Thank you for your interest in a Practice Date! If you haven’t already seen it, my Coaching page has a summary of what this process entails. And then here’s some additional information for you.
Submitting a Dating Profile … or Not
If you spend time on the apps (which … who doesn’t these days?), you have the option to replicate that somewhat. Click here to submit a mock dating profile that will be shared with the coaching partner you will go on a practice date with. You will also be given their mock dating profile to review before your practice date.
If you want to challenge yourself, you can skip this step entirely. You can go into your practice date knowing literally nothing about the other person. What will you say to them? What will you talk about?
That will be the true test of your social skills, and I encourage you to consider the option. After all, this is the perfect opportunity to put yourself in a challenging situation, because you’ll have someone to coach you on it afterwards.
Setting Up for the Practice Date
The Practice Date will be conducted via Zoom, which you can download here. Make sure you test your camera and microphone well before our scheduled session, so you don’t keep both me and the coaching partner waiting. Click here for instructions on testing video, and click here for instructions on testing audio.
At the risk of stating the obvious, please make sure you have a decent internet connection. I don’t recommend connecting via a cellular signal, as that may eat up your data and also be unreliable.
This is a mock date, not FaceTime. If possible, use a computer or device you can set down, rather than holding a phone in your hand. If you have a separate webcam, place it right above your screen and centered, so that it looks like you’re talking into the camera when you’re looking at your screen. It will feel more like an actual in-person conversation this way.
What to Expect During the Practice Date
The goal of the practice date is for me to observe your social skills. To that end, we have set up two specific conditions to really test said skills.
First, some people are really easy to talk to because they themselves are great conversationalists. They know how to speak engagingly, and the really skilled ones also know how to ask engaging questions and listen actively.
Pairing you with a coaching partner who converses this way won’t actually give you a chance to use your social skills.
Instead, your coaching partner will intentionally lean towards responding, rather than initiating. They will ask you questions when appropriate (don’t worry, they won’t be intentionally sullen or grumpy). It will just be your job to start and keep the conversation going. As such, I encourage you to go into your practice date asking yourself:
How can I get this person to open up and want to share information with me?
Another social skill is the ability to notice things going on around us and make insightful or witty comments (keenness in my curriculum). If this is one of your strengths, admittedly, you won’t get as much of a chance to show it off, since it will literally be you and the other person, with nothing else going on around you.
Then again, part of this skill is the ability to listen to another person and make comments or ask questions that keep the conversation going. So ask yourself this then:
If my skill is observing and commenting, what if the only thing I have to observe is the other person?
Remember, the challenge of the practice date is for you is to hold a conversation with only minimal information about the other person, similar to what a real-life first date might feel like. You won’t be able to rely on the other person to drive the conversation. You won’t be able to rely on your environment to spark the conversation. What’s left is the chance for you to practice initiating and sustaining the conversation from scratch.
That’s what I’ll be observing and subsequently coaching you on.
