This page is everything I taught about the first date in my old dating course: how to be yourself, how to read your first impression, what to plan, what not to do, how to end the date, and how to follow up. There are seven lessons, and the full text of each one is below. If you have a first date coming up, or you just had one and don't know what to do next, start wherever your question is.
I recorded these lessons in early 2015. I was married then, and I met my wife on Match.com. Since then the marriage ended in divorce in December 2025. I'm a single dad of two in St. Petersburg, Florida, and in the year since the divorce I've been on about fifty dates and have no lasting relationship yet. I've left the lessons exactly as I recorded them, so you're reading what I said at the time.
In Be yourself, I say to be natural and not play a role. Dress about the way you would for lunch with a friend, never script what you'll say, and let the chemistry play out. I compare it to a best friend, and I say you can't force one. I also say that oversharing is common when a first date isn't going well, and that I've sat through a check I ignored because there was no chemistry.
In Trust your instinct about the other person, I say your first impression is honest. I tell the story of a woman I messaged online for around a month before we met, and how my reaction in person was a clear no. I say not trusting it cost me three months. I also explain why I recommend dating sober and in a level mood, because drinking made it hard for me to notice a first impression at all.
In The first date is the easiest time to quit, I say it only gets harder to leave on the second date, the third and the fiftieth. I describe the date before my wife, when I knew as soon as I got home that I didn't want to see her again, and how my mind started arguing with me anyway. I also describe how different my first date with my wife felt, after about ten years of dates. How to plan a great first date keeps it simple. Plan lunch, not dinner, and nothing else afterward. I explain why dinner invites questions about drinks and going home together, and I tell what my wife and I did, which was lunch on a Saturday.
In Do not do any of these on a first date, I list what to skip: oversharing, being rude to the waiter, checking your phone, expecting the other person to pay, and getting overly romantic. I say that if the other person does these things, it's a sign the date isn't going well.
In End with a hug for yes or a polite "thank you for going out with me", I say a hug is the right ending when the date went well, and I say I was completely wrong when I used to think you weren't a man if you didn't kiss on the first date. When it didn't go well, I recommend a kind, honest line that makes it clear you won't go out again. I admit I was often ruder than that when I was younger.
In Follow up how you would like to be followed up, I say to give what you want to get. A short text or call works, and playing games leaves you not knowing what the other person thinks. I say that after a first date with no reply, you accept it and move on, and that this happened to me hundreds of times.
This is part 4 of 6. The part before it is Online Dating Course: From a Great Profile to a First Date, and the next part is Second Date Guide: Build on the First Date or Let It Go. I now work with people one on one as a dating coach.
On this page
Every lesson is below in full, in course order, each under its own heading.
- 18) Be yourself (early 2015)
- 19) Trust your instinct about the other person (early 2015)
- 20) The first date is the easiest time to quit (early 2015)
- 21) How to plan a great first date (early 2015)
- 22) DO NOT do any of these on a first date (early 2015)
- 23) End with a hug for yes or a polite "thank you for going out with me." (early 2015)
- 24) Follow up how you would like to be followed up (early 2015)
18) Be yourself
From my video recorded in early 2015.
Be natural, not a role
On a date, you want to be yourself, and that means be natural. The way you are with your family or your friends, some combination of that, is who you naturally are. You don't want to put on a show, try too hard, or be any version of yourself you're not. So just be you. Talk about the things you like to talk about and say the things you like to say. There's nothing wrong with trying to be your best self, but you don't want to be playing a role.
A role is something unnatural that you're trying to act, and it doesn't feel right. You know it because you feel uncomfortable, a little anxious, or you start feeling gross while you're doing it, and especially after you've done it. So just be yourself and feel lighthearted, the same way as if you went out with one of your friends to eat.
You want to fix yourself up a little bit, whether you're a guy or a girl, but not too much. Don't put in the effort of someone trying to go get married and spend hours making yourself up. Whatever you would do to go out to lunch with a friend is about what you should do to go out on a date. Wear some nice clothes, at least clean clothes, but they don't have to be your best clothes. Wear something normal you might wear to go out with your friends or family. Do up your hair, your face, your shoes, whatever you do, the same way you would to go out and look nice with your family or a friend. That's natural, and that's honest.
