One of the most daunting parts of internet dating is the part of actually meeting in person for the first time. Will your date look like their photos? Will you recognize each other? Will it be one of those awkward introductions where someone sticks out a hand to shake while the other goes in for a hug? Try these five tips to help ease your first date jitters.

1. Meet Right Away

Once you’ve played the JDate dance of viewing profiles, sending flirts and exchanging a few messages, you need to ]get on the phone and make plans. Don’t spend too much time on the phone and don’t wait too long before setting the date. You don’t need to build up any more expectations then you may already have. Keep the momentum going by moving from JDate to a first date within a week.

2. Say “Hi” With Confidence

Walking up to meet your date is totally nerve-wracking. Quickly check your phone to see their profile pictures one last time and, if you’re meeting up somewhere rather then getting picked up from your home, you can text each other what you’re wearing or agree to meet in a specific location. A quick text like that can save you from scanning the entire bar or restaurant looking for someone you’ve never met before. Next, make the move to go in for a friendly hug; after all, you know enough about each other at this point that its more like a second date, right?

3. Be Prepared With Questions

Another reason you should meet right away is because you need to maintain some semblance of normalcy when it comes to conversation. You already know more information than you typically would on a first date due to what you’ve learned about each other in your profiles. Too much emailing and phone calling will only make your actual first date feel more awkward because of that. So stay within the parameters of the questions asked in your JDate profile. For example, you can ask for details about the fill-in-the-blank questions and multiple-choice questions. Stick to the basics and censor yourself before divulging information that is, to put it bluntly, none of your date’s business – at least not yet. On the first few dates, regale your date with the funny, positive and interesting stories about yourself and leave the deeper, sad and bewildering stories for later dates.

4. Don’t Mention Your Internet Stalking Info

Admit it … you searched for information about your date online. We all do it. Try not to go too far, but whatever data you do uncover, you should try not to mention lest you sound like a crazed stalker. Sure, you can say that you confirmed their identity and searched to see if you had any mutual friends. But if you found out who their ex is and then stalked them and found their vacation photos from six years ago to Thailand, it’s better to completely disregard that info and not even allude to knowing anything about anything.

5. Have Plans To End Or Extend The Date

For safety reasons, someone should always know where you are on a first date. On top of that, you’ll need a plan for getting out of a date gone bad. But on a more positive note, you should also have plans in mind for how to make your date last longer if things should go well (fingers crossed). You may even want to have an idea of when and where you’d want to go on a second date so you can suggest another meetup in the near future.

These tips will help your first date begin and end smoothly while taking as much guesswork out of it as possible. The excitement of the date itself is enough without having nerves about how to meet, what to talk about and what to do next. Basically, by taking some control over what you can, you can allow yourself to relax and let the date happen naturally.

One Comment
  1. I very new in jdate, so i would love to get some advice from an expert.

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