Date Like It's Your Job: A Strategic Approach to Improving Your Dating Options

The podcast episode, "Date like it's your job," by Dr. Orion Taraban of Psych Hacks, posits that achieving success in dating, particularly in securing high-quality relationships with multiple options, demands the same level of strategic effort and commitment as a serious job search. The core argument is that casual approaches yield casual results, and significant outcomes necessitate significant, sustained work. It challenges the common delusion that desirable relationships will simply materialize without proactive and intensive engagement.

The episode draws a direct, detailed analogy between seeking employment and seeking relationships. It highlights that just as an unemployed person makes finding a job their full-time occupation, someone desiring specific relationships must make finding those relationships their primary focus. The distinction is made between passive hope and active, reality-based strategy, emphasizing that both arenas require overcoming obstacles, skill development, and consistent outreach rather than sporadic, minimal attempts.

Practical recommendations for dating mirror those for a job search. For dating, these include going on "dozens of dates a month," actively overcoming "approach anxiety," mastering "small talk," learning to "polarize and signal attraction," utilizing dating apps, socializing with like-minded individuals, investing in one's physical appearance ("look" and "physique"), learning about "sex and seduction," and engaging coaches or workshops to boost confidence. The overarching advice is to "strategize and implement on a large scale until it works."

The broader implication is a call for personal accountability and a shift in mindset regarding life's significant pursuits. It suggests that many people underestimate the effort required for high-value outcomes in personal life, similar to how they might in professional life. This perspective frames dating not as a passive waiting game but as an active, skill-based endeavor that can be systematically improved through consistent effort, self-improvement, and strategic engagement, ultimately leading to greater choice and satisfaction.

if you want to have the kind of success in the professional arena where you have multiple good options to choose from you have to take the prospect of seeking employment seriously

The same is true for dating if you do not currently have access to certain relationships and you want those relationships then finding those relationships becomes your full-time occupation

It's just as hard for most people to arrive at a place where they have multiple good options to choose from without concerned effort in dating as it is in employment

This might mean going out on dozens of dates a month overcoming your approach anxiety mastering small talk learning to polarize and signal attraction

creating accounts on dating apps socializing around people with similar interests and values investing in your look learning about sex and seduction going to the gym to improve your physique

taking workshops or engaging coaches to increase your confidence anything to move the needle forward and improve your odds in a reality-based way

You strategize and implement on a large scale until it works

Do you really expect to find a high paying high value job by sending out a resume or two then why allow yourself to fall into a similar delusion with respect to finding a high value high quality relationship

if you want the good stuff you have to be willing to put in the work