Advice from three of our guy friends. This week they answer the following: “What’s the number one turn-off on a first date for a guy?”
Straight Married Guy (Matt): Bad breath. That would be it for me with the first whiff — any chance of relationship: done. Most other things (obviously outside of racism/being a horrible person/etc.) are probably surmountable.
Gay Committed Guy (Terence): Just offer to chip in for the dinner, coffee, popcorn, whatever. You don’t have to mean it. You can even be broke. Just treat it as a gesture of courtesy. I swear, I’ll judge you more on this than anything else. Who cares who asked who out? A courtesy offer to pay for something, however small, at some point during the date shows what level of consideration you’ll show in other areas of the relationship — not that I’ve dated recently, of course.
Straight Single Guy (Colin Adamo): If you don’t keep an open mind for at least this first date, we probably won’t ask for a second. It’s our fault if we’re the boring ones who don’t ask you to try something new or be a bit spontaneous (and if that’s the case than you should probably ditch us). But if we’re excited to try something, your enthusiasm should match. I don’t mean that you actually have to do anything truly adventurous on the first date; you just have to let us think that you might be open to things in the future. If you’re up for trying a weird dish on the menu, then we’re going to think that next time you might be up for skinny dipping in a pool that we pass, or maybe skydiving one day or even having a threesome with us way down the line. We’ll keep coming back for more to see if you’re still ready for excitement. But if we get the vibe that you’re never up for anything new or exciting we won’t stick around for the snoozefest to come. Keep your mystery about you and don’t tell us everything, but let it be known that everything and anything could happen.
Our “guys” are a rotating group of contributors. Colin Adamo is an undergrad at Yale University where he directs the biennial Sex Week at Yale; Terence is an American living in Sydney; Matt is a little shy. To ask the guys your own question, click here.
