Welcome to 2026! Happy New Year!!
New year, new you huh. Have you made any New Year’s resolutions?
(More importantly, are you keeping them?)
Whatever you’re looking to accomplish in the new year – it all starts with being confident.
One of the best mindsets around confidence comes from a line you’re probably heard before if you watch any number of rom-coms:
What does that line mean? Take a second and think about it.
Let’s talk about one of the scariest things around dating: how to text a woman you’re interested in.
I can’t tell you how many times I’ve worried that I’m texting her too little and she’s going to forget about me, or I’m texting her too often and she’s going to think I’m clingy, or even that I’m texting her something that gets taken the wrong way and now she’s super offended at an innocent comment I made.
And the worst of all is when you text her and she doesn’t respond…for…several hours. When that happens, all I can think about is basically,
Continue reading How to text her – including scripts and examples
It’s been a while since my last newsletter, huh? At Quietly Romantic headquarters, there’s a tradition where if I go too long without writing anything new then I get to share an embarrassing story.
This one tops anything I’ve shared before.
Several years ago, I had a female friend that I always used to hang out with. We’d known each other for a couple of years and we’d always do things together such as…
…but we never went past just being friends.
Mostly because I’m a dense person.
One day, she invited me to her apartment and made dinner for me. She asked me if I wanted to stay late and play board games with her. We ended up playing Scrabble and, several turns into the game, she plays the word “W-A-N-T”.
On her next turn—I kid you not—she plays the word “S-E-X” right next to the word “W-A-N-T”. My reaction at the time?
“Okay, that’s +19 points for Nicole.”
And that’s why I stayed single that night.
Back then, I had no idea how to tell if someone was flirting with me or what the word “flirting” even meant. Sometimes my friends would even come out and tell me “Dude, why didn’t you talk to her? She was totally hitting on you” and I’d just stand there confused.
Was she really trying to flirt with me? Or just being overly friendly?
Continue reading How to tell if she’s flirting or just being friendly
From the first time I saw her face, I knew I’d love her until the day I die.
I can still picture it clearly today. All the other boys in my Middle School were fawning over that one redhead who looked like Mary Jane from Spider-Man (you know…the Tobey Maguire one).
On the other hand, I happened to crush on my classmate in English class who came in every day wearing a ridiculously cute Mickey Mouse shirt and headband. She was the first person I ever had feelings for.
I’d like to tell you that she never even knew I existed. That’s what I really want to write right now because it would hurt less to whitewash the story and remember it a different way than how it really happened. But that wouldn’t be true to myself.
What really happened is that some time later, one of her friends secretly came up to me and told me “You know, Chloe used to have a crush on you for like, forever.”
That hurts because it’s one thing if I never even had a chance. It’s another thing to know that the first woman I ever found myself crushing on actually liked me back and I just let that slip through my fingers!
Looking back, it’s a mistake I’d made many times throughout my dating life. Whenever I found myself romantically interested in someone, I’d fail to unambiguously convey my romantic interest. That’s the key. If you too indirect and treat women that you’re interested in as friends like I did, then you can’t be surprised when you only end up being friends and nothing more.
Here’s an example to show what I mean:
The key is to unambiguously convey romantic interest. If you treat her platonically then of course your relationship will be nothing but platonic. But if you ask her out 1-on-1 to an activity at a specific time and place, then she’ll know that you’re interested in her. And maybe…just maybe…she’ll be interested in you back.
I’ve loved a lot of women throughout my life. I have two competing memories of the first woman I ever loved, and I wish I could remember it the less painful way but that just tastes like a lie. I can tell you with a straight face that most of the other women I crushed on probably never even knew I existed. Maybe I’m whitewashing those memories as well when I say that. But I honestly don’t know and that allows me to honestly remember it that way.
Let’s talk about violence against Asian-Americans. Again.
Didn’t we just do this? Yes, we did. Somehow just 2 weeks after my strongly worded open letter, a series of mass shootings perpetrated by a single person broke out at three different spas in Atlanta, Georgia. Eight people were killed, six of whom were Asian women.
And what is there to say except…are you fucking kidding me?!
It feels like someone read what I wrote and thought “Hey this Steve guy makes a lot of good points…so I’m going to do the exact opposite of what he wrote!”
FUCKING HELL!!
Alright, alright. Deep breaths Steve. In for 5 seconds. Out for 5 seconds.
And…breathe.
Okeydokey. I can’t believe I’m writing another one of these after I just wrote one a few weeks ago, but here we are. The reluctant sequel to my open letter written for everyone holding animosity against Asian-Americans.
Here we go.
Hey! Today’s newsletter contains a link to something I’ve written for ‘Highly Sensitive Refuge’. If you haven’t noticed already, I’m what’s called a “Highly Sensitive Person” or HSP (yes that’s a real thing!) The closest some of my male friends have ever come to crying is watching Spider-man get dusted in Infinity War. Me…on the other hand…I bawl my eyes out watching Monica and Chandler on Friends.
Sometimes it feels like the world is just so harsh and uncaring. And, for men in particular, we’re expected to just tough it out without showing any emotion at all. That’s why I love their website so much. It’s incredibly validating to see what’s been created by those who are unafraid to be sensitive. Check out their website below!
