How To Have Great Conversations On Your First Date!

May 26th, 2009 by John

Great Conversations On Your First Date

You have butterflies furiously banging against your stomach wall and you wonder why you agreed to meet in a coffee shop for your first date when you aren’t sure you can keep the coffee in your stomach!

Believe it or not you can harness these little butterflies to help this first date turn out to be a great time for both of you. Before even leaving your home to meet your date remember that you will be nervous. When your nervousness isn’t a surprise you have a better chance of controlling it.

Planning is the key to controlling nerves and achieving a great end result. This is true in any sport, business or contact – including dates! You made the effort to plan the meeting in a safe environment. You’ve protected your personal information. You have a friend or relative who knows where you are going and with whom. Your planning has gone well to this point. It’s time to take it a step further.

Do a little bit of preparation before your date. Reread some of the IMs or emails and your dates profile if you need a reminder of what interests this person. Go through the most recent newspapers to brush up on some recent events. If your date often hikes, fishes or swims learn about the local fishing spots or parks for hiking.

Prepare yourself a few questions for beginning, middle and end of the conversation. You probably won’t need these but like any other tight rope situation, it’s better with a safety net. .

Questions that often encourage conversation center around family (like brothers and sisters), movies, hobbies, theater or future career plans. You may find that your date is working in a field that has nothing to do with their education or that they want to return to school. Both topics are a great way to get to know your date even more.

Many people enjoy talking about food – their favorite food or restaurant or even their least favorite and why. Here you can gauge whether or not you are on the same culinary page and how important a hot cooked meal each night is to your date. The potential topics are endless unless of course you are talking to someone with an addiction to food or alcohol.

Another topic of conversation for first dates is about travel. Talking about where you’ve been and where you want to go will give you insight to their openness to new adventures. Make the questions you ask fun. But, don’t sound like you’re reading from a questionnaire or your date will be wondering about your ability to hold a conversation at all.

Keep your focus on the date in front of you. For men – ladies have sharp eyes. If your gaze wanders to the beauty at the next table she’ll notice. She may not say anything but you’ve just lost points you may never recover. For women – men don’t appreciate being compared to other men and when you glance at each man who enters or exits he begins to wonder why you are there with him.

Be curious about your date and their interests. Pay full attention when they are answering your questions. You may be surprised at the things you learn in a short conversation. For instance, men may be inclined to continue sharing their exploits and accomplishments hoping that it makes them look better than any other man she may have been dating and at the same time will ignore her opinions. This has just the opposite effect on a woman. On the other hand a woman may be distracted by the 10 other things floating around in her mind. She is used to multi-tasking and this doesn’t end on a date. However, this scattered distraction can lead her date to feel left out and confused. Instead, pay attention to the person who sits across the table and read their body language. You will learn an incredible amount of information that will help you to make a decision about a second, third or fourth date.

Thanks for reading this post,