Should We Really Be Ourselves on a First Date?

By James Lane for Bounceback.com

We all have many different personalities. The one we use at the office with our co-workers. The one we have with our parents and friends, who know us better than anyone. The one we have when it is just us, alone, at home. And the one we have on our dates. Usually, our personalities shift a bit with each different circumstance, but we always stay true to ourselves. Don't we?

When it comes to dating, should we be our real, true self on the first date?

Whether you meet them in a bar, a coffee shop, or online, you did something right enough to have them ask you out on a first date. That, my friends is half the battle. The second (and more important half) is conquering the first date.

Related: 5 Dating Don'ts Learned From Your Cable Company

I don't need to tell you how important the first date is. By now, most have us have been dating for well over ten years, so we know first impressions make lasting impressions. But what happens when those first impressions are false?

I know most of us, even myself more times than not, use the first date to truly impress the other with our charismatic personalities, humorous story telling abilities, and our perfect first date outfit. We put so much time and effort into making the first date great, that we don't really think about the second. Or the third. Or the eleventh.

As humans living in an instant gratification society, we are consumed with the present. The now. So, we tend to date "in the now" and don't think about the consequences to follow. And the one big consequence we face is not being true to our date, or ourselves.

We sit there at dinner or over a glass of wine and use this allotted one hour to make the other person fall in love with us. We speak openly about our positive traits, while hiding the things we never want discovered. We may talk up our job, maybe making it seem we are more important than we actually are. Suddenly being a secretary at a law firm makes us a second-year partner. We are always agreeing our faces off with whatever the other person says, to make it seem we have way more in common than we actually do. "Oh, you like to punch kittens? Me too! I hate those ugly creatures!"

Related: First Date Red Flags You May Be Missing

I am not saying having full disclosure on a first date is necessarily the best way to go, but having false disclosure is not either. We need to be honest with our first date because, down the line when you are on your second, third, or eleventh date, the truth will eventually come out, leaving our courter demanding a refund on their time well wasted.

The first date is supposed to be fun, light, and an easy way to get to know someone. So let them get to know you. The real, fun, personable you. The quirky, clumsy, awkward you. Because you never know, they just might think you are someone special.


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To read more from James, visit his blog Fatal Abstraction .