Facing Facts

A date is a level three experience: Level one is meeting someone, talking on the phone, chatting online, staring longingly at the back of his or her head all semester in class. On level one, there’s enough of a connection and attraction to warrant venturing into level two. Level two is a little pre-date interaction, which gets pretty quickly to level three, the date. Unless this is a totally blind date, meaning you’re set up with someone you’ve never even spoken to before, it’s safe to say there are at least some good feelings passing back and forth between the two of you before your date begins. Once the date gets going, however, the connection and attraction will be tested and tried on for size — from both sides. Liking or not liking each other is rarely an instant evaluation. Luckily, most of us are willing to give somebody a bit more time because we’d like them to give us a bit more of a chance, too. Deciding whether you want to invest a bit more time and effort in getting to know someone is a process of evaluating lots of verbal and nonverbal cues.

Chalking It Up to Experience

You can learn something from every experience. Sometimes the tuition is high, and sometimes it’s not. If you view this date as a learning experience rather than dashed hopes, a waste of time and money, or a night you could have spent watching Glee, the entire date will feel very different. After all,

• It’s only one night (day, afternoon, hour).
• It never has to happen again.
• This date can help you figure out what you want or don’t want next time.

The best way to avoid making another mistake is to figure out specifically what went wrong this time. After the date is over, after you’re home and reliving the scenario in your mind (or trying to get it out of your mind), take out your dating notebook and make two columns on a piece of paper: “What I was originally attracted to” and “What totally turned me off.” List everything you can think of in each column. Be honest. No one is looking. You can burn or flush this list later. Even if what originally attracted you was her Baywatch bod and what turned you off was the fact that Baywatch is her favorite TV show, write it down. Write it all down. When you’re finished, you’ll have a much clearer picture of exactly what went awry . . . and how to avoid making the same mistake next time.

Handling Hurt Feelings

Rejection is just someone’s opinion. You don’t like everyone, and not everyone is going to like you. Don’t allow your discomfort to make you mean. Stringing someone along, pretending you like him or her when you really don’t, is cowardly and cruel. In the long run, you’ll inflict more pain by pretending, which is really to protect yourself. Pretending is much harsher than saying upfront that this isn’t working for you. If your date is smitten, the truth is going to pinch a bit but for less time or intensity than if you lie. You’ve been honorable, have asked your date out, or have been asked out on the assumption of potential good stuff. You’ve now discovered things aren’t working out. No need to push the guilt button. No one likes to hurt anyone’s feelings. It’s important to be humane and human: When the news is hard to break and hard to take, be aware of what you’re feeling and why, and be specific about why it’s not working for you without being judgmental. Unless you are incredibly adept at letting your date down gently (how did you get so much practice? We may need to talk), you’re very likely going to hurt feelings.
When you do:

• Acknowledge your date’s rights to feelings. Don’t pretend everything is okay or get defensive if your date lashes out or is upset. Listen quietly and patiently.
• Don’t try to fix it. These are your date’s feelings, not yours. You deal with your feelings, and let your date do the same.
• Apologize for the hurt, not the fact. Not liking someone isn’t a crime. You didn’t do anything wrong. As a human being, you feel bad when another human being feels bad, but when you start down the “sorry” road, the next thing you may find yourself doing is trying to make it up to your date. Don’t start down that slippery slope.
• Let go. Ultimately, you have to make peace with the whole situation by realizing another fact of life: Not every date is terrific any more than every meal is wonderful, every sunset grand, or every flavor chocolate.

Telling the whole truth and nothing but the truth, sort of . . .

The one time you really do want to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth is when your date asks, “Can I call you?” — or worse, “Will you call me?” The phone thing is fraught with nearly every conceivable emotion —hope, fear, anxiety, trust, excitement, rejection, and anticipation. Now is the moment to take a deep breath and tell the truth. It’s not fair to leave her waiting by a phone that refuses to ring or have him logging on to check his e-mail every few hours. If you’re not going to call, now or in the millennium, don’t say you will. Period. It’s not cool. It’s not fair. It’s not what polite, respectful people do. That said, here are a few tactful ways to get the message across:

• “Though I had fun tonight, I don’t think it’s going to work out between us.”
• “To be honest, I see you as more of a friend.”
• “We’re just too different, you and I.”
• “I don’t want to mislead you by telling you I’ll call. I’m sorry, but I probably won’t.”
• “I’m going to be really busy at work for the next couple of months.”
• “Family concerns are going to keep me tied up.” It’s tough. No two ways about it.

