Can we talk blind dates and follow-up dates?

[achase123]

Since it's slow I thought we could discuss. So I have this theory about blind dates. The ones that I've experienced have been horrible, OR they have been misleading.

What I mean by misleading is, often times I'm so relieved that the date is semi-normal and things are going semi-well, that I give the situation more credit than I normally would. I've had this happen a handful of times, most recently this week.

I went out with this guy who I was set up with by mutual friends. We went out Sunday night and had a good time, although he's VERY short, which bothered me (call me shallow, but that's the honest truth). But other than that we had fun, he had a good sense of humor, no lack of things to talk about, etc.

Then we set up a second date for last night. I wasn't overly excited about it (which was telling) but I figured I'd give it another shot. It was fine, but it was definitely not as good as the first date because it was almost like this "pressure". With the first date it was kind of like "well, this is a relief, he's not a crazy and I'm enjoying myself" whereas the second date felt more like I needed to assess if I actually liked him or not. Which unfortunately it's the latter.

What does SO say? Have you had this happen a lot in your experience? I can think of at least two other times this has been the case and things really went downhill after the first date.

[starburst604]

Yes I think I experienced this to some degree when I started online dating. (to me those dates are "blind"). I definitely felt I had a 2nd date curse because I would hate the 2nd date more often than not. Probably for the same reason you did. Either that or they just let their crazy out then.

[blackkitty]

I haven't been on very many blind dates so I'll just comment on dating in general. I think for me the expectations are lower on a first date than on a second. I think you are right that with a first date if he seems normal and I have a decent time I'll usually go on a second date. But like last night I went on a second date and I expected "more" than the first. And it fell way flat. I don't really know what happened and I won't be going out with him again.
I definitely expect more "sparks" on a second date for it to progress to a third.

[mandimija]

I've had good and bad experiences with blind dates (all two of them). One was meh. Nice guy but no chemistry. The second one went well, and we had a few more after that. Unfortunately, the timing just sucked.

I agree that the first date I'm usually trying to figure out if I actually like them. The second and third (and up to fifth) are spent figuring out if I want a relationship.

[Deleted]

Yeah, I've had that with online dating. If I'm ever single again, I just won't even go with that route any more, I think.

[redredwine]

I agree with alot of the PP and that was really what I felt when I first started dating again. If the date was even somewhat decent, I gave it much more credit than I should have.