Nearly all of us has had less social interaction over the past few years. For many months my primary social outlet was VR games with friends. It feels like people have really lost their social skills over the past few years. I notice it all the time and am bewildered by how many people aren’t even doing the basic things correctly. Once in a while I think that maybe I’m just too sensitive to social “errors”, but then I’ll have a conversation with someone with good social skills and it feels like being on a vacation.

I have written an entire book on social skills, but I wanted to write a separate post about the top mistakes I see people make consistently during conversations. If you master these core skills, you’ll be better off than the vast majority of people.

Don’t Interrupt

In text based messaging, interrupting doesn’t really matter. You can have two or three topics going at once and jump back and forth between them. It may not be ideal, but it’s not rude and it doesn’t kill the conversation. Too many people take this habit into real life conversation, where it has disastrous effects.

A conversation is best when both parties are interested, engaged, and want to share. If you interrupt you show that you are uninterested and you blunt the other person’s motivation to share. If they don’t feel like their input is valuable, they will either fight you for the spotlight (by interrupting you) or they’ll stop investing in the conversation because they know that there’s no point in trying to get full thoughts across.

Accept, Don’t Seek

Accept whatever reaction someone gives you, and treat it as though it were correct. If you said something hilarious and they didn’t laugh, act as if it wasn’t funny. Either it wasn’t, or they didn’t pick up on it, but in either case trying to get them to laugh will make them feel uncomfortable.

If you tell a bunch of jokes and the person doesn’t seem to find them hilarious, stop telling them jokes. You may be funny, but you may not share a sense of humor.

Seeking laughs is one of the most obvious ways in which people seek reactions, but there are many others. They usually come in the form of follow-up statements fishing for a specific reaction.

Imagine someone tells me a story about some crazy thing they did when they got drunk. As a non-drinker who can’t relate I might not find it that interesting, but would still try to say something positive like, “Wow, sounds crazy.” If they really want validation from the story, they might try to tack on statements to get a bigger reaction. “Yeah, it was wild!” or “My friends couldn’t believe it!”, to which there is no possible response other than a bigger reaction or awkward silence.

This sort of behavior puts a huge burden on the listener because it makes them responsible for your emotional state. Their options are to deny you the emotional state you want, or to give it to you by lying. This is exhausting and will cause people to limit the amount of social time they spend with you.

Gauge Interest

This is more of an advanced technique, but is one that has a huge impact. At all times you should be gauging interest in what you’re saying, and modulating what you say to fit the recipient’s interest level.

I could tell a story about building my pinball machine. A crafty technical friend might be very interested in hearing every step, but my mom might not be interested in more than about 10 seconds of detail on it. If I adjust the depth of the story for my audience, it adds to any conversation.

In general the best thing to do is to tell the quickest version of your story, and leave out any tangents or details. This puts the other person in the driver’s seat and lets them ask about the things that most interest them. They are also motivated to ask questions because they can see that I will not bog them down with uninteresting details.

“I spent last month building a virtual pinball machine…”

“Cool! That sounds fun!”

If that’s the response I get, I’m totally done and moving on. Even if I’m really excited about my pinball machine, it does neither of us any good for them to hear more details if they don’t care. If you’re confident that you have a lot to offer, you don’t mind cutting a thread short and looking for another one.

“Huh? What’s a virtual pinball machine?”

Here the listener is showing interest, so I’ll answer their question AND give them a little more that they can ask about.

“It’s a physical machine that looks like a pinball machine, but instead of a playfield it has a high res screen to simulate pinball games. It ended up being a huge project, but it’s super fun to play”

Now they can easily bail from the topic as before, or they can ask why it ended up being a huge project. If they like pinball they might ask what games I like to play. If they’re technical they might ask about the software or what kind of computer it needs. By giving them the option to ask about things they’re interested in, or to exit the conversation, they feel no pressure and there’s only upside.

Ask Questions

An ideal conversation is a mix of listening, asking questions, and sharing in a way that allows the other person to politely guide the conversation. You must ask questions so that the other person knows that you are interested in them and what they are saying.

The worst conversations are those where both parties are waiting their turn to talk, saying as much as they can before getting interrupted, and then being forced to listen to the other.

