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Being an effective and “wise” dater requires that you balance several separate issues. You must be assured of your own emotional health and have created a list of qualities that you want and don’t want in a relationship partner. You also must have developed the ability to actively listen. “Active Listening” is a way of absorbing who a person is, by the things they say. It’s about asking questions and empathizing with their answers. This type of listening is the best way to quickly determine if the person sitting across from you is a good potential mate.
Tell Me About Yourself
During a first date, volumes of personal information are exchanged. As a person talks about their life, they reveal what sort of people they have as friends, what their hobbies are, their level of responsibility, their anger level, their opinions on the opposite sex, and on and on. These clues are usually wrapped inside stories or observations, but to the person who is focused on listening, they are loud and clear. It is usually best to arrange for a first date to be in setting where you can spend unlimited time talking and sharing. When you do, you can learn enough during the first date to decide if this is a relationship that should move ahead.
Is that Any Fun?
Becoming an Expert Observer
The best way to get the maximum information from someone is to get them talking and then listen. Often times the most basic questions like, “Do you like your job?” are the most revealing. If someone spends 15 minutes explaining how they hate their job but cannot seem to leave, you can discern some very valuable information about their level of day to day happiness. We encourage you to start with the simple questions. “As you listen to what the person says, you can ask follow-up questions in a natural way, and you can move toward more meaningful topics. You want to discover what the person enjoys about his daily experience, whether he is happy and why.”
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