🎤 PODCAST • Blind Dates ~ How to get the most from a blind date ~ a short interview with Dr. Don Kieffer
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The Selfish Path to Romance. Download Chapter 1 for free at drkenner.com and at amazon.com. Oh, Dad, I have a proposal for you. Seems there's a woman in Roz's building that'd like to go out with you. Roz says that she's got a wonderful personality. Oh, I guess that means I'm the pretty one.

Do you dare go on a blind date? Your parents fix you up or a friend fixes you up or just a stranger fixes you up or you meet someone on the internet and you don't know the person.

What is it like to go on a blind date? What are you up against if you're in the dating world? With me today is Dr. Don Kiefer. He's a clinical psychologist in the psychiatry department at Rhode Island Hospital. He's also a department chair at the New England Institute of Technology, and he's had his own matchmaking service, which is fabulous for a psychologist.

and he's given workshops on becoming your own dating coach. Welcome, Dr. Don Kiefer. Thank you. So good to have you on the show again. When I think about blind dates, I went on many when I was, I guess, dating. And

uh... little bit about them what difficulties to run into what if you heard from your matchmaking services on your own personal experience well i have a personal bias in favor of blind dates it's one of my favorite mechanisms and partly because it's how i met my wife uh... and i've been married now for nineteen years

And what happened was, I talk a lot in the workshops about the importance of expanding your social network. That that is, you know, when you're at a point where you want to meet somebody, you want to look around for ways for doing that. And I was at a point in my life that I decided I needed to

do that. And so I sort of was killing a few birds with one stone. I wanted to reduce my expenses because I wanted to invest some money in a business, and I just decided that I was going to move into a group house. And I figured that this would be a good way not only of reducing my expenses but meeting some new people. And that's exactly what happened.

I was only there for a few weeks and one of my roommates had a girlfriend who was looking to date and she had met me and she thought that I might be good for her girlfriend and one thing led to another and I went out and pretty much the rest is history.

So I really, obviously, you know, it gives me a special place in my heart for blind dates. But just in general, I think that it's a wonderful mechanism. And one of the main reasons is that you're starting off with a degree of credibility in terms of the source of the match. Because typically you're going to

be fixed up with people who like you, who know you to some degree, and who know the other person. And they're not somebody that's out in the case of, for instance, a dating service who has an agenda of making the match so they can take some money from you. There's no objective like that. These are people that want to have other people's

people connect. So that's one of the nice things about blind dates. So when friends set you up or family members set you up on blind dates, they're not going to set you up with a rotten person. No, because they know that you're going to tell them about it. Right. No,

They'll hear from you. They're going to pay for it. Exactly, exactly. So, you know, it's a really, from that point of view, I think it's a nice way to start. One of the things I caution people, though, if you're up for it, what I tell people is you need to let your network of friends and relatives know. You need to let them know that you are more than happy to be fixed up.

because if you don't say anything, some people would be embarrassed or hesitant to approach you about it. They might think that you're giving them a message that I pity you or you should be dating or that kind of thing. So if I'm interested in blind dating, I really encourage people, I tell people to go out and just say to people, oh, by the way, no big deal. Say, by the way, I'm up

for doing some dating right now. So if you run into anybody, you know, let me know. I'd be happy to go out with them. And I will get callers who will call the show or send me letters, emails that are saying that, you know, my friend, what does she think I am, pathetic? I haven't dated in three months and now she wants to fix me up and she thinks I'm pathetic.

