The Todd V Show

How to Not Get Catfished & Long-Distance Relationships During Pandemic (Getting Commitment and Buy-In)

February 05, 2021 Todd V Season 1 Episode 17
How to Not Get Catfished & Long-Distance Relationships During Pandemic (Getting Commitment and Buy-In)
The Todd V Show
More Info
The Todd V Show
How to Not Get Catfished & Long-Distance Relationships During Pandemic (Getting Commitment and Buy-In)
Feb 05, 2021 Season 1 Episode 17
Todd V

Read show notes

  • Highlights
    • Texting girls during QUARANTINE
    • Turnings messages into DATES
    • How to NOT get catfished 
  • Notes

    • 00:00 - Intro
    • 01:03 - Question: How do I keep text conversations going for an extended period of time?
    • 02:03 - Issues with long-term convos
    • 03:04 - What your goal SHOULD BE
    • 06:52 - How to escalate from TEXTS TO PLANS
    • 09:50 - Todd’s “Phone Time” strategy
    • 12:40 - Long-distance relationship checklist
    • 13:38 - Question: How do I avoid getting catfished?
    • 13:47 - Todd’s experience with catfishing
    • 14:55 - How to NOT get catfished
    • 17:18 - Beware of PERSONALITY CATFISHING
    • 22:10 - Tips on meeting up with a girl from online 

FREE Text Guide

Show Notes Transcript Chapter Markers

Read show notes

  • Highlights
    • Texting girls during QUARANTINE
    • Turnings messages into DATES
    • How to NOT get catfished 
  • Notes

    • 00:00 - Intro
    • 01:03 - Question: How do I keep text conversations going for an extended period of time?
    • 02:03 - Issues with long-term convos
    • 03:04 - What your goal SHOULD BE
    • 06:52 - How to escalate from TEXTS TO PLANS
    • 09:50 - Todd’s “Phone Time” strategy
    • 12:40 - Long-distance relationship checklist
    • 13:38 - Question: How do I avoid getting catfished?
    • 13:47 - Todd’s experience with catfishing
    • 14:55 - How to NOT get catfished
    • 17:18 - Beware of PERSONALITY CATFISHING
    • 22:10 - Tips on meeting up with a girl from online 

FREE Text Guide

Todd V: [00:00:00] If you are talking to a girl from far away, here's your new focus. It's not, "I want her to still be into me six months from now when quarantines over." Here's what your focus is: "I want her to be so into me, she would break quarantine, smuggle herself out of the country, stowaway on a boat, and come meet me for a date."

Hey, and welcome back again to the Todd V show. Once again, we have an online dating special cause 2020 continuing to be 2020, and online dating is getting more and more important in the lives of men everywhere. So we have two, I think, really excellent questions regarding online dating. 

Also, I will mention, I've just released my online dating messaging guide. So, if you want to check that out, we'll have a link somewhere in the description that you can view as well. And go check that out. It's going to help you a ton with your messaging, cause I know that's a huge issue for a lot of guys. So, check that out. 

But, we do have two absolutely amazing questions today. So, I'm going to crack right into them. 

First question we have today is from someone named Nico and he says, or asks, "How do I keep convos going for an extended period of time, months? Because, I can't meet the girl due to quarantine." Okay. Thank you, Nico. 

I know this is something a lot of guys are dealing with. I've heard this question from various people in various sources over the past several months. So I know this is, you know, it's a thing, it's an issue guys are having. And, I understand where you're coming from. I feel for you on that question, and I'm going to help you with that situation. But what I want to point out is that the reason why you're probably having trouble, there are two reasons.

One, it's a difficult thing. It is difficult, you know, to keep things going for a long period of time, over a short period of time. It's just, you know, more shit can go wrong. Right? More stuff can get in the way. But the other major issue is the way you're asking the question, and what you're thinking about the situation. 

So, the question as posed was "How do I keep in touch with a girl?" Or, "how do I keep the girl, you know, in contact for three months, six months, nine months when I can't meet up with her?" That's really, really tough. 

