This page is for you if the first date went well enough and you are wondering what to do next. It holds four lessons on the second date. They cover how soon to set it up, what to plan, how to close it, and how to follow up afterward, including how to end things when the energy is not there. Below is the full text of each one, and here is what they say.
I recorded these lessons for my dating course in early 2015, three of them on January 17, 2015. I was married then, and I met my wife on Match.com. My marriage ended in divorce in December 2025. I am a single dad of two in St. Petersburg, Florida, and in the year since the divorce I have been on about fifty dates and have no lasting relationship yet. I have left the lessons exactly as I recorded them.
In lesson 25, on establishing a second date soon or forgetting about it, I say the only outcome you need after the first date is a decision: another date or not, and the date should be soon, in a week or so. I tell the story of a girl I dated before my wife. The first date was blah, then I waffled and texted her over Christmas, and she canceled the second date at the last minute. I also describe a four-square chart of yes and no answers, and I say the only square that works is when both of you say yes.
In lesson 26, on building on the success of the first date, I explain why I recommend lunch for the first date and dinner for the second. I say you do not want a crazy activity to hide the person. I say most of my second dates did not lead to a third, and I tell you to watch out for apathy. I also say not to go home with the other person on the second date, and that a few hours of dinner, maybe with dessert or a nightcap, is enough.
In lesson 27, on closing strongly with a kiss, I say the second date is where the sexual potential should show, just the tip of the iceberg. For my wife and me that meant a kiss and a make out session on the second date, after a hug at the end of the first. I say that if you find yourself avoiding any kiss, you are probably not with the right person. I also say the other person is not the only factor, because your own issues play a part, and I tell you to keep dating.
In lesson 28, on the second date follow up, I say to do what you did after the first date: plan a third date or accept failure and move on, with dates about a week apart. The rule is to follow up how you want to be followed up with. I describe being the person who smothered with calls and texts, and the person who played games and stayed silent for days. I also describe stringing girls along when I felt apathy, and I say that if you see apathy in yourself, it is up to you to end it.
This is part 5 of 6 of the course. The part before it is the First Date Guide, and the part after it is How to Have a Happy Marriage: Lessons I Recorded as a Husband. Today I work with people one on one as a dating coach, and you can read about that at my dating coaching page.
On this page
Every lesson is below in full, in course order, each under its own heading.
- 25) Establish that there will be a second date soon or forget about it (early 2015)
- 26) Build upon the success of the first date or establish a failure (January 17, 2015)
- 27) Close strongly with a kiss or give up on the second date (January 17, 2015)
- 28) Second date follow up. Give what you want to get or end it! (January 17, 2015)
25) Establish that there will be a second date soon or forget about it
From my video recorded in early 2015.
The only outcome after the first date
The one key thing you need to do after the first date during your follow up is to decide: will there be another date or not? There are no other outcomes, and the other date should be soon, in a week or so. That is the only outcome you need after that first date, and you get it by following up. You do not need to plan it immediately at the end of the first date, because you have too many other things going on. Take a few days, follow up, and then either plan another date or forget about it. I wrote more about my own first-date routine in My Exact First-Date System After Meeting on a Dating App. Anything else only draws out your pain and suffering.
Here is an example. I went out with a girl before my wife. The first date was kind of blah, and as soon as we were done I thought, oh no, never again am I going out with her. Then I visited my friend the next day. We drank, played some Call of Duty and some zombies, and then, out of boredom or some other stupid reason, I started texting her again to see how she was doing. I texted her all over Christmas and kept talking with her, and then we scheduled another date. But how inconsistent is that? When I first went out with her, I did not even want to schedule another date. The follow up should have been the point where I said no more second date. Instead I waffled and did nothing. I also wrote about texting after a date in I Thought Waiting to Text Made Me More Attractive. I Was Wrong. For over a week we just chatted without scheduling anything, and when I finally did schedule a date, she canceled at the last minute and I just said okay. She was really upset that I hardly cared that she canceled at the last moment. What I should have done, and what she could have done too, is say okay, we are not going to go out again, and that is fine. That is what you have to get to as soon as possible: either you want to go out with them again or you do not.
I was very good at that with most girls. I did not like saying no, but I would tell them I was not going to go out with them again. Most girls were not very good at doing that with me. They did not like to say no right away, but usually they were good in the follow up about saying no one way or another. So if a girl or a guy will not make another date with you, that is a no. Anything but the other person making another date with you soon after the last one is a no, and that is okay. Once you have a no, you move on.