Let the chemistry play out
You don't want to try too hard on a date, because ultimately you want the chemistry to be there naturally. Trying too hard can mess up or obscure whatever natural chemistry is there. So let the natural chemistry between you and another person play out.
Think of your best friend. When you go out and do something with them, there's a natural chemistry that was probably there pretty early on, from when you started hanging out. What you want to do on a date is see if you have an opportunity to have another best friend. If you think about all the people you've met before and compare that to your best friend, it should highlight that you don't want to force another best friend. Just be who you are, and if the natural chemistry works, then you wind up with two best friends, and that's really cool. So think of it like a best friend. Don't force it, just let it happen.
That also means you don't need to script what you're going to say on the date. Never script what you're going to say. Just let things come out. If you say some things that are kind of surprising, that's okay. Your chemistry with someone else will dictate what happens. Sometimes that means things will go really well, and sometimes they won't.
Oversharing when things are not going well is very common on a first date, and that's okay. It just means it's not good. I've been out with a few women who way overshared on a first date, and I'm sure I've done this myself too. If you're not supposed to be with that person, things like that will happen. I've also had first dates where we just plain didn't like each other, and the check would come and I'd just sit there. I've sat there and ignored it before and waited until she said something about it, because we didn't have good chemistry. So just let what's going to happen happen, and be okay with it.
Understand it's not about you trying to figure out and decide whether this person is right for you or not. You want to let the natural chemistry on a first date work. A lot of times it's not going to work how you think it should, especially if you're attracted to someone and all excited about them, and then when you start talking and interacting, it just comes out like some disaster. That's okay. That's going to happen sometimes.
Be present and don't take it personally
If you can be yourself, then you don't have to beat up on yourself for being yourself. If you are who you are, you don't have to feel bad about what you said or did, because that's who you are. After all, what do other people want from you besides you being yourself? If you're acting a role, playing a part, or scripted everything you were going to say beforehand and then it didn't work out, it's real easy to go back and second guess all of it.
I do this with everyone. I'm just me all the time. I try to do my best to respond and be present in the moment, and that is also being yourself. Just be you right now. You don't need to think about how nice it would be to get married to this person, or start wondering about all their baggage or all their exes. Just be there in the moment and respond to what happens. Relax, let it happen, enjoy your time there, and honestly look around and appreciate what's happening.
Don't take it personally. If things don't work out, that's okay. If you're just being yourself, present, and focused on each moment of the date, you're going to consistently get the best result, and the best result is what's supposed to happen. If you're not supposed to be with a person and you try to force it, it will be miserable. Trust me, and trust everyone else around you who has done it. I wrote more about this side of dating in Be Yourself in Dating: Why It Isn't the Whole Answer.
If you just let your natural chemistry come out, occasionally you will be very strongly gravitated and attracted to a person, and they will be to you. In any other situation, you want it to end as soon as possible. So just be yourself to make sure that happens, and you can be confident that you at least feel good about yourself on every date you go on. For more lessons like this one, watch my Dating playlist.
19) Trust your instinct about the other person
From my video recorded in early 2015.
Your first impression is honest
You want to trust your instinct about the first feeling you get when you meet someone. If you've read Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, it's a very good explanation of this in much greater detail. You want to trust that first impression. It's almost every time absolutely honest and completely right from the very beginning. Your unconscious mind, your body and all of the universe can almost immediately sense what you will produce when you come together with someone else.
That's true no matter what the other person is hiding, no matter how good or bad they feel they are or are acting, how good or bad they look, or what situation you're in. If you can honestly have a mutual first impression reaction to each other at the same time, it's incredibly honest, and that's what you want.
That's good because you want to get to the point as soon as possible in dating. There are millions of single people out there in the world, and you don't want to waste your time with the wrong ones. There are lots of people who could be right for you, and you want to find the one who is right for you as soon as possible. What you can do to speed that up is trust your first impression. In almost all those relationships where people shouldn't have been together in the first place, there was an honest first impression that was ignored.
When I ignored mine
I know firsthand that first impressions are often ignored because of things the mind has decided. For example, I messaged a woman online for around a month, called her and talked to her, and built this whole relationship up in my mind before we ever met. As soon as I met her, whatever you want to call the thing that produces a first impression was like, nope, nope. Disappointed. Clearly and totally disappointed. That was the reaction my body and my unconscious gave me very clearly. It was as if I got an email that said no. It was a kind of withdrawal, like, ooh.