Asking questions signifies investment. Besides allowing you to hear about what most interests you, it proves that you were listening and shows that you value the other person.

You don’t have to ask questions every single time someone says something, but it’s probably correct about 50% of the time. Err on the side of asking more questions. Factual questions are good, but questions that deepen the conversation are even better. “What were you thinking when she said that?” “Was that as hard as it sounds?” “How did you learn how to do that?” “What made you decide to go that route?”

Verbalize when you change your mind

People love to teach and persuade others. When someone has taught you something or changed your mind on something, let them know. Say things like:

“Wow, I would have never thought to do that, but that’s a great idea.”

“Ok, maybe you’re right. I hadn’t thought about that before.”

“You know, I used to really think X, but you’ve convinced me Y”

You should only say these things if they are true, but when they are it is a great gift that you can give to the other person. It seems that these days everyone is so focused on being right and believes that changing their mind shows weakness, but in reality it is the opposite. Only confident people feel are able to change positions without affecting their self image.

Disagree Positively

While you want to be an agreeable person, it’s important to share your real thoughts and to express them in proportion with their weight. One of the best things you can do is to engage in positive disagreement.

Imagine that I tell you I live in Vegas and that you don’t think that you would like living in Vegas. There are three routes you could take. The first is to try to be agreeable, even though it’s not genuine.

“Oh cool, I bet it’s great there!”

This is ok, but it can really only lead to a superficial conversation where I say something like, “Yeah, I really like it. Where do you live?”. That’s fine, but if you do this habitually, your entire conversation will be surface level. The other person will eventually realize that you don’t seem to have any independent opinions, which is uninteresting.

The second approach could charitably be called brutal honesty.

“Wow, I would never live there. It’s too hot and there are no trees.”

What can I say to that? I could argue about the weather and trees, but that’s a pretty miserable conversation. I could tell you why I like it, but you haven’t shown any interest in knowing why, so why would I bother?

The last option is positive disagreement.

“Vegas? Casinos and desert? What made you choose that?”

Here you’ve pushed back and expressed that you wouldn’t want to live in Vegas, but you’ve also given me a great opportunity to talk about something positive and to try to sway you in a friendly way.

I have a friend who has somewhat extreme political views, but he will always say things like, “I believe X, but I bet you believe Y and you always have interesting takes, so I’d love to hear your thoughts”. It’s a great way to disagree in a positive and constructive way, and I always enjoy conversations with him. In our conversations we also usually both concede points, as described in the previous tip, which makes the conversations even more engaging.

Benchmarking

It’s VERY difficult to know how well you’re doing in conversations, especially in polite company. I will let someone violate every rule on this list and will do my best to give them the conversation they want. I just won’t seek out more conversations in the future.

There are some indicators you can look for to figure out which mistakes you’re making. Look at them in aggregate rather than worrying too much about any individual conversation.

“Nice” “Cool” “Ok”

If you get a lot of single word answers, you are not keeping the other person interested. They are trying to prevent you from saying more, either because you habitually talk too much or because the topic isn’t interesting to them.

50% Talk Time

Conversations should be just about 50/50, especially if you know each other reasonably well. It is your responsibility to get the ratio correct, either by talking more or by asking more questions to induce the other person to talk more. Of all the people I know, I can only think of a couple people who I believe really don’t want to be 50% of the conversation. Topic introduction should also be split pretty evenly.

Depth

Conversation should frequently be making it to a depth where you are learning more about the other person and they are learning more about you. This is what makes conversations exciting. Real depth doesn’t happen unless both parties are sharing, so you must be willing to be vulnerable and share things about yourself, and must also have the awareness to ask questions to induce the other person to do the same.

If I wanted to set someone up for a good life and they could focus on only one thing, I would prioritize getting social skills, especially conversational skills. Our experience on earth is largely defined by our interactions with others, so improving those interactions pays off massively.

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Photo is Vegas from just the right angle as I flew out. You can see the mountains and Lake Mead in the background.

The gear post is coming soon. Probably with an accompanying Youtube Live. I was going to rush and get it done today but I don’t have good photos of some of the new things.

