What question would you ask on a first date, to know if they are right for you?
Asked by
Haleth (
18947
)
August 2nd, 2014
It’s social, so I’m open to serious or frivolous answers.
A while back I was hanging out with a guy friend. He kept telling all these great stories about his family, like how he and his sister got into a prank war, or how as a little kid, he spent a lot of time in the kitchen hanging out with his mom, and ended up learning how to cook. And he has a lot of close platonic friendships with women. (Including, uh, me.)
I never noticed it before this conversation, but that’s one area where a lot of guys aren’t well-rounded. I’ve met a lot of guys where the only woman they are emotionally close to is their wife or girlfriend, or the only time they’ll spend time with a woman is if they want to date her. They’d do things like travel in packs of 5–10 dudes to hit up bars late at night, call women “females,” or rate them on the 1–10 hotness scale in casual conversation.
I think learning about the other women in his life would be a really effective way to see how a guy will respect you. If he has a lot of guy friends, and no girl friends, or if he hangs out with his dad all the time and only grudgingly tolerates his mom, he might have some issues with women. If you’re on a date with someone, of course you can’t outright ask “do you respect women?” Every guy is going to say yes, in less he’s a serial killer or something. But it could be an important, read between the lines kind of clue.
Another important one would be “have you read any good books lately?” If they don’t have an answer, we probably won’t have much in common!
And also, “Neil Young or Neil Diamond?” There are two types of people in the world. ;)
What would you ask someone?
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9 Answers
Only one question? Impossible! There is no such thing as “right”, and it takes YEARS to really know someone. Sharing common interests are nice but just the frosting on the big cake walk to come, to see if it comes up stale after being on the counter for awhile. lol
“Are you religious?” I know there are plenty of couples in the world who get a long just fine if one of them is religious and the other isn’t, or even if they have two different religions, but I’m not one of those people. I honestly wouldn’t even want to try. Friends, yes. Partners? Not so much.
Would you mind if I didn’t wear makeup?
Would you like to join me for an easy run Sunday morning?
I agree with @DrasticDreamer – “Are you religious?” would be my number one question and if they answer “Yes”, the follow-up would be “What is your stance on homosexuality, abortion and transsexuals?” Because, lets face it, if they are anti-choice, anti-gay and anti-trans they already hate everything about me. It would be better to know this before starting to date them.
For me, the #1 dealbreaker would be: “do you consider yourself an introvert or an extrovert?” Their answer wouldn’t tell me if they were perfectly compatible for me, but it would narrow down the field considerably. I could never date another extrovert again, and don’t know why I put myself through that torture in the past, but I was naïve to how much my introversion matters to me back in my 20s.
Religion is a big one. Like others mentioned, I don’t understand how people who truly believe what their religion teaches can be in a committed relationship with someone who believes something different, and thus is doomed to hell for eternity. I know a lot of people who are Jewish/Christian interfaith marriage, but how do you teach your kid, “Mommy believes that Christ was the Messiah and dies to atone the sins of humanity, and only those who believe this will go to heaven; but daddy believes that the Messiah has not yet arrived, and only those born or converted to Judaism are the ‘Chosen Ones’.” There has to be some degree of hypocrisy for people to think that their deity would make an exception for their spouse. As an agnostic who is highly doubtful that there is a sentient being and we are “The Sims”, if a guy I was considering dating said they went to worship services regularly that was a deal-breaker for me.
A more modern issue is how they feel about the internet and social networking or sites like Fluther, where we share information about ourselves. I know people for whom the smartphone created a whole bunch of problems in their relationships, because one partner wasn’t comfortable with the other being online and disclosing personal information to a bunch of strangers around the web. Some folks just don’t understand how you can form a bond with people you’ve never met and probably never will. People would be active, then suddenly they’d disappear and only poke their heads in once in a while because the SO didn’t approve of their online activities. The people I know whose SO’s disapproved would then have to sneak or outright deny themselves something that they enjoyed, and I don’t think that’s right. Granted, some people are ‘addicted’ to the attention they get on social sites, so it can be a legitimate sign of some psychological problems.
I really like what you said about the guy and his relationship with women, and it’s something I never considered; but I have always recommended that people pay attention to how their potential partner treats the members of their family, but also service people and others in the public. Like @downtide, I could not be with someone who is prejudiced. Although I am a heterosexual, white female, I have friends from a wide variety of backgrounds and lifestyles, and any partner of mine has to be compassionate and respectful of people who are different than ourselves.
He’s one-in-a-million, because my fiancé meets all the above criteria – it was the smartphone social network (not a dating site) that brought us together!
“What do you think is most wrong with this country?” The answer to that would tell me a lot of the person and their values.
If i had one question, and only one question to ask a woman I felt was right for me (which she really would not be unless she answered the question correctly but people fool themselves all of the time) would be this:
“Who is the Lord of your life?”
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