I'm going out with a 99% match soon. It's my first date ever and I have no idea what I'm doing.

Here's the thing: there isn't a right way to date. There isn't a way to manage it that works as a fail safe catch all, and idiot's guide. Even those of us with a lot of experience and the most epic of personalities still fail to connect sometimes and even things we accept as truths are sometimes just fucking wrong for different types of people.

You don't need a set of correct things to talk about, there isn't a dresscode. You dress for the occasion, the place you're going, the activity you're going to engage in. You talk about your day, the weather, your lives, the things you have in common, and you realize that the sort of person you want in your life is going to forgive a little awkwardness and understand a bit of nerves. She might not, and that's okay.

Perhaps you take her off the 99% match pedestal and remind yourself that success or fail, she will probably not be the last woman in the world to accept or want a date with you. That answering questions on a dating site similarly hasn't made her the one and only last person on the planet with any chance of completing you as a person. She might not, and that's okay.

You'll have a wonderful time, or you'll learn some things about yourself and what does or doesn't work for you in others and how your behavior comes off to strangers (but if you have any friends at all, you probably already kind of know).

Everyone says to relax and to be yourself, but accept that you probably will be nervous and it might take you a moment to hit your stride, if you can find it at all this first time. And. that's. okay.

There isn't a way to pre-emptively fix the mistakes you're bound to make, and the truth of the matter is that regardless of how perfect you look and how engaging you think the topics you bring up or discuss are, she just might not be into it. And that's okay.

What makes life so neat is that you could spend 5 hours together, chatting like besties, and not get a second date -- or have a stilted awkward hour or two and end up humping in the park on date 3.

So hey, show up on time, try to smile, and have fun with the time you have together. It's your first date, not your last.

/r/OkCupid Thread