50 Newbie Dating Rules For Anyone Putting Themselves Out There For The First Time

1. Remember the Brad Pitt Rule: if she declines a date due to a conflict/other plans and doesn’t offer to go on another time that does work, she’s not into you.

(e.g. “Oh, I can’t tonight, but how about Saturday?” = you’re cute!)

2. Don’t make someone your priority when you’re just an option to them.

3. You will meet someone that will make you laugh, will put your stomach in knots every time they talk to you, will make you smile every time their name pops up on your phone, and whose smile you’ll see every night as you fall asleep and every morning as you wake up because it has such a calming and comforting effect on you.

All they’ll have met is someone they kinda like to talk to and see every now and again.

That’s not what I want people new to dating to know. Not all of it.

Once they break your heart, and you will have your heart broken, you’ll close yourself off for a while. Maybe even a long time. But let me tell you, that that feeling is worth trying for. It’s worth getting hurt for. Because some day, you’ll meet someone that will feel the same way about you that you do for them. And when you do, it’ll make all the previous heart break seem completely inconsequential.

Every wrong person you get involved with is just a step closer to the right person.

4. It’s a numbers game – the more you date, the better your chances of finding “the one”.

5. 70% of people are using old pictures and you will be shocked when you meet them. They will be older, and they will be heavier than you expect.

6. Look for someone with best friend material. You will have a mutual respect for each other and be able to have a life with and without them. You need a person who enjoys doing nothing with you.

7. If you’re not getting matches on Tinder/dating apps, it’s (probably) not because you’re ugly and unlovable – it’s because your pictures are not doing you justice.

(looking at you, dudes whose only pic is a selfie in your car with you giving your phone the middle finger!)

8. Something that really helped me realize I need to get over a guy: never trust someone who is always on their phone when around you but never answers it when you aren’t around.

9. People will not feel the same way about you, as you do about them. That’s ok.

Sounds cold, but cut your losses and move on.

10. It’s ok to say that you don’t wanna have a second date. That is better that getting hopes up.

11. A person can have a lovely time on your very expensive dinner date and not want to have sex. A person can invite you back to their place and not want to have sex. A person can make out with you and not want to have sex. A person can be having sex with you, reconsider half-way through, and not want to have sex.

Get enthusiastic consent. Check in often to make sure they’re enjoying themselves. Don’t use alcohol as an excuse to get what you want. Keep the pressure off. If you don’t get laid, it’s not the end of the world. Respect people first.

12. Don’t look too much into things – stay busy and don’t be super focused on just dating. Try to have a life besides “getting out there.”

13. On a real note, relationships aren’t always going to be a 50/50 for putting in effort. Sometimes your SO will be having a bad day and can only put in 20% of the effort, and you will have to pick up the other 80%, and vice versa. There are struggles in relationships that come from outside the 2 of you, and you just have to acknowledge it, and work together to get through that rough patch.

14. Don’t talk about exes or previous dates.

15. The feelings you feel at the beginning of the relationship will not last forever. Make sure there is substance to someone you date if you plan on it being a long term commitment.

16. Please please please don’t insult yourself on the first date. You shouldn’t really insult yourself ever, but no one needs to see your emotional baggage when they’ve just met you.

17. Communication is the single most important factor in a relationship. Took me until my 30’s to really get that. If there is something about them or your relationship that you feel you can’t discuss with them, then they’re probably not the right person for you.

18. Have fun. People are drawn to fun people.

19. It is never a convenient time to break up with someone. It always sucks. Don’t ever let yourself stay in an uncomfortable situation because you feel bad/guilty.

20. When trying to figure out who someone is, and how they feel about you, don’t pay any attention to what they SAY, just pay attention to what they DO.

21. Don’t link your self confidence with your dating life. If you’re not meeting the love of your life or simply someone with whom you’d like to spend time together, it is most likely out of incompatible partners and bad luck. If you are often getting lucky and have boats of partners, then you will only get arrogant and alienate yourself from friends. If you do conjoin confidence and dating, bad things usually happen. Just saying.

22. Know your dealbreakers. If you are non-religious and that’s a dealbreaker, then own it. Don’t ever expect that someone will change their beliefs or core way of living life. In a world with almost 8 billion people, there is someone out there for you.

23. Do not rely on another person to “complete” you; be a whole person and have fun with another whole person. Expecting someone else to fix your problems is not romantic.

24. Just because a guy wants to sleep with you on the first date, doesn’t mean he only wants sex. Wanting sex and being genuinely interested in you are not mutually exclusive…

25. I’d also point out don’t be ashamed to not date the “hottest” guy or girl in school. You will be shocked to see how the hot girls/guys really lose attractiveness after a few years and the average girls/guys become super attractive well after college.

Source: I’m old and girls I had crushes on in high school I wouldn’t even date now and girls who I friend zoned because I wasn’t interested in are jaw dropping gorgeous.

