How to Make Sure You Have a Perfect First Date

Dating can be incredibly exciting, particularly the first date. It is a lot like setting out on an exciting journey and having no idea where it is going to end up! Consequently, it can also be a little daunting and we know those pre date butterflies can sometimes put you off your A-Game! But relax, we have the top tips to take the stress out of dating and enable you to relax and have some fun!

 

Keep It Real

We understand that you will be eager to present the very best version of yourself, but we also urge you to keep it real! Making an effort is laudable, so be on time, dress up and be polite…but don’t be tempted to change your personality in an attempt to impress! You’re great as you are, so just be…And whilst it is good to be confident about your attributes, take care not to be self indulgent! Being interested in the other person will give off good vibes and enable you to discover their best attributes.

Leave the past where it belongs…

Hopefully you will recognise that you are at the start of a new journey, not ending an old one. Therefore don’t see this as your opportunity to vent about a previous relationship that went sour. Furthermore, you don’t need to know all the details of your date’s relationship history. Enjoy the art of conversation, this is not an interview. Relax and have fun, you may not see the person again…but at least you can enjoy the moment.

Questions are the source of all knowledge…

Yes, we stated that a date is not an interview, but questions are the key to enabling conversations. Great questions relate to travel, hobbies, films or books! It seems cliched but these trinkets of information can give you an insight into a person’s life and whether you share similar values.

Real life Dating vs Free Online Dating

Are you better at interfacing digitally rather than physically? It is a common problem, swiping this way or that is easy, but offline dating requires a little more social etiquette. Mai Tai Dating urges you to slow down the pace, beauty is more than skin deep so take some time to really get to know the person. At Mai Tai our matchmakers work hard to ensure you are not left feeling underwhelmed and for your peace of mind, all members have verified ID, which means you should only meet with like-minded professional people.

Happy Dating xxxxx

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Singles in London know the struggle is real. How do you make meaningful connections with other professionals who have the same outlook on life and want the same things without resorting to the dodgy dating apps that match you with completely unsuitable dates?

How to ditch the dodgy dating apps and meet someone in London

Everyone I talk about their love life knows the peril of these apps. While singles spend 10 hours on average browsing, swiping and matching on dating apps, only 11% of those matches lead to an actual date. Plus, when they get to that date, most singles complain that the person they’re meeting doesn’t really match the person on the profile. That means most of those 10 hours are being wasted, and who has that time to waste in their life? 

Swiping Efficiency

If I’ve just saved you 10 hours of swiping, that’s 10 hours you can spend on meaningful interactions. I know that you’re probably already considering how those hours could be invested in making your CV even more impressive to get that well-deserved pay rise, but prioritising dating is key if you really want to meet that special someone.

Meeting people who might turn out to be date material is tricky. This is partly why many of us embraced dating apps in the first place – they offered opportunities to meet people who were purportedly on the same page. Yet we know that isn’t always the truth, so it’s time to go back to basics and aim to meet people in non-dating settings. After all, meeting new people isn’t confined to those singles nights we dread. 

Positive Mindset

We already know that dating in a busy city like London is tough, so it’s important to adjust your mindset and be that person who makes an effort and reaches out to others. Remember, you’re saving the time you used to waste on those dating apps, so you can afford to do this.

Small actions can trigger something special. Why not arrive early when you’re meeting friends on the off chance you could chat with someone new at a bar or an event? If you’re a naturally shy person, taking up a new hobby where there are often icebreakers built-in could be your way of breaking through the noise and making a connection with someone.

Have a listen to Mel Robbins tips about adjusting your mindset. 

Tone Down your Shallow Hal

Don’t get me wrong – I’m not suggesting that you should settle for someone who doesn’t fulfil you and isn’t the kind of person you want to spend your life with. Even so, we go into dating scenarios with so many expectations and red lines that we’re already dismissing a huge portion of the dating pool due to preconceived notions about what we do and don’t want.

This works both ways too. You might have been on the receiving end of some harsh questioning in the past about where you live and what job you do, with the implication that you’ve chosen somewhere cheap to live and have a boring job title because you’re not ambitious. Having answers to those questions is important, but it’s also important that you don’t see them as deal-breakers when you talk to someone else. After all, how many people choose their job title if they work for a large company in the heart of London?

If you have too many deal breakers, you’ll end up with no one left to choose from. For professionals over 30, for example, it’s normal to have an extra few pounds, maybe a few kids and a failed marriage behind them. Don’t necessarily hold their divorce against them – at least they tried and, if it didn’t work out, that might be because they’re perfect for you instead. 

