One of the most challenging parts of dating is bobbing and weaving our way through the games and lies that people seem to think are essential to dating success. We often find ourselves being on the receiving end of these games so often, that we actually begin to believe that they we're the weird ones, and that we have to play the game the way everyone else seems to be. The best advice that we can give though is to simply be more honest. It almost sounds too easy, now that we say it. It's true though. If you want to have an honest dating life, the honesty has to start with you, and the hope that the people that you go out with will catch on, and find it refreshing enough to return the favor.

Read on as Sexsearch looks at lies and games that you'll unfortunately too often find in the dating scene, and shows you how to have a more honest dating life.

It's great that you're looking to have a more honest dating life. Some people date their entire lives without truly finding that honesty until they're settled down with their husband or wife. It can be a challenge when there are so many expectations put upon single people to find a partner and settle down. When you're filling out an online dating profile, or talking to a friend about what you want them to tell their hot friend that you met at their birthday party about you, you're often being selective with what you're putting out into the world, so as to create the best possible image of you. The most attractive version of you, that you hope will make people want to go out on a date with you.

While this is probably going to be an effective way of finding dates, it's also not being as honest as you're wanting people to be with you. If your picture is from 4 years ago, ask your friend to take a new one next time you go out dancing. We've all had the experience of showing up for a first date, and the person just baaaaarely looking like their decade-old profile picture. You might think, "I know the picture's a bit old, but as soon as we start talking, my personality is going to win them over!" The truth is though, that your date will consider it a small form of dishonesty, and you better be Hugh Grant or Issa Rae charming if you're going to get yourself out of that hole. Honesty is the best policy.

If you only like one or two songs by a really popular band with lots of attractive fans, and think that putting them down as one of your favorite bands is going to get some of those hot fans to want to date you, you'll find yourself caught in your lie when they want to geek out about the band's drummer, their favorite b-sides, and how the band's sound has changed over the years. Honesty is the best policy.

If you haven't traveled for a long time, but you list traveling as one of your main interests, we guarantee that one of the big discussion topics that your date brings to the table will be traveling. They'll want to know where you've been to lately, and when you say that you haven't had a chance to travel lately, it will bring the conversation to a grinding halt. Your date may have even had some great travel stories to tell you, but when they find out that you've painted a picture of yourself that's not accurate, they're likely going to keep them to themselves. Even if it's just because they'll feel bad talking about their great trips when you've been stuck at home with an unused passport. Honesty is the best policy.

There's a reason that Truth or Dare is a game. For some people, it's far easier to do something stupid instead of being honest and revealing something potentially embarrassing about themselves to people, and deeper than that, it's just that complete honesty is hard. We all have things that have happened in our lives that we want to remain secrets, or at least that we don't feel comfortable telling people until we've known them for a very long time, and they've earned our trust. In order to have a truly honest dating life, this is something that you need to look at in yourself, and examine whether or not you have any such topics that could come up during a date. Think about the possibility of not being worried about someone knowing these things about you. Perhaps some of your closest friends know, and that probably hasn't changed your relationships.

If you're looking for honesty from your dating partners, then they should be able to expect the same in return from you. If they sense that you're holding back on them when a certain topic of discussion comes up, they'll recoil, and even if they came into the date with every intention of being honest with you, they will think twice before telling you more personal elements of their lives as well.

As we just touched on, it can be sometimes much easier to tell our close friends things that are more personal than we're comfortable sharing with most. Try expanding your range of honesty when you're spending time with your friends. When they share a personal story with you, if you would have at one point subtly segued off onto another topic of discussion, instead share a personal story of your own that relates to their experience. See how they react. Trust us, it won't be negatively. You'll notice that they perk up, and appreciate that you feel comfortable enough to have shared that story with them. The more open you are with your friends, the easier it will be for you to be open and honest when you're out on dates because you'll have already shared some of the stories you're going to add to your dating repertoire, and will know that the appropriate reaction will be positive. If the person you're out with reacts negatively, it's not because you were too honest. It's because they're not ready to be as honest as you are, and they're likely not someone you should be dating at the moment.

There are so many games involved with dating these days that when looking for a more honest dating life, we often only focus outwardly, when we must also focus inwardly to assess what it is that we're looking for in our dating partners. If you find yourself going out on dates with people who don't have the same relationship aspirations than you do (Maybe you want to keep it casual, and they don't. Or vice versa.), you need to be honest with yourself and figure out why you're going on these dates when you're already starting off on the wrong foot. If you're looking for a serious relationship, and find yourself going out on one night stands that end up making you feel bad about yourself, there's a reason for that. We're not saying you shouldn't go on those dates. You should date whoever and whenever you please. But if you're looking to streamline your dating life so that there's more honesty and fewer strange rules that you take too personally, it's important that you are true (read: honest) to your dating goals.

There's a seemingly endless supply of single people out in the world looking for love, sex, or any other form of personal satisfaction. We sometimes get overwhelmed by the options, and with the pressure of the world to hurry up and settle down before you're the last single person on the Earth, we find ourselves accepting more date invites than we actually want to go on for fear that we might reject the man or woman of our dreams. It's okay to say 'no thank you' sometimes though. We can use the extra time to further explore ourselves, figure out what we're looking for, and do more of the things in life that we enjoy. You may feel like you're missing out on great dates by doing this, but you'll really be recharging your batteries so that you have the strength to be more open and honest with the dates that you DO go on. You're sure to start feeling better about the dates you're going on, and about your ability to be more honest when getting to know people, which will then allow you to again pick up your dating pace if you feel like you're in a more comfortable place with what you're looking for.

If they're not feeling the energy that you give out when you're relaxed, and not trying to impress them, why are you wasting each other's time? Feeling relaxed is a key to the type of natural honesty that you're looking for in your dating life, so don't let the stresses of trying to impress your date impact the way that YOU want the date to go.

The dating scene is perhaps in its heyday. It's never been easier to find potential mates, and the information that we have at our disposal thanks to people's online dating profiles is astonishing. Without even having to leave our couch, we know more about these potential dates than we probably would have been able to find out through a 3 hour long date. Gone are the days of having a lovely dinner with someone, only to have it be ruined by them telling you that their favorite band is the Red Hot Chili Peppers (no offense intended if you're a RHCP fan). Sometimes we go into dates in the modern age, almost feeling like we already know the person. The nerves and mental space that in the past was taken up by the questions we were going to ask our dates to learn more about them, and to find out if we're compatible, are now sort of skipped over in a lot of cases. There isn't the rush of going home after finding out your date likes a certain movie, and making sure you've seen it before your second date. Even if you didn't love the movie, if you had a great time on your date, you still wanted to go out again. It would make for good conversation if nothing else.

In the current times, we can watch the movies before even going on that date, and write someone off without having exchanged a single message with them. We know how quickly we judge others, and worry about how quickly we ourselves are going to be judged by others. This puts up a lot of walls in the form of silly rules of dating, or not wanting to share anything too personal on the first date, for fear of your date knowing entirely too much about you, far too soon. The extra information that we get up front, ends up sometimes NOT being an advantage at all, but rather something that inserts games and lies into our relationships that we have no use for. So if you're out on a first or second date, and your date seems a little standoffish, or like they're worried about being too eager, keep in mind that societal and dating scene pressures sometimes don't allow us to be our true selves right away. If you have lots of shared interests, and feel like there might be something buried underneath the odd "game" that your date is trying to play off as natural, encourage your date to drop any facade, and say that you're cool with being real on a first date.

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