Walking Girls to the Door

Okay, so today's post is on walking girls to the door at the end of a date. I probably don't need to tell guys this is important, but since I've had problems at the door, and since I know a few guys in my ward who have had similar difficulties, I thought I'd post on the matter.

Before I start writing about what you do at the door, let me first just emphasize the importance of actually going to the door! I once dropped a girl off and just gave her a high-five and let her walk herself to the door. Another time I just completely forgot to walk her up, I gave her an awkward "reach across the car shoulder hug" and let her walk herself to the door. On that time I even made matters worse when I realized my mistake about 3 minutes later and I called her and asked her to imagine that I'd walked her to the door. I think in situations like that it might be best to just let the mistake drop and not even acknowledge it. But anyway, make sure you walk a girl to the door. If you don't you'll have a weird feeling, kinda like you forgot the period at the end of a sentence, or kinda like you had a Chinese dinner but forgot your fortune cookie. Not sure why. Maybe it's cause you picked her up at the door and you need to finish the date where you started, maybe it's because in taking a girl out you took on the responsibility of seeing her back safely to her apartment, so when you don't see her back safely to her apartment, you feel guilt for breaking the modern code of chivalry. I really don't know, but what I do know is that when you don't walk a girl to the door at the end of a date something feels wrong.

Okay, so now that I've stressed the importance of making it to the door, let me say why the door is so important. The door scene is kinda like your report card for the date. The standard is to just hug her and say goodnight. If you don't hug her that's kinda rude I think. When you don't it's basically saying it was a bad date. If she won't hug you she's telling you you're pretty lame.

If the date went well and you're feeling pretty confident you can upgrade the door hug to a kiss. Kissing at the door is great (if she wants you to kiss her (if you can't tell if she wants you to kiss her you probably shouldn't)), when you do you sorta just float back to your car feeling like a champ...but just make sure that your door kiss is quick. A quick kiss is loving and tender, a long kiss is sensual and that's just an uncomfortable way to say goodnight/goodbye.

Anyway, the thing all these different door scenes have in common is they tell you to a pretty fair extent, through their differing levels of intimacy, where you stand with a girl. Once you get an idea where you stand with a girl you can then figure out what you'll do next, and this brings us to the second important thing that happens at the doorstep: the decision of whether there will be a second date.

It is so important to figure out at the doorstep of your first date whether you're gonna do a second. Doing this is pretty easy. All you gotta do is drop her off and say something like, "I had a really great time tonight, would you like to do this again sometime" --or some other variant. Saying this translates to "I like you well enough, don't be surprised if I call you again sometime." This gets the idea of future dates in her head so she can think about you as a more consistent thing. Also, saying this in front of her lets you see her expression when you bring the idea up so you can see if it's something she even wants to do. If you forget to do this in person and later do it over the phone you'll find it much harder to figure out whether she's interested and where she's coming from. You also run a high risk of just playing phone tag and watching everything just fall through the cracks. So, bring up a second date at the door if you want one.

All in all, the door scene is very powerful. It is either the best or worst moment of your date. I'm really bad at it. I usually just take the girl to the door, wonder about what I should do, realize that I'm standing awkwardly, mumble something stupid, give her a quick awkward hug, and then watch her go through the door with a look on her face that says "wow, way to drop the ball." So I'm no expert by any stretch, but since I've screwed up door scenes in so many creative ways I thought I'd do what little I could to prevent others from following in my less than enviable footsteps.

Good luck.