How are dating and sales similar?

Both dating and sales require you to present yourself honestly, handle rejection without crumbling, and never oversell who you are. If you fake your way into a deal or a relationship, the truth surfaces later and you lose both. Authenticity is the only strategy that holds up long-term in either arena.

Why do men misread friendliness as romantic interest?

When someone is overly accommodating from the start - laughing at everything, never stating clear intentions - the signals get mixed. Ruby learned this firsthand: being warm and giggly in sales calls led men to see her as a date prospect, not a business contact. Clear intentions from the beginning prevent that confusion.

How do you handle rejection in dating the way top salespeople handle it?

Top salespeople do not take rejection personally - they treat it as information about fit. The same works in dating. If someone is not interested, that is data, not a verdict on your worth. Ruby credits her time in sales with teaching her to face rejection head-on instead of softening herself to avoid it.

Does playing it cool actually work in dating?

Yes, and Ruby's story is a good example. Her partner did not come on too strong after their first evening together, and that made her more interested, not less. Showing some restraint signals confidence and self-worth. It also gives the other person room to step forward - which builds genuine mutual interest.

What is the most important thing to do before you start dating seriously?

Know who you are before you try to attract someone else. Ruby's core advice is to spend time alone asking yourself 'who am I really?' People ultimately choose you for your character, not the version of yourself you perform. Zelfkennis eerst, dan de partner - self-awareness before the search.

Why Dating and Sales Are the Same Thing

What do dating and sales actually have in common?

Both dating and sales run on the same core mechanics: your opening pitch, your follow-up timing, and whether you show up as your real self or a performance.

Ruby did not find the parallel between dating and sales in a textbook. She lived it inside an online high-ticket sales community where she met her partner, GMY, and watched the same dynamics play out in both worlds simultaneously. The mechanics matched almost perfectly. In sales, how you open a call shapes everything that follows. In dating, how you show up in the first conversation sets the tone for everything after. Ruby noticed that she was defaulting to the same pattern in both contexts: giggling, staying agreeable, keeping things light to keep people engaged. It worked short-term. It backfired consistently. Follow-up timing is another shared principle. Ruby puts it plainly when talking about her sales approach: if someone reaches out with a problem, she moves fast, often suggesting a call the next day or sending a calendar link immediately. She applies exactly the same logic to early dating. If a week passes without contact after a strong first meeting, the excitement fades and the connection cools. The window is real in both worlds. The deepest overlap is authenticity. Ruby's partner started the conversation with a voice message, not a scripted opener, explaining why he had joined the community and what he was looking for. That directness is what separated him, in her words, from the typical sales personality who was just trying to close something. In sales and in dating, the people who show up as themselves early are the ones worth taking seriously.

How Ruby spotted the pattern from inside the sales world

Working in high-ticket sales meant Ruby was constantly on calls with strangers, building rapport fast and reading intent quickly. She realized she was unintentionally running the same playbook in her personal life: making herself likable to close the connection rather than showing up honestly from the start. That recognition is what changed both her sales results and her dating life.

Why first impressions work the same way in both contexts

Ruby describes her early pitch philosophy as: your opening is your identity. Whether it is a cold call or a first message, the way you present yourself signals everything about what comes next. GMY opened with a voice message that was personal, specific, and a little vulnerable. That combination built more trust in two minutes than a polished opener ever would have.

Why do mixed signals happen so often in professional settings?

Mixed signals in professional settings happen when warmth and friendliness are not anchored by a clear frame, making your intent readable as personal interest instead of business.

Ruby learned this the hard way. On sales calls, she would laugh easily, stay light and giggly, and focus on building connection to close deals. It worked at building rapport but sent a completely different signal than she intended. Almost every man she called ended up inviting her to dinner. She went to some of those dinners. She closed zero deals. The problem was not the warmth itself. Warmth is a genuine asset in sales and in dating. The problem was the absence of a frame. When you are warm without being clear about what you are there for, people fill in the blank themselves. And men, in particular, often fill in that blank with romantic interest. Research on nonverbal communication supports this pattern. A 2003 study published in the journal Personal Relationships found that men are significantly more likely than women to interpret friendliness from the opposite sex as sexual or romantic interest, a phenomenon known as misattribution of intent. Ruby's fix was not to become cold or robotic. It was to lead with her professional identity from the very first moment: who she is, what she stands for, what she is there to do. She describes it as your pitch for who you are. Once that frame is set clearly, warmth adds trust. Without the frame, warmth just creates confusion.