It had nothing to do with me being better or worse than the other person. It was just how our attraction was to each other. It's like two atoms that come together and just repel each other. You might think opposites attract, but not all the time. Opposites do not always attract in every situation. Sometimes you come together and it's nope, that's not right. Trust your first impression. It cost me three months not to trust mine.
One of the best things I did when I was dating consistently was trusting my first impression. I avoided all kinds of bad things because I trusted it. When I saw a woman and it didn't feel the way it felt when I was a third grader, I knew how it should feel from when I was very young. If it didn't feel like that, almost all the time I was willing to say no. That really helped me out. It also meant I was single a lot of my life, but then I was single when the time came for me to find my wife. That is exactly what you want: to be single until you find the right person.
There are things you can learn with the wrong person, and all kinds of good things can happen with the wrong person. But wouldn't you rather learn and go through all those things with the right person? Wouldn't you rather trust your first impression and cut your losses? If you trust your first impression, you can always be trying to get a great first impression. If you don't, you're going to be stuck in situations where you don't feel you're doing well enough for yourself, and you aren't sure you're with the right person. There are all kinds of awful things that happen along the way when you get with the wrong person, and the consequences are very high. So your first impression is crucial and is always right.
Sometimes it's complicated, like with my mom and dad. My mom had heard a lot of bad things about my dad. But the first time she remembers seeing him, and the first time they saw each other, they had a good first impression. My mom's dog ran into the barn where my dad was hanging out, and they had a good feeling when they met each other. I talk about a similar lesson in Learn Love: How to Learn to Love and Find the Right Person.
Anything besides meeting in person does not count as a first impression. The phone can be helpful, but it is not a first impression. The phone is nothing. It's like one or two percent of the data. When you meet in person, that's one hundred percent of the data. Your unconscious mind, your conscious mind, your body and the whole universe all give you your first impression right away.
Stay sober and level so you can notice it
Here are a couple more things that help you understand how important the first impression is. You want to date sober, because mind-altering drugs and many situations can alter a first impression and ruin the value you get from it. One of the things I did wrong in college was that I was always drunk, and I thought I could meet women while drunk. The problem is that the first impression doesn't work when you're drunk. It simply does not work, because you've altered your mind, your body and your entire state of being, and the first impressions are then often something you can't even notice. This includes taking a lot of medications or being in extreme moods. First impressions can be covered up by all kinds of things you're doing within yourself. So you want to put yourself in a situation where you can notice your first impression.
My girlfriend in college was a sweet girl, and I met her when I was sober, but I hardly even knew how to notice my reactions. She was cute, but I hardly knew how to trust my impressions of things, and a lot of the early times we hung out, I was drinking, and that made things a lot harder. Using mind-altering substances around dating, and especially around a first meeting, is very, very bad for being able to get a first impression.
So I recommend never going to a first date after having any kind of drink. If you take medications for pain or anything like that, try to take as little as possible. If you have extreme moods, try to figure out a time when you'll be in a better or normal mood, not way up or way down. You want to be in a level, peaceful state, because if you are, you can notice the impression. When I was younger, I was almost never in a good, peaceful state of mind. I was always up or down, and that made it hard for me to even notice a first impression, let alone judge it.
So if you want to see that first impression, make sure you do your dating in a way that lets you meet people when you're sober and in a peaceful, clear state of mind, so that when your body gives you that first impression, you can notice it and pay attention to it. I hope this has been helpful about first impressions, and I'm grateful for the time you've spent here with me talking and listening. There's more in my Dating playlist.
20) The first date is the easiest time to quit
From my video recorded in early 2015.
Quit on the first date
This is a cool point I never heard anyone else talk about. The first date is the easiest time to quit. It's the best chance to really get an impression of the other person and to say no. It's so easy to quit on the first date. It gets harder on the second date, the third date, the fourth date, the fiftieth date. It gets infinitely harder to quit, until you've really been beaten down lots of times. So if it's not right, please stop on the first date. It's okay to quit.