Everyone wants to believe in love and union and two souls who were meant to be together. But if this isn’t that scene, don’t make it even worse by lying and leading your date to believe it might one day be.

Proclaiming Truth: Honesty Is a Tricky Policy

There you are sitting across from a date who’s eager and hopeful and trying her or his best to engage you. This person is perfectly nice. Perfectly acceptable. Perfectly wrong for you. For whatever reason, you know it’s not going to work out. How, then, do you let your date down easy? Be honest . . . without harming the poor, unfortunate soul unnecessarily. Truth-telling is a tricky bit of business. In the guise of “truth,” many a hurt has been inflicted. Do you really need to tell someone he or she is fat, even if that is the case? Do you need to say, “No, your nose isn’t big; it’s huge”?
Using tact
The difference between hurtful truth-telling and honesty is four letters: tact. The best way to be tactful is to put yourself in your date’s shoes. If you wouldn’t want to hear it, your date most likely won’t want to hear it, either. To help you out of any potential corner into which you might paint yourself during a date gone sour.

Being polite

Your mom has explained the need for good manners: to avoid making another person feel bad. Well, your date may not be going as well as you wanted, but now is not the time to abandon all those skills that your parents spent a lifetime drilling into you. The basics of being polite include the following:

• Stay put. No leaving out the back door, faking a headache, or spending the entire date in the restroom reading phone numbers carved into the wall.
• Have a conversation. Sitting stone-faced is the ultimate slap in the face. Find something to talk about even if you discover you two are worlds apart. Seen any good movies lately?
• Maintain eye contact. You don’t need to gaze into your date’s eyes, certainly, but staring up at the ceiling is rude.
• Listen. Your date may not notice that things aren’t going swimmingly. Tuning this person out will only cause him or her to try harder to reach you, and panic isn’t pretty.
• Make nice. As Elvis said, “Don’t be cruel.” Your date didn’t kidnap you. If things aren’t going well, so be it. Without being overly encouraging (you don’t want a bad date hoping for bad date number two), be civil and kind.
• See your date home. It’s impolite to abruptly end your date the moment the check is paid, the ending credits roll, or the coffee cup is empty. You don’t need to prolong it, but you do need to finish what you both started. If you drove, drive your date home. If your date drove, accept a ride home.

Share a cab, a subway, a bus ride. No bolting or escaping is necessary. Behave as you’d like to be treated. Show common courtesy. Smile, laugh at jokes, and avoid rolling your eyes to the back of your head. The goal here is to be kind without being dishonest. The key to being polite is to think of yourself as Lord or Lady Bountiful —much too well-bred to let on that your bunions pinch or your fine sense of smell has just discerned that something has died. The goal of being polite is not to lead your date on, but to treat your date with the same kindness and respect with which you’d treat anyone.

Avoiding blame

Understandably, you’re going to feel disappointed when you first get the inkling that your date isn’t working out. Either people click, or they don’t.
When they click, their communication is like a tapestry — each shared
experience and similarity intertwines. Each giggle, stare, brush of a hand
is a gossamer thread, one on top of the other, until a beautiful scene is
depicted. When folks don’t click, the date is more like a wrinkly paper bag —
uninteresting, unappealing, and just plain un-wonderful. When you discover
that the situation has gone south, don’t be tempted to blame your date or
yourself for the unpleasantness — no need to accuse your date of

• Using you
• Being an idiot
• Being ungrateful
• Being uncivilized

Sometimes two perfectly nice people can just not mesh very well. If you take that perspective, you don’t have to take offense or blame or a position — just take a deep breath.