What sends the wrong signal without you realizing it?

Giggly energy, easy laughter, and a relaxed conversational style all read as openness to connection. In a business context, that openness needs a boundary around it. Without one, the other person does not know which kind of connection you are open to. Ruby's lesson: set the frame early, stay warm inside it, and if someone crosses the line anyway, call it out directly instead of going along to protect the deal.

How does handling rejection in sales make you better at dating?

Sales training forces you to face rejection head-on. Ruby says that same muscle stops you from performing a fake version of yourself just to avoid hearing no.

Ruby is direct about where the fear comes from: 'I was a spoiled kid. Then suddenly you enter the real world and bam, rejection, rejection, rejection. In dating I had the same experience. I didn't want to be rejected, so I just acted sweet and went along to dinner.' That strategy backfires in both sales and love for the same reason: you attract the wrong outcome by hiding who you actually are. In a sales call, performing a false version of yourself to close a deal creates a client relationship built on a lie. Ruby saw this play out in recruitment: a candidate who exaggerated a job title lost a placement the moment the real salary came out. In dating, the same dynamic shows up differently. Ruby used to laugh along and stay friendly with every prospect in her sales community, which she now recognizes sent the wrong signal entirely. Men read warmth without boundaries as romantic interest, not professional enthusiasm. The fix is identical in both contexts: decide upfront what you stand for, and say it clearly. Ruby's own pitch became: 'I stand for honesty and transparency, I want to make sure you end up in the right place.' That framing filtered out people whose only intention was a dinner, not a deal. It also made her a more credible recruiter, because clients knew exactly what they were getting. Research from Barna Group (2021) found that 64% of adults report fear of rejection as a primary reason they avoid initiating vulnerable conversations, whether professional or personal. Ruby's prescription is blunt: go work in sales, learn to hear no, and stop mistaking avoidance for strategy.

Why setting no boundaries reads as an invitation

Ruby's honest reflection is worth sitting with: she was so focused on closing deals that she softened every interaction, laughed at everything, and never stated her intentions clearly. The result was that almost every man she called wanted to take her to dinner. She was signaling availability without meaning to. The boundary is not about being cold: it is about being specific from the first moment about who you are and what you want.

Why faking it always has a price tag

Ruby puts it plainly: in recruitment, if you oversell a role and the salary is 500 euros less than promised, you close the deal but you lose the client. In dating, if you hide that you love wearing heels because your partner is shorter, that compromise quietly festers. You can perform a version of yourself long enough to get someone interested. You cannot perform it long enough to build something real.

What made Ruby's relationship work when others did not?

Ruby's relationship worked because both partners chose honesty over performance: about insecurities, competing options, and physical differences neither could ignore.

It started with a DM that Ruby almost dismissed entirely. Her partner messaged her after spotting her near a restaurant in Utrecht, and her first reaction was skepticism: another sales guy running his usual playbook. She had been in that world long enough to recognize the pattern. Men on sales calls turning business conversations into dinner invitations, charm deployed like a closing technique. But something was different this time. He sent voice messages. He explained his reasons for joining the course. He asked if she wanted to watch a coaching call together, which felt low-stakes enough to say yes to, even with a skeptical mindset. When she arrived at his place and noticed he was shorter than her, her first instinct was to mentally check out. She is close to six feet tall, and the height gap was real. Neither of them pretended otherwise. They talked about it openly, including the uncomfortable part: what would other people think? He admitted the insecurity out loud. She admitted she had started adjusting herself in past relationships, wearing sneakers instead of heels to avoid drawing attention to the difference. That kind of honesty, naming the awkward thing rather than managing around it, set the tone for everything that followed. The conversation that first night went deeper than anything Ruby had experienced before. Not surface-level connection, but actual alignment on vision, values, and where they each wanted to take their lives. He was also transparent about the fact that he was talking to other women. She was talking to other men. Instead of creating competition or insecurity, that honesty created clarity. They both recognized something worth choosing deliberately, not by default. What sealed it was the pace. He did not chase hard. After their first evening together, neither of them rushed to re-initiate contact. Ruby noticed this consciously, and she respected it. In her words, she appreciated that he did not make it obvious he was all-in immediately, because it gave her room to want it too.