That's really tough because there's no incentive, right? There's very little incentive for you. You have months, and months, and months of work to even get to a date. And then once you get to that date, yeah, it'll be a little bit more high percentage than a normal date cause there's more history built up. But not so, so, so much higher percentage, right? 

So, the amount of effort for the result is just really not there. Right? It'd be a lot easier to probably meet someone who actually lives near you and just start fresh. So, even from your point of view, there's not a lot of motivation, not a lot of incentive but especially from the girl's point of view. Again, it's months, and months, and months she can't see you. Where's this even going? What's the point of it? What's the purpose of it? 

And then, also, you know, there are guys in her area as well. So, you'd have to be, you know, you'd have to really, really stand out. And, the fact of the matter is, if you were standing out that much for this girl, you wouldn't have this problem because she'd already be chasing you. You wouldn't have this problem because she wouldn't be worried and you wouldn't be worried about how you stay in touch. She would be worried about, "How do I meet up with this guy?" She'd be at that stage. 

And that's really the answer to your question, the real answer to your question is, change your goal. If your goal is it's at this mediocre level, and I want to maintain it at that mediocre level so that it doesn't backslide for the next six months, that's really, really hard. Cause something mediocre actually takes a lot of energy to maintain, right? When you're interacting with someone and it's not going well, that's the hardest part. Or, when it's going kind of so-so, that's the hardest part. 

When things are going well, it's easy, right? It's a lot easier to stay in a good relationship than it is to build a good relationship in the first place, for example. So, your goal should not be to stay in contact with a girl for six months. If you're looking at your end objective, and you're like, "Well, at six months from now, I want it to be exactly how it is now." 

One, that's extremely de-motivating for you, extremely de-motivating for her. Also though, it's just not viable, right? Because, while you're maintaining a mediocre interaction, other guys near her are going to be trying to make it amazing, and trying to spark emotions, and taking her on dates, and things like that that it's going to eclipse, whatever you can do with this mediocre focus. So, I want to change your focus, okay. 

If you are talking to a girl from far away, here's your new focus. It's not, "I want her to still be into me six months from now when quarantines over. Here's what your focus is: "I want her to be so into me, she would break quarantine, smuggle herself out of the country, stowaway on a boat, and come meet me for a date." Okay. That's the level of commitment you're going for from her. 

Now, is that realistic? Probably not. Like, that's some insane, insane commitment, but that's what you're going for. Your goal is not to maintain it. Your goal is to keep making it better. The only way to maintain it, actually, is to keep making it better. Because, relationships are based on trajectory.

If a relationship is getting better, and better, and better, people want to stay in it. If a relationship's getting worse, people want to get out of it. If the relationship's just maintaining, it just gets stale, it gets boring, and it really just tapers off. And, it is possible to get these kind of crazy levels of buy-in from girls.

For many, many years, I was basically traveling more than I lived in one place. I was traveling from city to city to city. I was dating multiple girls, and these girls would fly to different cities. Sometimes paying their own way in order to come hang out with me, right? So they would drop everything, fly out for a weekend to spend that weekend with me and the city where I was at, this random city, that random city, et cetera, et cetera.

And that was just a normal par for the course thing that was happening all the time for me. So, it is definitely possible to get this kind of level of buy-in and level of attraction from girls. And this was obviously a lot of times with girls I had been seeing and had relationships with, but sometimes this is for girls that I had never seen. Right? I met them like, I meet them one night, we're texting here, there, and whatever. And then, you know, they happened to be coming to the, you know, my state and they make a detour around to come to my city instead. They actually leave their friends, take an extra part of their trip, stay an extra day or two, come see me, et cetera.

So, people were changing their plans to come see me on a regular basis, and that's pretty normal. I even had one, it's actually not even my game was the best, but it's a good example of, you know, the length girls will go to. I had a girl that I met her at a bar one time and we'd been hanging out for maybe three, four hours at that bar, and her friends were leaving the country. Right? We were in England at the time, they were going back to Germany. Her friends were leaving the country in the morning on a flight and they're like, "You have to come with us." And she's like, "No, I'm staying with him." They're like, "You're going to miss the flight back to our country." She's like, "I'll figure it out." "I trust him. I'm good. I'll figure it out." And she told her friends to leave so she could go home with me that night, right? 