This post does not mean that I think I am THE leader of my friends. I think that most or all of my friends are leaders and that we all take turns leading or lead simultaneously in different ways. So this post is just as much from the perspective of leading friends as it is from the perspective of being led by friends.

When I talk about leading, I am mostly talking about serving. I’ve led my friends on many trips around the world, I’ve orchestrated a lot of group property purchases, and I’ve gotten many of my friends into things like tea, living in RVs, crypto, my style of personal finance, etc. I like to go off and figure something out that can benefit everyone, and then bring it back to the group and guide them through it. And, of course, my friends have also done the same for me countless times. My friend Nick got me into art, it was my friend Todd’s idea to travel minimally (I wanted to get a huge backpack at first!), and my friend Jesse led me to love tea.

The biggest difference in leading leaders is that they don’t need you. If you do a poor job leading or lead them astray, they’ll just go off on their own and figure it out. For this reason, trust is the most important factor. A leader will not follow someone that they don’t trust. For example, what’s the point of friends following me on a 1 week trip around Japan if they think I might waste their time and they could have just gone and done their own trip? If I tell them that I’ve discovered a better way to manage finances, but they don’t trust that I’ve actually done enough research, they’d be better off figuring out it out themselves.

The two primary ways to foster trust in this context are to build a track record and to provide context.

At this point I have such a good track record buying properties for friends that I literally had a friend buy hare of the last one without knowing what country it was in. Two properties ago he said, “I’ll be in for any property you do, so for the next one just tell me how much money to send you and I’ll find out where it is once it’s all done.” It was mostly just for fun, but illustrates the level of trust. Your process track record is even more important than the results, though. If people see that I research everything thoroughly, then even if I said, “Hey guys you should buy this random gadget”, they would probably buy it because they know how thoroughly I research this things.

Of course, a track record can’t magically appear, so there has to be another way. That other way is by providing the context that can allow someone to simulate their own research. For example, when I wanted to convince a friend to manage his money like a billionaire, I explained why each step was important and what the point of it was. I mentioned other things I had learned along the way. Someone who is a leader is used to doing this sort of process by himself, maybe in a different field, so he can relate and see that I recognized all of the factors that were important in making the decision.

Incidentally, I’ve found that in some ways it’s actually easier to lead leaders. It may take longer or more effort to earn their trust, but they tend to ask fewer questions and procrastinate less because they recognize the process and also know that they won’t be totally stuck if it turns out I’m wrong. Someone who isn’t comfortable leading may ask a lot of questions out of fear and worry that if I’m wrong they’ll be in a position that they won’t know how to get out of.

Allow other leaders to lead too. A good balance for most people is leading when they’re most suited to doing so, and allowing someone else to lead at other times. Only an insecure leader tries to lead everything. Leaders usually feel most valuable when they can lead others, and it doesn’t make sense to have a relationship where you aren’t allowing someone else to feel valuable. Plus that’s really the best sort of friendship anyway, one where you each specialize in different areas and bring that expertise and experience to each other.

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Photo is from a hike I did in Oahu last week. I laid over there for just long enough to visit the Honolulu Museum of Art, which is one of my favorite museums in the world.

Tomorrow (Sunday 3/14) I’m doing my first YouTube Livestream! Please join as we talk about buying properties with friends, the island, and anything else people ask about. If people show up and enjoy it I will do more of them and maybe more YouTube.

I’ve said it a million times, but I do feel as though my greatest assets in life are my friends and family. This is, or at least should be, true for almost everyone because no other part of your life has the potential to bring as much joy as other people.

And yet… people don’t really think much about friendships or put all that much effort into them. Think about how much proactive time and effort people spend on their careers compared to the people around them. Career is important, but not as important as people, and yet most people are far more eager to work on their career.

If you want to have an excellent group of friends, you must commit to that goal and be willing to work towards it, not just hope it happens (spoiler: it probably won’t).

I’ve written a whole book on the topic, as well as many other blog posts, so I won’t get too into the mechanics of what that work looks like, but the key points are that you decide to take responsibility for your social life, work on it consciously, and make sure that you are improving your friends’ lives in a tangible way as often as possible.

