As I was jotting down these handy dandy tips for first dates, I realized that the same principles apply whether it’s your first time meeting, or your 500th.
So lovers and beloveds, daters and seasoned couples, let’s crush it together.
Focus on the date. As in your date, the person you are with, the night or day at hand, the time-place-moment that you have set aside for the purpose of fostering a romantic connection. Take in the starry night, the candlelit room, the warm ambiance of the Starbucks café, the cheerful dog park where you are pleasantly strolling. Your date is an opportunity to connect with a person whom you may like and later love, or feel hopeful about, or who feels that way about you.
Whether you were introduced by your matchmaker, found each other in the wild (the grocery store or a bar, or you were vetted by Aphrodite herself, it’s about now. Today, tonight. You, them. Sharing. Be present, find some joy, ask questions, thoughtful questions, fun questions, lean in.
Don’t talk about your past relationships, beyond a simple explanation of your relationship status. Clichés are your friend here, friend. One liners. If your date asks you directly, because they have not read my ready wisdom, then keep it simple and gently deflect from the topic of exes – we grew apart, we wanted different things (even if ‘what’ they wanted was the pool boy or the nanny) to something positive and forward pointing; I am ready to find my person, I’m in a good place now, I’ve learned a lot, and so on. Yes the writer in me cringes but the deal is this; a date is not a coaching session. It’s not the place to hash out the past, to look for validation that your ex was a monster, and anything you say can and will be held against you… I joke. But seriously, relationships don’t often end tied up with a pretty bow. Talking about sensitive areas with someone you are just getting to know creates a breeding ground for misunderstanding, triggering yourself or them and feeling yucky because it’s hard to share without casting judgment or defending yourself. Chances are someone at the table has made mistakes that they’re not proud of. Furthermore, you don’t want your primary bond to be a trauma bond, to grab some trendy lingo. There’s a time and a place and a constructive platform for communication around past experience and hurt and needs, but DATE NIGHT is for discovering and nurturing along that seed of connection between you or tending to the lavish garden you’ve grown together. Your X’s and O’s aren’t invited.
Leave your list at home. I love lists!!! Lists are soooo fun. I love to make lists about my lists.
Fun inventive titles that help one list stand out from another, like The Super Grand Master Christmas List 2022. Don’t you want to buy some pens and a notebook just reading this? What about the list I found from my eleven year old self’s diary; write book, save money, lose weight. Amazing because that list always recreates itself. It’s like a bottomless bag of cookies. I can check off and scratch off but those items find their way right back on, year after year, decade after decade. I get it, and I am a fan of dedicating time to gaining clarity and prioritizing and being intentional.
I mean even before dating was online the love-seeking spent all kinds of time and thought and Dear Diary pages on what they did and did not want to repeat in their love lives. The modern day shopping problem however, has a new twist on lists.
That is because we aren’t meeting in the produce aisle, your hand grazing mine accidentally while squeezing the tangerines and then it’s dinner on Friday to see if the rest lines up, like values and lifestyle and love languages. With apps and matchmaking we start with the left brain and give a real thinky think to what we want in a partner. Values, career, lifestyle, politics, personality, deal breakers. It’s an art.
And when we get close enough we take all of that to the restaurant or the coffee shop to see if the chemistry lines up!! How sexy. Not exactly the plot of a 5 tomato rom-com.
It’s easy to get lost in that shopping process and forget that we need some sun, water and fertilizer to make the love tomato grow. Okay stick with me here don’t get all up in my metaphors. My point is, THE DATE is the part where you focus on growing the romance. All of your reflecting and deep diving can be done with your bestie or you coach the day before and the morning after. It’s anti-romantic. Butterfly sparks and twitterpated smit are not analyzed into existence. They require an alchemy that your spreadsheet has no business messing with. Same goes for married dates. Leave the to-do list the problems that need solving and the ways in which you could be doing better for serious time. Dates are for celebrating the magic between you whether you’re bringing it to life or fanning its flame. And that magic has the power to make some of those left brain concerns just fade away.
Lead with what you want. I know what you are afraid of. I know what that terrible ex did last summer.
I know what you don’t want to repeat ever again, but please if you’re going to TEST your date, sit across the table with your infrared-flag vision turned on looking for ways they might mess with you a few months down the road, you’ve already failed them. Because you won’t actually get to know them.
You will be looking through a lens of fear at what you won’t accept and what you need to guard against which is all you’ll see. In which case you might as well just ask your ex to pay for dinner because you’re really on a date with them. INSTEAD, focus on the qualities and values and THINGS that matter to you and allow those to be revealed (or not).
I once had a client who was worried about money because he had a lot of it to worry about. He didn’t want to be off-putting to women or appear too flashy. He didn’t want to be dated only for his money. The answer for him was to focus on depth and substance. Lead with his own.
Sharing what matters to you, what you are passionate about is much more likely to align you with the right partner than flagging for fears. And what marriage doesn’t benefit from steering where you want to go with some intention rather than focusing on what’s missing?
Laughter in your pocket. A date is not the board room. We don’t want to show up the way we do in our professional lives. The goal is to share our romantic self. What the hell is that even Erin? Well consider for a moment how we engage when we feel smitten, treasured, enthralled. Start there. Create some flirtatious energy for your date. I mean like flirtatious with yourself, the world around you, your own inner sense of spark. Do something that makes you feel good, alive, inspired, pretty, swag, powerful. Consider how you want to feel in a relationship and bring that person to dinner. Try worrying less about whether THEY might be your Prince or Princess Charming and be the charm.
Whether it’s on this date or the next or as you emanate mystery on your walk home from Starbucks, you will be more likely to light a spark in the right paramour if your spark is already ignited. If you are a bit nervous or shy, try having some conversation topics in your pocket. Interesting questions or an easy story.
Something that makes YOU laugh when you’re telling it will go a long way to revealing your inner spark, the amazing you-ness that I fall in love with every day to that person sitting across the wine and pasta or wandering the kumquat aisle hoping to impress.
Honor the process. I’ll say it a thousand times, it’s a big deal that someone likes us or that we like them. It’s a GIFT, a wonder and delight. It’s the GOOD STUFF that life is made of. And to get to that good stuff and do it right we need to take really good care of IT and of EACH OTHER. Even if your date is not the right fit for you, not going to stir your loins or your mind or have you swooning all the way to the chapel they think you are special enough to show up for, and that warrants your kindness and compassion and engagement. All of that kindness and effort goes with you. You aren’t in this to become a professional dater but you are in this to become professionally kind. That sticks. And matters. Make your date feel good, validated, important, seen, heard, because they are. They just are. They deserve exactly what you deserve with the person who is right for them. See them and treat them as someone’s perfect someone –even if it’s not yours. Whatever they have going on, whatever their social status or level of accomplishment, and REGARDLESS of whether they have what it takes to meet your needs in your romantic future you both deserve to feel good about the time you have promised. It is in us to give. THAT good stuff goes with us and becomes the foundation of all of the rest.
Much love,
Erin