That's the kind of level of buy-in you're looking for. Now, is that going to happen every single time? Like, if you look historically at all the girls that I've had relationships with, was that what the first night looked like every single time? No. Hell no. Right? A lot of times, it was nowhere near that level of commitment. But again, that's the goal. That's what you're trying for. That's what you're aspiring to. Because by aspiring to that, that's when you're going to get to a relationship that maybe is not at that level, but is really, really good. Okay? 

So instead of thinking, "I'm messaging this girl, and I still want to be messaging with her six months from now." Instead think, "What's the next progression in the interaction?" If you're messaging with this girl, the next progression, if you're far away is, let's get her on the phone. And so, you're not gaming to maintain texting, you're gaming to escalate it to the phone.

Then, if you're on the phone, what's maybe the next thing? Escalate it to FaceTime. And then, if you're from there, escalate to, you know, a more sexual conversations with her. Escalate to a more regular habitual conversation with her, where it's like, kind of almost a given that you're talking, and more intimacy of topics, and that kind of stuff. Almost like having a date over the phone. And then, the ultimate escalation is her making plans to come see you or, you making plans to come see her. 

And yes, that is viable during quarantine. It has happened for a lot of my students. And I don't mean just a few, I mean, a lot. Right? It's funny because I hear guys complaining constantly, "I can't date during quarantine." "I can't date during quarantine." I have guys I'm working with doing both online dating and then just regular dating, a lot of online dating to be fair these days. And guys who weren't even dating that much before quarantine are suddenly going on three dates a week during quarantine, right?

Or, suddenly are having guys or girls, sorry, guys are having girls fly from the United States to England to go visit them. Now, obviously, that might be a little harder this week in England than you know, than it was before cause there are actually some, some, some firm restrictions. But the point is, during the majority of this year, there's been tons and tons of that going on all over the world.

And dating is actually more viable than you think it is, if you have it in your mind that it is possible. If you have in your mind that it's impossible, and you're putting up restrictions, and you're becoming a bigger objector than the girl is, then you're going to have problems with it. But I do want to point that out as well that even nowadays, that is possible. Okay. 

So, the goal is not to maintain. In fact, it's impossible to maintain. It doesn't exist. Relationships are always either growing or shrinking. If you try and maintain, by default, because you're not growing it, you will shrink it. It will recede. It will go back. It will become less good than it was. And so, by the very nature of trying to last for six months, you're guaranteed almost to have it go South, to have it go not so well. 

Whereas, if you aspire to making it better, and better, and better, that's when you have a chance. And that's when it's actually quite possible that she actually will meet up and she'll meet up with you before quarantine is over. And if she doesn't, by the time quarantine is over, she will be dying to meet up with you and she'll be so excited. And when she does meet up with you, it will be like basically guaranteed, you know, things are gonna happen, period. No matter what, right? 

And I've had that as well. One thing that I would always do when I was traveling, it's a little different than specifically quarantine. But one thing I would do when I was traveling was I would call girls while I was traveling. And, by the way, one thing I will say for messaging, the more personal the medium, the better. So FaceTime is better than phone, which is better than voice messages, which is better than text message.

And one thing I always did, because I grew up doing game before text messaging was the biggest thing, I grew up actually having to call girls on the phone to get them on dates because text messaging literally didn't exist at the start of when I was dating. And so, I had a thing that I would call, phone time.

I would have a period in the evening, when I was learning game, where I would call it phone time. And I would sit there and would call every single number in my phone until they, I talked to them, or not been able to get ahold of them and I'd gone through all my numbers. Or, I'd spent enough time talking the two hours designated or something like that. And I just talked to as many girls I could during that period, and the other ones were lower priority I hadn't gotten to. And that's what I would do. 

And one thing that I would do was these girls that are kind of like, far away or these girls that are hard to reach out to, I would do a couple different things. I would either do them as like, pseudo phone time, maybe when I'm too busy to have a proper conversation. Like, I would with a girl that I'm going to make plans with whatever, I'd call up these girls and just chat to them while I'm running an errand, or chat to them while I'm driving in my car, or something like that just to keep them kind of fresh. 

