When approaching someone who you’ve plucked up the courage to ask out on a date, you’re immediately presented with two choices. You can adopt a persona that (you think) will appear confident, charming, and witty, and hopefully impress the person. Or, you can accept whatever you may be feeling in the moment (including fear) and let her or him see you as you are. Being vulnerable when asking someone out isn’t necessarily the opposite of being confident. It just means being present and open – and not putting on any airs. Vulnerability can be disarming. It gives other people permission to let their guard down, too.

To be vulnerable means to trust in your instincts, in your natural self, more than any wit and charm that you might possess. What’s the point of assuming a false mask in an attempt to attract someone, anyway? If that first date leads to more, then eventually the person in question is going to get a feel for who you are, regardless. It’s far easier to be real up-front, and risk being rejected for who we are, than it is to try and disentangle, down the road, any false impressions that we’ve made. For that early “getting acquainted” period of time, an unassuming manner may leave the object of your interest with the best possible impression of you.

In any moment of honesty, there is risk. And approaching someone, who you don’t know real well, about the possibility of a date, is usually risky. If it isn’t, then it probably isn’t worth doing anyway, because the lack of fear on your part is a good indication that you don’t care much one way or another. Feeling vulnerable with the person you’re approaching just says that your interest is real.

Getting past your fear isn’t really the objective, then. The most genuine way to proceed is to feel your fear – but don’t let it stop you in your tracks. Besides, there can be something pleasurable about that fear. It gets your blood moving, and ushers a tingle of excitement into the air. Approaching the object of your interest with a little quaver in your voice will allow her or him to see that you’re really sincere.

The gift of vulnerability is that it allows us to show other people how we really are, without pretension. It doesn’t guarantee that we’ll win whomever we may be pursuing. But it will enable us to come across as real, as possessing integrity. Without that, we may end up resorting to boasts, canned lines, an excess of flattery, and other conversational faux pas that are bound to make us look like we’re full of hot air.

Self Confidence Be Yourself, Pick Up Lines, Self Confidence

You’ve probably already found yourself in this situation at work: you’ve emailed your boss and you thought you were being silly, but they took it the wrong way. Yikes. And it then took you many hours to finally explain yourself, only to make you gun shy about saying anything witty in an email ever again.

So when it comes to online flirting, what can you do to ensure you’re not offending anyone, yet still being cool and seductive?

Make sure you’re rereading what you send to someone – Those notes that you send off spontaneously are the ones that will get you in the most trouble. Read and reread what you’re sending before you push that send button.

Even better, have someone else read it – If you have a friend that you trust, have them read the email as well. They’ll be able to tell you if you need to reword something or if you need to strike something completely out of the email itself.

Use email ‘softeners’ – That’s right, you have full permission to use smiley faces and ‘ha ha’ to make sure anything that’s supposed to be funny comes across as funny. ‘Just kidding’ is another good way to make sure your intentions are clear.

Be overly flirtatious – You could also take the route of being overly flirtatious by using cheesy pick up lines and lovey dovey quotes. This way, the other person will laugh to themselves, knowing the meaning, but not really knowing if you mean it or if you don’t….mysterious person that you are.

Practice, practice, practice – Chances are good that even if you do follow this advice, you’re going to run into troubles and mess up from time to time. Instead of beating yourself up over flirting mistakes, learn from them.

Flirting, Self Confidence Flirting, Online Romance, Pick Up Lines

If you’re heading to online dating sites to find new love, you already know how hard the dating scene is. Bars and bookstores just aren’t the hot meeting places that dating guides say they are. And even if you do pick up a guy or a girl at a club, the chances of them being a good match for you aren’t all that good either. You’re not alone in trying out the online dating landscape, though you might find that it’s a bit harder than it looks.

Some people are even turning to dating experts to help them create better profiles that match them up with more people. Too often, online daters aren’t showcasing their best features – like their personality or their good looks. And this is holding them back from finding the person that they could really connect with on a relationship level. Here are some of the tips from dating experts that you can use:

• Find three things that you like about yourself and show them off
• Be honest
• Don’t change for someone else

When you find out what makes you comfortable in your own skin, you’re going to find someone else that likes the person you are – no professional help needed.

Personal Profiles Be Yourself, Date Ideas, Dating Websites, Pick Up Lines, Truth