That’s how you make friends… but how do you make excellent friends?

First, in the words of Bill and Tedd: be excellent. If you aren’t the type of person that excellent people would want to be friends with, then you need to work on that first. This requires the ability and willingness to self-assess honestly. What do you bring to the table? If you don’t know, then that’s a problem. Would someone be lucky to have you as a friend? That answer must be a clear yes, and getting there is a combination of working on yourself and also having the self-esteem to see your own worth.

I understand that this sentiment may not sit well with everyone, as it’s not entirely politically correct. Yes everyone has value, yes everyone deserves to have good friends, etc. But still… let’s not pretend that some people haven’t developed their character and social skills to higher levels than others.

So… be excellent.

Next, understand what it is you actually want in friends and screen heavily for those traits. You can be kind to everyone and respect everyone, but you cannot be a great friend to everyone. Being a good friend is an active process which requires time and effort, and we each have those in finite supply. Any friend who is taking up a slot in your roster is precluding other people from taking that spot.

Be intentional about how you spend your time. If you find that most of the time you spend is with people who aren’t the types of people with whom you want to be friends, you are making a mistake. If you aren’t seeking out the types of people with whom you want to be friends, you are making a mistake.

It is better to be alone than to be around the wrong people. In the same way that boredom spurs creativity, some degree of loneliness can fuel the process of building a great friend group. You don’t have to totally cut everyone off and be a hermit, but don’t fill your social calendar with the wrong people.

This process, by necessity, is a slow one. It is much easier to find the wrong people than the right ones. When I went through this process I remember feeling like I had a few great friends floating around the world, not a rock-solid friend group. But as I added people and introduced them to each other, that slowly congealed to feeling like I have an amazing worldwide network of incredible friends. Be patient, because the results will be worth it.

Your time and focus is an extremely valuable resource. If you don’t feel that that is true, then you should look inwards and maybe use your time and focus better. When you’re around people, be excellent to them no matter who they are, but also treat your time like the valuable commodity it is, and spend it with those people with whom you’d like to grow closer.

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Photo is Lake Mead at sunset. Did you know Vegas could be so beautiful?

I’m not sure how selective I can be. And I am an inherently selective person.

I actually think most people are not selective enough, or are not selective on the correct criteria. For you to really succeed in a healthy relationship, you should be able to be happy single too. Someone should add to your life, not “complete” it. Someone who is in that position will naturally be selective. I remember distinctly thinking that I’d rather be in a great relationship than single, but would rather be single than be in a merely good relationship.

We all have our own criteria, but there are also some universal ones that I think everyone should consider. Among the most important would be a commitment to growth, and good communication skills. It’s great to find the most perfect person ever, but what’s more important is the quality of the relationship you will build together, and these sorts of traits will lead to a much higher quality relationship.

That said, I think it’s important to know what your dealbreakers are and to stick with them. After being frustrated with how difficult it was to find someone who doesn’t drink (one of my dealbreakers), I tried to relax that and date people who drank once in a while. They were fine people, but after going on a few dates I had to be honest with myself and accept that I’d rather be single than date a drinker.

I oftentimes will tell myself I need to be less selective, only to get into relationships that I’m not really interested in or feel wrong. And then I leave.

This is a tough balance, but I’d say that there’s no harm in going on a lot of first and second dates. Date people who may not fit your most specific criteria, but once you know they’re not going to be the one, move on.

I’m waiting to feel smitten with someone. And that seems just never to come to me.

I think that this is an overrated indicator. Sometimes it means great things, sometimes it means that the person is terrible for you and that taboo is attractive. I found my now-wife to be extremely attractive when I met her and also recognized many of her amazing traits early on, but if you had asked me if I was smitten with her then, I would have said no. I even wondered if it was a problem, but we were so compatible and were building such a great relationship that I actually just decided to accept that I wasn’t going to be totally smitten with my wife. The funny thing is that it slowly grew over time and now I’m definitely smitten.

