Magazine: Meeting for the first time

The first impression is very important when meeting someone for the first time: only if both parties are attracted to one another will they be motivated to meet for a second time. It is very easy to spoil things on the first occasion, e.g. one must pay attention which topics NOT to discuss (money, politics, religion, etc.). Talking about previous relationships isn’t a good idea either. It is best to avoid other ‘extreme’ topics too, for instance death and mourning. Engineer John is 44 years old and he raises his 7-year-old son alone, because a few years ago his wife died from an illness. Unfortunately John talked about the details of this sad story at every first date he went on. The women he met concluded that John was unable to get over this tragedy yet and didn’t want a second date. He took my advice not to bring this topic up in detail anymore and now he lives in a happy relationship! Single and pretty 39-year-old Marika is a fervent supporter of animals. At first dates she hardly talked about anything else but animal rights and rescuing cats and dogs. Obviously men didn’t want a second date. She asked my opinion on why men never wanted to meet her for a second time, so I asked the men’s opinions she went on dates with. They told me that they do love animals, but talking about them all the time is boring as the world is full of many other exciting things. Based on this feedback Marika changed her communication. She soon met a man who also likes animals and she has been going out with him for months now.