Preparing For a First Date with Someone You Met Online
Of course, the real goal of online dating is to get things offline as quickly as possible and meet up with the people you’re chatting to face-to-face. That can seem a little daunting, though, so here are a few tips for anyone doing that for the first time.
Get To Know Them A Little First
You don’t want to wait too long before arranging to meet someone in person, but you do want to chat to them a little online first – and, ideally, hear their voice. Once you’ve established through messages that you might be interested, try to make the actual date arrangement in a phone call or online voice chat. This will give you a much clearer picture of what they’re like than just reading words they’ve typed can.
Make Sure You’ve Got A Time Limit
For the very first date, it’s a good idea to put a time limit in place. This doesn’t have to be explicit – you can say something like “I have to be home by ten for the babysitter”, or “I’d love to meet you for lunch but I have an appointment later that afternoon”, or something else that fits in with your arrangements and circumstances. If the date goes badly, this gives you a simple and non-awkward out and you won’t have to talk to them again if you don’t want to; if it goes well it means things end on a high note and gives you the perfect opportunity to arrange to see them again.
Try To Listen More Than You Speak
Ask a lot of questions, listen sincerely to their answers and try to base the next things you ask about on what you already know of them. Ideally, they’ll be doing this too – which means that you’ll both learn a lot about each other without having to intentionally talk about yourself, which is usually a bit of a turnoff! It’s important on a first date to give a good impression of your listening skills; that’s something almost everyone wants in a partner, after all.
Don’t Forget To Have Fun
Remember that dating is supposed to be enjoyable! Meet people you think you’ll have fun with and go places you think you’ll enjoy being. Try to relax, and bear in mind that having fun is as much a priority in dating as meeting the person of your dreams is.