This Is 25% Of People's Biggest Worry During A First Date

There's a reason that first dates are the butt of so many jokes and bad romcom plots. First dates are hard. They're usually stressful, sometimes messy, and usually loaded with expectations. There are a million things to coordinate before you even get to the date, leaving some people frazzled before the night even gets started. And of course the date itself comes with its own set of worries.

Some mistakes are avoidable, of course. But there are some concerns that are so universal that they're not really the sort of thing you can avoid. Things like your date's bad breath or not knowing how to say goodbye at the end of the night. Or, worse yet, conversations that always seems to flop or have no spark, no matter how hard you try. And what happens if you're ready for date number two but your date bows out?

None of these are the sort of thing you can control but they are things most people worry about. We at Health Digest wanted to find out which of these concerns weighed heaviest on our readers. And after more than 500 of you responded, we have our results.

We gave our readers six options to choose from, one of which was a write-in option labeled 'Other.' The first five included awkward goodbyes, no chemistry, rejection, bad breath, and awkward conversation. Of the responses, only around 6% chose 'Other' and most of those answers were variations on one of two themes. Either the respondents don't date or they try not to let anything worry them when they're seeing someone for the first time.

The other 94% of respondents were pretty strongly divided with two options taking most of the votes by far. Less than 3% of people were worried about an awkward goodbye which left rejection, a lack of chemistry, and awkward conversion as the top three. When we compared the number of responses, we were surprised by the results.

Almost 39% of our readers worry about awkward conversation which wasn't a surprise. Without a decent conversation you can't really get to know the person. What did surprise us was that rejection came in third with just over 15% of the votes. It turns out that a lack of chemistry is more important, worrying a full 25% of respondents. More than being rejected, they worried about being out on a date with someone that they just didn't click with.

There is some comfort in that. It might not matter as much what you order or if you say something a little awkward. So long as there's chemistry, you might have a shot at a second date.