When I started looking for love, I noticed that one of my friends who always got dates had the opposite personality that I had. He was very assertive, even in situations I would find overwhelming. When he flirted, he was aggressive and made the conversation overtly sexual very quickly.
That’s not me at all. I’m a highly sensitive person (HSP), and my flirting is reserved and gentle. After watching my friend succeed time and time again while talking to women, I became afraid that I would have to change my personality to be more like his if I ever wanted to get a girlfriend.
So I tried to behave more like my more assertive friend. However, I didn’t achieve any success, even though I was basically doing the same thing he was. I also felt like I was acting — not being the real, true me — by going against my personality.
What was I doing wrong?
It’s been a while since my last newsletter, huh? At Quietly Romantic headquarters, it’s tradition that if I fail to write something new in a reasonable amount of time then I get to tell you something embarrassing about myself.
So, here’s a picture of me the last time I was at Disneyworld (before the pandemic started). The name of this photo: “Steve tries to understand dinosaurs better by becoming one.”
When I look at this picture, there’s three things that come to mind:
Wow. Time goes by fast sometimes, doesn’t it?
During that time, I’ve discovered that I’m a pretty dense person. If there’s one thing that continues to amaze me about being married, it’s constantly realizing how little I do know about being a good husband and a good man.
Today, I’d like to share with you a few things that would have made my dating life a lot smoother had I known them earlier. In my infinite capacity for being a dumb person, I’ve learned these after already being married. I’m sharing these with you now so you can apply them to your own dating life right away.
Continue reading Lessons about dating from my two-year anniversary
So…COVID-19 sucks, amirite? I mean, that’s pretty much the understatement of the year at this point.
When this first started back in December 2019, I think everyone just believed that it was all just going to blow over really quickly—just like the Bird Flu or Swine Flu panics that were supposed to be a big deal but just fizzled out.
I’ll admit, I didn’t really mind being stuck inside at first. I’m an introvert at heart, so being inside and spending my free time doing this was right up my alley…
…but after a while, it sucks not having the option to go out anymore. It sucks not being able to go to new places, or try new things, or even meet new people. There are several areas of our lives that are currently being put on hold because of the pandemic.
Dating doesn’t have to be one of them.
More and more people are finding love via online dating these days. I’d like to help you do the same. Over the next couple days, I’m going to cover the essential ingredients for a great online profile including:
Stay tuned. This is going to be fun!
Ever had an Uber ride was off-the-rails crazy?
I have. It had neon lights, a freaking disco ball, and some sort of weird glasses on the driver’s face that, in hindsight, I sure hope to God wasn’t covering up a lack of sobriety.
At the end of the ride, the driver turned to me and asked “Hey! Did you know I’m also a rapper?’
“No. Really!?” I reply with feigned surprise. Given all the wacky stuff in this guy’s car, the fact that this guy creates rap music was perhaps the least shocking thing that night.
“Yeah! You should check out my channel,” he says and gives me the name of his channel.
“Will do. Thanks!” I reply, stumbling out of this strange car.
(In the words of Stephen Colbert, “Guess which state this happened in? Never mind, it’s Florida.”)
Well, I have to confess that I never did check out that guy’s rap channel. I wanted to, I swear! But as soon as I got to my destination, I went about the rest of my night and the events of that Uber ride fell out of my brain about 30 seconds after I stepped out of the car. I wish I could tell you what it was called so you could check it out for yourself but I’ve totally forgotten what the name of that guy’s channel was.
When that Uber-driver-slash-rapper was telling me about his channel, he made one fatal mistake. Can you guess what it is?
His mistake was that he left the ball in my court.
Of course, I wanted to check out his channel! But once I stepped out of the car, about a thousand other things started vying for my attention and I just totally forgot about it. He could have prompted me to pull up his channel and subscribe to it while I was still in the car. Or, at the very least, he could have written the name of his channel down on a piece of paper and handed it to me.
But he didn’t. This cost him not just one potential follower (myself), but many potential followers since I could have recommended you the name of his channel if I thought it was any good.
It’s easy to point out how he screwed up by leaving the ball in my court.
How many of us are doing the same thing when it comes to women?
The holidays are coming! It’s the time of year when you start seeing Christmas lights and other festive decorations.
It’s also the time of year that used to stress me out the most.
You see, I always used to put a lot of pressure on myself to find a girlfriend in time for the holidays. It’s the time of year that you spend with people you love, and I always wanted to find a nice woman and take her home to meet my parents during the holiday season.
What I didn’t realize is that I was actually making it harder on myself by doing this. Since I was putting all these arbitrary deadlines around when I “had” to find a girlfriend, I was starting to come off as desperate to the women that I talked to. As I’ve written before, women don’t want a man whose cup of life is only half full.
After trying to talk to women and striking out a few times, I began to ask myself…
“How do I stop coming across as desperate when talking to women?”
…which was a good start, but it was still the wrong question. Eventually, I started having more luck talking to women when I stopped asking myself that question and started asking this one:
“How do I stop being desperate when talking to women?”
Continue reading How to become confidently outcome-independent around women