Ending Your Dates with Style Rather Than Awkwardness

by Krynnster

I'm going to share with you a little closing "technique" that has worked for me many times. The technique (soon to be known as the "K Finesse") is based on the assumption that the best way to diffuse a bomb is to set it off.

[... cut to a starry weeknight somewhere in San Diego county...]

First date with a honey I met over the 'net. We sit in a coffee-shop/bookstore type of place and talk. It's going pretty well. I find her attractive and I can tell she feels more-or-less the same about me. But it's also obvious that both of us are still trying to figure out if we're interested.

At some point during the conversation, the topic of blind-dating / Internet-dating comes up. She asks me if I've been doing this a lot lately and I tell her that I did it a couple of times, but haven't found someone I could really click with yet. Then I bring up the topic of "closing".

I: "You know, whenever you're meeting someone for the first time, there's this awkward moment at the end of the date when you have to decide whether you want to make something out of it or not..."

She: "Yeah."

I: "And you know? I don't understand why it has to be like that. I mean, why does it have to be awkward? I don't like playing the guessing game with people. I usually just tell the girl if I want to see her again or not."

She: "So if you don't like her you just blow her off? Just like that?"

I: "Well... I'm not going to be mean to her, but... yep... I'm going to blow her off. She's a grown-up woman. It's not going to destroy her... even though I understand I am a terrible thing to lose".

She (laughing at the smartass remark): "You're a smartass, but I guess you're right."

I: "Yeah I guess I am. Now, I'm curious to know what do you do when you don't like someone?"

She: "I usually don't return his phone calls."

I: "Oh... this is cruelty! I mean... you know that some guys out there are completely clueless and wouldn't understand this subtle hint... they will call you and call you and call you until your phone dies..."

She: "Tell me about it!"

So we laugh and have a good time telling each other how stupid these little games are and then I move the conversation on to a completely different topic.

The great thing is that now, when that "awkward" moment comes, it's not going to be awkward at all. If I don't like her, I can tell it straight to her face and she'll take it like a man (ooops, bad pun), and if I do like her she will probably tell me straight away whether she's interested or not.

Moving back to that bookstore date, when I walked her to her car at the end of date she asked me, "Are you going to blow me off now?", and I smiled and said, "Not at all. But are you going to return my phone calls?" She said "Yes".

So you see, with the right words, you can turn this big and heavy "closing" issue into something fun and humorous.

Give it a shot.