Escaping a Bad Date

Online dat­ing is very sim­i­lar to a blind date. No mat­ter if you have emailed and talked over the phone, there is no match for meet­ing some­one in per­son. Peo­ple can mis­rep­re­sent them­selves through email and even over the phone. Online pic­tures may be out­dated. You just never know who you will meet when going out on a first date with some­one you met online. In some instances you will hope the date ends early. This arti­cle is ded­i­cated to those times when you want to escape a bad date.There are a num­ber of pas­sive aggres­sive tac­tics. You can fake an “emer­gency phone call” by ask­ing a friend to call you or sign­ing up/​downloading an auto­mated call­ing ser­vice. A sec­ond option is to spill a drink or food in your lap or on your shirt and then claim you have to go home to clean your clothes.

Another pas­sive aggres­sive approach is to try to get your date to leave by mak­ing inap­pro­pri­ate or rude com­ments. You can present your­self as high main­te­nance, self-​​centered or cre­ate an annoy­ing per­sonal habit or bod­ily tick. I don’t rec­om­mend this tac­tic because, again, you never know when you may run into this per­son again. Of course you can get up and leave with­out notice, but it’s really not the mature thing to do. Think of how you would feel if some­one did this to you and left you sit­ting at a table alone wait­ing for how­ever long won­der­ing what hap­pened to your date. Besides, you never know when you will run into this per­son again. If your date makes you feel awk­ward, uncom­fort­able or unsafe you should leave imme­di­ately. Lis­ten to your instincts and always meet some­where pub­lic. Be sure to tell your friends where you are going and who you are going with.

One of the eas­i­est ways to cut a date short is to excuse your­self dur­ing “inter­mis­sions”. For exam­ple, if you are plan­ning a hike fol­lowed by lunch, end the date in between. There is no rea­son to con­tinue on to lunch if there is no chem­istry and you want to be some­where else. You can take the hon­esty approach or sim­ply say you are tired. The best approach is to be hon­est and kind. This takes courage but is the most respect­ful way to han­dle the sit­u­a­tion. You might be sur­prised to find out your date wasn’t feel­ing the chem­istry either and is relieved you took action.

Yes, there will be times when your date is into you when you aren’t and vice versa. In this case, there are a cou­ple of things you can do. If your date isn’t creepy and you are hav­ing a decent time you can stick it out and see if there is any friend poten­tial. There may be but you also might run into a sit­u­a­tion where your date really likes you and mis­reads your actions as attrac­tion or roman­tic inter­est. You can always thank your date for his/​her time and say you aren’t feel­ing the chem­istry or don’t see a future here. This is a per­fect way to avoid the “It’s me not you” cliché and most peo­ple will get the under­ly­ing “thanks, but no thanks” mes­sage. No mat­ter what you say or do to end the date, be polite. There is no need to berate the other per­son. Instead, thank them for their time. Both of you put your­self out there and took a risk on spend­ing time with some­one new. There is no need to cause some­one to cry or seek psy­cho­log­i­cal counseling.

The best bit of advice is the keep your first meet­ing or date short and sweet. Meet for cof­fee instead of jump­ing into a long din­ner. If you do plan a longer evening con­sider switch­ing up the order. Instead of din­ner and a movie, watch the movie first so you def­i­nitely have some­thing you can talk about over din­ner – the movie you just saw together.

Don’t get depressed over a bad date. They hap­pen and there will be more. This is an adven­ture to dis­cover a per­son who makes you feel happy and that extra “spe­cial something”.

Related posts:

1. 5 Top­ics to Avoid on a Date.
2. Dat­ing Recipes: the Artsy Cul­tural Date Thing.
3. 6 Things You Shouldn’t Do On a Date.
4. How Not to Get Punched in the Neck on the First Date.
5. Stop Being That Turd With the Bad Attitude!