Plan the next date or forget it
My wife and I made another date one week after the first one. Then another a week after that, and another a week after that. Then only a couple of days passed from our fifth date to our sixth date, and after that we started going out every three days. That is exactly how it works. Your only objective after the first date is to decide whether you want another date. In the course of following up, there is no point in just texting or chitchatting, and no point in trying to get to know the other person through online methods. You want to decide: do I want another date or not?
Think of it like a block chart with four separate squares. Yes, they want another date, and yes, you want another date. That is the only scenario where this works. If you both say no, you do not go on another date. If one person says yes and the other says no, you do not go out again. So it is important to get to that answer as soon as possible. You may not need to do it the day after, but within another week you need to have clearly established whether you are going out again or not. The yes, yes response is in the minority of that table. Usually one person will not want to go out with the other again, and sometimes neither will. If neither of you wants to go out again, why would you keep texting or calling or talking? Of course you could make a friend, but there are so many friends you could make that I do not see why you would make one in that instance. It just complicates things.
So for dating, you want to figure out right away, and by right away I mean maybe a day or two later, whether you are going to go out again. Do you want to go out with me again or not? If it is no, there are no hard feelings, so move on and try someone else. There are so many people on this planet. If you are having no luck in your hometown, move. Get another job and go somewhere else. That is okay.
The dating system I am giving you works to consistently figure out exactly who you should date, and then to find exit points as early as possible. This is the easiest exit point you will get from here on out, and so is every point in this course: the deeper you go, the harder it is and the longer it gets. It might sound difficult to tell another person no right now, when you are somewhat but not totally interested. It might also be hard to hear that they are not totally interested. But it gets no easier. Every single point after this, it gets harder. So clearly decide whether you want to go out with this person again, and clearly establish whether they want to go out with you again. Then you are ready to take the next step on the second date, and you can find the rest of the series in my Dating playlist.
26) Build upon the success of the first date or establish a failure
From my video published January 17, 2015.
The second date is a chance to get better or worse
Now, planning out the second date. The second date is an opportunity for things to go better or worse. The one thing you do not want is for things to get blah and stay on the same straight and narrow path, not getting any more exciting. The first date should have been a good introduction, and the second date should be an opportunity for things to start getting really exciting. But most of the time the second date is going to be a failure. Watch out for apathy especially. If you are feeling apathy, that is a lot harder to do something about. If you just cannot stand the person, it might be easier to not go out with them. But if you just kind of do not care, that is just as bad as not being able to stand them, if not worse.
On the second date, things should be getting better. You should be getting much more excited, and if you are not, you want to call it quits. Just like I said about the first date, the first date is the easiest place to quit and the second date is the second easiest place to quit. You are only getting in deeper. On the second date you want to start getting to know the person a little more. Hopefully you scheduled it about a week after the first date, so you have a fresh chance after a week has gone by to spend time with the person again.
My wife and I were fortunate to do really well on this. We took a week between the first date and the second date, and things heated up a lot after the first date. Things were already great, and they got even better, and our relationship has continued to get better since then. So what you want to look for is things getting better and more exciting. But it is not just for you, it has to be mutual. If you feel one way and the other person does not feel the same way, it does not even count. You both have to feel the exact same way, and the second date is a very good time to establish how you both feel. Sometimes that was not clear on the first date, but on the second date you can do that.
Lunch on the first date, dinner on the second
For the second date I usually recommend dinner. You can see how I went about starting this: first date lunch, second date dinner. You should always have lunch and dinner in common, regardless of how you eat or where you live. Any other activities are great too. But here is the thing: why do all these crazy fun activities on a first or second date? You do not want the activity itself to obscure the person. I notice people do these crazy adventure dates, and my thought is, how can you even get to know someone when the date itself is such an experience? That is why I say to do a dinner date on the second date. Plan dinner, because dinner, just like lunch, is kind of ordinary. And yet if you are going to be with someone for a long time, you ought to enjoy eating with them. I have eaten with my wife thousands of times. It is a good idea to start the first few dates out as eating dates, and if you have issues about eating, it is a good idea to start out with eating dates so the person you are with can prepare to deal with your issues from the beginning. That is the power of scheduling dates like this and going into it with that mindset.
So the second date is an opportunity either to do better or, most of the time, to stop. Most of my second dates did not have a third date, just as with most of my first dates and probably most of my third dates. The second date is a great place to do either better or worse, and it is an exciting opportunity, so just do it. Schedule dinner, meet up, and just do dinner. Get to know the other person, talk and chat, and maybe have dessert or a nightcap or whatever your style is. But you do not want to go home with the other person yet on the second date, no matter how old or how young you are. Just dinner and maybe dessert or a nightcap, and that is it. It is a good opportunity to get to know another person a little more, and then you can look at planning a third date from there.