I know we live in a culture where people want to stick with it, persevere and go strong. And I know the mind says all kinds of things to you: we can't be single anymore, I've got to have this date, I need to be with someone. Or: this woman or man is so pretty, I want it to work out with them. Or: I'm so attracted to them, I just want this to be good. Or: I really would like to get married and have kids at this point in my life. Or: I'm just tired of being single. Or: if this doesn't work, I'm too old and I'm never going to find anyone again. Those are all the things the mind says to try to control the outcome.
The fact is, if you let the mind control the outcome, you will consistently put yourself in crappy situations. I know, because I did that a lot. One of the gifts I got was that most of the time I was willing to quit on the first date if it didn't work. If the first date wasn't good, I was willing to say, nope, not going out with you again. There were a lot of women I never called back for another date, and plenty of women who never called me back either. That's the best thing that can happen if it's not right, and most of the time it won't be right. The first date is the first easy point to quit.
The date before my wife
The woman I went out with before my wife and I had some attraction to each other. We had some chemistry chatting. It was okay, but it definitely was not good and it definitely was not great. So why did I give myself such a hard time? I knew as soon as I went home from the date that I definitely did not want to go out with her again. But after that, my mind started in. It started saying, well, maybe it wasn't so bad. Well, you don't want to keep being single, do you? Well, well. No. If it doesn't work on the first date, don't try again. Have the courage not to try again if it doesn't work on the first date, because there are so many other people out there.
My wife and I had an exceptional first date. I remember driving home feeling so hopeful, thinking, wow, that was really good. I did not feel that after going out with the woman before her, or the ones before that. I was so amazed. You think you can learn dating. I remember going out on one date and thinking, okay, I've been on so many dates now, I've got this, I know how this is supposed to be. When I went out with my wife, it was as if I had never gone out with a woman before. It was just about how I imagined it would be when I was in first grade. It was exceptional.
Here's the thing: I went out with women so many times, and it took ten years to go out with one where it was just exceptional. Not way up high or crazy or all this madness, but peaceful and joyful and full of love and wonderful. I felt both really happy and kind of safe. It was nice. My mind messed with me a lot after that, of course, and tried to mess things up. But after the date I had a really good, positive feeling, and that is exactly what you're looking for. If you don't have that, don't do it again.
It's the two of you, not your mind
I put this lesson before you go out on a date to lower the stakes and to let things feel like they're not in your hands, because they're not. It's the two of you together. It's what you make together, and it has nothing to do with what your mind wants unless you let it. When your mind tries to get in and plan and control things, everyone suffers. You suffer, the person you're with suffers, your family suffers, everyone around you suffers when your mind starts dictating the terms.
The first date is about chemistry and how the two of you are together. It has nothing to do with the two of you as individuals. Two people who are great individually does not matter at all for them being a couple. That's why it happens so often that you see celebrities get together and then, oh my God, things don't work out. Two people that people like individually makes no difference to how they are as a couple. I wrote about a recent version of this in She Didn't Feel the Spark, So I Studied Romantic Chemistry.
So understand that it's easy to quit on the first date and it gets no easier. Trust yourself going into the first date. Trust yourself to be your best version of yourself, to follow your instincts, and to base your decisions on what you feel right now. Don't let your mind go in and make the decisions rationally. Trust your feelings. Your feelings are often honest. Trust your instinct.
When I was driving home from the date with the woman before my wife, I knew exactly what the right thing to do was, and that was never to go out with her again. My mind started screwing around and trying to make another date with her even though I knew the truth. I suffered, but still I did not go out with her again, and right after that was over I went out with my wife. How many times before had I done that? A lot. So trust yourself. Trust your instincts. Trust life to tell you what's right or not, and don't even try to use your mind to make any of these decisions.
Know that most of the time the first date is going to be the last date, unless it's just exceptional. It's worth saying no and quitting a lot of times to get to that one date that's awesome and takes you into happily ever after. I appreciate you watching this with me, and I hope it's been inspirational for you in your dating. You can find more in my Dating playlist.
21) How to plan a great first date
From my video recorded in early 2015.
Keep it simple: lunch
Now that I've shared the mental side and ways to go about handling the first date, it's time to look at how to plan a great first date. Keep it simple. That's why this lesson is short. I'll tell you exactly what I did with my wife, and it worked really well. Plan something very simple: lunch or breakfast. Either of these is nearly always ideal, because you want something quick, simple, and related to something you can always have in common with someone else.
