Top Ten Blunders for How Women Can Ruin a First Date from a Dating Expert

Top Ten Ways How Women Can Botch a First Date: Advice for Women from a Dating Expert

Ladies, you connected with this attractive man online.  He pinged you first.  You checked out his profile and read his email.  You two conversed and a little pre-glimmer of a spark flickered.  Hmmm, “I gotta meet him” crossed your mind.  And he asked you out.  You’re feeling a little giddy getting ready for your first date to meet.  Please, you’ve invested so much time, energy, and money, refrain from these massive blunders.  I’m sure you’re not guilty of any of them.  Well, maybe just a smidgeon.  Avoid them and instead you can enjoy a great first date.  Who knows?  It might lead to a second and a third great date!

1.   Refuse to Give Him Your Number

Yes, we women would all prefer it if the men would first ask us for our phone number while providing their’s to us.  However, some men expect the woman to ask for his phone number.  Or they are so used to email life and arranging the logistics for the first date meeting that it slipped their mind to ask you for your phone number.  Some single women don’t want to give out even their cell phone number to a stranger online.  This is the 21^st century.  If you are pursuing internet dating, a man is going to expect when he asks for your phone number, you will give it to him.  If you don’t want to share that cell phone number, then purchase an inexpensive additional phone to use exclusively for your dating life.  Being a tad hard to get is one thing.  Being impossible to get a hold of is another.

2.  Arrive Late

If you didn’t exchange phone numbers then when there was a pile up on the 580 or the Downtown LA interchange, how are you to communicate in advance that you’ll be late?  People do understand that life happens and stuff happens.  Aim to arrive a few minutes early and you will give yourself buffer time to find a parking space and settle those exhilarating little flair of nerves, and check your lipstick before strolling in on time.  Arriving more than 5-10 minutes late is just plain rude.  You wouldn’t want your date to do that to you, right?  Well, he wants to be treated with respect and consideration, too.

3.  Don’t Bother to Dress Up – It’s Just Coffee

Some of the online dating sites in the first few years of the 21^st century were encouraging singles, the single women in particular to just wear a pair of jeans and a t-shirt to feel comfortable on a first date.

And with still quite a number of single men asking you out for just a cup of coffee for the first meeting, you might be feeling, “Hey, why bother to spiff up?  It’s just a coffee date?” Because you want to look your best and feel feminine for your sake and your self-confidence.

Sales studies show that we all feel more confident when we dress up and look our best.  We feel more self-assured when we self-value.  So go ahead, embrace it.  Wear a cute dress or femmy skirt.  Smile.  Flirt.  Have fun.  You will feel fabulous and be your most magnetically attractive.

4.  Criticize Him

When you find out what kind of car he drives, which just might be his baby or the first car he saved up for and feel proud of his financial budgeting that he owns, for goodness sake, don’t criticize it or ask in an aghast tone, “A Toyota!  How can you have bought that?  Don’t you know they’re terrible right now?” Don’t tell him the color of his sport shirt is passé.  Don’t tell him he’s not ambitious enough with his career.  Men crave admiration, acknowledgement, appreciation, and acceptance from women.  Instead of criticizing him, find some about his manly self to admire.  “Wow, you’re so diligent and money wise to have saved up to purchase your car.  You must be so proud.  How long did that take you?” He will think you are a rare gem who gets him.

5.  Ask Him How Much He Earns

Yes, both single men and women cite in their internet dating profiles that they want a financially stable and secure person.  However, actually asking him how much he earns on a first date is crass behavior because you two have only just met.  Salary and income are highly personal topics best saved for later when you two are at a point where you are more specifically assessing entering into a relationship together.  Modern men sometimes feel like single women are weighing the heft of their wallet.  Of course you want a man who is both generous hearted and some means to share an enjoyable lifestyle with you.  Instead of trying to be super efficient with your time to weed out the unqualified too soon, see where he takes you and where he suggests for next time.

6.  Ask Him Why His Marriage/Last Relationship Failed

You might think no one would actually be so impertinent as to delve into both this highly personal and complex a question on a first date.  Because the 60 minutes you two have reserved for your first meeting isn’t possibly enough time to connect, establish rapport, and then discuss relationship lessons on any meaningful kind of level.  But single men tell me that many women from the online dating sites will ask them these such questions.  It’s as if they are aiming to be efficient with their time.  He’s waiting to see if he gets a thumbs up or thumbs down based on his response.  What works instead?  Get to know him.  Become acquainted with him.  Admire and affirm him.  And you will find within a few dates, he will start to reveal something about those past relationships.  They you can appropriately and with warmth inquire, “What happened?  Didn’t she appreciate being with you?” By doing this, you remove the frame of FAILURE from the picture and replace it with an opening for learning and creating trust and emotional safety.

7.  Ask Him Why He Isn’t Already Married

Single men who are over 40 are getting lumped into this sort of “Rejects” category that the 1970s social study did to single women over 40.  It feels like you’re asking him, “Hey buddy, what’s WRONG with you that you’re single and available?”  It’s like we are all trying too hard to protect our hearts from potential heartbreak.  Instead, take him at face value that now he is ready to consider a real relationship.  If you two click, over the time of courtship, you will discover his own unique personal reasons for why he postponed marriage relationship seeking until now.

8.  Bring Up Major Political or Religious Topics

Nothing like surfacing the most volatile social topics to test your date.  Don’t assume just because they are an attractive and intelligent human being that you share the same opinion of the current or prior two Presidents and their policies.  Even if you two are of the same faith or political party, there is much variety within it for massive disagreement.  Your first date is way too soon to discuss these fire-starter topics.  In many ways the range of differences do not impact your shared daily lives in marriage.  Hold off on these topics until after the 4^th date at least.

9.  Complain About the Restaurant He Selected

You let him pick the restaurant after you got to pick the town where you two would meet.  Even if your Cosmopolitan tastes unusual and your shared appetizer doesn’t arrive as described, don’t complain or criticize it.  Trust me.  Your date is probably already feeling terrible about it and is worried that you’re going to hold his restaurant selection against him.  Instead, be a gracious date guest and find something to compliment about what he selected and in all likelihood is providing.  (Many men pick up the tab for at least the first several dates.)  “Wow, the portions are so generous!” or “The service is so great here.  Our server is so attentive!” The restaurant could be having a bad night.  You’re flexibility and acceptance of what he is giving you lets him feel good about himself and save face as a man.  Let him be the one to insist that this just isn’t good enough for you and for him and suggest going down the street.

10.  Be a Super High Maintenance Princess Diva and Never Let the Words “Thank You” Emerge from Your Lips

Show up late, be inappropriately casually dressed for the context, criticize and complain.  Bring out from your designer purse your Suitor Qualifying Questionnaire (OK, we all have a least a few criteria on this list, even if it is just all save in our head and not actually printed out!) and never thank him for your 2 drinks, the delicious appetizer, for meeting thoughtfully and protectively near where you live, for selecting such a wonderful restaurant, for opening the door for you, for standing for you when you left for and returned from the Ladies Room.  Single men write to tell me of dreadful first dates where the woman never thanked him for anything.  Maybe they were just young and not yet socially adept.  Maybe they were just distracted with their jobs that day.  Ladies, if you are rusty at dating and just getting back into the swing of things, dating again after divorce, etc.  at least practice sweetly smiling and thanking him 1. when he pays the tab and 2. at the end, “For providing such a lovely evening.” You’ll get back in the gracious social habit of dishing out appreciation and gratitude often, increasing your social magnetism.

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell
Dating and Relationship Expert