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It probably seems like every time you go on a date, your best friends gather around you and start tossing every piece of dating advice imaginable at you. They tell you to be yourself — but not totally. They have input on whether or not he picks you up for the date or you drive yourself. What about your outfit? That’s also important to everyone around you for some reason. Even when you stand in line to check out at the grocery store, magazine headlines tell you to be yourself by then telling you what being yourself should look like.
Considering the fact that “just be yourself” is such a common piece of dating advice, it certainly feels that all of the other pieces tell you to be anything but yourself. Is dating advice even truly necessary? Should advice, perhaps, be more focused on understanding what it is that you want and need, and learning how to identify whether or not someone else can provide that for you? Should there maybe be no filters at all during the dating process so everyone can show their true selves and also see each other completely? That seems to be what some of the best dating coaches focus on: authenticity above all else.
On that note, we chatted with Tiffany Rae’Shan and Francesca Hogi, two insightful life coaches, about popular dating advice that isn’t very useful. Read on to see what they told us.
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It’s a date; not an interrogation
There’s a lot to be said for just assessing how we feel, in a resting state, around somebody. But the first-date process can interfere with that. “I honestly can’t stand it when I see advice about all the questions you should ask on a first date. We become so busy being an interviewer and investigator that we forget to relax and actually enjoy the date,” says Rae’Shan.