Let's look at things we all have in common. Eating. Every one of us eats. You might say it's so played out, or that you've been on so many dates where you went out to dinner or lunch or breakfast. That's good. You want to start simple, and eating is simple. It's one of those fundamental things. If you're going to like someone, then love someone, then have a family and a great life with them, you want to start simple. You will likely eat with that person a lot of times, so try eating with them to start. There's no point in trying to make a grand first date where you go out and do all these magical things. You want something simple that you're liable to do with that person every day. Eating. Breakfast or lunch.
Why not dinner
I'm saying not dinner for most first dates because dinner causes a lot of problems. Dinner is the end of the day. Dinner starts leading to questions like, are we going to go home together? Are we going to have a bunch of drinks together? What do you have to do after this? Breakfast and lunch are ideal. My wife and I did lunch because there was a clear expectation that we were just going to eat lunch together and that's it. You want to just get an impression and then separate. You want to go back to your regular life and then have another opportunity to plan another date. So the first date should be breakfast or lunch, or some kind of meal or snack around that time of day.
This is also an opportunity to see how willing you are to go out with someone else, so make it a chance to get to know each other. If you can't even figure out a place to go on a first date for breakfast or lunch, you probably don't want to go out. If it's that hard, you should probably just skip it, because here's how easy it should be. Ask them out: would you like to go out to breakfast or lunch this weekend? Weekends tend to be ideal. At that point, they should give you an opening somewhere: yes, I can do breakfast Saturday, or yes, I can do lunch on Saturday. That's what my wife did. She said yes, she could do lunch on Saturday, so we did lunch on Saturday. That simple.
Just lunch, nothing else
I recommend lunch over breakfast, though, because people have a lot of routines getting started in the morning. Lunch is the ideal meal, anywhere from around ten a.m. if you eat lunch really early to three or four if you eat lunch really late. But lunch, and just lunch. Nothing else. No bowling afterwards. No let's go back to my place. Just lunch. I'm saying that for older or young, gay or straight, any part of the world. Don't try to make it any more than that.
What you want is consistency over time. You want to get to know someone over time. If they're having a good day or a bad day, you want to just see how they are on one date and then maybe try again. You want an honest impression of someone, and an hour lunch is pretty easy to do. It's something you might do with your friends. I describe my own system in My Exact First-Date System After Meeting on a Dating App.
So plan a quick, simple lunch date. Nothing more and nothing less. Don't just do drinks or snacks. That's lame. Just do lunch, a full lunch meal together, to get a good first impression of each other, and then you can go from there. You can find more lessons in my Dating playlist.
22) DO NOT do any of these on a first date
From my video recorded in early 2015.
What should you definitely not do on the first date? Here are a few things to not do. Do not overshare. Oversharing tends to happen when you are with the wrong person, when you are uncomfortable. So if you do overshare, that is okay, because that is usually a sign you do not need to go out with that person anymore. All the things I am saying are general, but most of the time they are going to apply to you.
Be kind to everyone and stay off your phone
Do not be rude or impolite or mean to any of the people around you. If you are treating the waiter badly, what does that tell you about how you are likely to act with the person you are dating? Avoid being mean to anyone else in any situation around you, and focus completely on that person.
Speaking of focusing completely on that person, do not mess with your phone on the first date. Do not, under any circumstances, check your phone. If you have some emergency you are in the middle of, you need to tell that person you cannot do a first date with them right now. If for any other reason you think you need to check your phone, don't. It is incredibly rude. I remember almost every time a woman I really liked was checking her phone on the first date, it was incredibly annoying, and generally things did not work out with us very well. My wife was very polite and was not messing around on her phone on our first date, and neither was I. We were both there, present with each other. That also means you do not need to take any pictures or check in together on the first date. Just be there and go out with the other person. I wrote more about how I run these dates in my exact first-date system.
Do not expect the other person to pay
If you are on a first date, regardless of sex, gender or age, do not expect the other person to pay the bill. Do not expect the other person to leave the tip or do anything. You go there expecting that you will pay, and you offer to pay. If they want to split it or leave the tip or whatever, then you go from there. But do not expect the other person to pay. Especially these days, there is no definite rule that men have to pay for the date. You are always welcome to pay for the date, regardless of who you are and where you are.
