It’s OK to smile. I’m sure some people feel awkward about smiling, especially about smiling too much in public. Do you feel that way about smiling? I used to.

If you smile too much, you might look crazy or creepy. If you smile too much, your might give others an impression that your smiles are all fake. If you smile too much, you might feel as if you are giving your power away.

I used to think that way, but not any more.

Here’s a bit more about my story – I’ve decided to tell you more about it in a video. I’ll say why in it.

(Click here if the video doesn’t play properly.)

If you feel like smiling, smile. Don’t stop yourself from being happy and smiling. By smiling, you can share your joy with others too. Give them no time to judge you as a weird and make them smile!

It’s OK to smile.

***

So, this is the first time I’ve recorded something for this site. I move around a lot! I’ll post some more videos in future if what I want to tell you can be conveyed better by videos. (e.g. a quick lesson on body language etc.)

Let me know what you want to read more from me as well. I always appreciate your comments in the comment section or via e-mail.

 

Finding out why you suck is difficult. You might recognize it but don’t know how to fix it. You might not know it and make mistakes unconsciously. But you want to know when you’re sucking because often, no one will actually tell you. They won’t have the balls or know the right words to use. They’ll want to help but they won’t know how.
Julien Smith

This guide will tell you why you suck at romance.

Recently, my favorite writer Julien Smith wrote The Brief Guide To Sucking At Life and it inspired me to write this post. In fact, you could read his post from this romance perspective. He tells you why you’re an asshole, why you are boring, why you’re depressed, why you’re in a dead-end job, and why you’re a loner. Make sure to check out his guide as well as his other fabulous posts like this and this.

This site is all for living a romantic life and I aim to share with you what I learned from my own journey. This post might sound harsher than my usual posts, but do keep in mind that I want you to master your romantic life rather than to keep sucking at romance.

That’s about this post. Now… let’s start.

Why you’re not meeting your Mr./Ms. Right

You haven’t been able to meet people you want to get to know for some time and you wonder why. I don’t know your exact situation, so I’ll think of a few reasons. See if any of these applies to you.

Because you’re in such an environment where you don’t meet new people to begin with.

You live a static life. You get up, go to work, go back to home, watch TV and go to bed. You have a few good friends and might do some stuff together with them on weekends, but your social circle is limited and you don’t get out of that circle at all.

You’ve been this way for a while; you haven’t met anyone new in a long time. If it’s been like this and you are not going to change it, it’s highly unlikely that you will meet someone new. Even if you do, you are leaving things up to chances. If you become more active and expand your social circle and reach out to people, you will meet people you want to meet and your chance of meeting your Mr./Ms. Right will increase.

Because you don’t know how to start a conversation with people you are attracted to.

Do you know how to start a conversation with people you are not romantically attracted to? If you do, you already know how to start a conversation with people you are romantically attracted to. If you don’t, you can say hi and start a conversation already. It’s handy to have this skill and to develop guts to approach strangers just in case you see someone who totally attracts you. The best way to practice this conversation-initiating skill is… to initiate a conversation with strangers.

(By the way, whenever people ask questions like “How do I ask out this guy I like?” and “How do I get a phone number from her?”, I believe they know what they need to do and how to do it.)

Why you’re awkward in a romantic context

So, you do meet new people and you find some of them attractive. You can start a conversation with them, but somehow, the whole thing becomes awkward after a few minutes. Why?

Because you are too needy.

You act like a hungry beast who just found a piece of meat and you seem as if you will do anything to get it. Ladies and gentlemen, calm down. Treat your Mr./Ms. Right as a person instead of a piece of meat and be curious about him or her rather than drolling over him/her.

Instead of trying to get something from that person (it could be approval, sex or something more minor like a phone number), enjoy that interaction itself. If you are indeed attracted to that person, you can express your feelings about him/her in a discreet and honest way. That way of expressing your feelings is authentic and not needy, because your intention is like that of giving a gift to him/her. Just don’t expect you will get something in return.

Because you suck at having a good conversation.

You might be a shy person to begin with, and now you are talking with someone you find attractive… this situation can make you feel even more nervous. So, you don’t talk at all.

You need to learn to express your thoughts and feelings. Again, the best way to improve your skill is to express your thoughts and feelings when you talk with people.

It’s important to ask good questions as well. In fact, I’d say it’s easier to work on your questioning skill and listening skill than to work on your expressing skill.

What do you really want to know about people you find attractive? This is something you need to ask yourself, because if you know what kind of people you want to meet, you will know what questions to ask so you can find out if people you find attractive match with your values.

Some general tips on this. Try to avoid asking simple yes/no questions every 5 second. It’s a conversation, not an interrogation. When you get an answer from the person you are talking with, simply catch a keyword that intrigues you and develop on that. Or you can ask him/her to elaborate more on what he/she said.

Why you’re always friends

Oh, the friend zone. You are even friends with the friend zone. You meet someone and it seems to be going fine, but along the way, you end up being friends with that person and you are not happy about it, because you wanted to be more than friends. Why is this happening to you always?

Because you act like a friend.

