Nearly 1 In 3 People Think This Is The Worst Thing You Can Do On A First Date
In person or online, first dates are their own unique source of stress. From the clothes you wear to the place you meet up, everything has the potential to be a wrong move. But as most people can tell you, it's possible to recover from first date mistakes. Well, most first date mistakes.
There are some that are almost impossible to get over, and Health Digest wanted to find out what those were. So we did what we always do: We put up a poll for our readers. We gave them five options to choose from, plus a sixth option where they could write in their own answers. In the end, 527 people cast their vote, and the results were clear.
Over 30 percent of people (32.64 percent to be exact) said the same thing: The worst thing you can do on a first date is not be yourself. And while HuffPost might have some beef with this advice, eHarmony is all about it.
But what does 'Be yourself' even mean?
Most people who don't like the "Be yourself" advice point to the fact that it's pretty vague. And it is, especially when you compare it to the second most common answer on our poll, "Oversharing", which a little over 20% of people voted for. Other answers like "Drink too much" (16.32 percent), "Come on too strong" (15.37 percent), and "Be late" (11.39 percent) are even more specific.
But when you read through suggestions like those on the eHarmony site, the advice of "Be yourself" really isn't that vague. Tips like "Dress in a way that makes you feel confident and comfortable" give clear guidance. And the suggestion to "Resist getting caught up in pretending ... anything" addresses something that everyone has done on at least one date.
We might pretend to love something we hate, hate something we love, know more than we actually do, or be less informed than we really are. No matter which way we lean, we're pretending to be someone we're not, and that only leads to trouble down the line.
Being yourself might not solve all of your first date woes. But it's a good place to start. Or you can take the advice most commonly added as the write-in option on our poll. After looking at all five possible problems, almost 4%of people voted "All of the above".