Do not get overly romantic on the first date
Finally, do not expect or try to do anything on the first date other than get to know the other person, the same way you would get to know a new person at work, a new friend someone just introduced you to, or a new salesperson at the store. In other words, do not try to get overly romantically involved on the first date. That means do not end the first date with a kiss, especially if you have just scheduled something at lunch. Do not expect to have sex on the first date. Do not try to grab or touch the other person inappropriately on the first date. The first date is just a meet and greet, and anything else is too much pressure. So do not put a whole bunch of pressure on it by expecting a kiss, a make out session, a get in the car and fool around session, anything beyond that, or just expecting to have all these feelings for someone else.
My wife has been the most special woman in my life, along with my mom, who went and had me. My wife and I had just met, and I gave her a hug at the end of the first date. We did not get all over each other romantically on the first date, and it worked. Any time I tried to get overly romantically involved on other first dates, it did not work. So trust me, you want to not do any of these things on a first date, because it promotes an unhealthy environment. It is skewed. It skews the honest results of the date. You want to treat a date with someone just like you would treat meeting or getting to know anyone else.
Let's look at it this way. You probably would not go into a store for the first time, meet a new salesman, hang out with him for a little while and then try to make out with him. So why would you go out to lunch with someone and try to make out with them? You would not walk into your insurance agent's office for the first time and say, hello, I'm Jerry, now let's make out. So why is that acceptable on a first date? You want to get to know someone a little bit first.
If they do these things, it is a sign
All of these things are important not to do on a first date, and if you do them, it is not the end of the world. It usually means it is wrong. It usually means the first date did not go well. If you are with someone and they try to get overly romantically involved with you, they are rude to the people around you, they overshare with you, they check their phone, or they expect you to pay, these are signs the date is not going well, and that is okay. Almost all of my dates did not go well. I just needed one first date to go well, and it did, and I am grateful for that. So if you want things to go well on a first date, do not do any of these things, and you have a lot better chance of things going well. You can find more lessons like this in my Dating playlist.
23) End with a hug for yes or a polite "thank you for going out with me."
From my video recorded in early 2015.
How do you end a first date right? Here it is, simple, right at the beginning: end it with a hug. A hug is loving, it is caring, it is genuine, and it is significant physical contact. It clearly communicates how you feel to the other person, and it brings a lot of positive energy to both your brain and your body. At the same time, a hug is fairly lighthearted. I can give anyone a hug and there is not a big problem with that. A hug is more of a loving, caring thing to do. So a hug is a perfect way to end a first date. My wife and I had a great hug at the end of our first date, and that is an ideal way to end one.
Think about it like any other context: you want to keep the first date to something that applies to how you would generally behave with someone. It is certainly acceptable to give a friend a hug at the end of hanging out, or to give your family members hugs. But how many people would you meet once and then make out with right away, or kiss on the lips? You want to save that for at least the second date, and maybe later, depending on where you are in life. You always, always want to end the first date with a hug, because that is what seems to happen when everything is going right between two people who have just met, and a hug is a generous, kind, loving thing that is accepted anywhere in the world. When I was younger I used to say that you are just not a man if you do not kiss her on the first date, and I was completely wrong on that one.
So that is exactly what you want to do at the end of a date: give the other person a hug, and do not wait for them to do it. As soon as you feel the time is right and you are about to part ways at the end of the date, go ahead and give that person a hug, and it should come naturally. If it does not come naturally, then it is not right. That is what to do at the end of a good date. I wrote about how a date can feel when the chemistry is there in She Didn't Feel the Spark, So I Studied Romantic Chemistry.
When the date did not go well
If the date went really well, you want to do a hug. If the date did not go well, you might not want to do a hug. If you already cannot stand the person after one date, you might want to do a polite "thank you for going out with me tonight," or "I appreciate your time tonight."
You want to end the date with a clear note of how you feel, too. If you know you cannot stand the person, you do not need to be mean to them about it. But you also should let them know: look, I appreciate you going out with me tonight, and I do not know if this is something I am going to want to do again. You do not need to give any reasons or excuses, and you can say it more strongly than that, too. You can say something like, I appreciate that you went out with me tonight. I had fun, and I am going to see other people after this. I do not want to go out with you again, and that is just me. That is how I feel.