I'd also kind of just drop them a message when I knew that there was a message that was good. So, let's say, something had happened in my life that was interesting, I messaged, you know, I messaged some people about it. They thought it was cool. They thought it was interesting. They responded well to it. Well, I'd messaged all these girls that are my far away girls, and it would be a nice reminder to them I exist. And it's also a message that is high value in getting a good response, and it's already vetted as working. Right? 

The other thing you can do with these girls, cause oftentimes, if you have a girl who's far away and a girl who's close, you can actually go on a date with the faraway girl. Maybe on a lower priority, you can use them as like Guinea pigs, you send it to them first. And if it works with them, you send it to the more high priority girls. 

What I actually would do in practice is I'd have kind of tiers. I would have the like, pure flake girls, I'd send that first. If you've got a good response with the pure flake girls or girls I never expected to hear anything from, then I would send it to the faraway girls. You've got a good response there, then send it to the nearby girls. In any case, it's a very low investment strategy to keep things going. 

But you're not just pinging random stuff, and you're just pinging stuff to ping it. You're pinging when you know it's good. You're pinging when it's a message that has gotten a good response, and gotten flirtation, and gotten, you know, positive vibes from other girls in the past. But anyway, what I would do is, again, keep in touch with these girls whether through a random text message here and there or through, oftentimes, just getting them on the phone.

And, there were girls that for, you know, months, or even up to a year, at times, I would just periodically just give them a call. Or, periodically, just drop them a text. And if they were free, I would call them, and we got very used to talking. And then, you better believe, the next time I came to that girl's city, she was absolutely dying to see me.

It was basically a foregone conclusion. Like, they just come straight over and they were just, you know, more ready to have sex with me than you could possibly imagine. Even if the first time I met them, it wasn't even that long of an interaction or that positive interaction. Because so much had been built over those months and months of just, you know, constant, small communication.

But, again, I wasn't doing it mainly by text message. I was doing some text messages here and there when I didn't have time, when I'm running around, or when the text message was vetted as good and wasn't a big deal. But mostly, what I was doing is I was doing periodic calls, and do you know what that is? That's basically the same thing you would do with a long distance girlfriend. That's how you should be treating these girls. You should be, well, if they're not at that stage, you should be working to get them to the point of long distance girlfriend. And then, you should be treating them as a long distance girlfriend, which means what? It means, actually talking to them. It means not trying to keep a relationship in text, right? And again, that's how you're going to get girls more bought in, more attracted, you're going to get girls on dates, et cetera, et cetera. Okay. 

So, first thing is continual contact, very, very important. That contact being positive, very important. That contact being the most intimate you can, very important. Again, talking is better than texting, FaceTime's better than talking, et cetera. But on a more global level, change your perspective. You are never, never is a wrong word. It's very unlikely, and very low probability, and a very poor strategy to think that you're going to succeed by trying to maintain something. 

Maintaining something or making your aspiration to maintain it, is almost a guarantee of it going backwards. Right? But if you aspire to grow it, that's when you have a chance. 

Second question we have today from a Mr. initials, S E. Question is this, "How do I avoid getting catfished? What are some telltale signs?" 

Okay. So I will start off by saying, I have never personally been catfished in the sense of going on a date and it turns out like, it's some dude or somebody that's like, completely not the person. What has happened, because anyone who's done online has run into this, is the girl shows up and she doesn't look like her photos. And there are definitely varying degrees of this, right? 

Like, I've had situations where, you know, I went out with a girl, a date with a girl, and from her photos, I'm like, "This girl is a fucking ten." And then, she shows up and she's an eight, and I still, you know, hooked up with her, and we actually ended up dating for quite some time. And she was cute, and fun, and it was great. And I was a little disappointed she didn't look like our photos, but I still had a great relationship with her. She was plenty sexy, and it was fine.

And, you should probably expect that. You should probably expect when girls have really, really good photos, expect that they're going to be a half a point to a point lower than their photos. If they look like a ten, they're probably a nine. If they look like nine, they're probably an eight and a half or an eight. Something like that, right? 