Do you think there is a group of people who maybe would be well suited to marriage but just are intrinsically too selective to find the right partner other than by luck? I feel like that’s me. My premises:

I want to be in a relationship because I know it would help me learn to be more selfless, have a person to share things with, and to grow with. All things I want.
I want to be in a relationship with someone I am deeply attracted to (physically and personality-wise) and is also attracted to me.
I want to be in a relationship with someone who can appreciate my faith and moderate/conservative morals.
I just intrinsically have very high standards in #2 and #3. That’s just my personality. I’ve tried to ignore it and it doesn’t work out.

Your article makes it sound like finding a partner for everyone is a tractable problem. I’m just not so sure. It is at least plausible that, for some people, finding a partner is either a very difficult venture or perhaps at times an intractable problem. I’m curious to your thoughts on this. Should I just bite the bullet and try to work out a relationship with someone I’m not initially very attracted to or that seems intellectually or personality-wise incompatible?

I think Jack’s reasons for wanting to be in a relationship are the right ones, and are some of the things I value most about being married. Attraction can be a little bit different in a long term relationship, where the emotional attraction adds to the physical attraction. The way my wife treats me and our mutual bond has added to the physical attraction in a way that can dwarf the physical attraction alone. So while I do think that it’s important to have someone who you are attracted to, I think whether you think of her as a 7 or a 10 will end up not being as big a factor as you think it will.

If you haven’t experienced this, think about a time when someone very attractive annoyed you and you lost all interest in them. This is basically the opposite.

Your values and morals are important to you and they should be respected by your spouse. That doesn’t mean that they have to be the same, though. In fact, being slightly different can lead to growth because you end up having two respected opinions in your household. I have at least a few friend-couples who are on the other end of the political spectrum from each other and it seems to enhance the relationship. Again, I think that’s why communication skills and a growth mindset are important.

I really liked these questions both because they’re interesting to answer, but also because they’ve come from someone who has good clear thinking on the subject and is worrying about the right things. My advice would be to pare non-negotiables to a minimum, test them to make sure they’re really non-negotiable, and be more selective as you get deeper in the dating process. I’d be looking for 65% compatibility on a first date and about 90% on the wedding day, with a few “must-haves” covered.

Hopefully this helps, and when you do find someone I’d love to hear back and see how they meshed with the questions.

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Photo is a bigger picture of the ducks we fed on Lake Mead.

I’ve started with some new coaching clients and am finishing up signing up a couple more, so I think my schedule is full now. I’m no longer doing a waiting list, but will probably make an announcement in 12-18 months if/when I decide to take more.

The biggest realization that single people in their 30s need to make is that what they have been doing is not working. Dating is hard, finding the right person is hard, but… you’ve been working at it for at least 15 years and many other people have been successful in that time. At this point, the problem is your approach, not the outside world.

I would (and did) make dating a top priority. Not in title, but in practice. I would be swiping Tinder and every other app every day, and if that wasn’t getting me enough matches I’d be dusting off the boots and making myself approach people in person. It doesn’t really make any sense to leave something as important as your life partner up to chance. You wouldn’t do that with any other major area of your life.

You can argue that most people meet their significant others by chance, but that’s because most people just wait years and hope something happens, not because that’s the most effective method for finding love.

Figure out exactly what you NEED in a partner. You will not find someone perfect, but you will find someone who has the necessary traits to create a successful marriage or relationship with you. It’s important to know what these are so that you can disqualify people who don’t have them, focus on those who do, and iterate on them as you date. Again, this is how you make dating an active process, not just a passive “I hope it works” sort of thing.

Go on dates with anyone you can who matches your criteria. Don’t overwhelm them or scare them away with overinterest, but do give them your focus and act like they just might be the one. When I met my now-wife I almost made the mistake of not doing this and waiting six weeks to see her again, because that was the most convenient plan for my schedule. My friend Todd pointed out what a big mistake that was and I went to see her less than two weeks later. I suspect I wouldn’t be married if I didn’t do that.

Most importantly, quit relationships that aren’t right. If your goal is to live your life and have people pass in and out of it as you go, then just date whoever you want. If, however, you’re trying to find something long-lasting or permanent, you need to cut your losses. Good is the enemy of the great. Any year you spend in a relationships that you know isn’t the one is a year of missed opportunities where you weren’t putting effort into finding the right one.