Why asking before kissing changed how she saw him

When he asked permission before kissing her, Ruby's first reaction was mixed. Her ego had been well-trained by the sales world: confidence was currency, and asking felt like hesitation. But later she recognized it for what it was. He was checking in rather than assuming access. That small moment signaled a pattern of behavior that stayed consistent throughout: he expressed what he wanted without forcing it, and that distinction mattered more than she expected.

The height difference nobody talked around

Both Ruby and her partner struggled with the height gap at first, and both said so out loud. He talked to people in his circle about it. The advice he got was simple: own it. Couples with similar dynamics exist everywhere, and the ones who make it work are the ones who stop apologizing for the reality in front of them. He took that seriously, and Ruby stopped leaving her heels at home.

Why does faking it in dating always catch up with you?

Pretending to be someone you are not in dating creates a gap between the version you sold and the reality you deliver, and that gap always surfaces eventually.

Ruby puts it plainly: faking it in dating works exactly like overselling a candidate in recruitment. You might close the deal, but when reality arrives, the whole thing falls apart. She watched it happen in her own recruitment work. A client was told a role paid a certain salary. Later the candidate discovered it was 500 euros less per month. Deal closed, relationship destroyed. Dating runs the same script. If you play a version of yourself that is softer, cooler, or more agreeable than you actually are, the moment you stop performing, the person next to you feels cheated. And they are right to. Ruby spent time in sales environments where closing the deal was the only metric that mattered. She noticed that some women, herself included at points, would laugh along with men on sales calls, keep the energy light, avoid setting any real boundaries, because they wanted to keep the connection alive. The result was predictable: the men showed up for something entirely different from what the women had intended to offer. No boundaries set at the start means no expectations managed at all. This is not just idealistic advice about being authentic. It is practical strategy. Ruby's framing is direct: how you present yourself from the very first conversation is your pitch. If that pitch is dishonest, the relationship you build on top of it is structurally unsound. You will end up on your tiptoes, permanently, trying to maintain a version of yourself that does not actually exist. And at some point, you will want to wear the heels.

What does recruitment teach us about the cost of overselling?

Ruby has seen candidates placed in roles that were described better than they actually were. Once the truth comes out, the placement is gone and so is the trust. The same dynamic plays out in dating. You can convince someone to invest in you through a polished performance, but the moment the performance slips, they realize they signed up for something that does not exist. The cost is not just the relationship. It is the time both people spent building on a false foundation.

What is the one thing to do before you start looking for a partner?

Spend real time alone figuring out who you actually are. Self-knowledge comes first, and a partner who chooses you follows from that.

Ruby's closing advice sounds simple, but most people skip it entirely: go on the journey with yourself first. Ask yourself honestly, who am I? Not who do I want to be, not who my family expects me to be, but who I actually am right now. Her reasoning is direct. People ultimately choose you for your character, not for the version of yourself you perform to impress them. If you show up as someone you are not, you will eventually have to maintain that act. That is exhausting, and it always unravels. Ruby saw this play out repeatedly in sales and in dating: fake the pitch, lose the client later. Fake the personality, lose the partner later. This is the core of what Charmaine calls Zelfkennis eerst, dan de partner: self-knowledge first, then the partner. Before you start swiping, messaging, or showing up to dates, do the internal work. Know your values, understand your patterns, and get clear on what you actually bring to a relationship. That clarity is not just attractive, it is the foundation that makes a relationship stable once you find the right person. A concrete starting point: block one evening this week with no phone, no plans, and no distractions. Write down three things you genuinely value in life and three patterns you keep repeating in relationships. That single exercise will tell you more about your readiness than three months of dating apps.

Why being yourself is not a cliche

Ruby said it herself: it sounds cliche, but you will feel it when you are not being yourself. The tension, the adjustment, the slow shrinking of what you want. She stopped wearing heels to seem less tall. That is not love, that is performance. Real compatibility does not require you to edit yourself down. It requires you to show up fully and let the right person respond to that.

Why Dating and Sales Are the Same Thing (And What That Teaches You About Love)