When To Call After A First Date

In a dream scenario, you and a wonderful girl have just finished a wonderful first date. It was the kind of evening where everything went to plan, she laughed at all your jokes – even the bad ones – and you shared a modest, but magical, kiss goodnight. You’re left to walk home and enjoy the rest of the night in that pleasant glow of having met someone special – until you wake up the next morning.

With the pleasantries of the night before a memory, albeit a pleasant one, a question is suddenly raised. When, exactly, is it appropriate to call a girl after the first date?

It’s a question that has been dominating the minds of anyone in a new relationship for at least the last 30 years. Suddenly, the days of arranged marriages and your parents deciding who you marry seem hugely tempting. After all, the decision of when to pick up the phone is littered with pitfalls; call too early and you may appear over-eager, call too late and she may have decided you were never going to call and have moved on. It’s an extremely delicate balance.

Unfortunately, there isn’t any certain answer. If the general perception of calling too soon were to be believed, no man who had ever called a girl the next day after the date would be married – but that isn’t true. There’s also a multitude of people who left it for weeks before calling, for whatever reason, yet still got the girl in the end.

The trick is to judge the girl, not the situation. Does she strike you as the type who wants you to put your cards on the table and be honest? If so, calling the next day isn’t a problem – just leave it until a normal hour. If, however, she seems to want to be wooed and dazzled by your macho side, leave it for a couple of days. Having spent an evening in her company, you should have at least a vague idea of which option is more likely to suit.

Whatever the situation and type of girl she is, one thing you should never do is leave it until a week or more before you dial her number. By that point, she’ll have given up on you. Although the situation isn’t irretrievable, the best bet is to wait for a maximum of four days if you decide to play it that way. Any longer, and you might get her answering machine – because she’s out on another first date, but this time, not with you.

Where To Go On A First Date

First dates in themselves are perilous enough, so how does one go about finding the perfect location or activity to do during it? No one needs the added angst of making a poor decision about what to do on a first date, so it’s well worth doing your research.

As far as first dates go, the stereotypical “dinner and a movie” is quite a decent option. Schedule it so that you see the film first, then go to dinner – this should give you an easy conversation starter if there are any awkward pauses. Since the occasional awkward pause seems to be a prerequisite for a first date, having a topic of conversation at hand can be extremely useful.

However, dinner and a movie isn’t exactly… inventive. If you want to appear a little more spontaneous and thoughtful, you are going to have to put a bit of work in to it. What are her interests? If the answer is something like art, history, museums or theatre – then the ideal location for the first date is obvious. However, it is important to plan with her – there’s no point buying tickets for a theatre show or a museum exhibit that she’s already seen.

Over recent years, dating experts have tried to suggest activity-type first dates, such as snowboarding (at a permanent slope) or playing golf. Yet these first dates are fraught with worry, and while they may seem like a good ice-breaking which offers natural conversation points, they can actually be more hassle than they’re worth. Activities like these require a certain level of easy banter, something which isn’t exactly plentiful on the majority of first dates.

No, the best advice is to keep it simple – dinner and a film, show, gallery or even place of historical interest. Putting a little effort in to selecting the venue will get you far more Brownie points than any snowboarding pass ever could.

History of Dating

Although sometimes the world of online and offline dating can seem like a daunting, nerve-inducing horror, the truth remains that the current method of finding a mate is perhaps the best method used in the history of Western civilization. Dating, like everything, has changed and evolved over time and the options available to a young single man are arguably vastly preferable from any other period in history.

Toward the beginning of civilized society, marriage was not about love. It was not even about companionship – now widely considered the main reason for marriage outside of love – or friendship. Marriage was designed to produce heirs, unite families and procure lands and wealth – whether or not the poor unfortunates forced to wed liked each other was largely irrelevant.

Suddenly, the modern dating ’scene’ doesn’t seem so distasteful. Imagine being forced to marry a woman, someone you quite possibly had never met before. Sometimes the inclination of the newlyweds-to-be was taken into account, but only if the match was otherwise deemed suitable. The marriage would largely be organized by families and, in the cases of the aristocracy, sometimes by the Crown. There was no room for preference, liking, love or passion – and divorce was extremely difficult to obtain.

Although arranged marriages still exist in some parts of the world – and do, in some cases – create happy unions – the variety of choice is now available to men of the Western hemisphere. Modern dating allows the chance to meet, woo, fall in love with and even sleep with a woman before deciding to spend your lives together – it’s the best method humans have ever come up with, so bear that in mind the next time your date for the evening is driving you crazy. At least nowadays, you can say goodbye at the end of the night – in earlier years, you might have been marrying her the next morning!