Full disclosure: I’ve been married for almost seven years, but with my husband for a total of ten, which means I haven’t been on a first date in a decade.
While I know a lot has changed since my last first date ten years ago, I’d like to believe some of the fundamentals of dating – not finding people to date – haven’t changed. In order to date someone, you must meet face-to-face at some point. That means eventually needing to have a real-time conversation with them, one where you can’t pretend you’re in a meeting while really taking an hour to formulate the perfect response.
Back when I was actively dating, I approached it like a business. If you know me, this isn’t surprising. At the time I worked odd hours, and exclusively with high school students, so my social circle was tiny. I knew I needed to expand my network and increase my visibility, but my options for doing so were limited since it was difficult for me to attend happy hours or after work events. To account for my schedule restrictions, I went online.
It was simple cost-benefit analysis. How could I meet the most people while exerting the least amount of effort? Because of my work schedule, I didn’t have hours to hang around bars with the same group of friends or participate in the same weekly activities in hopes of meeting a guy I could fall in love with (and who might fall in love with me). That’s not to say I didn’t meet “dateable” people that way, but going online gave me an opportunity quickly meet a lot of people across a wider demographic and geographic area (so it was no longer a matter of hoping that I was in the right place at exactly the right time). Going online also allowed me to establish a set of criteria and screen people against that criteria. Really, online dating was simply a way to increase and then qualify leads. If you couldn’t be bothered to spell check your email, you were probably lazy about some other aspects of your life too. (Maybe I should have called this post “Everything I need to know about business I learned from dating.”)
After we pre-qualified each other, it was time for a first date.
For me, first dates were a somewhat transactional experience too especially because, in my opinion, first dates are mostly meaningless. A first date may go amazingly well because everyone is on their best behavior and bringing their A-game. Or it could be a little awkward because people are nervous. But the whole point of a first date isn’t to fall in love. Or even in lust. It’s to see if there is enough physical chemistry (like, are you physically attracted to the person on some level) and if your date’s company is enjoyable enough to warrant a second date. And yes, I said “enjoyable enough” because that’s all you need. My first date with my husband wasn’t my best first date ever, but it was good enough to pique my interest and want a second date.
The year before I met my husband I went on A LOT of first dates. In order to make my life easier, and drinks or dinners less awkward, I had a set of standard first date questions:
All of these are open-ended which meant my date couldn’t get away with one-word answers. Also, because each response required context, I had additional material to use to keep the conversation moving along.
The goal of the questions was to get a better insight about the person sitting across from (or next to) me to see if they warranted a second date. If my date said his perfect day involved hunting, I realized that while we both said we enjoyed the outdoors in our dating profiles, how we spent our time outside was very, very different.
While none of these questions were super intimate or indicative of how we were going to raise our children, they were fun and gave us something to react to. Plus, after a few dates, I had my answers down. I knew how to tell the story about my favorite meal or favorite vacation so I presented like a rockstar…which is exactly why you can’t always trust the first date.
Why am I sharing this? I was inspired to write it after seeing a Meetup titled “How to 10x your dating life” with more than twenty attendees. I know dating can be difficult and tiring. Trying to standardize pieces of the first date experience made it easier and less stressful for me. Maybe it can do the same for someone else. And since I’m trying to put things about there that someone, somewhere, at some point in time might find useful, I thought it was worth sharing.