Why oh why would you want to share all your stories, your health conditions and your baggage with someone new right off the bat? The problem with disclosing too much too soon is that you give too many reasons for wanting to bail out! We all know that sometimes we grow to like and love people we might have avoided if we hadn’t had the chance to see that there was so much more to that person. But sometimes, as we get older, we think that we are running out of time, so we may as well get it all out on the table. Stop! Don’t think that way! What we don’t have time for is to waste or squander our opportunities to find love by throwing so many obstacles in the path that our romantic interest runs away rather than runs the gauntlet we’ve set before him.

The goal of flirting is to establish some interest. SOME. And to get a conversation going that continues to draw him in with greater interest. “Tell me more. I’d like to learn more. I want to get to know you.” It doesn’t mean all at once.

Parse out the information a little at a time, and that doesn’t mean the negative stuff either. Leave something for the next encounter, and the next, and make your life, and his, like a good novel where each time you meet, you cover a new chapter. Don’t try to rush to the back of the book to see how it ends. Take it slow, and let it unfold.

After the first date, get the second. And after the second, aim for the third. As you log in the moments, you are building up to something more, one step at a time.