Don’t overthink it, on early dates, says Simran Mangharam

Ignore the hashtags, ‘trends’ and online quizzes. The rules have always been the same: be honest, be kind, and don’t try to rush it.

I have been working with a fair number of clients lately who seem overwhelmed and confused by the dating process. I know a lot has changed, and people tend to be more vocal and quicker to judge. I know this can be quite unsettling.

Reclining Couple Reading a Letter, circa 1820s, attributed to Kikugawa Eizan.

But… it can help to acknowledge that the arc of a romantic relationship is not that different from the arc of any new venture one embarks upon.

One sets out with excitement, attentiveness, urgency; curiosity, nervousness, caution. As things settle down, comfort and familiarity set in. If one is lucky, one reaches a stage of stability and confidence.

The transition between these stages, in the dating context, should ideally occur gradually, as two people get to know each other, build tolerance for each other’s quirks and peccadilloes, and build up enough love to accommodate touches of imperfect temper and mood.

As I talk to clients about their fears and confusion, I have noticed that too many are attempting to rush the early stages. I see about 80% of my single clients muddy the waters by bringing committed-relationship behaviour into the courtship phase. By date three or four, they have become either too meek or too demanding; clingy or negligent.

There are some who argue that they can only “pretend to be perfect” for so long. Which alarms me, because pretence should play no part in it.

The point of those early dates is to be the best version of oneself. There is certainly a tacit understanding that no one is unfailingly that nice or interesting or kind. But it is assumed that the traits on display do exist in the person.

One is not meant to walk in wearing a mask.

After all, the point of the dates is to get to know one another. How can a romance be kindled, and eventually sustained, if two people have only seen some gift-wrapped, ornamental version of each other?

As I sought to untangle the issue further, I decided to examine the masks that clients went in with. I have found that many are basing their personas on ideas of what is and isn’t desirable, drawn from clickbait Reels and stories online.

This kind of content isn’t new. Sadly, young people take the quizzes and listicles and other sorts of checklists too seriously. Today these are far more accessible, and persistent. But the truth is, they are generic to the point of being meaningless. They have never helped

Take Rishi, 25, a marketing executive in Bengaluru. He has a reasonably active dating life, but they are almost all first dates. No one ever calls him back, he says. And all he is is nice.

It turns out, he was misunderstanding the term “nice”. He read a series of online articles that suggested that “today’s women” expect a man to “always be understanding”.

So, over four months, he sat and waited without complaint as dates turned up late, spent part of their evening on the phone, or stood him up altogether. Some of those who stood him up resurfaced, days later, and he told them he was happy to reschedule.

We are now working to decode why he felt compelled to follow the vague advice he encountered; and why he interpreted it the way he did. We are talking about the importance of finding ways to express oneself, whether in times of joy or displeasure and disappointment.

The key, he is seeing, is balance. Which brings me to my three top tips for those in the eddies of the dating world. 1. Aim for honesty and balance. They make things so much simpler. 2. Don’t overthink it. Allow logic and decency to guide you. Chances are, you will find it all less daunting. 3. Do not trust an internet guru on matters of right and wrong. I’d be willing to bet no one in the history of our species ever found love that way.

(Simran Mangharam is a dating and relationship coach and can be reached on simran@floh.in)