Dating Instruction Roundup XIII: First Date Road Map

Volume XII of the Dating Instruction Roundup is here! Look to these snapshots for quick, no nonsense tips that get right to the heart of the matter…a dating instruction roundup, if you will.

Today’s Dating Instruction Roundup is all about first dates! We’ve compiled our best resources to help you feel prepared for that inevitable intro!

1. Matchmaker Alyssa Bunn’s First Date Manual:Nearly everyone feels nervous when going on a first date. Your anxiety might be mild or massive. A few – or many – butterflies are bound to appear when you’ll be spending time with someone you don’t know well (if at all). So, we must keep in mind that dating is a process.First dates are opportunities. Opportunities to meet new people, get to know them better, and then decide if you want to pursue another date. Of course, first impressions are important, but to help you have fun without the blunder, here are a few rules of thumb… read the full article for Alyssa’s 9 essential first date tips.
2. Secrets Of A Matchmaker: Secret #8 — The Complete First Date Guidebook:A first date guidebook that is geared towards BEING a good first date in order to HAVE a good first date. Please reference it whenever you find yourself having those first date jitters!When getting ready,
   Set your expectations to zero.

   Expectations are tricky things. They creep up on us like a panther in the jungle and before we know it, we’ve judged our date for their shoes and hoodie, the way they fumbled, laughed too loud, or called us by the wrong name. Sometimes we’ve written them off completely by the time we sit down to talk and they are struggling to find ways to engage us. It’s easy to look back and say, “that reaction wasn’t caused by my expectations, that reaction was caused by THAT PERSON.” In truth, our reaction tells us more about ourselves than it does about the person we are with.

   When you’re walking up to the date,
   Channel excitement, enchantment and curiosity.

   Allow yourself to be enchanted and curious about the person that you are about to meet. There’s nothing worse than seeing your date’s face fall a little when they see you. So put out the energy you want to get back, and just let yourself be excited to meet this person. Each person (including yourself) is like a gift, and our appearance is just the wrapping paper. You never know if they’ll be a good friend, a business contact, or someone you end up dating. First impressions are important and we can never change our first impression–so make this first impression intentional and enchanted…read the full article for the rest of Lauren’s tips, all the way to “after the date.”

3. What To Tawk About:Good date conversation starters can’t be answered with a simple “yes” or “no”, but are open-ended, with the power to spark a conversation that might last for hours. Read the full article for specific examples.Analysis reveals that if what you really want to know is, “how likely is my date to have sex on a first date,” the question you should actually ask is, “Do you like the taste of beer?” Because, they purport, a penchant for brew is the single-most corollary trait to being a first date putter-outer.

   If all the dos and don’ts have you feeling more perplexed than prepared, keep in mind a study done by researchers from Stanford University and UC Santa Barbara which showed that a host of behaviors and conversation signals were more responsible for whether or not a couple felt they clicked when first meeting than actual topics of discussion or specific questions.

   They found that women generally felt more connected if a man took active interest in their conversation, by focusing on her and chiming in to ask questions about what she was saying – interrupting, but in a good way. Women also liked it when men laughed right after they did, and when they said complimentary things. Men, on the other hand, felt more connected when women shared stories about themselves and used direct language rather than equivocal words or phrases such as “maybe” or “sort of,” possibly indicating that sensing interest in the woman leads to interest in the man?

   The data also showed that, while things like height or shared hobbies seemed “important” to the subjects before they started talking, with “each additional minute the couple spent together” these factors often used to predict compatibility “became less important and the flow of their conversation became more important.”

4. Data Reveals The Best Day To Date: Everyone knows picking the “right” venue is crucial on a first date. But when you plan a date might be just as important! Tawkify data reveals that Tuesday is the best day of the week to plan a date… (at least if you’d like a second date). Lunch on a Saturday isn’t a bad time, either.So, how did we get these numbers? We pulled stats on 1000 dates and compared the “outcome” of said dates by the day (and time of day) to determine which yielded the most successful matches. Successful matches = those which resulted in both parties being interested in seeing each other again. And these pairings happened more often on Tuesdays than any other day of the week.

   So long Friday night!

   We discovered quite a bit about time of day as well! The Tawkify study shows that Tuesday, after 6 pm, is best for date planning (by .6% over Saturday, the second best day of the week). Dates planned on Tuesday evenings turned out favorably 25% more often than those in the afternoon. Saturdays proved second best, with lunchtime dates 23% more successful than those on Saturday nights… read the full article to hear from E. Jean Carroll on the study.