Let’s talk about where to go on a first date. You want to leave a good first impression, and the venue you choose sets the stage for the rest of the evening. I’m going to share a few guidelines I always used whenever I was trying to decide where to take her on a first date, then I’m going to give you my personal favorite places to go on a date.
Continue reading The best places to take her on a first date
I’m in shock right now. My little sister passed away after battling cancer for a year. I’m still trying to make some sense out of this. Because, to be honest, it doesn’t make sense. To say that someone can get cancer and die at 24 years old in a world supposedly governed by a just and loving God doesn’t make sense at all. She was engaged, and she and her fiancé should have had their whole lives ahead of them. It’s not fair for all their plans to be cut short just like that. Between me, my mom, my dad, and her fiancé, I know any one of us would trade places with her in a second. Because it doesn’t make sense for someone her age to die of cancer. Not at 24.
I’m going to be upfront today and let you know that I don’t have any dating advice in this week’s newsletter. I’m writing this article for selfish reasons, and if you want to stop reading here then I won’t be offended. It’s okay.
At my sister’s funeral, I volunteered to give a eulogy. My parents were surprised, since I’m usually a quiet person and super terrified of public speaking, but it was something that I felt I needed to say. I’ve decided to make it an open eulogy and publish it on my blog. This way, everything I said during the funeral can live on long after that fateful day:
This week’s post is a guest article from Michelle Peterson of RecoveryPride.org. Take it away, Michelle!
Valentine’s Day is a celebration of love. Although most people think the day is dedicated to romantic couples, it’s also about friendship and admiration. If you’re single, Valentine’s Day is the perfect day to show yourself some much-needed affection. Check out these simple budget-friendly tips to have a great Valentine’s Day on your own.
Continue reading Budget-Friendly Ways Singles Can Treat Themselves on Valentine’s Day
Recently, I’ve received several emails asking me something along the lines of, “She did this when talking to me. Does that mean she’s interested?” My answer to these is always the same.
There’s one foolproof way to find out if she’s interested. That is to ask her out.
Seriously. I wasn’t there. I have no idea whether she’s interested in you. I know even less about her than you do!
Now, if you would like some help or advice around asking her out then that’s something I can help out with. But if you’re interested in someone and you’re wondering if she might possibly want to go on a date with you, my answer is always the same.
Just ask her out already!
The first time I told one of my friends about Quietly Romantic newsletter, he told me that it was “an ingenious way to make money”. Several of them asked me how I came up with this idea, and some of my readers have even emailed me asking if I could help them do something similar. Today I want to show you how you can do the same. Yes, even if you don’t have an English degree and even if you’re “not a good writer”. I’ll show you how to write the type of content that…
Continue reading How to write amazing content that drives traffic to your site
A good coach changes the world. That’s what I learned from Rich Litvin and Steve Chandler’s book The Prosperous Coach.
Jacob was a longtime subscriber of mine. He reached out to me because he had never had a girlfriend before, and he wanted help finding a good woman who loved him and understood him. The two of us scheduled a free coaching session together. Even though we originally only planned to spend 1.5 hours together, our session ended up being two hours long. I didn’t mind going slightly over time. One of my principles is to always go the extra distance for a client—even the ones I work with for free.
During our coaching session, I helped him learn three keys to finding the woman of his dreams.
Continue reading The best places to meet women and the exact words to talk to her
You ever have a time where you’re lying in bed, trying to fall asleep, and then your brain suddenly decides to be a jerk and replay all the embarrassing things you’ve ever done in uncomfortably vivid detail? Turns out there’s a name for that. It’s called “Fridge Horror”. This happens when you experience something horrifying but it doesn’t register in your brain until much later, such as when you’re rummaging through your fridge the next day trying to grab a midnight snack. For example…
…this was my face when I watched Star Wars Episode 6: Return of the Jedi for the first time, and…
…this was my face when it dawned on me that the cute and cuddly Ewoks probably ate all the fallen Stormtroopers after the film ended.
I still kick myself over this one mistake I made a long time ago. Not as hard as I used to since I’m married now, mind you, but still on occasion when I’m trying to sleep and my brain decides to remind me of all the dumb things I’ve done in the past so I wake up at like 2 in the morning and my wife just looks at me weird.
My pain is your gain. I made these mistakes so you don’t have to. Enjoy!
Continue reading What really happened when I followed the “Three Days” rule
I’ve got something important to say, and it involves politics. Now, politics has a funny way of going from 0 to 100,000 really quickly and that’s why I usually avoid talking about it on my website. However, today I’ve got something important to say and I hope I can say it without attracting a lot of salt and vitriol.
On that note, I don’t care if you’re a Republican or Democrat, liberal or conservative, religious or atheist, PC gamer or console gamer, muggle or wizard, cat-person or dog-person. I just ask that you hear me out completely before you throw shade at me for talking about politics. Deal?
I used to be terrible at playing video games. When it came to gaming, I always told myself that I needed to be maxed out and have all the sidequests completed before I could even start to enjoy the game. However, before I knew it I had already reached the ending and I’d barely even begun to enjoy myself.
The same thing happened in the real world. I’d look wistfully at all the cool things my friends were doing on Facebook and envy the flashy status symbols they owned that I didn’t. I felt that once I had all of the same things they had then I’d finally be okay. I would finally be able to have fun and enjoy my life. But no matter how much stuff I accumulated and how much I chased the things that I thought I needed, I never felt like I was getting closer to having the things that I actually did need.
As that board game in Jumanji said, there was a lesson I needed to learn. But first I had to go back a turn. Check out what I learned about living a good life on the guest post I wrote for Coaching for Geeks here.
In addition, if you’re the kind of person who sings the DK64 rap in the shower (…I’m not the only one who does that, right? Right??) then you should check out their Facebook community as well. They have a close-knit group full of nerds who support each other in all areas of life, from job hunting, to dating, to productivity and getting things done. It’s run by four coaches, and one of them is a geeky dating coach who I really look up to, Rami Fu.
Seriously! This guy is one of my biggest sources of inspiration.
Links again if you’re interested:
Disclaimer: Sex talk ahead. This is something I’ve never discussed before on Quietly Romantic, but I think we’re adult enough that it can be a topic for us to talk about. Also, I want to make it clear that I’m not advocating or encouraging judgment around any type of behavior. Whether you only have sex in exclusive relationships or you’re having casual sex with many partners…it’s all the same to me. The point of this post is not to judge anybody for whatever sexual activities they may (or may not) be partaking in. Rather, I want to shine some light on the taboos in our culture.
Also, I’ve dropped some swears and F-bombs in this post. I usually try to avoid swearing but this is something I have some strong opinions about.
Let’s talk about sex.
Sex seems to be a squeamish subject in our culture and we have some weird societal taboos about discussing it, as if sex is somehow dirty or unclean. Especially in places such as the “bible-belt” of the United States, sex is mostly not talked about at all except to say…don’t do it.
What good does that do??
When it comes to young adults who are inexperienced with anything sexually related, for example. Wouldn’t it be better if they could freely talk about and ask for help around this kind of stuff? Just because we don’t talk about it doesn’t mean that people aren’t going to have those “urges” anymore. They’re natural. And if young people can’t talk to anyone about it, then they’re just going to do it anyway—without any knowledge of how to do it safely or what the potential repercussions could be.
That doesn’t make things better. That makes things worse!
I believe sex is something that we should talk more openly about. As a society, it’s something that we should have honest discussions about. Keeping it taboo is not doing us any favors. So, I’ll take the first step and talk about myself and what I’ve learned from my very first sexual experience. Continue reading What I learned from my first sexual experience