Let the desire build
By now the sexual passion should be heating up a lot. On the second date you should really want to know the other person, and at the same time you should not just have them yet. You should wait. You want to see that desire there, know that it is there, and separate a little from it. If you immediately have to give in and go do it that night, it is not as likely to work out, at least in my experience. If you have the right passion with each other, you will want to heat things up further than you have ever gone before, and the earlier you satisfy your desire immediately, the less likely you are to heat things up so much.
So these are my thoughts on planning the second date. Plan a dinner date that takes more time and energy than the first date but less than a third date, so maybe a few hours, again with no expectation of going home with each other. That should make for a great second date for you, and the same may be true for the next date. I wrote more about dating in I Expected Her to Reject Me. Then I Made It Happen. For how I run first dates now, see My Exact First-Date System After Meeting on a Dating App, and the rest of this course is in my Dating playlist.
27) Close strongly with a kiss or give up on the second date
From my video published January 17, 2015.
The second date is where the sexual potential shows
Your closing on the second date is very important. By now you have had enough time since the first date, which was lighthearted and which you ended with a hug. The second date is the time when the sexual potential should become clear and just the tip of the iceberg should be highlighted. For my wife and I, that meant a nice kiss and make out session on the second date, and it was wonderful. That is what got us so excited about the third date. We were glad we did not do that on the first date, because every time I did that on the first date, it did not work out. And any time it did not happen on the second date, it did not work out either.
You want to make sure the sexual potential is there, because part of successful dating, love and relationships is the romantic part. You have lots of friends, family and people in your life that you do not have sex with. If you are going to have a romantic relationship, the sexual potential is one of the foundational parts of it. It is one of the things that distinguishes it from all the other relationships in your life, and there is no point in trying to make a romantic relationship if the sexual passion is not there. The second date is a good time to at least verify whether it is there or not, and a little make out session at the end of the date can clearly highlight that.
If you avoid the kiss, it is probably the wrong person
By the end of the date, if you find yourself not willing, not interested, or trying to avoid any kind of kiss or make out session or first base or whatever you want to call it, you are probably not with the right person. Think about it. You went out on one really good date, and you set things up so you both know you are there dating. You are not saying, oh, I just want to be friends, and you are not making it into something it is not. You are both honestly there and looking for a romantic partner. You went out on a first date like I suggested, or something similar with a lunch that was lighthearted, where you did not mess around at all but you both wanted to. And then on the second date you closed strongly. You should want that.
Even if things are not going to work out, it still often may happen. You may still have a lot of sexual passion and energy even if things are not going to end up working. It only gets more difficult and more challenging to get out of a relationship, or whatever you want to call it, by the second date. So if you do not have that passion there, if you are not excited, then you want to get out at that point.
It is important to highlight that it is not all about you either. If you are feeling a certain way with a certain person, you are likely picking up on some of what they are feeling. And if you have your own issues inside that make it very hard for you to feel something with someone else at the moment, that contributes too. But that is the thing with dating: you just have to keep doing it. If you are not right inside, then all of your dates will tend not to work out, and that is okay too, because if you just keep doing it, at some point you will be in the right place in yourself. Then you will run across another person who is in the right place themselves. I hope I am sharing exactly how difficult this is, and I am also saying to just get right inside. You can read more about that in She Didn't Feel the Spark, So I Studied Romantic Chemistry.
Here is a concrete exit point: if you do not have that passion there, you want to stop. Just quit. So you have to close strong with that. I used to say things like, if you do not kiss around the first date, then you are not a man, and all kinds of dumb stuff like that. After a lot of dating experience, and finally having it go really well one time, I am saying that the second date is the point where it is time to either kiss or break up. For more on how I think about this now, read Be Yourself in Dating: Why It Isn't the Whole Answer, and you can find the whole series in my Dating playlist.
28) Second date follow up. Give what you want to get or end it!
From my video published January 17, 2015.
Plan a third date or accept failure
How do you follow up after the second date? You do the same thing you did after the first date. You plan a third date or you accept failure and move on. Of course it can be a lot harder to accept failure after the second date than after the first, and that is okay, but it is the exact same thing. You plan out another date or you stop. If the other person does anything but quickly plan another date with you, within a week or so, it is over. You do not want to leave doors open, because then you might go on not trying to date other people while the other person is dating a bunch of other people. So you want to plan another date quickly.
Dating is a game of timing. Timing is the biggest single factor in dating that you cannot control. The best you can do is plan dates about a week apart, consistently, because if you are getting to like each other, at some point you are going to want to see each other more often than that, and that more than likely is where you will want to end up committing. So the first date, same as the second date, plan your dates about a week apart.