And, that's pretty normal. In fact, that girl that, you know, looked like a ten and probably, objectively, was an eight, was disappointing a little bit. I was actually, I was disappointed when I showed up. But she's still someone I would've walked up and talked to. She's still someone that I did find very attractive, and I was still glad I went on a date, and it still worked out very well.

So, one way to avoid the phenomena of the girl not looking like her photos is not to avoid it, but just to make sure the photos are such of such a high caliber that even if she doesn't look like them, you'll still be happy. Right? So, if the girl looks like a ten in her photos and she shows up, she's eight, eight and a half, you're probably still going to be just fine.

So, that's one way to do it. And definitely have really high standards, and take that into account. Right? Expect that it's going to be a point lower and go in with that. And if you look at the footage and you're like, "Well, if she was any less attractive than this, I probably wouldn't go on the date with her." Don't. That's absolutely fine, right? 

So, that's first and foremost, one easy way to avoid the girl, you know, looking less attractive than you would consider dating. Let's not talk about not looking like her photos, because nobody looks exactly like a photo, right? Every once in a while, very rare, but every once in a while, you'll meet a girl who looks better than her photos. It is very rare though, let's be honest. 

But, so, she's not going to look exactly like her photos. What you're really hoping for is that she looks good enough that you're very happy you showed up on the date, that's what you're really going for. And with that said, give a little bit of a curve, give a half a point to a point curve in general.

Next thing when assessing a girl and assessing her photos is to consider all of the photos. So if she has three photos where she looks stunning and one photo where she looks obese, she probably looks more like the obese photo than the stunning photos. Sorry to tell you. She picked her photos. She picked her photos by choice. She had the array of all photos ever taken to her, of her in history, and she picked these ones. And, she did not have to pick one where she didn't look her best. And to be fair, she probably shouldn't have in some ways. But she did, and she gave that information so use that information. 

In fact, I think sometimes girls do that when their other photos are a little too good. Maybe they've had the experience of a guy shows up and, you know, he's like, you know, very excited about the photos, and then shows up, and she looks bad. And they have a very unpleasant date where they get like, a harsh rejection, and the guy gets angry. So, I think maybe girls actually do that as like a safety valve.

I mean, like, they put their three really hot photos with like super photoshopped in good angle. And they'll put one photo where they look like themselves so that if the guy ever got angry, it's his fault. It's his fault. She has the moral high ground because there is one photo that looked like her. Maybe, I don't know. It's a theory. 

In any case, look at all the photos because, again, she probably looks more like her less attractive photo than like her most attractive photo. Just, you know, probabilistically likely to be the case. So, that's another thing to take into account. 

Another thing to take into account and, you know, this being the, you know, the internet, and the superficiality of the dating industry, and whatnot. People won't talk about this much. But there's another form of catfishing, which is personality catfishing, which is i.e., the girl sucks in person. Right? As in, like, maybe she's good looking, but she's just absolutely awful to talk to and incredibly boring. Or, she's a little bit psycho. 

I've definitely gone on dates with some girls that were flat out psycho. I remember, there's two that come to mind in general. There was one girl in LA who was actually like truly, truly gorgeous. She was a beautiful, beautiful girl physically, but she was loopy as hell. I swear. She was like, she thought she was like living on Venus and like, you know, transcending some spiritual realm in her day-to-day life. It was just, she's just trippy and weird, and to be frank, like a little bit scary. After about, I mean, she was really hot, so I did stay for half an hour. But after half an hour, I was looking for a way to like, to leave the date without offending her or creating a stalker. It was very, very bizarre and fucked up. 

So, you want to watch out for that. I also am thinking of one where I had in New York where the girl was like, I swear she had like, voices in her head or stuff like that. So I've had some, I've had some girls, and both these girls were quite attractive actually, but they were just full on psycho. So, you want to be careful of that as well. 

And so, one major thing that I do, not always, but it's one of my best practices, it's a guideline I try to follow as much as possible and generally do is that, if there's even the slightest bit of doubt about whether I'm going to get along with a girl or whether the girl's attractive enough or whatever, I want to do a phone call with her. And that's from, you know, back in the day when phone call is the best you could do. Better yet would be do a FaceTime call with her, because in a FaceTime call, you can also assess how she looks.

