Hayley Quinn's dating advice
Hayley Quinn worked on the writing side of the pickup world before she became a coach in her own right. According to Dating News, she ghostwrote for pickup artists from The Game, then built her own company teaching real-life dating skills. Her path runs from the edge of the scene to a mainstream coaching career.
Background
Quinn is a London-based dating coach. Dating News says she studied English and Psychoanalysis at University College London and describes her company as the largest dating coaching company in the UK. The same profile lists her as a spokesperson for Match UK.
Her early work connects to the era covered in Neil Strauss and The Game and the history of the pickup community. Her own coaching, per Dating News, is about real-life dating skills rather than manipulative tactics.
What she's built
- A dating coaching company in the UK, with Quinn as founder.
- A YouTube channel with dating and relationship advice.
- A TEDx talk, "Searching for Love to Escape Ourselves," given at TEDxUniversityofNevada. Dating News credits her TED talk views at more than 2 million.
- Books. The Last First Date is a romantic comedy published under HarperCollins' HQ imprint. A non-fiction dating book from Simon & Schuster was listed as due in early 2023, and her Simon & Schuster author page also lists Do This, Not That: Dating.
- Media. Appearances on BBC News and Celebs Go Dating, and features in Elle, Match, and Cosmopolitan, plus podcast interviews such as "The (Easy) Science of Dating with Hayley Quinn."
What she teaches
Dating News summarizes her approach in four points:
- Real-life skills, not manipulation. The goal is being able to talk to and connect with people face to face.
- A minimalist strategy built on self-work first. Work on yourself before putting effort into dating itself.
- Female empowerment. Dating News frames her work around it.
- Life beyond apps. She's quoted making the point that there's more to meeting someone than Tinder.
On how in-person meeting compares with swiping, see online dating vs cold approach. For where her focus on authenticity sits in the larger shift in advice, see from pickup lines to authenticity.
What to take from Hayley Quinn
- Do the self-work first, for 10 minutes a day. Pick one thing outside dating that you'd be proud of in a month, such as a workout routine, a class, or a project. Do it daily, and write down whether you did.
- Get off the app for a week. For 7 days, don't open a dating app. Spend that time instead on 3 in-person conversations with people you don't know: a barista, someone in a queue, someone at a class.
- Practice a real-life skill, not a line. Ask one open question and follow up on the answer: "What are you reading?" then "What made you pick that?" Do this with 5 people this week.
- Watch her TEDx talk. It's linked under Sources. Write down one idea from it and where it applies to you.
- Log your conversations in Flow. Count a Success, a Rejection, or a Pass each time, and after 2 weeks look at whether more conversations came from days you'd done your self-work habit.
If someone isn't interested, thank them and go.