In this solo video, Matthew Hussey (presented as Matthew AI) shares three practical strategies to reduce the awkwardness that often accompanies first dates. He first advises introducing physical contact early and often—such as a hug, cheek kiss, or brief touches on the shoulder—to create a gradual, comfortable progression toward intimacy. Second, he recommends avoiding sitting directly opposite each other; instead, sit side‑by‑side or adjacent so that any silence can be filled by looking at the surrounding environment rather than staring at a blank face. Third, he suggests choosing a date activity that provides an external focus (e.g., a walk, museum, comedy show, or busy park bench) so conversation can be anchored to shared stimuli, especially for those less confident in conversational skills. Throughout, Hussey frames the tips as simple, actionable steps that empower both women and men to make first dates smoother, and he invites viewers to share their outcomes via his website or social media.
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Hello, everyone. This is Matthew Hussie from Love Life. Today we are talking about three secrets to making a first date less awkward. So we all know that first dates, they're primed to be awkward. It's. We go out with a person that we've probably never seen before. I mean, these days, a lot of the time we haven't ever seen them before. We're meeting them for the first time since we met them online or through social media. And for others, they may have met him for five, ten minutes at a bar and now this is their first official date with the guy. It's something that has the ability to be extremely awkward. So we have to now get ourselves in a mode where we say, okay, how do I make this whole process smoother? I have three quick ways for you to do this. The first one is touch early and often. Now, what most people do, the mistake they make is they say, I don't know this person very well. and I certainly don't want to seem too keen. So I'm not going to get very tactile with this person in the beginning. I'm going to just let us warm up through the date. The problem with that is the longer you leave it before introducing touch, the more awkward touch becomes. So now, I mean, for a guy, the most painstaking, horrible scenario is when you've barely touched the woman throughout the entire date and then at the end you want to kiss her. So now what seems to, what really is a few centimeters seems like a mountain to climb because leaning in to kiss that person who you haven't even touched yet is like going from zero mile an hour to 60. So touch allows us to create these levels which make a smoother transition between each stage. You as a woman have a power to do this if you initially see him and you give him a big hug. I mean look, the guy came out to see you, you're both together, it's a great It's a great moment that you both showed up for each other. Give him a hug. Give him a kiss on the cheek if you want. It's absolutely fine. It doesn't come across as desperate. You just look like a woman who's warm. Same goes for you guys. If the woman looks a little uncomfortable, don't be afraid to lean in and give a hug. It doesn't have to be suggestive. It's just a way to introduce physical contact. You can also do this throughout the date by resting your hand on his shoulder when you make a point or touching him very briefly if you're trying to wake him up from a little moment of you both being distracted. Those little touches are crucial when it comes to building that connection. The second thing is don't sit opposite each other. So don't be in that place where you go for a meal or even when you're at a table at a bar and you sit completely opposite each other, facing each other like it's a mirror reflection. Immediately you end up creating awkwardness because of course when there's a silence, there's nowhere for you to look. When someone's directly in front of you and there's a silence, you can't look anywhere. In order to actually create this moment of, why I'm distracted, you can look at your phone, but then that seems rude. You can't look over his shoulder or to your left, whereas if you're sitting either adjacent to someone or next to them in like a park bench style, you can watch the world together. It's almost like you're people watching. So now when there's an awkward silence, it's not actually awkward, it's just a silence because you're both looking out onto the world. When you're ready to regain the conversation, you can turn to your your side and say, oh, I really wanted to tell you about this thing and carry on. So do not ever be in that place where you're opposite each other, sit next to him or adjacent to him. Lastly, do something that involves you actually having some level of external focus. And I'm going to say this bluntly, the worse you are at conversation, the more external focus you need. So if you're amazing at conversation, you can take someone into the corner of a quiet bar and you can talk all night and create this amazing connection through your conversation. If you're someone who's a little more nervous and you know that it takes you a little while to warm up, you have to do something where there's external activity. Now that might be something on the more extreme end of, say, a museum where there's tons of external activity or a comedy show where you're both focused on something outside of yourselves. But on the more subtle end, it could just be taking a walk. If you know that there's a great river near where you are, go walk along the embankment of that river. That's a great thing to do because you know there is external stimuli outside of you that you can look at. Or even sitting down you can achieve this. If you were sitting on a busy park bench, people watching and there was all this activity around you, it allows you to comment on things outside of yourselves as opposed to having the sole focus be on the two of you and the conversation you're having. So touch early and often, don't sit opposite the guy, sit next to him or adjacent and create external activity or put yourself in an area where there is external activity so that you're not just focused on each other. Those are quick ways to create less awkwardness on a date. I look forward to hearing your results. Let me know how you get on on your first date using these tips. You can either come to howtogettheguy.com and comment there or you can leave us a comment, lovlife on Twitter and please be sure to share this episode via Twitter or Facebook. Take care my friends. I will see you soon. Enjoy that first date.
