We all have mental checklists of expectations for new prospects, which can sabotage a date when they aren’t met. Some of these expectations include:

• Calling to confirm the day of or day before
• Making reservations/being easy-going about planning options
• Arriving on time
• Looking as though you put effort into your appearance
• Asking questions/listening to answers/participating in conversation
• Showing consideration while ordering
• And so on…

As the lead-in to the date and actual date progress we tend to tally when a prospect does or does not achieve these benchmarks, and then begin judging the prospects based on these expectations… effectually taking us out of the date. When you do this, you’re not present in the date or giving a prospect a fair chance.

Try to appreciate each date for what it is and enjoy your time. It’s also difficult not to compare one date to another, especially when you’ve been on some amazing dates that may have set a high benchmark, but each date needs to be treated as a unique entity. After all, there’s a reason you’re still dating and not in a relationship with the prospects that set those benchmarks!

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When you start dating someone who seems like a total catch, it is easy to want to know everything about them as soon as you can. It’s easy to build someone up to be something they’re not since it takes time to get a clear, accurate picture of who someone really is. However, discussion alone may not get you the answers you’re looking for, and prying too much too soon can prove disastrous.

Behavior is a great way to gauge how someone behaves in most situations (and for me it’s often a lot more indicative than their words). Maybe they think they’re a great dancer, but have no rhythm. Maybe you like that they’re really smart, but soon discover they don’t have a lot of common sense or tact. They can’t tell you those things. Or maybe you think they’re conscientious about how they treat others, but they don’t respect your opinion in making decisions. You just have to see those things for yourself.

If they aren’t as great as you built them up to be early on in the relationship, you are likely to be disappointed. Try to take what you see and hear at face value (or less). It’s easy when we’re excited to let our minds fill in unknown information, or to pry for lots of details to help fill our knowledge gaps about the person.

This is why we date: to figure out who someone is.

It’s hard to wait sometimes, but try not to rush getting to know someone. If you’re right for each other, waiting three months to discover he or she is a clean freak probably won’t make a huge difference in the long run. Also, part of the fun of dating is getting to know someone better, and hopefully enjoying his or her company more and appreciating each other’s quirks more as time progresses. Sometimes you build someone up and on the third date you realize you don’t think he or she has the good character traits you were envisioning. Recently, I’ve been pleasantly surprised by learning more and more about a guy I’m seeing. I didn’t gather that he was very cultured from first meeting him, but when we went out and I learned how knowledgeable he was about many things I wouldn’t have expected, I was impressed. Instead of building him up and being let down by elevated notions of him, I went with the flow (for once), let him reveal himself over time, and was excited when he exceeded my expectations.

In summary:

1. Don’t have sky-high expectations. They lead to a lot of unnecessary disappointments.
2. Don’t rush getting to know someone because you’re worried they might not measure up. If they don’t measure up, you will certainly figure it out in time.
3. Don’t build them up to be someone they’re not. They can’t live up to the fake version of themselves in your head.

It’s been a few weeks and a number of amazing 100hookups with the same prospect, and you know the time is coming when sex is going to be the next step. You’re excited, you’re apprehensive, you’re kind of freaked out because you really like this person, and you want the sex to be really good. And now you’ve built up these expectations in your mind and will no doubt carry those expectations into the bedroom and set yourself up for failure.

Sex the first time is seldom “uhhhh-mazing,” but it can get better… and better… and even better. Don’t judge a partner by the first time, give the sex and the relationship time to grow. Once you’ve done it the first time, then the pressure is off and you can relax and enjoy yourselves. So don’t end what could be a good thing because the first time was just “okay.” Give the sexual/physical chemistry a chance to catch up with the emotional/mental chemistry!

Never go into anything with high expectations. Never look forward to dinner with friends, because you will get in a car wreck on the way to the restaurant. Never look forward to getting that call from that girl because she won’t call, and if she does, it will be an accidental call while trying to dial her actual boyfriend, Brad Pitt, because this fake scenario is happening in 1995. Never look forward to that European vacation because your plane will crash over the Atlantic and you will have to stay alive, while floating around and feeding on your dead family.

Almost anything that you have or will ever be excited about will be at least somewhat of a letdown. Even your happiest memories are marred by something that you either choose to ignore or have forced your brain to forget to preserve that perfect story. You think the first time you were intimate with a woman was great? Think about that really hard. Remember how you were in the backseat in your tiny car in your childhood driveway and had to contort your body so that you could fit and then your left leg fell asleep and you started sweating profusely, while constantly looking over your shoulder to make sure your parents didn’t see you? What part about that memory was great?

Nothing in life is good. All that is good comes from distorted recollections based around selected repressed memories. Life sucks, but thinking about life can be great. Why do you think The Hunger Games trilogy was so much more successful than The Unauthorized Autobiography of Joseph Lieberman trilogy, other than the fact that I just made up the latter? It’s because real life is boring, disappointing, and painful.

My date tomorrow evening is going to be awful, and I’m going to go into it knowing that. I expect nothing but disappointment. However, if even one good thing happens, I will hopefully be able to repeatedly replay that part in my mind until it is all I can remember about that event. If the very slim chance that we end up getting married comes true, then that one positive memory will become the official story of how we met.