Best advice is don’t get too bogged down in messaging! Few txts, if going well meet for a coffee/ drink. You don’t need pen friends.
Agreed. After a few message exchanges, and you've both expressed a bit of an interest, it should be enough to initiate the "we should meet" procedure.
I didn't get married until my early 40s, so I was out there in the trenches for a long time and I picked up a bit of experience that I'm happy to share.
Date venues to avoid:
- Afternoon coffee date. They end up like job interviews, they always have somewhere to go afterwards, and they get boring and hard to recall which candidate was which if you book too many of them.
- Cinema. Sitting in awkward silence beside each other with no interaction. Doesn't work on the first date, better to save it for about 3rd.
Date venues / times to try:
- Keep it later in the day, so there's less chance they have somewhere to go afterwards and you can keep it open-ended.
- Somewhere ordinary like a pub for a bit of a feed. Don't do expensive restaurants, that only attracts gold diggers or puts off ordinary women. I always found it best sitting at the bar so you could sit side by side rather than facing each other, it was more relaxed and you can comment on what's going on around you. Or if you're at a table/booth, see if you can sit at a 90 degree angle to each other.
- If you're hitting it off, suggest you go to a different venue for dessert. If you get Ice Cream then you can take it somewhere else to eat it.
- Or go to a different venue just to take a walk. You can effectively put 4 dates into one, it seems more interesting when you pack in more venues into the same evening and have a bit of walking in between them all.
- Partner dance lessons (better if this is 2nd or 3rd date and you're definitely interested). I signed my now wife up for a month-long Brazilian Zouk course after we first met. I already knew the dance, and she was happy to try it.
- If you can incorporate things into the evening like bowling, pool / snooker, or archery or whatever, it'll give you some activity you can both focus on without the pressure of having to make conversation every second, helps you both relax. Something you both haven't done before can make it a good shared experience.
- Get her up high. If there's a tall building open to the public or a hill somewhere where there's a decent view, that always makes a good impression.
Finally, I used to get dressed up all fancy like it was a job interview, all except the suit and tie. I wore a nice jacket, trousers, shirt and dress shoes. It was overkill. It's very easy to make a girl feel underdressed, which may or may not work in your favour. Better to tone it down a bit and dress the way I normally dress. Jeans and a decent shirt. I wore a red fedora just for a splash of color too. No point in trying too hard.
