Spoiler: it led to marriage and a whole new business (Supplied)
‘I looked across the room and saw an old man, who wouldn’t have looked out of place in old Italian Mafia movie, says Eimear Draper, a 40-year-old dating coach from London.
‘That can’t be my date, I thought. But as he started waving at me, my heart sank.’
Eimear was half-way through a year-long dating experiment. Single for 10 years, she decided to spend 20 minutes on dating apps daily and send messages to men she liked the look of.
‘But sometimes a man’s profile didn’t always match up to real life – hence finding myself on a date with The Godfather!’ she laughs.
Eimear, who previously worked in fashion e-commerce, started her dating project after a career stint in Hong Kong. ‘For most of my twenties, I told myself and others that I was fine on my own, that I wasn’t lonely, and I didn’t need anyone. Yes, I had some brief flings but nothing serious. Much to my mother’s horror! I come from a Catholic family and she had bought my wedding veil when I was 13!’
But through her twenties Eimear remained resolutely single until she went to work in Hong Kong for a year. ‘I was 29 and went out with a younger guy for a while and I realised I liked being in a relationship. After a while, I cottoned on that he was still on a dating app and dating other people. I felt betrayed.’
Eimear Draper now uses her dating knowledge to help others (Picture: Supplied)
Once back in the UK, she decided that she was going to ‘crack the code of dating online’ and find herself a life partner by treating dating like a business project. ’I bought myself a folder and organised myself like I was at work. I committed to a ‘KPI’ of going on three dates a week and signed up to a dating app,’ she says.
‘In my twenties, whenever I tried to use the dating sites, I would obsess over every profile, chat to them forever and go on one date and then put all my emotional energy into hoping that he would be the one! But this time, I decided to go on multiple dates every week. I did not invest any emotional energy until I had met my date in the flesh.’
Eimear, now a dating coach and founder of Kindling Dating, focused on numbers. ‘You just need to get to meet people as fast as possible so you can see if you like them, to see if there’s an attraction,’ she says.
Eimear would meet men after work for a drink or a coffee and if she liked them, she’d meet then for a second date at weekends.
‘I would keep Tuesday and Wednesday evenings free for dates post work, a quick makeup refresh in the work loo and off I went. Thursdays and Fridays were for seeing friends, and I would save weekends for a second date with the men I really liked – anything from London Zoo to Sunday lunch.’
Eimear single and ready to mingle in 2014 (Picture: Supplied)
Flying solo in Peru in 2015 (Picture: Supplied)
On one of her first dates with Sam in 2016 (Picture: Supplied)
She had the pipeline in place, but she then discovered ‘the real secret to cracking the dating code’ – working on her confidence. ‘After every date, I worked on my mindset. I created new belief systems about love. I chose to turn my back on my ‘unlucky in love’ label.’ she says.
‘I had done well in other areas of my life and that wasn’t down to luck, it was down to my focus and hard work…. so, I applied the same to my love life! I chose to believe that I was meant to be with someone, had love to give and that I was a good catch.’
With each date Eimear’s confidence grew. ‘I chose to be brave, let my guard down and told the men I was dating I wanted a long-term relationship. With each person I met I formed more of an idea about what I did and didn’t want in a partner.’
Eimear had been dating a year before she tried Tinder and soon met her husband, Sam.
It was Saturday night and Eimear had been let down by friends and Sam, an accountant, had matched with her. They met in a pub in Green Park on a dark, rainy night in London in March 2016 at 10pm. By August the following year, they had moved in together and four years later they were married with two children.
Eimear’s experience inspired her to train as a coach and start her own dating service. As well as one to one coaching, she runs a 6-week challenge to ‘ignite your dating.
‘When you are online dating, it is easy to get demotivated, lose trust, allow our self-esteem to be knocked, and unknowingly build defences around ourselves to protect from hurt. I know how it feels,’ she says.
‘I want to help people to learn the short-cuts that I wish I had learned when I first started out. You don’t have to be lonely. You can start believing in love again and start taking action.’
7 ways to get serious about your dating
Be clear about what you want and don’t be afraid to put that on your profile.
Be clear with yourself that you are on the app to find one person. It is easy to get sucked into thinking that the more likes we get the more desirable we are. However, if we are looking for a long-term relationship, we actually want to find one person! It is better to attract fewer matches that you are genuinely going to have a chance of connection with.
Remember that the app is a tool to meet someone in person. Consider it as a lead generation funnel, your aim is to put as many people into the net as possible at that initial matching stage. If it is a match you can then go back through the profile and decide if you want to progress sending a message.
Use the 1 second swipe strategy. Make your yes/no decision on the first picture (it should be their best) within one second. This saves you from wasting time and it also enables you to tune into your gut reaction. Another benefit is that it stops the ‘oh why didn’t that person match with me’, as you won’t have spent long enough on their profile to remember them!
Aim to move the messaging along to arranging a coffee or a drink as soon as possible. The longer the messaging goes along the more we create a fantasy around the person, that they may never be able to live up to.
Asking for an in-person meeting will also shake out the catfishers who may be trying to lure you in with romantic messaging to then scam you.
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Eimear tackled dating like a business challenge, even setting herself KPIs.