Something it took me a while to understand is that the quality of a relationship is based somewhat on shared principles, but mostly on the work that the two people put in as a couple. You don’t need to find someone perfect, you just need to find someone you’re compatible with who is willing to grow with you. Our society hides this fact sometimes, and you often see people waiting and waiting for perfection.

If you’re in your thirties, it’s probably about time to decide whether finding someone is important to you or not. If it is, then make finding that person a top priority. A good relationship pays massive dividends, so any investment you put into it will probably be worth it.

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Picture is a couple ducks on Lake Mead that waited all morning for us to wake up and give them food.

Across a lot of dimensions they’re very different, but most or all of them have a few core things in common. I first realized this many years ago when I was so busy with Sett that I no longer had time to just hang out with everyone all the time. I thought about all the people I was friends with and wanted to become better friends with and distilled down what they had in common.

By far the top quality that is shared with everyone is that they are all very genuine and authentic. That can mean a few different things, but I mean it to say that none of them try to put on a front and pretend that they’re someone they’re not. They know who they are and they accept it.

This feels normal to me now, because I spend very little time with strangers, but on the rare occasion I spend time with someone who isn’t as authentic it is plainly obvious immediately and I notice how much effort it takes for me to accomodate the difference. Someone who puts on a front is generally doing it to mask a big insecurity, and that insecurity needs to be walked around in conversation.

Everyone in my life is also kind. They’re kind in different ways, but the common thread is that all of them genuinely care about and are invested in others’ success. Maybe they spend time mentoring people in business, maybe they support their families, or maybe they give food to homeless people because they can’t stand to see them hungry. Because they are all genuine, their kindness comes from a sincere desire to help, not a desire to be seen as a kind person.

They are also all supportive and positive. If someone has some crazy new business or venture, there’s no worry that that person might be shining too brightly or abandoning the principles of the friend group. Instead people tend to rally to try to help the other person figure out how best to succeed, and flaws in the plan are brought up with compassion with an eye towards fixing them.

The last trait they all share is really a variation on the previous one, but everyone in my life is open-minded. I’ve done a lot of weird zigs and zags in my life, and I’ve been surprised how many people have been there with me. Lots of them moved to Las Vegas or bought other properties with me, some went to ballet or tea class with me, most of them have visited Budapest with me. It’s very liberating to be able to come up with an idea and know that at least some subset of my friends will probably be open to it and join me.

We all have different preferences, but these qualities seem like a decent blueprint for someone to follow if they’re looking for a filter with which to screen people they meet, or if they’re looking for traits to cultivate within themselves.

I’m so grateful for everything in my life, but more than anything I’m grateful for the people in it.

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Photo is a tea ceremony class in Hilo Hawaii. My friends Brian and Todd are on the left.

I think that this comes from my history as a pickup artist, and a perceived incompatibility with the two. This is sort of funny to me because I think that getting into a great marriage with a great person is a very obvious end goal to pickup. Or maybe the confusion just comes from the fact that I live a pretty weird life. In which case: fair enough.

I’m still very happily married. On our anniversary I realized that I was even happier to be married than I was on our wedding day. Maybe that’s because you don’t really understand if or how your life will be changed once you get married, but once you settle in and proactively make it a good marriage, you get to feel the benefits.

Marriage, or even relationships, seem to be a much bigger chore and more difficult to most people than they feel to me. We’ve had exactly one argument ever that I can remember (though it did resurface again a few months later before being totally resolved). Once in a while one of us raises some concern or issue and we have a “difficult conversation”, but I can’t think of any where both of us didn’t leave feeling better and glad we had the conversation.

She deserves about 99% of the credit on that one, because she always brings things up that are bothering her or that she thinks are bothering me, and does it super early before it’s actually a problem, and in a very constructive way that invites resolution.

We spend a lot of time together, a lot of time apart, and as we go through life together we find more things that we like to do together. This year we went skiing together and can’t wait to do it regularly next year, and we also strangely got into growing vegetables in our house. We’ve had more opportunities to travel together, which I think has been a big improvement for both of us.

