Make A Good First Impression: How Much Should You Reveal On A First Date?

On a first date, we rarely get the real version of the other person.
We get the “first date” version—a polished, cleaned-up human being whose secrets and flaws are usually kept hidden in the hopes of making a good impression.
It’s totally normal to omit certain things about yourself on a date, especially if you find that you like the girl you’re with.
In the beginning, you should try and present your best self, because you haven’t created enough comfort to bare it all.
Only after a few months can you reveal that you have a spare bedroom filled with video games and action figures that you call your Batcave, or that you actually really like the band City and Colour.
The point is, you don’t want to give a girl a reason to deduct points before she gets to know you.
There’s nothing wrong with having weird or unique hobbies, but when a girl barely knows you, it may be all she has to make judgments about who you are.
In these kinds of situations, it’s just better to withhold certain things.
Don’t feel guilty about it either. Girls do it too.
In fact, girls probably do it as much if not more than guys do.
Some of it comes in the form of withholding information about their lives, and in other cases, it comes in the form of carefully done make-up or a push-up bra.
It’s an entirely different situation after you’ve been dating for a few months and she comes over in a t-shirt with no makeup on.
You’ve accepted each other as people at that point, and there is very little reason to hide who you both are.
There is also a flirtatious, mysterious element to keeping certain things to yourself in the very beginning.
Maybe you don’t have a nerd closet or listen to sappy music, but it can be equally as disappointing or off-putting if you tell someone your life story within the first two hours of meeting.
Girls, in general, like to feel like a relationship is blossoming organically, not as if they’re being force-fed a heaping helping of you every time you hang out.
You should almost feel a little stingy with how much you want to tell her about you, almost like you’re trying to get her to ask questions about you.
When a girl asks questions about you on a date, it is almost always a sign that she’s interested, but if you tell her everything there is to know about your life, it won’t give her an opportunity to figure things out on her own.
The key is to take it slow and preserve a little bit of mystery for a while to keep her wondering about you.
However, if you feel like you might have something in common, feel free to talk about whatever it is.
This is a scenario where it can help to talk a little bit about yourself, mainly because it will help with forming a connection.
Don’t overdo it, or else you’ll seem insincere or like you’re trying too hard to relate to her.
But if she tells you that she loves tattoos and you have a couple yourself, it probably wouldn’t hurt to mention them.
Plus, everyone knows that tattoos, their meanings and where they’re located can become the material for a deep, potentially attraction-building conversation.
On the other hand, if tattoos don’t come up at all, and you have one somewhere that she can’t see, it may be worth saving.
It’ll be one more surprise for her when you start tearing each other’s clothes off, and she’ll wonder why you didn’t tell her about it.
Revealing too much information about yourself can sometimes lower your value because it shows that you’re basically giving it away.
Keep things hidden, even if they aren’t necessarily embarrassing, and it’ll make things more spontaneous, fun and interesting for your date.
Sometimes the biggest displays of confidence come from the things that we don’t say about ourselves.
You might be a very accomplished person with a Ph.D., your own charity, and a pilot’s license, but what makes all of that stuff even more impressive is when you don’t bring it up right away.
It shows that you do these things for personal fulfillment and not to garner the interest of other people.
It’s way more attractive for her to find these things out gradually or through your actions than for you to just tell her about them expecting for her to be impressed.
Girls are extremely intuitive and can tell when something that you’re saying is really just a matter of showing off.
At that point, it doesn’t matter how great of an accomplishment it is; she’ll be turned off by your bragging.
The point is to be careful what you reveal about yourself on a first date.
There are things you should say, and things you shouldn’t, and in each circumstance, there should be a reason for making that choice.
Whether your aim is to appear humble or to seem mysterious and private about your life, you should constantly be deciding what sort of effect talking about yourself may have.
Do you want to appear as someone who is guarded, or who doesn’t let just anyone into their life?
Or do you just want to focus on the moment, and not let your life outside of the date have any effect on how the two of you get along?
Maybe you’re just a lovable weirdo and think you should save all of your eccentricities for when the two of you are irreversibly in love and it doesn’t matter anymore.
Your persona on a date should be you, but it should be a version that is meant to attract and delight the girl you’re with.
Remember, she’s doing the exact same thing because she wants to make a good impression too, so you might as well grab a drink, take a deep breath and get ready to play the game.