I know that while you are watching this, there is a big chance you might be horrified at that level of honesty. That honesty will save you so much trouble in the future. How many times have you gone out with people who should have told you that, but did not, and you kept having hope, and you kept texting or calling them and trying to go out with them again? How many times do you wish that someone would have just done that with you? You cannot control what other people do, but you can control what you do. I know I saved myself a lot of trouble. I often looked at my friends and asked, why do you have all these women calling you all the time that you do not like? It is because they were not willing to sit there and say on the first date, thanks for going out with me, but this is not for me.
I often was a lot ruder than that when I was younger. On a lot of the dates I did not have fun, and I would say, look, we went out tonight, and I do not want to go out with you again. I do not recommend being mean like that about it. I recommend being as nice as you can. Something like, thank you for going out with me tonight. I do not feel like this is something I want to do again, and that is nothing personal, it is just me. But that is honest, and I am sharing this with you to save you the time of wondering whether you should go out with me again, so that you can find someone else to go out with who might be better for you. That is honest, and it is a lifesaver, and it will save you and other people so much more time. So do it. Yes, it is hard, but do not let your mind get involved. Just have the courage, have the guts, to tell someone the truth right then and save yourself a ton of time. I saved myself a ton of time and a lot of bad dates by doing that often, though often I did it rudely, saying, look, I do not want to go out with you again. I often was mean about it, and that is not the way to go about it either. You want to be nice. I also did not have the courage at times to say no. I had some horrible first dates and often did not have the courage to say no. Those often just end awkwardly, and if it ended awkwardly, that is a no.
Make it obvious, and a no is a no
So if you want to end a date really nicely, and you want to end it well, end it with a hug. If the other person does something besides fully embrace you and genuinely want to be there with you, then that is a no. And if someone tries to hug or kiss you on a first date and you say no, that is a no forever. It is not a no, maybe we will do this later. It is forever a no, and that is fine, that is okay. Forget it, do not try again, and go on to someone else.
That is how to end a first date. If you loved the first date, go for a hug. Open your arms up wide and make it obvious you are going for a hug. If they are a little awkward or weird about it, you can say, how about we end this with a hug, or something like that. It is not asking permission, but it is communicating what you are doing, because people may not expect a hug much of the time. So communicate, whether that is with body language, since open arms usually means a hug is coming, or with words. Body language usually works. If you are not happy and you do not want to go out with that person again, that needs to be communicated too. Words can help, but body language is effective as well. Do not leave any doubt, because anything vague makes it harder. If it did not work, say or do whatever lets them know it did not work for you and that they should forget about ever trying again. You do not want them texting or calling you. You do not have to be mean about it, but you want to clearly communicate that they should forget about you and move on if it did not work out well. I also talk about being direct and clear in Never Say You're Busy Again.
Those are the two outcomes you are looking for. For a great, awesome, exceptional date, go for the hug. If you are wrong about it being exceptional for the other person, oops, move on. If it is not awesome and exceptional for you, find some nice, honest way to say thank you, and that you do not want to do this again. I appreciate you going through this with me, and I hope it was really helpful for you. I would give you a big hug if I could come through the camera. If you are just not feeling this, I am sorry, it is not right for you. This is honest, this is truth, and this is the way I have been able to find a wonderful, happy relationship. I am doing my best to share it honestly here with you today. You can find more lessons like this in my Dating playlist.
24) Follow up how you would like to be followed up
From my video recorded in early 2015.
How do you follow up after the first date successfully? You treat the other person exactly how you want to be treated. You expect nothing of them that you are not willing to give yourself. If you want someone to email you or call you or text you after the first date, I recommend a phone call, but a text message certainly can work. You follow up with them how you want to be followed up with. What you never do is sit there and wait for them and expect them to do everything, and get all upset when they do not. You give what you want to get, because when you give what you want to get, you know exactly where you are at. If you really like the other person, it is okay to send a simple text message saying thank you for the date. If they do not reply, then they probably do not want to go out with you again. That is fine. Just accept it and move on.