Balance Your Personal & Professional Life

Something else I’ve encountered quite a bit is the adversarial date. Many singles are success-driven and focused on their professional lives. If they take that competitive nature into the world of dating, they’re forever trying to “beat” their date in relation to salary, skills, knowledge and all manner of other things. There’s a lot to be said for putting your adversarial nature to one side for the evening and being more soft, vulnerable and open to a conversation rather than debate. Try it! You might be pleasantly surprised by the results.

Here we discuss the highs and lows of meeting people in real life (IRL) even if you’re a busy professional.

Online dating can sometimes be a trap. There are so many platforms to choose from and messaging back and forth is so easy, we can forget that signing out of the app and meeting people in real life is the end goal.  And then there’s good ol’ fashioned meeting straight-up offline. It’s something we don’t hear so much anymore as the prevalence and ease of dating apps have made us squeamish about approaching strangers.

Romantic Rejection

Life would be way easier if we weren’t so scared of rejection. There are few people in the world that don’t fear and hate it and they seem to be on a different planet or vibrating at a different frequency (or maybe both). The rest of us mortals live our lives in fear of being laughed at, scoffed at or given the cold shoulder. Rejection doesn’t kill but it sure does hurt, and when we’ve made ourselves vulnerable in a potentially romantic situation that feeling is exacerbated to the max. And then 100x more if we’re in a public place with people around and no smartphone screen to protect us. With that in mind, it’s not hard to understand why we do less of the IRL stuff when we have access dating apps that buffer the dent to our ego. I’m as shy as any of you but if there’s any advice I can give about approaching someone IRL it would be:

• If you get an ‘I’m not interested’ try not to take it personally – when we get rejected it’s usually not because we did something wrong so don’t let that get to you. As this HuffPost article says, ”When we begin to believe there is something wrong with us, or that the other person is out to get us, or worse, that the harsh judgment being passed on is right, the world can begin to feel isolated, cold and restrictive.” Try your best not to succumb.
• A cool response is better than an angry one – Apologize if you think you may have overstepped any boundaries and don’t take offence to their indifference. Who knows, they may very well come around and approach once they get comfortable with the idea of talking to a stranger.
• Get positive reinforcement – Rejection can be terribly destabilizing. Don’t hesitate to contact your friends (or us) for a morale boost.

Dinner Parties, Running Clubs & Meet-Up’s

If you have the emotional bandwidth and time to socialise outside of your usual friendship circle then I totally suggest you meet people offline. That’s the best way. If you don’t have the emotional bandwidth and/or time and/or the desire to meet strangers you can outsource the search to us. This is the second-best way. If you have the emotional bandwidth, time and are OK with strangers, take up a new hobby. This is the third-best way. If you have plenty of time to spare but don’t want to meet strangers IRL you can use dating apps and online dating platforms. This is the last-best way because it’s emotionally draining, requires a tonne of your highly valuable and irreplaceable time, and your return on investment is paltry because few quality dates actually materialize.

Meeting Singles In Real Life

The beauty about meeting people IRL is that you won’t get judged severely for your looks. The reason why Mai Tai was set up was to eliminate all of the preconceptions and crazy expectations that are formed from a short profile. I’m sure you’ve seen our hashtag #MeetThePersonNotTheirProfile but it’s still really hard. We are visual creatures and I can’t fault anyone for that. But when we meet IRL we see so much more than just your face and outfit. By meeting offline we can get a feel for how you ingest and digest information, how you communicate your feelings or thoughts, and what those feelings and thoughts might be. People don’t just communicate with words; we communicate with the way we say the words and our mannerisms. In the future I don’t want to have profile photos for Mai Tai but profile videos only accessible to potential matches where I ask you a question and you’re recorded hearing it, thinking about it, and answering it. There’s a lot happening in those few seconds and they speak volumes.)

Where Can I Meet Singles In London If I’m Not Out Clubbing?

But where to meet? A lot of people will tell you to go where you enjoy yourself. That’s a bad idea. If you are a woman who wants to meet a man and you enjoy taking flamenco and baking classes, hanging out at the spa, and going for afternoon tea – guess what? – you’re going to be out of luck because men rarely do those types of things. You are also out of luck if you’re a straight man who wants to meet a woman but doesn’t have social hobbies that are also frequented by women. You need to go where the people you want to date hang out. Think about the Attraction Venues that will work for you. There are four types:

• Public Settings: This includes the park, supermarket, bank or post office.
• Singles Venues:  Such as singles bars and dating events.
• Interest groups: These places allow you to meet people who share similar interests.
• Passion Settings: This is where your chances of connecting are very high because people who share a passion already have a great deal of deep connection around a subject, which can evolve into a lot of common ground for the first dates.

Passion settings include your place of worship, favourite charity or a social cause you believe in. Remember: If you’re awesomely single keep on being awesome but if you’re terribly single…don’t just stand there; do something!

Happy Dating xo