(OGL) It’s Our First Face-to Face Meeting, What the Heck Do We Talk About?!

By Brian Rzepczynski, Certified Personal Life Coach

OneGoodLove.com 

So you’ve more than likely been chatting it up online with a potential dating prospect that you’ve met through your personals ad and perhaps even progressed to talking a bit on the telephone. It is generally best practice to gradually move from email correspondence or online chatting to actually speaking “live” on the telephone before meeting in-person for the first time. This gets the acquaintanceship started at a reasonably good pace and allows you to learn more about each other through written and verbal words before taking the plunge to meet face-to-face, which for most people is the more vulnerable and nerve-wracking scenario. Take time to glean the information you receive about this new man through all your modes of communication you’ve had with each other before deciding whether he meets your compatibility criteria to even proceed with a physical meeting. This will help to save much time and energy in your quest for a good first date material.

It’s also important before segueing from phone conversation to direct face-to-face contact that you define for yourself the parameters of what this first encounter with your personals ad match means. It is generally helpful to view this first physical approach with each other as a “first meeting” as opposed to a “first date.” Labeling it as a “first date” can conjure up all sorts of anxiety, anticipation, and expectation that can be quite sabotaging and distracting. “The first meeting” is intended to be a brief and casual get-together to see if you and your personals match can build-upon the momentum of what has been achieved in your prior contacts and to determine if there is enough compatibility and chemistry to warrant pursuing a “first date” with each other as the next progression. Approaching “the first meeting” without any anticipation of outcome is an important key to staying in control of your dating life and to avoid any unnecessary disappointments and unrealistic expectations. You’re meeting a new person for the first time for some fun and captivating conversation, and if anything else materializes from that…bonus! Keep it grounded.

So you’ve scheduled a time to meet up with this new prospect. What the heck to do you talk about? Communicating with someone online or on the telephone can be a lot different and less anxiety-provoking because of the sense of removal and space that exists between the two of you. Sitting face-to-face with a stranger that you’ve only just begun to develop an affiliation with through online methods can really be quite daunting for some people.

Find Out More at One Good Love.