New Dating Rules Slash First-Date Follow-up Times
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You go on a date and 1.52 days later you haven’t gotten a text, call or email to arrange a second date?
Sorry love-seeker, the object of your desire is just not that into you.
Modern technology, reports online dating site Match.com, has changed the rules of the question that has bedeviled so many men and women, and ended so many relationships before they even had a chance: how soon do you follow up?
The invasion of cell phones, email and more into relationships has apparently cut the traditional “three-day rule” of how long one should wait in half.
The site’s new LoveGeist survey found that after a first date on a Saturday evening, most daters will get in touch by 11:48am on Monday with a call or text, thus 1.52 days is now the average time spent waiting for a follow up message.
“The three-day rule might have worked when all we had were landlines, but technology has revolutionized how we date,” Match.com relationship expert Kate Taylor told the Daily Mail. “When everybody takes their mobile phone everywhere, waiting three days to get in touch just makes you look snooty or, worse, like you have run out of credit.”
Technology may have changed the need to wait by the phone for days on end for a call, but the image of the girl as the one waiting by the phone has not.
The survey found 22 percent of women wait to be contacted first after a date, while just 5 percent of men waited for a call after meeting someone.
The men who do follow up better act fast, or risk losing out. A woman’s impatience is another factor that even cell phones, iPads and email has not changed.
In the LoveGeist survey, 28 percent of women said they would sever contact if they didn’t hear from their romantic interest the first time around.
Taylor’s advice, for all genders then? Keep it simple.
“If you like someone and want another date the best thing to do is send a brief, charming text asking if they’d like to meet up again, or call them,” she said. “Keep it short and very sweet.”