So, you’ve met someone and you’ve agreed to go on a date with them.  You’re nervous, but that’s understandable.  It might have been years since you were on the dating scene and you might be dealing with such crushing self esteem issues as body image and feeling tired.

First off, choose an out fit that you’re comfortable in.  You want to look great and you want to feel confident about the way you look.  So take time to select what you’re going to wear.  If you need to buy a new outfit, go ahead and do that.  If you simply fancy a new outfit, hats off to you!  Because we all know, there’s nothing like a shopping trip to give a girl confidence.  While you’re out, get your hair done and get a manicure!  So you’re feeling great…

Be on time.  I know it’s a woman’s prerogative to turn up late, but I personally think it’s highly disrespectful of another person’s time.  So don’t turn up one hour late.  Get your childcare arrangements sorted well in advance.  Don’t start feeling guilty that you’re leaving your little one for a few hours, no matter how they wail just before you step through the door about having a tummy ache, and they will!  Try and think of it this way, you’re allowed to have a life outside of being a mother.  You have needs and requirements and if those needs and requirements are met, then that will just feed into you being an even more wonderful mummy.

Make sure you have some conversation, trust me, guys hate it if all you can do is sit there and agree with everything they say – well emotionally healthy guys do anyway!  You are no doubt an intelligent, articulate woman, express that without being dogmatic or aggressive.  If you’re out of touch, watch the news a few nights before hand, get yourself a newspaper or two.  It’s very easy to lose touch with the world when you’re immersed in nappies and bedtime stories.  Whatever you do, DO NOT, sit there over dinner moaning about your Ex and how terrible he was and how badly he treated you!  Save that treat for your girlfriends, and besides, we’re over that Ex and he belongs nowhere near your date!  Right..?

If the date doesn’t feel right, then don’t accept a lift home.  There can be nothing worse than trying to say goodnight to a guy who thought the date went great and has pulled up outside your house expecting coffee, when all you’re thinking as you sit in his front passenger seat is, ‘what a relief the date from hell is almost over!’  You don’t want awkwardness, you don’t want embarrassment, you want to have acted like a grown up long before this point.  Be honest, find a natural point in the evening to politely say ‘thanks but no thanks’ and then leave.

If you pull a dud first date out, so what!  You’re back out there, build on it.  Go out and buy another outfit and get yourself another date.  Just keep on going, the worst thing you can do now is sit back with a giant bar of Galaxy watching late night TV on your own.