Hot take: I always left after one drink on first dates, then a guy in Phoenix changed my mind
For about a year I had a strict rule where I left every first date after one drink if it felt off in the first 20 minutes, and I thought that was smart. Last Friday I met a guy at a spot in Phoenix and almost bailed at minute 15 because he was super quiet, but the place was packed so I stayed for a second round. Turns out he was just nervous and once he warmed up we talked for 3 hours about his job restoring old pinball machines. Now I think my one drink rule was really just me avoiding awkward silences, and I probably missed out on some good people. Has anyone else cut a date short too fast and wished they had stayed?
This is the same thing people do with jobs, apartments, friends, everything. We make these little rules to protect ourselves from wasting time and then the rules end up running our lives. I see it everywhere now, people swiping past someone in two seconds, walking out of a store if the line is too long, bailing on plans because the first ten minutes felt weird. We've all gotten so scared of a little awkward silence that we treat it like a warning sign instead of just, you know, normal. Some of the best stuff in my life came from sitting through the boring part first, the nervous part, the part where nobody knows what to say yet. You didn't have a dating rule, you had a rule about not giving things a real chance.