What to Do After a Great First Date

There are few feelings as euphoric and amazingly intense as the feeling you get after a first date goes well. If you’ve experienced it, you know what I’m talking about. Driving home with that 10 mile wide grin on your face or bouncing through life for the next few days; it’s truly amazing.

But, this elation also brings up questions, especially if you want to see this person again and you want things to go well. What are you supposed to do after a great first date? Are there things you should do? Are there things you shouldn’t do?

The answer to the last two questions are yes and yes. Today, I want to get into it all and share what I believe you should be doing after a great first date to protect and nurture the potential success of a budding connection.

Enjoy It…Seriously

As a society, we LOVE to take the time to dwell on our bad dates for days and sometimes for weeks. My encouragement to you is to enjoy the one that went well! Talk about it, be excited, and enjoy the fun time you had.

Let yourself smile. But (there’s always a but), make sure you read the next section as there is a small asterisk or caveat to this.

…But Not Too Much

It is 100% okay to be excited about the date. It’s also 100% okay to be excited about what may be to come. However, you have to make sure you don’t start envisioning a future with someone that hasn’t happened yet.

It’s tempting to let your mind run with all the possibilities of the future. And while this feels good, it starts to really build up a relationship that really hasn’t started yet.

My point is this. Stay grounded in reality. Why? Because you may not know yet how they felt about the date. It’s only been one date, and no one owes anything to anyone. There is no commitment at all.

I share all of this to let you know that sometimes even the best first dates turn into nothing. If you’ve allowed yourself to build it up into something huge and then it doesn’t go anywhere, you’ll be devasted.

Let them know you had a great time.

People tend to get so worked up about what you can and can’t say to someone after a great first date. One of the things that gets debated (typically by people who like to play games) is whether or not you let them know you had a great time.

To be honest, I’m not even going to validate that as an option. If you had a great time on a first date, you should 1,000% let the other person know you had a great time.

What I think makes a lot of sense is sending an end of the night text message after you get home from the date. It can be simple like…

“Thanks again for tonight. I had a wonderful time. We should definitely do it again sometime soon!”

If they reciprocate, you know that they also had a great time. If they for some reason don’t reciprocate, then you also know that they didn’t feel the same way. Small side note, this does not mean whether you hear back from them that night or not because it’s completely possible that they went to sleep or put their phone away for the night.

Give them some grace to get back to you the next day. Some people also like to process a little after the date, and that’s okay.

Plan a second date.

Lastly, this may go without saying, but you are certainly going to want to try and schedule a second date! If you’re worried about how to go about this, reread the last section and notice how we worked it into the ‘we had a good time’ text at the end of the night.

The only addon to that is that if they agree, you need to proactively go about setting up that second date. Too often, budding relationships fizzle because no one takes the lead to set up the next date. Don’t let that happen to you!