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Marketing and business strategy offer useful frames for navigating dating.
The timeless lesson in marketing is that selling [thing] is done by crafting a narrative that makes it obvious why [thing] is valuable, then sending consistent messaging that reinforces this narrative. Aka belief building.
Implication for dating: Your dating strategy should start by figuring out who you are as a person and ways you’d like to engage with a partner.
eg some insights about myself:
I mainly develop attraction through emotional connection (as opposed to physical attraction)
I have autism spectrum traits that affect social communication
I prefer to take my time getting to know someone organically through shared activities and interests
This should probably be a central element of how I construct dating profiles
Off topic, but your words helped me realize something. It seems like for some people it is physical attraction first, for others it is emotional connection first.
The former may perceive the latter as dishonest: if their model of the world is that for everyone it is physical attraction first (it is only natural to generalize from one example), then what you describe as "take my time getting to know someone organically", they interpret as "actually I was attracted to the person since the first sight, but I was afraid of a rejection, so I strategically preten... (read more)