The other day, a friend said something in a discussion group that really made me think about relationships and dating and how all of this even works.
I’m not an expert on dating. But I do have a lot of friends, and I read a lot of advice columns, and so I have started noticing a pattern.
Some people think that if they go on one date and it’s mediocre (not Bad, just Mediocre), if they’re not Feeling It ™️, then it’s not worth going on a second date with that person.
So.
While it’s fine for someone to adopt this strategy, it’s important to realize that it’s not going to give a high probability of getting together with someone for the long term. (Which is relevant if anything other than one-night stands is your goal! No shame at all to the ONS people, but you’re not my target audience here.)
Everyone has “off” days.
The dating profile is a paper-thin slice of who someone is. This is fairly well established, even though some people still insist on judging a book by its dating profile.
But even beyond that, the first date is a bologna-thin slice of who someone is. It’s still not very much data at all.
If you want to really see if someone is compatible with you, you will have to date them (not exclusively, you don’t need to be exclusive during this period, as long as you’re honest and clear) for a while. Otherwise you’re just gonna get a shit-ton of false negatives.
And sometimes, for some people, that’s what they want: some people are very risk averse, or have trauma, or similar things going on. It’s okay for them to say “I will take the false negatives in order to not put myself in danger.”
But it’s important to be aware that that is what you’re doing: piling up a bunch of false negatives in addition to the true negatives. This is an extreme strategy for extreme situations. It’s not a strategy with a good chance of success.
Emilybook 