I do have a bit of a theory, to be fair, that when you talk to a girl on the phone, and maybe this is just from years of experience, maybe this is just me saying this because I had to deal with only phones for such a long time. I can tell from the way a girl interacts on the phone, whether she's hot and whether she's cool, for the most part. Right?

There are certain characteristics and mannerisms in the ways that hot, popular, you know, life together girls talk that other girls don't have. And certainly, like, psycho girls, and certainly girls who have some low self esteem, or don't really look like their photos. I can actually usually tease that out even with an audio call just from experience.

But if you're at all worried about it, do a video call. It's not a bad thing to do, especially, you know, in the current environments where meeting up is a little bit bigger of a commitment you have. You have lockdowns and stuff like that. I mean, Hey, why not use it to your benefit? Why not use that as an excuse to do a video call so that you don't get catfished? It's, you know, it's there, use it. 

But yeah, so screen for not only like, attractiveness catfishing, but screen for personality catfishing too. Cause you don't want to be on a date with a full psycho. You really, really don't. I've had those two girls, I've also had one or two girls that were just like, kind of scary. So, just please, like, avoid that. 

The other thing too, as long as we're talking about catfishing. Again, I mentioned, I've never been catfished, whereas a dude that showed up or like, it was some kind of like, you know, you know, the body snatchers from the fourth dimension, kind of like, to kidnap me into like sex labor or anything like that. That's never happened obviously. Otherwise, I wouldn't be here today probably. 

But it is a good idea. Just giving you online dating advice. I do recommend being safe, right? Meet in a nice well-lit public place, make sure that you, someone else knows where you are just in case. Do those precautions. I know those are mainly precautions that girls will take on an online date cause they're usually in a lot more physical danger than a guy is. But, you know, if you value yourself, and you value your life, and you put, you know, a high premium on your attractiveness and worthiness to the world, and think that someone might, you know, have illicit use for you, then have a little pride, be a little precautious.

Is that a word? Be a little cautious, take some precautions. Anyway, be smart about that kind of stuff. I actually am not a big fan of inviting a girl straight back to my place for exactly that reason. I know a lot of guys, like on Tinder, invite the girl straight back. But imagine, like I'm imagining to myself these, like, hot but crazy girls. Would I have wanted to invite them back to my place before I found out they were crazy? Probably not. That would have been, you know, kind of scary for me. And then, for the next weeks at least, I'd be wondering, are they stalking me? Or, are they in my bushes? Are they watching my comings and goings? Like, you don't want that shit.

So, I actually recommend, even if you could invite a girl back, don't invite a girl back if you have no experience with her. And this is even more reason to, again, do that screening phone call, or screening FaceTime call, or whatever, Zoom call, whatever you want to use, in order to get to know the girl, cause that's a great way to avoid being catfished.

Okay. So, that avoids psycho catfishing, that avoids being catfished to the points of you're left in that awkward situation of, you know, girls, you know, doesn't look like her photos, and you feel like you've wasted your time that way. The other major precaution that I, again, almost always take. There are exceptions, every rule has its exceptions. But, I'll get into that in a second. 

The other thing that I do as a best practice for online dating is to make the initial date at a place that's highly convenient to me. So for example, when I was living in New York City, this was incredibly easy. I literally had a bar, maybe ten steps from my front stairs that was a decent bar. So I'd walk out, turn right, walk down the stairs, and I'm there. So if I were to show up on a date and the girl's disappointing, my commitment to that date was about two minutes. Right? And then, I could leave if I wanted to, or I could do various things. 

And you should be, I don't make it a habit, even if a girl doesn't look exactly like her photos or whatever, to just leave instantly on a girl. You don't want to create that kind of negativity in the world, you also don't want to get reported on the app, and you also don't, just don't want some like vindictive person, like, having a beef with you.

