3 Great First Date Dating Success Tips

As a recognized dating expert helping both single guys and single women to get more dates and enjoy better dates, a frequently asked question I get via twitter (@AprilBraswell), email, facebook, and here at my blog is, “What’re some tips you can give me for a great First Date?”

Making Your First Date Great: It’s All Up to You

The best ways to have a terrific First Date are fairly simple and precise. How you feel about dating is expressed by your attitude and comes through in your body language in your courteous behavior and attractive manner of dress and personal grooming. Pulling these altogether can make all the difference between making it dud date or great! It’s up to you. It’s your choice.

Dating Success Tip 1:  Have a Great First Date Attitude

First of all, your first date starts before the actual date.  How was the messaging exchange if you two met via an online dating site.  In this 21st century Web 2.0 world (yes, I worked with the Web 2.0s in the early days in Silicon Valley), many many singles are meeting via internet dating sites.  Some singles do still meet and ask each other out on dates having met in-person.  What you both said, messaged, texted, and did before you meet for the date will already establish The Mental Frame for a great First Date experience.

First Date Positive Dating Mindset

Dating Mindset Single Guys:

Are you worried that taking her out will crimp your entertainment budget for this week?  You might end up being tense during the date, sending bad body language flirting signals to your date who feels you just weren’t that interested in her and turns off of you.

Positivity Attitude for Single Women:

Are you over-excited hoping and wondering if he will be, “The One?” Single guys can feel it when women on are the marriage relationship prowl.  On the First Date that romantic over aggressiveness is just too much pressure and too smothering. 

If that is either of your attitude and how you approach First Dates in your mind, it is time to switch up your internal dialogues.  Dr. Maxie Maultsby, Jr. of RBT Rational Behavior Therapy teaches, “To feel better, you must first think better.” It’s as simple as that.

Instead decide to think, “I believe that First Dates are fun!  I am about to spend an evening getting to meet and become acquainted with a new wonderful person!  I wonder what is special about them?  I will have to find out!”

First Date Tip 2:  Do Dress for Dating Success

Have you seen all the internet dating profile pix taken with the person standing in jeans and tshirt, disheveled hair, facing their bathroom mirror, using their smart phone?  Made quite an impression on you didn’t it?  And now picture how Barack and Michelle Obama dresses.  Michelle Obama and her classic dressing with a marvelous touch of style is about as trendsetting and simply elegant as 1960s fashion trendsetter first lady, Jacqueline Kennedy.

Whatever your political leaning, you have to admit they look pretty good, don’t they?  Yah think how Michelle Obama dressed helped her to create and establish the rapport with Queen Elizabeth that she was allowed to break Royal Personage Protocol and touch the Queen of England?  Do you think she could have done that dressed in a sloppy manner wearing grungy jeans and tshirt?

Dress to Look Your Best to Make Your First Date Great

Treat yourself like royalty and a world class leader, and dress to look your best.  Guys, this means in most cases, a suit, a sports jacket, dress slacks, sharp shoes.  Look spiffy.  Wearing a necktie on your first date makes a powerful statement.  You don’t have to wear them all the time.  However, some single women have an unwritten rule that they won’t date and pursue a relationship with a man who won’t wear neckties.  By wearing one on your first date, you take care of that.  You can wear your sharpest business casual for your second and third dates.  Ladies, aim for a look uniquely feminine to establish contrast with how your date is dressed.  Wear a skirt or dress.  You want to aim for a “Classy Sexy” tone.

First Date Success Tip 3:  Do Show Up On Time

With so many singles living in metropolitan areas, there is always the traffic and commute traffic variables.  It is a running joke in Southern California in Los Angeles and Orange County that there is always an accident on the the 405.  Be sure to know the route you will take to your date and leave plenty of time to get there.  It is even better still to plan to arrive early.

You show the greatest respect and honor to your date and yourself when you arrive early and are on-time for your date.

If you live in a metro area like New York or Los Angeles where evening parking can be a challenge, you know there will be valet parking.  Yes, it will cost something.  Phone the restaurant where you two will be meeting and find out what it costs.  Plan for that cost as part of the cost of the date.  Use valet parking.  Do not keep your date waiting 45 minutes thinking she will wait for you.  When you do that, you are telling her, I value your precious time less than the cost of  a valet.  Yes, you will create a lasting first impression.  It won’t be the one you want.

It is the 21st century.  Things happen.  If worse comes to worse and there is a major traffic accident, you got each other’s cell phone numbers exchanged when you agreed and accepted this First Date, right?  Well then phone them.  This is not the time to text.  That looks wimpie to to both men and women.  Provide them some kind of an adjusted ETA.  It will then be their decision to stay and meet you or cancel.  99% of the time, if you are more than 15 minutes late for your date, you date will leave.  If you don’t phone and check with them, you will show up and he or she will be gone.  If you phone them now and ask them to come back, you have totally disrupted their evening.  This is not how to begin a romantic relationship.  Avoid all that turmoil by simply planning ahead and giving yourself plenty of time.  Better to arrive early and sit at the bar and have a drink of sparkling water for 20 minutes than show up late.

When you set your attitude to positive expectation, dress for dating success, and show up on time, you are guaranteed to enjoy a great first date!  And so will your date, with you!

Happy Dating and Relationships,

April Braswell