CRUSHES

You’ve been crushing on this guy for weeks. You text each other all the time and used to see each other in school every day, but when the time comes for your first date things don’t go quite as planned. Conversation is slow, you feel extremely nervous, he seems uninterested…yikes! A million and one things are going wrong and you don't know what to do. Here’s a list of ways on how to recover from an anything-but-spectacular date.

Don’t blame yourself.
We all have off days, days where we just aren’t ourselves or in the best of moods, so give yourself a break! You may think that you said the wrong thing or were too shy, but chances are that none of those things matter and he might not have even noticed. Once you two spend more time together you'll become more relaxed, and if that doesn’t happen, then maybe you aren't meant for each other.

Don’t blame him. 
If you think that *he* was the one having an off day, cut him some slack! He was probably just as nervous as you. Again, if you keep hanging out one-on-one in person, you both will feel more at ease around one another.

Plan a different kind of date.
If you went out to dinner and conversation didn't come quite as naturally as you expected, do a different activity together. Go to a baseball game or a museum. At the least, you guys will have something to focus on if conversation stops flowing at any point. Alternatively, you could go to the movies and discuss the movie afterwards. Ultimately it’s all about doing things that make you both happy and comfortable. 

Take things slower.
When it comes to the first date, we all tend to get a little *too* eager. There’s this unnecessary pressure to go all out, like having a three-course meal or watching the sunset together. Try to keep things simple and work up to a big romantic date. Keep it lowkey in the beginning: grab some ice cream, walk around the park or just hang out on the playground. The more you get to know each other, the less intimidating those big dates will seem.

In the end, one bad date does not need to be the end of the world or the end of the relationship, so keep trying! 

Have you had a bad date recently? How did you recover? Let us know in the comments below!

by Frannie Rooney | 7/27/2017