A Better Way to Date: The eBook + Workbook
A Better Way to Date
What I finally learned to notice, after trusting the wrong signals for most of my life.
By Terri Crosby | incareofrelationships.com
For a long time, I trusted the feeling. If someone made my heart sing, I took it as proof I'd found something real. I married more than once on the strength of that feeling, and more than once, I learned that my approach told me nothing about the person's character, or how we'd do together as a couple.
The spark that brings two people together only tells you about electricity. It has almost nothing to do with whether two people can build a life together.
“The spark that brings two people together only tells you about electricity.”
After decades of coaching individuals and couples, and years of dating again myself after my husband died, I found a different way to pay attention on a date. One that changes what you're able to see—in them, and in yourself.
The Practice: Observe Both of You
Here's the shift, in a nutshell: instead of aiming your attention at your date only, observe both of you.
We're naturals at noticing the other person: how they show up, what they say, whether they're generous. We're far less practiced at noticing our own reactions in real time. Are we holding our breath? Do we notice our urge to fill a silence? Do we brace ever so slightly when something doesn't go the way we hoped?
Both halves matter. What you notice in them shows you their current working version, the best they can be right now. What you notice in yourself shows your working version, which gives you an opportunity to address your side of things.
Try this: On your next date, pay as much attention to your responses as theirs. Notice one thing about them and one thing about you, in the same moment. And then do it again. And so on.
What's Inside
The eBook — A Better Way to Date
Seven parts walk you through the practice: what charm does and doesn't tell you, how to observe both of you at once, what to notice in the small moments, the qualities that hold two people together, and a warmer way to choose, backed by research on what really predicts a happy relationship.
The Workbook — The Practice Workbook
This is where the philosophy of A Better Way to Date gets put into practice. First, there’s a short refresher on what to notice on your date, then five ready-to-use reflection sets, one for each person you're getting to know, with an “After a Date” journal page for every date: what you noticed in them, and what you noticed in yourself. There’s also a blank master page, so you can make new sets when you need them.
Who This Is For
You're dating now, or getting ready to start again
You're returning to dating after a big life change and want to do it differently this time
You want to date and be awake, present in yourself, and let go of any ideas about trying to be someone else's idea of a good catch.
What Research Says
A large study of more than eleven thousand couples found that the qualities we assume matter most when sizing up a partner (income, looks, background) predict surprisingly little about whether the relationship becomes a happy one. What predicts it is the quality of the connection itself: whether both people feel appreciated, at ease, and certain of each other. The one personal quality that did matter was each person's own happiness with their life, which means the work you do on yourself is some of the most useful dating work there is.
Study: Joel, Eastwick, et al. (2020), Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
I didn't figure this out ahead of time. It was a gradual process. I’ve dated in every decade of my life except my fifties. I’ve been divorced three times and widowed. After my late husband died, I didn’t date for three years. But when I felt ready, I dated for five years and then met Eddie. What's in these pages is the practice that got me there, the same one I now teach to the people I coach.
— With Love, Terri
