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Dating Tips

How to Avoid 90% of Bad Dates

You can avoid 90% of bad dates by how you design the moments before the date begins.

By Leo Guinan 4 min read
How to Avoid 90% of Bad Dates

Why most bad dates happen before you ever sit down — and how to fix it.

Most people think a bad date happens on the date.

It doesn’t.

Bad dates happen long before two people meet, created by mismatched expectations, projections, pacing conflicts, and emotional noise — all baked into the encounter before the first hello.

The truth is blunt and liberating:

You can avoid 90% of bad dates by how you design the moments before the date begins.

This isn’t magic.
This is level design.

Let me explain.

🎮 Dating Is a Video Game — Most People Can’t Clear Level 1

Every dating journey has the same imagined endpoint:

  • Love
  • Partnership
  • Stability
  • Shared purpose
  • Long-term resonance

Everyone thinks they know the Final Boss they want to face.

But very few people know how to beat Level 1.

Level 1 isn’t “finding the right person.”
It isn’t “figuring out chemistry.”
It isn’t “making a good impression.”

Level 1 is:

Awareness.
Awareness of yourself, the other person, and the moment you’re both stepping into.

Most people fail Level 1 so catastrophically that they never even get to see what the game could have been.

So let’s start there.

🎯 The First Date Funnel: The Mission Is Simple

Objective: Zero Bad Dates

The first date should do one thing:

Reveal the truth of the moment — nothing more, nothing less.

Not a projection of a future.
Not a premature interview.
Not an audition.
Not a fantasy.
Not a search filter disguised as a conversation.
Not a performance review for “potential partner status.”

Most bad dates happen because someone tries to skip ahead in the story.

They’re jumping ahead to:

  • “Could I marry this person?”
  • “Would they be a good parent?”
  • “Do they fit my checklist?”
  • “Are they the one?”

And the other person is just trying to figure out what to order on the menu.

You cannot play Level 20 while your partner is still loading Level 1.

This is the root of 90% of bad dates.

🧨 The 3 Causes of Bad Dates (and How to Remove Them)

Every bad date comes down to a combination of:

1. Pacing Mismatch

Two humans showing up at different emotional speeds.

One person is cautious, reflective, observing the moment.
The other is running future simulations at 10x speed.

You can’t connect when you’re playing different games.

2. Projection Loops

Most people don’t date the person in front of them.
They date their:

  • fears
  • insecurities
  • old heartbreaks
  • assumptions
  • fantasies
  • stories
  • attachment triggers

This is the source of the classic phenomenon:

“I realized I projected an entire narrative onto them before I even met them.”

Bad date.
Not because of who they were — but who your mind replaced them with.

3. Future Fixation

The plague of modern dating:

“Could this be something?”
before the date even starts.

When you preload the goal, the date becomes a performance, not an experience.

You’re not meeting a person — you’re interviewing for a role.

The moment you shift out of the present and into the hypothetical future, the connection collapses.

🌱 The Fix: Design Level 1 So Well That Bad Dates Become Impossible

If Level 1 is about awareness, then the solution is structural:

Step 1: Sync Pacing Before the Date

Before the meeting, both people should know:

  • “This is a slow, low-pressure discovery.”
  • “We’re not deciding anything today.”
  • “We’re here to experience, not evaluate.”

Pacing alignment removes 60% of bad dates by itself.

Step 2: Reduce Projection With Limited Early Information

Oversharing collapses mystery.
Mystery collapses presence.
Lack of presence collapses connection.

Early-stage connection requires simplicity, not complete autobiography.

Reveal enough to begin, not enough to overwhelm.

Step 3: Treat the First Date as a Moment, Not a Test

The goal is not to:

  • impress
  • convince
  • sell
  • predict
  • strategize
  • assess long-term viability

The goal is:

“Do we enjoy this moment?”

Because if the answer is no, you don’t need the future.
If the answer is yes, the future reveals itself naturally.

This alone removes another 30% of bad dates.

🌀 Why This Works: Stability Before Story

People think love happens through intensity.

It doesn’t.

Love happens through coherence — the feeling that both people are tuning into the same reality at the same pace.

The first date is not for choosing the future.
It’s for syncing nervous systems.

And you cannot sync if you’re:

  • speeding
  • dragging
  • projecting
  • fantasizing
  • catastrophizing
  • performing

You sync by:

  • breathing
  • noticing
  • observing
  • listening
  • staying present
  • enjoying the moment

Connection emerges from the moment, not from the plan.

📊 The KPI: Zero Bad Dates

This idea is radical and simple:

You should never have another bad date again.

You might have:

  • quiet dates
  • neutral dates
  • unexpected dates
  • mismatched dates
  • gently incompatible dates

But “bad dates” disappear when:

  • expectations are synced
  • pacing is matched
  • projection is minimized
  • the moment is centered

Bad dates are not a result of compatibility.
They’re a result of misaligned level design.

Fix the level design, fix the experience.

💡 The Bottom Line

You avoid 90% of bad dates not by choosing better people —
but by creating better conditions.

Better design.
Better pacing.
Better expectations.
Better presence.
Better structure.

First dates aren’t about finding love.

They’re about learning how two nervous systems feel when they occupy the same moment.

If you want better connections,
stop trying to beat the Final Boss
before you’ve mastered Level 1.