Simple Online Dating Etiquette

Dating can be a minefield for manners, and a lot of people find it difficult to figure out quite how they should behave. Thankfully, there is an established etiquette for at least some of the things that can be the most concerning – and so long as you’re reasonably careful to abide by it you’re unlikely to go too wrong. This quick guide concerns itself with the most nervewracking factor in online dating: deciding when, where and how to meet someone in real life.

Deciding When To Meet

There are two main schools of thought on this, and they’re probably both wrong. One side – made up largely of men, though that’s by no means universal – want to meet immediately, and will sometimes go so far as to open a conversation with the beginnings of a plan. The other – many of whom are women, but this also is not a hard and fast rule – drag things out for ages, wanting to talk to someone for longer and longer before they feel quite right about meeting them. There are good reasons for this (women are very understandably more concerned about danger than men are, for one thing) but all told a middle ground is probably the best thing you can work toward. Exchange a few messages with someone to get a feel for them, and then move on to arranging to meet in real life in reasonably short order.

Picking A Meeting Place

Make sure that, wherever you meet for the first time, it’s in a public place – while it’s unlikely that anything terrible is going to happen, it is important to do what you can to keep yourself safe. What kind of a public place, however, is open to interpretation:

  • In America, a coffee shop is probably the most likely and neutral place for a first meeting. This isn’t true in Britain, where you’d go to a pub instead – and what is the ‘ordinary default’ will vary from country to country the world over.
  • If you have a particular interest in common – say there’s a museum you both want to visit – you can always meet up and go round there together. This has the added benefit of giving you something to talk about to break the ice! Avoid anything with an expensive entry fee, though; it can make you feel like you ought to stay past when you’re comfortable if things are going badly.
  • Make sure you don’t go for anything that won’t give you much chance to talk, like the cinema or theatre. You want to be able to get to know the person, after all.