I don’t think that there’s anything I wish I knew before marriage that I didn’t know. We knew that we had similar principles, felt similarly about money, were both very high integrity people, and were both growth-oriented. Our communication was and remains good, and it feels like we’re generally on the same page on just about everything except for pets (she wants a dog). We’ve learned a lot about each other, but since we understand each others’ principles, nothing is particularly shocking.

Not that I think I’m in a position of great expertise on the subject, but if I were to offer advice for people considering marriage, I’d say a few things. First, I’d say to make sure that you have a harmonious relationship with almost no arguments. I can’t imagine how a good marriage would grow from a relationship with frequent arguments.

I don’t think that marriage makes things more difficult, but it doesn’t magically solve problems either. If you have things you need to work out, do it before getting married. Don’t assume that getting married will solve those things.

Assume that both of you will change, and make sure you’re willing to go along with that process and aren’t assuming you’re going to be living with a current snapshot of your spouse-to-be forever. Along those lines, make sure that your principles are as close as possible because the changes will follow them. I think a lot of hobbies, lifestyle preferences, and other such issues are often focused on, when they will change but principles probably won’t.

The biggest benefit to being married is that it makes it easy to make long term plans and investments in each other. As someone who likes planning and thinking long term, and now has a spouse who likes the same, this has been very gratifying. Other than that, I don’t feel like things are much different than when we were dating.

I’d focus mostly on having a good relationship, because that’s a pre-requisite for having a good marriage. The reason I wanted to get married was because my wife is the first person I ever dated where I couldn’t imagine how we would ever possibly break up. If you feel that way about your significant other, maybe you ought to get married too.

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Photo is a couple of lizards I saw in Mexico. I don’t post photos or information about my wife because it seems smart to have some privacy when your life is so public.

The first layer is who you are at your core. This is important for many reasons, but in this context it’s important because any relationship with any depth will eventually expose your true self, so it better be something good or you will be doomed to surface level friendships and will find yourself spending most time with acquaintances.

I saw this problem a lot in the pickup community. Many people would fix the outer layers so they would get dates and have girls around them, but they were totally unable to have relationships because they hadn’t worked on themselves enough.

The traits you should have at your core could be up for debate, but I think most people would agree that integrity, compassion, and a good moral compass would be included here. If you don’t have these traits, you’d be well served to figure out how to cultivate them, though the path to that goal may be a long one.

The next layer is the experience you bring. How do people feel when they’re around you? Do they feel inspired? Can they be themselves? Do they feel light and happy? Or do you bring the mood down by complaining? Do you make people feel uncomfortable? Do you overwhelm them or do you force them to carry the weight of the interaction?

It’s not simply enough to be a good person at your core, you must also bring a positive experience to other people. This doesn’t mean that you always have to be upbeat or happy and never rely on your friends for emotional support. It means that when you are around people you are aware of the group dynamics and are trying to improve them. You engage people who need to be engaged, you let people speak who want to speak, and you help act as glue between different people.

The last layer is proactive connection with other people. When someone new is part of your group, you should proactively reach out and make them feel included. You should engage them by asking about themselves or sharing relevant experiences with them. You can’t sit there and expect for them to do all of this. You may even have to get out of your house and go to places that have people in them and strike up conversations.

Each of these three layers takes effort to develop. Social skills and a social life aren’t easy things to build. To really have a good social life, you must have all three because they work in harmony. Not having all three is like having a car with no transmission and wondering why it doesn’t drive even though it has nearly every single part. The effort is worth it, though, as our social lives are a huge factor in the happiness and satisfaction we have in life.

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Photo is sunset on Lake Mead in Las Vegas. Did you know there is a huge awesome lake in Las Vegas?

I’ve turned off comments because I got too much spam and I’m not all that good at replying to comments anyway. If you tweet at me (@tynan), I’ll probably answer, though.

It’s nice to be able to provide some comfort or advice for a friend going through these sorts of things. If you don’t know how, or aren’t sure that you’re particularly great at it, here are some ideas on how to improve.

Listen to your friend. Most people have the need to be heard, and it tends to be very important. Most people know the answers to their problems, if there’s even a question at stake at all, and they just want to be heard. In other words, one of the greatest skills needed for supporting your friends is just shutting up and letting them talk.

