My Feet Knew the Date Was Over Before I Did - Confessions of a Dating Coach #7

I've talked before about how attraction doesn't always make sense.

Sometimes somebody can look perfect on paper and you meet them in person and...

nothing.

And sometimes your body seems to work that out before your brain has quite caught up.

I know this because I once went on a date where, by the end of the evening, my feet were practically trying to leave without me.

On paper, this one looked promising

I'd met him online.

He was a therapist too, so we'd already got something in common. We'd chatted before meeting and there was enough there for me to think:

Yes, I'd like to meet him.

So we arranged to meet at a pub.

So far, perfectly normal.

Then I arrived.

And that's when the little things started.

First came the car

When he got out of his car, some food containers fell out.

Not the end of the world.

Cars get messy.

Mine certainly isn't permanently sitting outside waiting for someone from Homes & Gardens to photograph it.

But then there was the smell.

That unmistakable smell of stale cigarette smoke.

And that mattered to me.

Because he'd told me he didn't smoke.

Now, smoking is one of my genuine non-negotiables.

Not because smokers are bad people.

Not because somebody who smokes isn't worthy of a relationship.

I simply don't want to be in a relationship with someone who smokes.

And there is a big difference between:

“This isn't my preference.”

and:

“This doesn't work for me.”

Smoking is the second one.

Then I noticed the outfit

Again, I don't expect somebody to arrive on a date wearing a three-piece suit.

I'm really not that precious.

But he was wearing tracksuit bottoms.

A bumbag.

And then I looked down.

Two different Crocs.

Not two Crocs in different shades of the same colour.

Two completely different Crocs.

And I remember looking at them thinking...

Okay.

Now, before anyone thinks this article is about me rejecting a perfectly lovely man because his footwear wasn't coordinated, it wasn't.

The Crocs have simply remained rather firmly lodged in my memory.

By themselves, they wouldn't have mattered.

But by then there were already several little things that weren't quite matching the person I'd thought I was meeting.

And one rather large thing:

the smoking.

I still stayed for something to eat

Because this is where dating gets interesting.

Nothing terrible had happened.

He wasn't horrible.

I didn't need to run out of the pub screaming.

We were already there, so we sat down, ordered some food and carried on talking.

And while we were talking, I noticed something.

My feet.

They were pointing towards the door.

Not towards him.

Not comfortably underneath the table.

Towards the exit.

My feet had apparently made a decision that the rest of me hadn't formally announced yet.

Can your feet really tell someone you're not interested?

This is one of those bits of body language that's fascinating - but also very easy to oversimplify.

You've probably heard things like:

“If someone's feet point towards you, they're attracted to you.”

Or:

“If their feet point towards the door, they want to leave.”

And sometimes that might be true.

But I wouldn't recommend spending your next date underneath the table conducting a forensic examination of someone's shoes.

One piece of body language doesn't prove anything.

Someone might be sitting at an odd angle because the chair is uncomfortable.

They might have crossed their arms because they're cold.

They might keep looking towards the door because they're waiting for somebody.

Body language makes far more sense when we look at clusters of signals and what's happening in the whole interaction.

But in my case?

I knew exactly what those feet were doing.

They were saying:

Jaq, we're done here.

Sometimes our body notices before our brain does

I think this is the more interesting part.

We can spend so much time trying to work out what we should think about somebody.

They're nice.

They have a good job.

We've got things in common.

They tick the boxes.

We had good conversations online.

So perhaps we should fancy them.

But attraction isn't a CV exercise.

Sometimes you're sitting opposite somebody perfectly pleasant while something inside you has already quietly gone:

No.

You might lean away rather than towards them.

Your conversation might become more polite than playful.

You stop wondering whether they'll kiss you.

You find yourself checking the time.

Or, apparently, your feet start making independent travel arrangements.

That doesn't mean the other person has done anything wrong.

It simply means the connection isn't there for you.

But don't confuse a preference with a non-negotiable

There was another lesson in this date for me too.

The tracksuit bottoms?

Preference.

The bumbag?

Definitely not setting my world on fire.

The mismatched Crocs?

Let's call those memorable.

But none of those things told me whether he was kind, funny, loving or capable of being a wonderful partner to somebody.

The smoking was different.

That was something I already knew wouldn't work for me.

And I think it's useful when we're dating to understand the difference.

We can build such a detailed picture of the person we think we want that preferences start masquerading as requirements.

Height.

Hair.

Clothes.

Job.

Music.

Whether somebody owns footwear you personally consider acceptable.

If we're not careful, we can dismiss someone potentially wonderful because they don't match the picture in our head.

That's why I wrote about dating outside your usual type — because sometimes attraction surprises us when we give it the opportunity.

Read: Date Outside Your Type

But genuine non-negotiables are different.

Those are the things that affect whether a relationship would actually work for you.

And for me, smoking was one of them.

Online chemistry and real-life chemistry aren't the same thing

That's perhaps one of the strangest things about online dating.

You can have brilliant messages with somebody.

You can laugh.

You can feel excited when their name appears on your phone.

You can build an image of their personality from their photographs and words.

And then you meet.

Sometimes it's even better.

Sometimes something clicks immediately that could never have happened through a screen.

And sometimes...

your feet point towards the door.

Neither outcome means the online conversation was fake.

Real-life attraction simply involves things a dating profile can't show you.

Voice.

Scent.

Movement.

Energy.

How you feel sitting next to them.

How they interact with other people.

Whether you relax in their company.

It's one of the reasons I think meeting sooner rather than spending weeks building somebody up in your imagination can be helpful.

Eventually, two actual human beings have to meet.

The date wasn't a disaster

That's probably the funny thing about this story.

If you asked him afterwards, he might have thought we'd simply had a perfectly pleasant meal.

And we did.

There was no dramatic ending.

No argument.

No escape through the toilet window.

Just two people who'd got on online, met in real life and weren't right for each other.

Which is actually what dating is supposed to discover.

Not every date needs to become a relationship.

Not every person we don't fancy needs to have something wrong with them.

Sometimes the answer is simply:

Lovely person. Not my person.

And apparently, on this particular occasion...

my feet knew that before I did.

A little thought for you...

Have you ever been on a date where nothing particularly bad happened, but your whole body seemed to be saying:

Nope.

Maybe you kept leaning away.

Maybe you couldn't relax.

Maybe you suddenly realised there was absolutely no urge to move closer.

Or perhaps, like me, you looked under the table and discovered your feet had already started heading home.

Jaq 💚