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"  For anyone who&amp;#039;s ever had a seemingly successful first date, only to subsequently ask, &amp;quot;Why haven&amp;#039;t I heard from him?&amp;quot; Rachel Greenwald has sought the answer. In Why He Didn&amp;#039;t Call You Back, Greenwald, a dating coach with an MBA from Harvard, uses wisdom gleaned from &amp;quot;exit interviews&amp;quot; with 1,000 single men to advise on how to dodge common deal-breakers. We phoned her to discuss her findings. What inspired you to write the book?  So many of my clients would meet someone, spend a lot of time talking, and then the person would walk away without asking for her contact info. And she&amp;#039;d call me up and ask me why this guy she liked didn&amp;#039;t call her back after a date she thought had gone well. I said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m not a clairvoyant, and I wasn&amp;#039;t on your date. The only person who knows that would be the guy you went out with. So here&amp;#039;s a radical idea: Why don&amp;#039;t I call and ask him?&amp;quot;  What was her reaction?  She almost hung up. She was horrified at the suggestion. But the more I thought about it, I realized, How else are you going to learn if there&amp;#039;s something you&amp;#039;re doing or saying that&amp;#039;s preventing a guy from wanting to see you again? And very grudgingly, she gave me the poor guy&amp;#039;s phone number and I called him. We ended up on the phone for an hour, and he was just pouring his heart out\u2014not just about that girl but dating in general, and how frustrating it is to find the right girl. And eventually after all my probing\u2014I don&amp;#039;t let guys just give me a glib answer, like &amp;quot;There wasn&amp;#039;t any chemistry,&amp;#039; because I want to know why there wasn&amp;#039;t chemistry\u2014he revealed a fatal incident.  What was it?  She&amp;#039;d been talking about how much she loved New York and was saying things like &amp;quot;My whole industry is here. I love my job. I&amp;#039;d never leave.&amp;quot; And he got the impression that she was a die-hard New Yorker and would never leave the city. He thought, I don&amp;#039;t want to start a relationship with a girl who is ultimately going to be geographically inflexible. When I revealed that information to her, she was shocked. She had no idea that he had gotten that impression. What&amp;#039;s the No. 1 thing that men are looking for on a first date?  A woman they perceive as kind, considerate, and thoughtful. This is the sort of woman who may have future-wife potential, instead of just hookup potential. At first when I heard those adjectives\u2014nice, kind\u2014I let out this big yawn. But what they described when I probed actually made sense. One guy had been at a restaurant trying to get seated and the hostess was really rude. He turned to his date and was like, &amp;quot;Oh my God, she&amp;#039;s so obnoxious.&amp;quot; And the date said, &amp;quot;We should give her a break; she&amp;#039;s having a really hard night with this crowd.&amp;quot; And in that split second, he thought, She&amp;#039;s a really kind person. She&amp;#039;s thoughtful and empathetic.  What&amp;#039;s the biggest mistake that women make on the first date?  The No. 1 reason had to do with what I call the stereotype of the &amp;quot;boss lady.&amp;quot; He gets a vibe that a woman is more a business coworker than a romantic date. It starts with the clothing\u2014she goes straight from work to the restaurant and doesn&amp;#039;t change, so she&amp;#039;s wearing a business suit and carrying a sturdy briefcase. And she has that power stride, like she&amp;#039;s walking into the boardroom. Or she carries her BlackBerry and puts it on the table during the evening. Also, by being argumentative.  How so?  A guy said, &amp;quot;Let&amp;#039;s share an appetizer. Pick anything except the curry,&amp;quot; and his date says, &amp;quot;What do you mean you don&amp;#039;t like curry? Why don&amp;#039;t you like curry? What&amp;#039;s wrong with curry? Have you ever tried it?&amp;quot; This banter about curry transpired for about 60 seconds, but in that minute, he started thinking, This is exhausting! He dealt with enough aggression at work all day. He does want to have a stimulating conversation, but he wants someone with a warm demeanor who&amp;#039;s going to converse with him intelligently about issues that matter, not badger him about every little thing.  What are some reasons women typically turn down a second date?  The most popular reason I found was something I call the &amp;quot;puppy dog,&amp;quot; and that&amp;#039;s a guy who is overeager and overflattering, follows the woman around, doesn&amp;#039;t have an edge, and is almost too nice. I thought that was funny because the No. 1 reason that men said they didn&amp;#039;t call back was that the woman wasn&amp;#039;t feminine enough, and essentially the No. 1 reason that women didn&amp;#039;t call back was that the guy wasn&amp;#039;t masculine enough. There are great men and women out there looking for the right relationship and they&amp;#039;re not connecting because of these perceptions that the other person isn&amp;#039;t fulfilling his or her gender identity. What was your most memorable interview?  A guy described a woman who pushed corn onto her fork with her fingers while she was eating. How ridiculous is that? Okay, it&amp;#039;s not the best manners, but really, that&amp;#039;s what he remembered about her. It was a date that had happened more than a year earlier from when I called him, and he&amp;#039;s remembering that little thing. He said, &amp;quot;Well, think about it: A woman who doesn&amp;#039;t have good table manners is not a woman I can introduce to my boss. What if we were having an important work function and she&amp;#039;s at the table doing something ill-mannered? That&amp;#039;s not going to reflect well on me.&amp;quot;  What&amp;#039;s the impact of online dating?   There are more failed first dates now then ever before. Everyone believes that a more perfect match is just a mouse click away. That mentality leads someone to look for perfection. And of course, there&amp;#039;s no perfect person. So there&amp;#039;s this illusion that the perfect person exists, and then we all go out looking for them, don&amp;#039;t find them, and keep looking. And it&amp;#039;s a vicious cycle.   What was the most surprising discovery you made while writing the book?  That the things preventing men from calling are so easy to fix. They weren&amp;#039;t big reasons, like she was ugly or she was boring, but rather little things. If you could just be aware of them, you could stop doing them so easily, without changing your personality or trying to be someone you&amp;#039;re not. Is there anything you wish you did differently when you were single?  I had a date in college with a guy I really liked. I was trying to be fun and provocative and unique and said, &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;m addicted to Diet Dr. Pepper. I drink like six cans a day.&amp;quot; And he&amp;#039;s like, &amp;quot;Are you serious? You mean as in 42 cans a week? I can&amp;#039;t even imagine that!&amp;quot; The whole thing transpired in 30 seconds and I never thought twice about it, and he&amp;#039;s sitting there thinking I am really odd. He&amp;#039;s just completely switched his opinion based on this quirky little factoid. The rest of my personality is not weird or addictive. But he never called me again. I was crushed, and I later heard from a friend that he went around nicknaming me &amp;quot;Diet Dr. Pepper Girl&amp;quot; and made fun of me. But I&amp;#039;m not Diet Dr. Pepper Girl. I&amp;#039;m so much more! "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
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