
Yes they do and I just met one! His name is Steve and he works with individuals, couples, and consults with dating apps like OkCupid, Siren, and Tinder to try and make the online dating world a better place. I had a chance to sit and interview with him and wanted to share some great quotes and highlights from our conversation.
Q: How does one consult people on online dating?
A: People bring a lot of cognitive bias, so I give them a few things to ponder so they are asking themselves the right questions. 90% of the time, people completely misunderstand what it means to be a human, the way they try to date, everything society tells us is fundamentally wrong.
Q: What’s a common misconception you have to explain to your clients?
A: If someone doesn’t like you, you can’t get mad. Maybe they are not in a position of liking you. Maybe they had a stomach ache and you didn’t take the time to notice that. The reasons are sometimes unclear or irrational but just move on and find the next one.
Are you entitled to get their attention? No, even the app itself isn’t entitled to get their attention. So it’s important for people to recognize that because they take so many things to heart.
Q: Advice on how to connect with people on dates?
A: To get the most of it is to have a genuine connection with someone — it’s like really paying attention, and that requires an openness to set aside a little bit about what’s going in your head and allow things to enter your mind.
Q: What’s the best strategy that’s worked for you?
A: My strategy is to not have things happen before the date. I make a list of activities I’m working on that week and then give them my Facebook and phone number so they have direct access to me, then they can join me at any of those times.
Q: Advice on how people can filter for better matches?
A: If you don’t know who you resonate with, then you’re totally fucked and you have to increase your sample size. Once you have a good sense of the people you vibe with, this can be defined by shared values, shared interest sometimes, you’re both on the same kind of mission.
If you see the other person’s rocketship and you want to pour as much gasoline into it as possible or you want to be a part of their mission, you want to see each other succeed, then I think that is the marker that relationship has real potential.
Q: Why do you say think that people have to ‘learn to be human’?
A: I think that humans in their most vulnerable and natural state are perfectly connected and have incredibly few reasons to not connect. We are far more connected than we give ourselves credit for.
Most of our differences and conflicts are socially constructed. I work to try to dissolve as many as those social constructions basically piling up in our minds as quickly as I can.
As soon as you remove those barriers, then connection becomes communication, and communication is the primary means for connection. You can take all those preconceived notions out of the way, you tend up with transparent two-way communication through a shared language, whatever that may be. I find that that the most powerful force we have as a species.
Q: What’s something you do with every client?
A: Men are categorically desensitized or completely insensitive to what it means to be a woman. They don’t get catcalled, they don’t get people approaching them in an aggressive way on the street, they don’t get shitty messages from creepy people on the internet.
98% of what women experience that is negative, men don’t experience and that’s pure male privilege, is the ability to not even know that exists, to be blissfully unaware of these things
Q: What’s an example of an exercise you’ll do?
A: So the #1 thing I give to men for understanding online dating is I ask them to create make a female profile on a dating app. They don’t even need to put a photo, just change their gender to female. I let it unfold. Soon enough, they’ll receive rape threats even if they don’t have a photo.
I try to up the sensitivity. You don’t have to apologize your privilege, you just have to recognize it and then adjust your behaviour to account for the fact that now you’re in the know, you understand that this shit is going down and you are implicitly a part of it because in many cases you didn’t do anything to recognize and condemn it when it happens.
About Steve:
Dating and relationship help, reach out to me on Dateworking.com
About me — I’m an online dating consultant, speaker, and digital matchmaker. I like to write about dating, relationships, and how to get connected to awesome jobs and careers. Connect with me anywhere: Patreon, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Instagram, Quora, Clarity
Related Reading…
• The Friendship-First Approach to Dating
• Add This Line to Your Tinder Profile Right Now
• How To Say “No” Without Lies, Flaking, or Fadeaways
• How to Have the “Are We Exclusive” Talk
• The Power of a Personal Connection