26. I know this is very obvious but a lot people don’t really realize how important this is. BE HONEST. There will be times where your S/O will be talking about their interests and you will have no clue what they are talking about. But that’s ok!! Just simply tell them that you are not familiar with the topic but you are interested to know about it. If your S/O doesn’t like something that you like, that’s ok as well. There will be moments where people gets hesitant and they make a white lie, or lie in general to impress their S/O. Honesty is key, I know he/she is hot, and you want to impress them but at the end of the day, looks don’t matter. You don’t want to end up with someone that you can’t be yourself with.

27. I take huge stock in the way dates treat service workers (servers, bartenders, Uber / taxi drivers, etc) usually a good indicator of their values and compassion. Also it’s always a good sign if they have long-term friendships.

28. Just because you got a partner, it doesn’t mean you have to slack off and not take care of yourself. See this a lot these days, people just stop being themselves because they got a gf or a partner. Nothing has changed.

29. Just because one person turned you down doesn’t mean another person with an almost identical/more appealing appearance will too.

30. You don’t owe anyone anything. You don’t have to have a serious relationship with everyone you go on a date with.

31. Condoms are cheaper than diapers.

32. Eliminate any expectations. A first date is nothing more than a conversation with a stranger. You might vibe, you might not. But chemistry is a very real thing and it cannot be forced.

33. What’s worked for me — Date your friends.

No, really.

See, when you go on Tinder or OkCupid or whatever, you’re meeting somebody new and immediately putting a context of having a relationship with them on it, before you even know if you like them. It makes for this awkward “Do I actually enjoy spending time with you or am I just trying to make something work here?” phase.

But your friends? You already know you like them. You already have similar interests and spend time together. It’s so much easier to date somebody you know you already get along with.

34. Make sure to go to the bathroom before going over to your date’s house.

35. If you’re meeting someone for drinks, don’t get too drunk. Most of the time it doesn’t end well.

36. If you meet someone special, they’re probably still not ‘the one’. Try to stay grounded.

37. Don’t be nervous and put someone up on a pedestal. There isn’t anything special about anyone that deserves it, all people of the opposite sex are the same and are going through the same exact things as everyone else.

38. A heart that is broken is a heart that has loved.

39. My first real date in years was basically me talking about myself for two hours. Naturally, there wasn’t a second date.

So my advice would be to not do that. And also compliments, everyone likes being told they look nice.

40. Work on managing your attachment – that is, don’t go crazy for him/her in the first 2-3 weeks. People often need time & space to build real connection. IMO Nothing is worse than having to backpedal out of something or push someone away because the other person fell instantly and they’re 3 stages ahead of you.

41. Try to keep a balance between remembering that you can’t trust people to tell you the truth at first, and not cutting off opportunities because you’re too closed off to have any fun.

As a chick on the e-dating/app dating scene, going into things being honest that I wanted long-term relationships that would be serious with the proper time was a very good way to get used by guys who said they wanted the same thing but then ditched to get back on the app and find something new and shiny after about a week or two. So give things time and remember that fuckboys have every incentive to lie about their intentions and use you, so you shouldn’t trust people until you’ve gotten a bit of time under your belt to know that they’re worthy of it. But the flip side is that you can’t go around treating everybody as though they’re all liars who are going to use you, because people don’t deserve that unless they’ve earned it. It’s a fine line to walk and not always easy to tell. You’ll get your feelings hurt sometimes thinking someone has earned your trust and then they turn out to be untrustworthy, but you have to pick yourself up and brush yourself off and move along. When you find the right one, all of the shit you waded through will have been worth it.

42. You’re going to have a lot of awkward small talk and it’ll take a couple dates before the periods of silence seem natural.

43. Give them space, being needy can be a huge turnoff.

44. If whoever your’e seeing discloses to you that they have a mental illness (depression, bipolar, borderline, anxiety) don’t make it your personal mission to help them get through it. You can’t fix it, only they can. Additionally, don’t allow them to project frustrations stemming from their mental illness onto you, or allow them to try to make you a part of fixing it. The degree to which these kind of relationship dynamics is romanticized in our culture is so toxic.

45. On cheating: If they’ll do it with you, they’ll do it to you.

46. Keep conversations positive. You don’t know yet what they care about and going negative can have bad results.

Example: I had grown up in a family that loves dogs but makes fun of purse dogs. I was talking to a guy who told me he had dogs. I started in with some of the jokes about little dogs not really being dogs. It turns out he had a chihuahua that he loved.

47. You still have other friends. Way too often I’ve seen people get into a relationship and spend every waking moment with their SO. Almost always ends badly. You need fresh air.

48. No one reads minds. If you are mad/sad/disappointed, you cannot reasonably expect another human being who doesn’t know you super well to figure out why. So figure out why you are actually feeling this, and use your words in the “I feel” format.

“I am mad because you are an hour late, and I feel like you don’t respect my time.”

“I am sad that you forgot my birthday because I don’t feel special.”

“I feel disappointed that you forgot the rubber chicken because you know they turn me on.” Etc.

49. Have zero expectations for dates other than oh I’m going to meet someone new, I get to have a conversation and a drink and maybe learn something.

And get someone of the opposite sex to vet your Tinder photos.

50. NEVER date out of pity. It sounds cruel but the best thing you can do for someone is be honest and say you aren’t interested. Anything else is wasting both of your times.