There’s no point in writing off perfectly good dates because they aren’t, well, perfect. To my mind, honest imperfection is far more preferable to falsified flawlessness; when I date someone I expect honesty, warts and all. In the spirit of dating open mindedness, here are some common first impression blunders that you should think about forgiving.

They’re late

People who are always late are annoying and chronic tardiness is definitely grounds for dumping someone. But only after you’ve been dating awhile. Someone who is 20 minutes late for your first date hasn’t proven that his or her lateness is a habit. So give them the benefit of the doubt and put it down to nerves.

Too chatty or too quiet

Remember the conversation skills you had when you were six years old? Well some people revert back to those skills when they’re in the company of someone who makes them nervous. If you’re on a date with someone who goes on and on about his grandmother’s heart surgery, or simply not saying much of anything, treat it as a compliment.

You want to make your date a tad nervous. Let’s just hope that it wasn’t too painful to sit through dinner having to either do all the listening or all the talking. If you can see the charm and attraction underneath all the nerves then that warrants a second date. Hopefully the second time around their nerves will have quieted and their true personality will shine through.

Calling you another name

I really don’t understand why some people take this so personally and get all offended. It doesn’t take more than a bit of thinking to realize that the other person meant no offence, they just had a momentary lapse. That can happen to any of us at one time or another.

It’s a first date and the point here is that you don’t know each other yet. Maybe your smile reminded her of her friend John and that’s why she called you John. John’s characteristics and name have already been imprinted in her brain, yours hasn’t. Now it’s another thing entirely if she calls you John when you’ve been dating for six months and you’re sharing romantic times! However, a slip up like this on the first date is not only understandable, it’s also totally forgivable.

Getting drunk

I’ve been there friends, oh yes I have. I’m intelligent and charming and witty and darn it all, I’m no alcoholic! Yeah, you guessed right; he never called me again. I put it down to nerves.

But he jumped to conclusions on the first date. There are just times that I need a drink (or five) to take the edge off; let it go already. The thing is, if your date is going to get stupidly drunk in public every time you go out then you’ll learn that soon enough. But everyone deserves the benefit of the doubt.

This article was written by the writers of the Datepad.com internet dating company where you can find thousands more helpful dating articles. Get a totally unique version of this article from our article submission service

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