Dating sucks. The agony of having to make countless first impressions, face rejection time and time again, and constantly put your ego on the line all take a toll. To find someone you truly enjoy and want to date steadily, it can take up to years, during which time you have to deal with all of the aforementioned suckiness.

I have an idea for a strategy to avoid all this. And for thirty days, I will run an experiment testing this strategy, reporting back here.

Hypothesis

The hypothesis is that success at dating is primarily the result of effort put in.

So, if I focus a lot of time, meet and court lots of matches, I should be able to attain a satisfactory success level.

Researcher

I am a mid twenties male resident of NYC who wants to have a kickass girlfriend – and a solid strategy to always get a kickass girlfriend.

I’m a somewhat geeky guy with extraverted tendencies. I have an average build, average looks, average height. I’m well educated (though in my experience this tends not to matter that much for dating), self employed, and like meeting new people. I’m really interested in people, psychology and social interaction.

I am somewhat experienced at dating – having had a few girlfriends before and some flings. And am fairly comfortable approaching strangers.

Experimental Setup

Beginning on Thursday Feburary 16th 2012, I will test the Hypothesis by applying substantial and focused effort on dating for thirty semi-consecutive days. I’ll carefully track my progress, and regularly report back with results, thoughts, developments, and maybe even some statistical analysis!

I plan on being pretty aggressive — and shameless — in my pursuit. After all, it’s in the name of science.

Background

The way I look at it is there are some small subset of people that you are compatible with. Dating is simply the process of identifying these people and, hopefully, both people realizing the match is compatible.

So, dating begins with talking to lots of people you find attractive. Only some of the people who are attractive will be compatible with you. In an even smaller amount of those cases, both people will have realized there’s compatibility. And, in even fewer instances, both will be logistically capable of dating each other (e.g. live in the same city; not moving away soon; no religious, age, or cultural quirks; etc.).

That is, you are seeking someone who is compatible, aware of that, and logistically ok. I call these trifecta matches the winners.

The default strategy is to spend some number of years or months passively meeting people throughout life until you happen upon a winner. Then cling on for dear life (kidding…. sorta). So, I postulate the Girlfriend Hypothesis because by casting a large net, there will be more entries into the “dating funnel”, thereby increasing the chance of finding a winner, and compressing the painful years-long hunt into a far more intense, shorter period. This simply takes time, effort, and balls.

Detailed Experimental Setup

Spend thirty days (5-7 days a week) meeting, dating, and courting women.

Each counted day will have a must have a sufficient level of effort. This is somewhat subjective, but will tend to be fairly intense. For instance, asking 1 girl out will not make the cut, directly approaching 10 random girls will. Note – I’m being less objective here since what I do on a given day depends on the progress I am making (e.g. meeting new girls vs. going on dates).

For each day, I will post detailing what I did, what I’ve learned, and what I plan on doing next.

I will meet women through any available option – including bars, social functions, volunteering, and even walking down the street.

I will NOT count girls I meet through friends or work, or any girls I already know.

Goal

Talk to at least 200 women during the day where direct intent is declared (Stopping a girl on the street and asking her out counts. Small talk at the supermarket or a bar does not.). More on why this tactic in future posts.

Ultimately, get a girlfriend. Though, this is not really something I have control over as there’s some element of chance to it.

Prove that one can be satisfactorily successful at dating by simply increasing effort levels, and in doing so, develop a repeatable strategy to having a successful dating life.

Expectations

I expect to get rejected…. a lot… Based on past history and my arbitrary gut feel, I think it’ll take 40 solid approaches to get into the “dating” phase with someone (going out regularly, hooking up, etc). Probably many more than that for a true “girlfriend”.

I expect to suck at first. I imagine it’s something I’ll get better at and more comfortable with over time.

I hope you enjoy reading! There’s some framework set up here, but it’s pretty open ended – I think a lot will depend on what I discover as I go. I’ll probably also test out other theories about dating (and feel free to leave suggestions on what to test!).

I hope I meet an awesome girl – they’re out there, I just need to find them. And hope to develop a reusable and effective strategy to find a girlfriend.