Have you ever met someone and the circumstances and the connection between you seemed magical? It would surprise me if your answer was no. I’ve had it happen to me a number of times in my life. Most of them were when I was younger and inexperienced and meeting someone in a mall and then hitting the movie theatre seemed like a date with destiny. These days I find connections like this are few and far between. Normally I have to go on vacation – where everything is new and seems magical – to connect like that. Still, every so often, someone appears and the wow factor gets turned up to ten. You don’t need this to make connections online, but having it happen on a date can easily cement a new relationship.

The movie Hitch discusses the wow factor. In it, the character of Hitch, played by Will Smith, talks about “shock and awe,” a term used during the Gulf war to refer to the overpowering barrage of force used to stun an enemy into submission. Hitch uses it as a dating strategy to try and launch a new relationship. The hero of the story gets up in front of his love interest in a board meeting with his peers and makes dramatic statements to catch her attention. Another fakes a choking incident to catch a mate’s attention. The point is that there is something powerful about grand gestures and circumstances that make people sit up and take notice. If you can manage to do this with someone you’re interested in, Hitch would say you’ve got a foot in the door!

“You can use your early communications to help set the stage.”

Online dating gives you the greatest home court advantage going. Sure, you can send bouquets of digital flowers and love letters that Hallmark would pay good money for, but that can’t compare to the power that comes with a first face-to-face meeting. That’s where chemistry is first established and your real relationship begins to form. Can you do this from a cozy coffee shop that both of you have been to a thousand times? Of course! But what if you put some though into it and came up with something a little different?

You can use your early communications to help set the stage. Early conversations are all about discovery – finding out what someone is interested in, their likes and dislikes, the places they’ve been and where they’d like to go. This is perfect for helping you crank up the wow factor. Instant messaging histories and emails are a perfect source to turn to if you can’t recall what’s been said. Have they mentioned a favorite color, ice cream, book, TV show, hobby or place? Maybe it was blue, Rocky Road, The da Vinci Code, Survivor, volleyball and Mexico. Could you show up with blue flowers? Could you pick a place to meet that was next door to an ice cream parlor? Does your local art gallery have any works of da Vinci’s you could see? Could you find a couple of bandanas or buffs to present to your new tribe mate? Is there an indoor pick-up volleyball club you could check out? Or could you take a tour of your local bookstore, making sure to take a stop in the vacation book section so they could show and tell you about the place that they visited? These are just a few examples but I’m sure you could come up with better ones. Using what you already know is a logical and brilliant way to increase the wow factor on any date.

Being able to shock and awe your date takes planning. It takes thought. It takes desire and commitment to your goal. If you really want to land the person of your dreams, you should be willing to make the effort. Not everything in life can be as magical as you’d like but if there is going to be any time for it to happen, it should be at the start of your next great relationship!