Quickie: How Long Will People Stay on a Bad Date?
At some point, daters want to be put out of their misery
You’re on a first date and you want nothing more than to make a great impression on your love interest. But how long do you really have to make that impression?
Twenty-five minutes.
According to a survey of 2,000 people, that’s how long it takes daters to notice if there’s potential for a connection, or if the date has been a dud. However, that observation does not immediately put the date out of its misery.
Although daters notice whether or not they have a spark with someone in less than a half hour, they will still stay on the date for an average of 51 minutes total before digging into their bag of excuses for the perfect reason to end it.
In other cases, the excuses come out before the date even starts because people have a bad feeling about what disaster might happen. Some reasons people feel reluctant about a date include not being able to find something to talk about prior to the date (50 percent), the other person having no sense of humor (48 percent), and the potential date acting rude (48 percent).
The most common excuses people use to end a bad date, or avoid going in the first place, are:
