Ladies, a lot of you are pretty good at this whole dating thing when compared with most guys in their late teens and twenties. There are many among us who couldn’t pull together a good first date if they were a real-life version of Tony Stark right after college. I have two younger sisters, so I hear shitty first date and relationship stories from them all the time. However, we’re not exclusively capitalizing on the bad dating decisions market. Oh no. This is a two-way street to disappointment, and there are still a lot of things girls can do that will send any sane guy running for the hills faster than the banjo solo from “Deliverance.”
Dredging Up The Past
First dates are about getting to know someone, and while I can understand you might have had a really terrible ex-boyfriend who seemed to think this was still 1950s America, it probably isn’t the best idea to start with serious talk about the problems with your last relationship. It sends out this signal that you are either still very much hung up on your last relationship, or that this relationship might end with my suits on fire, depending on how much information you give out during story time.
This also goes for major life trauma, legitimate psychological issues, and so on. If you would be working through it with a psychologist, the first date is probably not the time to start bringing up that stuff. I’m not a clinical psychologist (though when drunk enough, I might believe I am) so don’t try to go too deep too soon–that never works out well for anyone.
Preparing For The Future
In the same vein, if you hammer home future relationship plans like engagement, marriage, and kids over a nice, casual dinner, I am going to go in the bathroom and put on two condoms before finding a way to padlock my boxers on. Commitment kicks in our flight instincts. We literally are just meeting for one of the first few times. Slow down, crazy. Guys don’t want to be tied down to a girl before the age of 30, give or take a few years. Implying you’re looking to start a family very soon on the first date is the kind of heavy-hitting revelation that most of us can’t handle. Shit, most of us can’t even take care of ourselves half the time. I still wake up naked in strange places occasionally. Getting married and being a dad is almost universally a terrifying concept. Don’t terrify us on the first date. I once had a girl tell me she wanted kids in the next two years and she was a “no sex until marriage” type in the same sentence. If I didn’t think it was a huge dick move, I would have crawled out a window of a bathroom and made sure I had a getaway vehicle waiting.
Reverting To Freshman Drinking Habits
First dates can be nerve-wracking, especially if you’re both really interested in each other. That said, if your reliance on liquid courage turns you into drunk Lindsay Lohan from “Mean Girls,” I’m probably going to want to get out of there before you make a huge scene or start a fight with a bouncer/valet/grandmother in the lobby. Most of us aren’t angels when we black out, but doing that on the first date shows a major lack of confidence or a major lack of impulse control. Either way, it’s bad. If I already have to save you from legitimate danger on the first date because of your drinking, there won’t be a second. Even if your alcohol-related shenanigans only end with me holding your hair back until sunrise, it won’t be a fun experience for either of us.
Showing Up With A Boyfriend
You would think I wouldn’t need to mention this one. You would be wrong. I’ve had two dates where a girl showed up with a boyfriend. Like, he was on the date with us. I generally didn’t stick around more than 10 minutes or so, after realizing they basically just wanted a threesome. Why would someone assume that, because a guy is interested in a date, he’s interested in a threesome with another dude? I don’t know, but it shouldn’t happen in anything but really terrible porn.
Planning The Date, Then Not Actually Going
Another no-brainer, but something that happened to me with tickets to a concert a few years ago. If we make plans that require me to shell out, like, $100 in advance, at least give me the courtesy of a text saying you can’t go when something comes up. Not answering texts, mysteriously disappearing, and then continuing to like my Facebook statuses for months afterward is fucking weird.
There are many more ways to ruin a first date. I’m sure entire tomes have been written on them over the ages, but these are some of the more egregious bad moves you can make. A successful first date is all about being yourself without letting the other person immediately see all of your weird quirks. Everyone has those, but throwing everything at a potential boyfriend on day one is a good way to scare us off. Just be yourself and be positive. If you avoid all of the above mistakes, you’ll be off to a good start..
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Whiskey_Ginger
Primarily a TFM and PGP guy. I do science for a living, but being funny on the internet is my passion. Sometimes I write for TSM to help further cement the core arguments for why I'm not boyfriend material. Snapchat: Jqwhiskeyginger
@jqwhiskeyginger
@jqwhiskeyginger