Follow up how you want to be followed up with
So follow up how you want to be followed up with. Again, the same as after the first date, no playing games. If you want another date with that person, talk to them. There is no room for things like, oh, I texted them first last time, so I expect them to text me first. Nope, none of that. You follow up how you want to be followed up with. If you want to be played games with, if you want to be overstimulated with texts and phone calls and just smothered, then go ahead and do it. The idea is to treat someone else how you want to be treated, and that is usually with dignity and respect. I am saying this from having done it wrong almost every way you could do it wrong. I have been the smotherer who called a bunch, texted a bunch and sent emails. I have also been the game player who did not say anything for several days after a date and forced the girl to try to figure out what was going on and call me out of desperation. I have been on every wrong side of how you can do things. If you want it to be easy, do just what I am telling you. If you do not want it to be easy, you can do it however you want. I wrote about a related lesson in I Thought Waiting to Text Made Me More Attractive. I Was Wrong.
If you want things to be easy, you follow up how you want to be followed up with, and that transcends all races, genders, ages, ethnicities, nationalities and sexualities. I know there are somewhat different standards in different places around the world. In some places you might want to follow up immediately. In others you might want to wait a little longer, spread things out and go with more patience. In some places a few hours might be forever, and in some places a few days might not be long enough. I do not know the exact standards and expectations where you are, but what I do know is that when you follow up how you want to be followed up with, it makes things so easy. If you want someone to give you a call, then you ought to give them a call. You will find that when you follow up how you want to be followed up with, the other person will either respond how you want or stop contacting you.
For example, say you called after the first date and they planned another date with you. Then you call after the second date, say the next day, and they do not answer or call you back. They do not want to go out with you again. It is that simple. If someone calls me and I want to talk to them, I will call them back. Sometimes, like when my aunt calls and I do not call her back for a few days, that is okay too. That does not necessarily mean I never want to talk to her again. It often means I am so self-absorbed that it takes me a little while to start thinking of her again. Things like that will happen, especially if you are younger or older or in a position where it can happen. So be understanding in your following up too, because you want the other person to be understanding with you, do you not? If you are a little self-absorbed and you have been going out with three different people and really liked all of them, it might take you a little longer to call one of them back. That is okay. What you want is to call back and go through the process until it ends.
If you give what you want to get, you always end up putting it on the other person to position it for an end, or to give you the chance to end it. Something good always happens when you follow up how you want to be followed up with. If they do not return your calls, they have set it up so they do not want to go out with you anymore. If they return your calls and they do not want to go out with you again, they have set it up for you again. If they do return your calls and you find you are not very excited about it, then it is also set up for you exactly what to do. If they call back and they are kind of blah and do not really care but just do not want to be mean or rude, then it is up to you, and you know what to do. If you were in that position, would you not want it to be ended?
Apathy means you end it
This happened to me a lot. I would go out with girls that I kind of liked, but I knew it would not work. It was not a case where I could go crazy for them, love them and be a good husband. I knew that, so I had this blah feeling. I often allowed them to call me, plan things to do and come over, and I would not stop it until at some point I got honest with myself and said, look, I know I do not want to keep going out with this girl, so why am I stringing her along? Often the girl would be really excited and I would be kind of apathetic. That is what I said in the second date lecture before. Apathy is tough, because love or hate are kind of easy to deal with, but apathy is present in so many dating situations. If you see apathy in yourself, it is up to you to end it.
That might be the case you are going through right now: you were kind of apathetic about that last date. You did not hate it enough to know you do not want to go out with the person, but you do not love it enough to be passionate about scheduling it again. The second date is a great place to find that, especially if you made out with them and it was not really that exciting. Please end it. I had that happen plenty of times, where it was just kind of okay, as if I thought the more I did it, the more exciting it would get. It only got more boring. When you are with the right person, it is explosive and electrically exciting, no matter what you have done before. I wrote more on this in The Right Person Makes You Want to Give, Not Take.
So the second date follow up is crucial, just like the first date follow up and the third date follow up. Give what you want to get, and you can count on getting the best result. Understand that hardly anything is actually up to you. There is a bigger plan than whatever is going on with you right now, and you are a part of that bigger plan. Knowing that might make it easier to accept failure. I took it so personally, especially after the second date, when there was no third date and I liked the girl, and I am sure the girls in the opposite situation took it the same way. Now that I am here with my wife, I can see there was a plan the whole time, and I did not have to suffer so much. I did not have to make it so frustrating every time. You do not either. The second date often is going to end in frustration, and it is a miracle if it does not.
I hope this has been inspiring, and I hope I have honestly shared and communicated the love, hope and faith I have for your success in dating, and what you can do after the second date to successfully land a third one, or to end it and look for someone else. You can find the rest of the series in my Dating playlist.