This conveys to them that they’re important and that their concern is valid.

If you listen to them thoroughly and you feel that their concern isn’t valid, you should tell them. Being a friend means that it’s your job to give honest feedback to friends when it will help them. Most of the time their concern is valid, though, and having it reach friendly ears will give them a lot of comfort.

Beyond listening, your next biggest opportunity to help them is to give them perspective that they may not have. Even the most rational and self-aware people have the ability to delude themselves when they’re too close to a situation. If they’re focused on the little picture, your job is to think about the bigger picture.

Sometimes you’ll come to a situation where you can see the big picture and it is blantantly obvious what they should do. This seems to happen most in relationships, because people tend to make very emotional decisions where a more logical decision could serve them better.

If you share your opinion, make a good case for it, and they’re still determined to do something you think is a bad idea, you may as well help them do it in the best way possible. For example, I have a friend who is pursuing someone that I think he shouldn’t pursue. I tried to be a voice of reason and help him think about it a few different ways, but it became clear in the end that he was going to go after her no matter what.

So now I just support him and try to give him the best advice possible within the constraints that any advice telling him not to go after her will fall on deaf ears. It’s better to give 70% good advice that he will take rather than 100% good advice that he will ignore.

After listening to your friend and offering perspective and support, you can also ask what they’re looking for from you. You can say something like, “How can I help? Do you just need someone to listen to, do you want me to help you figure out a solution? Something else?”

Don’t interject your own problems or concerns. Sometimes conversations are two-way dialogues, but if someone comes to you with a struggle they’re working through, you can save your own stuff for later. Give them the gift of being fully present and focused on them. Often they’re not in the best emotional state, so that level of attention can make them feel better.

Like so many other things, supporting friends is a skill that people don’t actually think of an improvable skill. A little bit of thought on how you can best do it can make a big difference, especially to your friends who come to you for support.

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Photo is a random little park near the palace in Tokyo. I had an hour to kill there while waiting for a friend so I worked from one of the benches while a guy practiced clarinet a couple benches down.

The biggest mistake I made by far was traveling so much. I wouldn’t do it any differently, but huge gaps between the first few dates torpedoed a lot of relationships that may have otherwise worked. In fact, if it weren’t for my friend Todd pushing me to fly to visit, I probably wouldn’t be married. (“You never like a girl this much. You are an idiot if you don’t see her before your next trip”)

Despite your best efforts, a lot of it will come down to random chance. My wife told me that she only swiped right on me because I mentioned cruises in my profile and she figured we’d have something to talk about since she liked cruising too. There was another girl I was dating earlier with whom it may have worked out if her ex-boyfriend didn’t show up in her life between our first few dates. You just never know.

That said, the key is just maximizing surface area. Figure out what it is you want and spend as much time as possible with potential partners. That also means spending as little time as possible with those who don’t fit. One thing I think I did really well was stop seeing girls once incompatibilities surfaced, even if it was going really well.

It’s important to be who you are on the first date. I see a lot of friends run into trouble when they put on a little bit of a show on the first few dates. I never do that, because I want accurate advertising. So I show up in my only outfit for every date, go drink tea, and try to tell them early about anything that might disqualify me. If you do this, you start a relationship with trust and don’t run into trouble later.

Especially in large cities, I see people paralyzed by choice, always trying to find someone better. But if you keep switching checkout lanes in the grocery store, you never make it out. My strategy was always to look for people who match my criteria, and when I find one I focus on her and act as if she’s going to be the one. Not in a creepy needy way, but basically not allowing myself to sabotage the relationship in search of a mythical “perfect” person.

I was really fortunate to find someone who had a very similar approach. We never talked about marriage or anything like that early on, but both had the philosophy that if we are dating we will put our best effort forward to make it a great relationship.

If I were to boil my philosophy down, I’d say it’s to get out there and meet as many people as possible, but to know what you’re looking for and filter hard for it. Once you find it, give it your best shot, because finding someone you’re really compatible with is hard!

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Photo is from a show called Fuerza Bruta that I saw in Vegas. A good portion of it takes place with the cast members on a clear plastic stage a few inches above your head. Really cool!