4 Things You Should Never Do When You First Start Dating

The embryonic stage of your courtship, relationship or whatever you call it when you first start dating is quintessentially the most important time. While you’re excited to have met someone new or actually moving on to a new part of your life, it’s a time where you have to make sure you don’t ruin things by getting too far ahead of yourself. There’s nothing that anyone can do about what goes on in your head about your new dating adventure, but the goal is to keep those things from coming out. Once those thoughts turn into actions, things go awry. Here are the Five Things You Should Never Do When You First Start Dating:

1. Facebook stalk them
It seems as though most people’s first reaction to meeting someone and finding out their last name is to immediately “friend” them on Facebook. After the friendship is complete, ladies go straight into your pictures looking for any recurring faces… like your ex-girlfriend. The men go straight into your pictures looking for Spring Break pictures. Both of these are wrong. Facebook is a great social networking tool, but it shouldn’t replace good old-fashioned getting to know one another.
2. Follow them on twitter
Think for a moment what Twitter is about. It’s a status updating platform for people to tell the world everything they’re thinking. While it may seem like a good idea to follow the person you just started dating, don’t you think that’s rushing the process a bit? When people tweet, they don’t necessarily tweet from the heart. There’s also a loss of tone. How do you know if he or she is actually joking around or playing with their friends? You can easily misinterpret them to be a jerk or rude when in reality you just crashed their @’s trying to get an inside scoop.
3. Ask invasive questions
Ask anybody who knows me and they’ll tell you that I believe in boundaries. I’m a little more complex than most guys because I’m very careful not to ask questions that would lead to similar questions being asked back. With that said, when you start to ask questions like, “Why did you break up with your ex-girlfriend?” on the first date, or “So I wanted to ask you about [that embarrassing story from college that they’ve somehow uncovered by doing a deep dive on your past],” you’re way out of line. When people ask me when is the right time to bring up the tough questions, I always say, “When they’re necessary, not when you feel like you need to know.”
4. Rush things
The easiest way to get to a meaningful relationship is to develop the relationship organically. Organically means naturally and at a normal pace without any additives. I understand that no one likes idle time. I also understand that people are goal-oriented. But for Pete’s sake, don’t rush the relationship! Take your time, give both yourselves time to want to be in the midst of a relationship. You can’t go from dinner on Friday night, to an early morning text about brunch on Saturday, to “how do you feel about going to 12 o’clock service with me on Sunday?” Take your time, you’ll scare the other person away if you start smothering them out the gate.