Chasing Sparks

It’s hard to get away from testimonials about “when I saw them, I just knew” when it comes to romance on the internet. From meet cutes to love at first sight, the elusive sparks that romcoms have introduced to modern dating language seem like a requirement. And for many, they genuinely are. But I wonder how realistic it is to expect this sort of magical connection after a first meeting with a stranger, more or less.

For the sake of this essay, I’m going to be talking about first impressions and first dates. I will mention subsequent dates and time together to build off the points I make, but mainly about initial meetings.

I don’t consider myself to be an expert on dating, by any means. At the time of this writing, I am still single—not for lack of trying, mind you. I’ve gone on a lot of first dates in recent years and started to notice some patterns. I don’t think I did everything perfectly on every date, but I usually come away thinking it went okay to very well (let the clown emoji ensue).

This essay will mainly focus on heterosexual dating, as that’s where most of my personal experience has come from. The handful of times I’ve tried queer dating, these same issues haven’t come up in my own dating life.

This old adage that we’ve heard forever would lead you to believe if it’s not heart eyes from frame 1, then pack it up. But I’m not so sure that’s based in actual reality. Think about it in terms of app-based dating, which is incredibly common today.

People on dating apps usually need to know you’re interested in meeting up sooner, rather than later. “Nobody wants a pen pal” as they like to say. People also simultaneously hate small talk, at least from what I’ve seen anecdotally (more on that later). So, you do some swiping, make a match, exchange messages, and plan a first date.

If you’re anything like me, you usually go into these dates with an incredibly vague idea of who the person you’re meeting up with is, as a person. You might know where they’re from, music they like, and what they look like in a few different contexts; all information from a profile some introductory messages. I’m a nerd, so if I’ve exchanged numbers with someone before a date, I’ll put things I want to remember in the notes section of their contact so I can ask about them on the date: their pets, where they’re from, bands they like, and so on.

Keep this pretty basic profile of the potential date in mind as I get to my first disconnect.

As I mentioned earlier, there’s this weird, unwinnable scenario where people want to feel an undeniable chemistry and attraction to someone while also not wanting to bore themselves asking questions that ease into getting to know this person (i.e. small talk).

Now, back to the shallow initial profile in bit. For all intents and purposes, the person you’re meeting with is a stranger. Not in the mysterious silhouette wearing a fedora like many a Neighborhood Watch sign would lead you to fear, but this is someone that you don’t know very much about (and that’s fine). You’re going out to get to know them, so they’ll be less stranger-y.

It doesn’t make very much sense to me that people would expect to see someone for the first time and be so attracted to them that they can’t think straight. I think more reasonably, a person on a first date would be nervous and trying to make a good impression. Again, I am not a pro dater by any means. Maybe people better at this than me can work that nervousness to their advantage and be charming, but my first thought is to start working on getting to know them better, making eye contact, and trying to be considerate now that we’re in the same place.

This is where small talk comes back into the picture. To use an outdated metaphor, it’s like driving a car; you don’t just start going 60 mph. You need to gradually build up from 0. The playful banter and eye-fucking doesn’t just magically happen after you’ve had a second to process what your date’s voice actually sounds like.

So, you start easy. Maybe follow up on a prompt from their profile, ask about siblings, if they like the area they live in. If you’re dating in DC, like I am, you do everything in your power to avoid asking what they do (everyone does that here and it’s a meme at this point).

Personally, I don’t mind small talk because I’m approaching the date like “okay, I know basically nothing about this person. Time to start learning about them through questions.” I also think these initial softball questions are where the banter can begin, the chances at humor, teasing, etc… as you see how they hold themselves and what interests them. Or who knows? Maybe there’s some overlap and you can riff off each other and your common interests.

But first dates are finite. You can’t learn everything there is to know about someone in an initial meeting. That’s also not what the “sparks or nothing” crowd is hoping for. I think that they think, if they weren’t wooed off their feet, the date didn’t end in kissing under fireworks, or they’re not ready to gush to a group chat afterwards, that it was a waste of time. I don’t see it that way.

To me, a first date is a chance to finally meet face-to-face. It’s a starting point in getting to know someone; a process that can’t be rushed, no matter how much people claim to hate small talk and asking the things to actually get to know the other person might want it to.

A first date is also just one place at one time. I think getting to see people in multiple contexts is useful for learning if they’re the kind of partner you could see yourself with long-term. For example, if someone being nice to service workers is a nonnegotiable for you, you might not know that a date snaps to get waiter’s attention if your first date was to a movie or something. Seeing people in different environments with other kinds of people like their/your friends, acquaintances, or just different kinds of activities paints a more complete picture of who they are. That also helps with relating this more-fleshed-out them with you and if that’s where things should go.

I think a lot of people, especially people with a queue of matches or other potential dates lined up think they’re better judges of character than they might actually be. I’ve heard from many a friend I tried venting to that they get my frustration, but they think they could tell if someone was for them or not on a single interaction.

It’s hard to push back on that because there’s not some sort of correct-o-meter that you can hold up to someone when they’re not looking and know if you made the right call or not. But more importantly, I think this assumption of knowing what is and isn’t worth investing time into comes down to an inaccurate binary in their heads. You either cut things after that initial info gathering first date or you end up in a loveless long-term relationship that could’ve been avoided had you trusted your gut.

I think the nuance of getting to know people is lost on a lot of people dating today. To clarify, I’m not saying people need to brute force it. If you didn’t enjoy a first date, there’s no reason to bang your head against a wall. But if things went—let’s use a random phrase I definitely didn’t use to describe my own dates earlier—okay to well, maybe they can improve further with another date.

Subsequent dates could be better as folks get more comfortable with each other or have some time to sit with their initial impression of a date. They might also be worse, but let’s be positive.

It’s hard to put in a succinct little sentence, since there’s no objective correct number of dates to know someone and if they’re a good fit for you—Elle Magazine please don’t come for me. But personally, I’d rather try and be wrong than not try and be wrong. Again, “try” meaning see if being with this person in another context helps or hurts my impression of them. Not “try” meaning become exclusive with this person that I’ve just met.

But back to the issue quantifying when you know (you know). I think people would love to have some sort of personal policy they stick to because that’s nice to say and sounds like you have your shit together. “3 date rule”, “if [x] doesn’t [y], then [c] [u] [l8r]”, and the like.

I wouldn’t consider myself an optimist about dating, both generally and in today’s environment (read: the trenches). But I do believe that giving things a chance to develop into something—not necessarily something better or worse—but into something closer to what the dynamic between these two individuals actually is, should genuinely be worth exploring.

I’m sure it’s very easy to read all these words (and if you got this far in my rambling, thank you) and take away that I, specifically, have these thoughts and people on the dating market should be nicer to me, specifically (they should, but unrelated). That’s not my point though. I think if, more generally speaking, people tried to go in with more realistic expectations of how meeting someone you don’t know personally tends to go, we’d be better off as a collective dating pool. The idea that every potential date is the one framed in a glowing frame that only you can see, you just have to sift through the IRL nope pile that is everyone who isn’t to get to them is unrealistic in my eyes.

I get that our time on this planet is finite. People want to feel like every date should be super impactful and mean something special, but I think there’s an argument to made for the hope that okay first dates can lead to good, or even great, second ones. Don’t be so worried about some hypothetical feeling or thought that you feel you’re supposed to be experiencing when there’s an actual person that might be what you wanted in front of you. Give things time to cook and develop, you might be surprised what you find.