I read this when I started dating again

I’m the kind of guy who gets very into everything I do, dating included.

When I started online dating last year, I started to read this book called “How to not die alone” by Logan Ury.

I first heard of this book a few years back, but it wasn’t relevant for me back then.

But last year, somehow Youtube recommended a video where the author of the book went on a podcast, and I thought the way she shared certain concepts was very insightful. So I decided to give her book a try.

At first I wanted to borrow from NLB but apparently there are like 90 in the queue.

HELLO SO MANY PEOPLE WANT TO BORROW IT LOL.

In the end I just went ahead to Kinokuniya and bought the book. Overall, it took me a few days to finish it.

There were many “nuggets of wisdom” within the book, Logan used quite a number of psychological research to back up her points, which made sense and sounded pretty legit. Given that I already studied Psychology back in university, some concepts weren’t foreign to me, but the way she related them to the dating context was pretty refreshing.

For today, I’d just talk about one particular concept from the book that really stuck with me.

In her book, she discussed various behavioral biases that can impact our dating lives, one of which is the default bias.

Default bias, also known as the status quo bias, refers to the human tendency to prefer things to stay the same rather than change. This bias leads people to stick with what they know and feel comfortable with, even if it may not be the best choice for their long-term happiness or success.

Logan gave the example that one default bias that we have in online dating is that we usually stop at the first date if the first date didn’t meet our expectations. She suggested the idea of not stopping at just the first date but making it a default to go on at least two dates with a new person. This allows us to give potential partners a fair chance and avoid making quick judgments based on a single interaction.

Her reasoning was that first dates can be awkward or nerve-wracking, and people might not show their true selves. By committing to a second date, you give both yourself and the other person another opportunity to relax and show more of who you really are.

The two-date rule helps break the pattern of defaulting to quick decisions based on first impressions, which might be influenced by nerves or external factors rather than genuine compatibility.

I don’t disagree with what she has shared.

So I decided to put her suggestion into practice.

There was a girl (I’d just call her RFG for now; red flag girl for short; with all due respect), whom I didn’t have a pleasant first date with. I won’t go into details here on the date but maybe I’d do it eventually one day, or never. Long story short, I would have ended at the first date if not for Logan. But I decided to give it another try and go on another date with RFG.

But boy, was that one of the worst decisions in my life. It might be a story for another time.

Ever since then, because of this experience, I never went on a second date with someone else if things didn’t work out well on the first date.

Of course, in research terms, it is too low of a sample size for the results to be significant.

While the suggestion didn’t work out well for me, hopefully it might work out well for you.

With that said, I am curious about your dating experiences, what is your default approach? Is it the usual one-date approach or do you do at least two dates before making a final decision? Or do you spend even more time/dates to figure out if you are compatible?

I am still pretty new to the whole dating scene so feel free to share any experiences/tips for this noob.

Arigatougamxiamida.

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