So, I try and be polite, and I'll stay like ten, fifteen minutes. Be nice. And then, like, get a phone call and, you know, have a good excuse for leaving at the very least. But you could just leave if you wanted to. I mean, it's not, I don't have a real strong reason why not to. I just, I take extra precautions myself.

The point though is, don't make the date hard for you to get to if you're unsure. So, if you're at all unsure about the girl, again, screen her on the phone call, screen her a video call, et cetera. But also, don't drive two hours to go visit her for the date. Make sure you talk to her first, make sure you get to know her first, make sure you know what you're getting into. If she is borderline, then, you know, make her come to you. 

Now, let's say that the girl is the hottest girl you've ever mashed with, and you have the best banter you've ever had with her. And she wants to meet up with you like, very soon, right? And you can maybe get her on a quick phone call, but you can't get her on a FaceTime call so you don't know if she exactly looks like her photos, and she lives an hour and a half away. Well, in this case, it's up to you. I'd probably say, go for it. I'd probably say, just do it. Meet in a well-lit public place so, you know, you're not endangered or whatever. But, fuck it. Just do it. 

Meet up near where her place is so you have a possibility of it going well, and just go for it if that's the case. Because in that case, the odds of something really, really good are high enough that it's worth it. Right? And so, that's what we're really assessing when you're dealing with catfishing is you're dealing with risk and reward. 

Should you never get catfished? Then you're probably doing something wrong, right? If you never ever, ever show up for a girl who doesn't quite look like her photos, you've probably screened out more girls than you should have. Or, you've probably made the process of meeting you have so many hurdles and obstacles that you've weeded out girls that that would have been really good dating options.

So, if you never have a slightly negative outcome, you probably missed out on a ton of positive outcomes. But, that said, the majority of dates you're going on should not be disappointing. If most of the time you're showing up and you're disappointed by how the girl looks, or most of the time you're showing up and you have no chemistry with this girl because she's not how you imagined for her messages, well, that's, you're not doing your due diligence. All right. That's, you're not properly messaging and finding out about her before taking a number potentially. 

That means you're not getting her on the phone or getting on a FaceTime call. That means that you're not doing the things that you need to be doing, and you're not valuing your own time. And again, the other part of valuing your own time is set the date at a convenient place for you. 

So, those are my strong, strong suggestions for how to avoid getting catfished. And also, how to make it that even if you do get catfished, it's not that big of a deal. And again, it's not about the girl not looking exactly like her photos, cause that's going to happen even with hot girls. What you're really looking for is you don't want to end up on with girls that are below a standard you would have agreed to a date with had you known, that's number one. And you also want to avoid girls who are psychos and will be a negative impact on your life.

So, that's what you're really trying to screen for. Not necessarily that she has to look exactly like her photo every single time. Although, obviously, the hotter the photo looks, the more wiggle room and the more room for error you have, the bigger curve you can give her before she's below the threshold you would have been happy to date.

So, those are my personal guidelines, those are my personal standards. And again, I will reiterate, be safe, have some self-respect, and have some, you know, self-love in terms of, you know, keeping yourself available for the next date, and the next date, and the next date. So, you know, be careful when meeting strangers in general. But don't be so careful that you never do it cause you're gonna miss out on a lot of life if you don't. 

All right, guys. Thanks again for tuning in. I really do appreciate you listening. I also appreciate the questions. So if you do have questions, send them over to questions@toddvdating.com. That's where I get the questions for the show. And again, if you want to do audio questions, I do appreciate and prefer those.

So, thanks. Tune in. See you next time. 

Oh, by the way, I did mention this at the start, but one more time. I did just release my online dating messaging guide, so check that out as well. It's going to help you tremendously with keeping in touch and getting dates with all those girls you match with. So, check that out. 

Until then, take care. Happy online dating. And, talk soon.

 

Intro
Question: How do I keep text conversations going for an extended period of time?
Issues with long-term convos
What your goal SHOULD BE
How to escalate from TEXTS TO PLANS
Todd’s “Phone Time” strategy
Long-distance relationship checklist
Question: How do I avoid getting catfished?
Todd’s experience with catfishing
How to NOT get catfished
Beware of PERSONALITY CATFISHING
What to do when you actually get the girl out on a date