Here is the thing: if you are not sending them a text message or a call, if you are playing games with them, then you have no idea what they think. So do not play any games at all. Treat them how you want to be treated. As with everything in this course and all of my courses, I learned the hard way, so I share the hard way I learned so you do not have to do it that way if you do not want to. If you want to, then go ahead.
How my wife and I followed up
With my wife, we followed up with each other how we wanted to be followed up with. We were courteous, but we were not overbearing. We sent simple text messages. We did quick, short phone calls. We arranged second and third and fourth and fifth and sixth dates, and now we are on something like our thousandth date. We followed up with each other how we wanted to be followed up with, and it was very peaceful. It was not upsetting most of the time.
With other women, I always played all these kinds of games. I would think, well, I am not going to text her right afterwards, I am going to wait for her to call, I am not going to call her back. All of that is bad. You do not want that done to you, do you? You do not want the other person to be all excited about you and wait for you to call. You do what you want done back to you. If you want the other person to go nuts and go crazy over you and call you fifty or sixty times, then go ahead and do that to them. Do you get what I am saying? Treat the other person how you want to be treated. Allow a little bit of space. If you are insecure, the move is likely to be either doing nothing or doing too much, so try to hit the middle ground of doing just the right amount. If you do not get good things back from that, then do not go out with them again. It is that simple.
If they are calling and texting and going crazy all over you, where you feel like you cannot breathe, that is bad. You do not want to go out with them again. You are not in a good place with that person. They are either too over-interested or something else is going on. There were plenty of situations where I was on both sides of that: I was the one doing too much, I was the one playing games and not doing anything, and I was the one getting out of the situation when it was done to me. The things you do get done back to you, whether by that person at that time or by someone later. Almost everything I have done, I have had done back to me. It is really funny to do something to one person and then see another person do it back to me, to go out with a woman and go all crazy about her and get overbearing, and then watch the next woman I go out with do that to me. I am like, wow, that is weird how that works, isn't it? Do what you want done to you. Give what you want to get. I wrote about the other side of this in I Didn't Text Her for 2 Days. Then She Ended It.
Be honest, and expect plenty of silence
That usually means giving a little bit of attention, honest gratitude, and trying to plan another date if you really liked it. If you did not like going out with that person, please tell them. Please be honest with them. I am thankful for every single woman who said no, regardless of how I felt about it, every woman who told me she did not want to go out with me again. I remember one woman who sent me a long message explaining she just was not feeling it, and I was so mad. Now I am pretty thankful that she sent me that message saying no, and she never responded to another one of my messages. I have been on both sides and all sides of it all the time. You do not have to suffer as much as I did unless you choose to. The follow up after the first date is a key area of struggle, of pain, of suffering, and you do not have to make it that way.
If it is right with the right person, everything will go right. Most of the time it is not the right person, so most of the time something will go wrong, and that is normal. You will text them and they will not text you back. You will call them and they will not call you back. Do you know how many times that has happened to me? I have a pretty good memory, and I can say it has happened a lot, somewhere around hundreds of times. I would go out with new women all the time, and I very often did not make it past the first date. Very often they were the ones who disappeared, who never called back and never texted back, and I would be so heartbroken. You have to understand that if you have gone out with someone, they may be going out with other people too. If they are also going out with someone they like better, or they liked you enough but not as much as someone else, it is no hard feelings. It is not personal. You were just not right at the time. The only thing you can do is keep trying, keep trying, no matter how old or young you are, where you live, or what race or gender or sexuality you are. The same rules always apply: you follow up with the other person how you want to be followed up with.
Whatever the technology, you just adapt to it. If you are interacting with another person on Facebook and you were set up that way, then follow up with them on Facebook. I recommend keeping things the same as however you have been doing them. If you have been calling the person, call them. If you have been texting, text. If you have been messaging them on Facebook or another messaging program, use that. Keep things the same and give what you want to get. It is that simple.
You can trust that you will follow up to the best of your ability as you go along throughout your dating, and you can understand that following up is always appropriate. If you did not like the person and do not want to go out with them again and they text you, then tell them. It is that simple. You would want to be told in that situation, wouldn't you? So just follow up. Just follow up the way you want to be followed up with. You can find more lessons like this in my Dating playlist.