The perfect date

Everyone goes on a date at least once in their lives. Sometimes both people know it is a date. Often, only one believes it is a date while the other treats it as a casual meeting. In some rarer cases, both people know it is a date and there are romantic elements involved yet both parties never used the word “date”. Nevertheless, the point remains, indirectly or directly, everyone experiences at least one date with romantic undertones in their life.

Now let’s take a best-case scenario. Assume you have found someone you like. You took the risk. You asked them out. They said yes. Now the question is simple: what do you do? You have choices about where to have this date. A theme park. A movie. A fancy restaurant. In my opinion, none of it matters. I find these possibilities are distractions. 

A theme park would offer you speed, lights, screams and long lines. You'll burn money and a whole day and at the end you'll learn how someone handles a roller-coaster, not really how they handle silence, doubts or ideas. Thrill is not character and the noise of the rides do not reveal anything about a person. Sure, you'll have great memories, but would you understand the person any better? We often structure first dates like carnivals and then complain that love feels like a circus.

The same would apply for a movie date at a cinema. I've always viewed it as two silent people staring forward, watching someone else's story and when it ends, they talk about that story, rather than about each other. Someone's taste in films does not make up their entire personality nor are their analysis and reviews a revelation of who they are entirely. You can leave a movie date knowing nothing about a person except their favorite genre and artistic preferences.

Now a fine restaurant looks romantic but it's expensive, stiff and self-aware. You spend more time measuring your manners and focusing on posture and the price of items than you do in trying to get to know someone's mind and personality. It feels forced and a forced moment cannot reveal a natural bond.

It is my firm view that first dates are not about thrill or spectacle. Rather they are about clarity and honesty. It’s where you choose to see the other person for who they are while they let you see them. This is why it is often said to simply be yourself on a date. You can delude and lie to yourself long enough, but you can’t lie and present an illusion to someone else forever.

The key: simplicity

Rather than having a fancy or an adventurous first date, I argue that the ideal first date is simple. Coffee. A walk in the park. Ice cream. Conversation. The point being it is an activity that allows you to communicate the most. Conversation reveals the intelligence of the mind and character of the heart. A first date where you both sit and talk over coffee is affordable, it’s honest and it’s direct. The activity is secondary, it’s not important, what’s valuable is the engagement, the flow of the conversation, the personality bits you pick up as you talk.

I ask you directly: if you marry someone, what will you do every single day? Not thrill-seeking. Not constant adventure. Not even physical intimacy on a daily basis. But you will communicate, no matter the day, be it a good or a bad day, you will communicate. You will share words, ideas, emotions, arguments, laughter and disagreements. Conversation becomes the daily work of love, the ordinary rhythm that either builds a life together or exposes the absence of one.

Communicate

Man and woman are not created merely to coexist side by side; they are called into a communion of persons, which reaches its highest form in marriage. Communion is impossible without communication: not only verbal, but emotional, intellectual, spiritual, and bodily. So, would it not make sense, already on a first date, to discern whether the two of you can communicate in a way that satisfies both the mind and the heart? If communion is the destination, then communication must be the first step.

If you cannot communicate, if your words fail to stir thought, feeling, or curiosity, then no amusement park, candlelit dinner, or fleeting intimacy will manufacture a bond. A spark is born from understanding, from genuine intellectual and emotional resonance. We cannot love what we do not truly know, and we cannot build love on illusion, convenience or mere sentiment. Emotional excitement may dazzle for a moment, but it can never replace the slow, honest work of knowing and being known.

Sure, some argue that communication improves with time. They are half-right. Communication can grow, but it must have a starting point. Zero multiplied by a hundred is still zero. Thus, there must be a foundation otherwise nothing can grow.

I see the first date as a quiet test of foundations, a test of honesty, courage, and perception. Can you truly see the person in front of you and do they see you? Do your words find each other with ease? Is there room for gentle challenges, for growth, for curiosity? Do they awaken your mind as well as your heart? Do you sense peace, grace, even something faintly divine in their presence? Do your conversations dissolve time rather than strain against it? If yes, there is real potential, something worth exploring with patience and reverence. If not, no amount of money, scenery or carefully scripted effort will manufacture what is not there. 

A holy couple prays together, fasts together, they counsel one another, they visit God in the tabernacle together and share God's table, but first they communicate well with each other and in that process, help each other communicate with God better. Truth be told, if you cannot sit and speak together for hours, you will not survive the years. Why? If two people cannot communicate, they cannot cooperate; and if they cannot cooperate, they cannot love and if they can't love each other, they can't grow in love to God together and if that can't be done, what then is the point of marriage? The point is thus clear, when going on dates with someone you like, focus on communication and let the choice of venue be productive for good conversations.