5 Dating Tips from Tionna Tee Smalls

Give It To Me Straight

Author of “Girl, Get Your Mind Right” and love coach Tionna Tee Smalls doesn’t beat around the bush — as we witnessed on “What Chilli Wants.” We’ve watched her give the former TLC member dating advice straight, no chaser. “All these relationships experts and books say the same thing,” she quipped when she called us up for some real Brooklyn-style girl-talk. “I just don’t sugar coat it. Sugar coating things is overrated.” She left us five nuggets of dating advice for every single lady looking for love…

Stop Searching

“The first way to find a man is basically to not look for a man. When you’re not searching for something that’s when thing find you. You know how the days you go hard in search for a guy are the days that you just don’t meet anyone. You have to go out with the goal of having fun instead. We all have girlfriends who when they go out, they want to go home if no guy is talking to them. They had a goal to meet a guy. But if he’s not around you can’t kill yourself.”

Shorten the List

“People put standards on other people that they can’t even fulfill themselves. A perfect example is Chilli’s list — a lot of people will not be able to fulfill that list. All of these requirements will keep you by yourself for a very long time. You have to ‘WWAM,’ meaning you have to ‘Work With A Man.’We have girls that write me every day that say that their list is longer than Chilli’s and they’re not even super stars. You have to be realistic and you have to ask yourself, ‘How many of these things am I fulfilling?'”

The Greatest Love of All

“A man knows when a woman loves herself, and that love doesn’t come overnight. It’s a special standard for yourself. We have so many friends who just go from man to man and they never get their stuff together because they don’t like themselves. Get into yourself and get yourself together and then a man will come along. When you’ve gotten yourself together, it seems like you just naturally meet a lot of people. So be into yourself. No man wants a woman who doesn’t have her own life.”

Keep It Frisky

You have to make him come back for more. If you like him and you just want to freak him out, you’ve got to go all in. We get a little comfortable sometimes. We always feel like we’re in there already when we’re not. No one wants a boring sex partner. A man doesn’t wan to be bored and a lot of women don’t know this, but they’re really boring sexually or they’re really selfish. Whatever you’ve got to do, get it done.

Space It Out

“Lastly, give a man some space. Don’t sweat him. Everybody wants a challenge. I always tell women having sex too soon is not why a man looses interest. A man looses interest when a woman gets clingy. Space is important. Don’t call him all the time. Let him call you. My mother says, “You know when a man likes you if he calls you.” It goes both ways. You need some space too.”

About Tionna

Tionna Smalls is the smart, quick-witted, brutally honest voice behind Gawker.com’s former advice column “Ask Tionna” and the book “Girl Get Your Mind Right: The Tell-It-Like-It-Is Advice Your Love Life Has Been Missing.” She has been seen giving recording artist Chilli relationships advice on VH1’s hit reality TV show “What Chilli Wants.” Find her at twitter.com/tionnasmalls