Exactly. And now, what am I, a loser? Right, right. And that is an interpretation there. And it's not at all, has nothing to do with being a loser. It has to do with the fact that we're facing the reality of where we are in society. It is very different from, you know, 50 years ago where people used to hang out on the porch steps and, you know, lazily hang out with the somber and walk

along and everybody knew everybody and everybody stayed in the same town for fifteen twenty years to set up better uh... where there were chances for connections to happen but not that way anymore people are just switching jobs and and moving uh... every two or three or four years at the different world

Yeah, so that's great. I met my husband on a blind date. You did? Yeah. Good for you. I had broken up with a boyfriend, and he had broken up with me. It's wonderful that after so many years, decades, you don't remember who broke up with whom, even though it feels so poignant at the time. And my mother was desperate. She was afraid she'd have me on her hands for a long time. So she called all her friends and networked. Instead of me doing the networking, which would have been great, it's like, oh,

Ellen's available. Please find her someone so she's not here with me. And she's loving. She set me up on several dates. And when I met my husband, I wanted to marry him the first night. Wow. And we got married within nine months. So I loved blind dates. My husband loved them. He went on many blind dates because he felt like you came in on an equal platform. It wasn't one person chasing the other. And it was more of an...

feeling like, well, you're both evaluating each other, but in a nice way. Yeah. Now, there's an alternative, by the way, that some people should think about. Hey, I got to interrupt this because we've got to pay some bills. 30 seconds. That's it. A very quick ad and then Alan will be back. Romance. Oh, I wish guys knew more about what we want from a relationship. Boy, I wish I knew more about what I want. Where's that ad I saw?

Ah, here it is. The Selfish Path to Romance. A serious romance guidebook. Download Chapter 1 for free at SelfishRomance.com and buy it at Amazon.com.

Hmm. The selfish path to romance. That is interesting. There's an alternative, by the way, that some people should think about. Like if they don't like the idea of like being one-on-one with this, you know, with this fix-up, that they feel like there's too much pressure. You know, I call what I call the mock blind date that you can propose.

pose to your friends. If somebody approaches you and says, you know, I have someone you'd like me to meet, you could say to them, you know, I really don't want to like you sitting across from a table just doing this interview thing, which is how some people unfortunately look at the first date. It doesn't have to be looked at that way, but that's how some people look at it. So I say to them, you know what, just suggest that they have a small gathering and that

and to invite, you know, the other person there so that it's not so obvious, that it just becomes sort of a, you know, like whether it be a picnic or a cocktail party, and then it can happen more naturally. And what do you want to get to on the blind date? Again, you said the first date is always to get to the second date, but the second date, what are the key things

What's the essence that you want to get to in terms of using that time well? First of all, I often tell people that the second date should really be very different from the first date. It should be in a different setting. It should not be like, you know, first dates are typically sitting at a table over a cup of

coffee or something like that. I think the second date should be more active. It should be with maybe, if the first one was the nighttime, do it in the daytime. You know, maybe informal clothing. Just things to loosen things up. Things that the main point of the date is not this heavy-duty interview, but it's really just to kind of spend some time with the person. So they're going on a picnic or going to the beach or... A museum. Not a movie because, you know, movies are like, you know...

Well, if the movie is bad or you're not talking for like two hours. You're not talking, right. You know, it is nice to, at the end, you know, you get to talk about your respective feelings of the movies, but that might go kind of flat after a while. So I dissuade movies for, you know, as a second date. But something active, going to a fair, a county fair, going for a drive, something where you can maybe walk around, too. Being physically active relaxes people.

So just experiencing that other person, what it would be like to be with that person rather than a detailed interview. Yeah, and just see how the conversation flows. You know, people will just naturally, they often, unless they're super guarded,

little by little they'll start revealing things and, you know, things that are important to you, you want to probe, you know, more quickly than others, basically. And you've just got to play it by ear. You don't want to come on too strong in the second date, that's for sure, you know, because the people will go, oh, my God, what is going on here? It's an inquisition.

So you want to ask yourself, I know we're winding down on time, but the essence, like what is it I want to know about this person? And you don't have to give yourself a whole laundry list, just one or two questions. Right. And then you spend the whole afternoon finding that out. Yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining us. This is Dr. Don Kiefer. Thank you for being here, Don, again. You're very welcome. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.

For more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to drkenner.com and please listen to this ad. Here's an excerpt from The Selfish Path to Romance, the Serious Romance Guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

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