The Top 10 Facebook Mistakes to Avoid After 1st Dates

This is the worst. You just went on your first date and had an amazing time. You desperately want to see this person again. And you're sure your date feels the same way. After all, you were talking and laughing for hours! The minute your date is over, you whip out your smartphone and reach out to friend him or her on Facebook (or follow your date on Twitter). It’s the way of today’s social media-dominated world, right?

Wrong. It was just one date. No matter how magical and rainbow-filled it was for you, maybe your date was bored out of their mind. You don’t know if you’ll ever see this person again. If you weren't already friends on Facebook, there's no reason to take that step now. Plus, now you’ve just given yourself something else to obsess over: “Why hasn’t my friend request been accepted? Why is it taking so long? Did they even see it?!”

It’s even worse if your friend request is accepted, only for there to be no second date. Then you have to decide if and when to unfriend this person. Why put yourself in that situation? If you’re not already Facebook buddies, friending can wait.

After a first date, you start to wonder if you're the only potential paramour in your date's life. You start to see photos and comments on Facebook in a whole new light. When pictures are posted from a night when your date said they were too busy to see you, you start wondering just who the other people in those photos are. And why is there someone who always likes your date's statuses? Sure, they could just be friends, but why is this friend so involved in your date's life? 

So you send them a message on Facebook, just to say hi. But they don't respond. So, you text them, just to see if they'll respond. But they don't. 

So now you know they're getting snuggly with this stupid, serial status-liker, and you're reeling over all the things they're doing together that you're not. And after three days of questioning, obsessing, doubting, and obsessing again over whether or not your date is even interested in you, you meet up again with your date. You're trying to play it cool, but then you ask about this person on Facebook. They give you a vague answer, so you dig deeper. And deeper. And before you know it, your date confesses it's a close cousin and you've made yourself look like a complete a**.

Now your chances of a second date are completely trashed, thanks to your jealousy from a couple of Facebook likes.

Jealousy isn’t the only reason not to scroll through all your first date’s old photos, though. They may be public, but going through them and then liking a hot picture from 2007 constitutes the first order of creepiness.

Generally, as a rule, don't "Like" attractive pictures of people that you find attractive and eventually want to end up in some sort of relationship with. That's what all the creepy "Instalikers" are for. Your relationship with that person goes deeper, or at least it (hopefully) will. Leave compliments for when they dress nice for you in real life. 

You're going on a first date, and you're ready to make a good impression. So you get dressed up. You make sure your hair looks great. You're ready to find love! Except you haven't cleaned up your tagged photos on Facebook.

What's the first thing that everyone does before a first date? Facebook stalking. If you don't clean up the detritus that's littering your Facebook profile, the drunken photos and inane comments that you've accumulated over the years are waiting right there for your date to see. No matter how well you shower, how closely you shave or how great you smell/look on that first date, you're going to be your Facebook pictures at the end of the night. Their favorable memory of you will be fueled largely by the visual representations you have on your Facebook page. So make them part of your strategy. No one wants to date a person with a set of dreadful toilet-centered selfies on her Facebook page, or someone who commented about how the movie Transformers changed his life. Untag the drunken photos and delete the misspelled rants now, before it's too late! 

And as a general rule, it may be a good thing to always keep those drunken pictures off Facebook. No one really wants to see you with your head sunken into the toilet.

You’ve decided to play it cool and not friend the girl or guy you just had a fabulous first date with. But you’re still excited about the date – so excited that you have to share your happiness on Facebook. This mistake can consist of posting a status update saying that you just met the person you’re going to marry. Or you may make the classic mistake of changing your relationship status from "single" to "in a relationship." You could even announce that now you understand the true meaning of love. All of those steps are going way too far, because it was only one date.

There is no way that a first date equals you being in a relationship or finally knowing what it means to be in love. And even if you truly feel that your first date will be your husband or wife someday, you should still keep it to yourself, because Facebook updates are public! If your date sees your status change or update, there is no way they'll want to see you again. Keep it to yourself, at least for now. 

You may want to get the interest of one of your Facebook buddies. Maybe you went on one date and then nothing's happened since. Or maybe you're just hoping that they'll finally agree to go out with you because of your charmingly flirty interactions. Either way, you keep an eye out for status updates from your target and then do your best to reel them in. Whether the flirting is obvious or you try for an oh-so-casual comment along the lines of “You’re playing Call of Duty: Black Ops II this weekend? That’s so funny, me too,” these flirtation comment attempts are not as witty as you think they are.

If this person wants to go on a first date, or continue any kind of a romantic relationship with you, they'll let you know. Otherwise, nothing you can say via a Facebook comment will change their minds. Keep it up and you'll just look like you're trying way too hard.