I don’t know what exactly you did, but I think I know what happened. So, you met someone. You were very friendly towards that person, because you didn’t want to come across as too needy. Your were thinking like this… “Well, I like him/her, but I shouldn’t express my feelings… yet. I really want to ask him/her out, but he/she might not be interested… I mean, we just met. And, to be completely honest, I’m a little bit afraid of rejection. So, let’s see what happens and act friendly for now.”

In a nut shell, you decided to act like a friend instead of acting like someone who expresses his/her feelings towards people he/she is attracted to. When you express your feelings in an authentic way, it is not needy. There’s nothing to worry about. So, if you wish to avoid the friend zone, don’t voluntarily bring yourself into that zone to begin with. Show your interests from the outset

Why you’re not making deep connections

Creating and cultivating deep connections is what really matters when it comes to having a epic romance that you will remember for the rest of your life. You’ve got skills to meet people you like and to have a more-than-just-friends relationship with them? Good on you. But isn’t there something missing… like deep connections that allow you and your man/woman to have beautiful experiences together. Why is this not happening to you?

Because you didn’t know creating deep connections is what really matters.

Now you know that it’s important. So, I’ll tell you why it’s important. When you have a romantic, meaningful relationship, two people in that relationship are like going on an adventure together. I’m talking about an adventure called life. So, they grow up together and help each other achieve big dreams and get to share amazing experiences together. The way I feel about connections between two people is that these connections help them have life experiences on a similar level. When these connections are deep and tight, two of them can share their experiences much better than those who have not deep connections with one another.

So, in short, why is it important to create deep connections with people you like? My answer is that it will help you amplify your great experiences and minimize bad experiences by sharing these experiences with people you are deeply connected with. Does this make sense?

You know it’s important to create deep connections, but how do you make connections? Let’s move on to the next reason.

Because you don’t know how to create deep connections.

A good way to create deep connections with others is to look for similarities between you and them and to share your experiences with them. There are so many similarities between us. After all, we are all human beings and we are meant to be similar. But among a number of similarities, there are some things that put you and others into a smaller group of people. I’m sure you know that feeling – when you meet someone who gets along with you well, because you share similar values with that person and you go like, “Hell yeah!”. You want that effect in a romantic context as well.

When you found similarities between you and others, you can start creating new similarities with them by experiencing some amazing things together. You go hiking with someone and watch a beautiful sunset together, for example. That experience will be shared between two of you and becomes something that connects two of you together. Create and cultivate connections like this.

***

By the way, here’s something useful to remember. How others will react to you (i.e. they like you too, they can’t be with you, they completely ignore you etc) is not as important as the fact that you take action (i.e. expressing your interests and feelings to others). Deliver your gift of being your authentic self to those people you want to share your experiences with and enjoy each interaction rather than what you might get later on.

Most of what I wrote above applied to who I once was. I sucked at romance, because I didn’t know what I need to do. But once I decided to take action and did start taking action to improve my social and communication skills, I got better understanding of this whole romance thing. You may not choose to live a romantic life, and that’s OK, though I believe that you are interested in living such a life, given that you’ve read this article up to this point.

If you want to make your life more romantic, but don’t know what you can do to make it that way, please do ask me questions. You can contact me from here. You can subscribe to this site and get free newsletters as well. I sometimes write a personal e-mail to my readers and try to be as useful as possible.

Cheers to you all and may your life be more romantic!

Success comes from persistently improving and inventing, not from persistently doing what’s not working.
Derek Sivers

I believe many of my readers have never heard of Derek Sivers. Derek is a musician and an entrepreneur who originally founded CD Baby, grew it into a successful company, sold it for 22 million dollars and created a charitable trust called the Independent Musicians Charitable Remainder Unitrust. CD Baby started as an online CD distributor for independent musicians. In fact, Derek just wanted to sell his CD online when there was no online outlet that sold indie CDs, so he put a huge effort into creating such a place for himself. His friends as well as friends of friends started asking him to sell their CDs as well. Eventually Derek’s creation became CD Baby.

I had known about Derek from Seth Godin’s TED talk, but it’s only recent that I started checking his articles and videos. I love lessons he shares with us through these articles and videos. He published a book recently – I got it, I read it, and I love it.

I highly recommend you to read Anything You Want by Derek Sivers. It’s a business book – so, why bother if you want to create your life as your art or want to live a romantic life? How is living a romantic life related to what Derek Sivers has to say about business?

In fact, what does he say about business?

He says:

Business is not about money. It’s about making dreams come true for others and for yourself.

And what’s the point of making dreams come true for others and for yourself, you may ask.

Derek has an answer for that as well:

The real point of doing anything is to be happy, so do only what makes you happy.

If you learn to make yourself happy by making dreams come true for others and for yourself… that will surely make your life go better.

You can create your life as your art just by putting yourself in it, but it will be much, much better if you make deep connections with others and get their stories and visions on your artwork called life.

Whether you are interested in running a business or not, you can apply Derek’s lessons to how you interact with amazing people around you and creating a life you want to live. So, check out Anything You Want from here, read it and learn from it.

Or you can learn more about Derek and what he has to say from the videos below as well as articles on his site.