The last ninety seconds of a first date cause more panic than the first ninety minutes. A dating coach on when to kiss, when to hug, and how to relax.
Aimee, 29, from Aberdeen, knew the date was going well by the second drink. What she didn’t know — and what quietly ate the last twenty minutes of her evening — was how it was supposed to end. A kiss? A hug? The strange half-wave she once did outside a tapas place and still thinks about at 2am?
She’s not alone. When Wisp asked 2,000 users which part of a first date they overthought most, 61% said the goodbye. Not the outfit. Not the conversation. The last ninety seconds.
So we put the question — and all the awkward little sub-questions attached to it — to dating coach Erin Doyle, who’s spent twelve years watching people get this moment wrong in both directions.
So, settle it. Should you kiss on the first date?
“Wrong question. There’s no rule, and anyone selling you one is guessing. I’ve worked with couples who kissed in the first hour and couples who didn’t kiss until date four, and there’s no pattern in who lasted. What matters is whether it felt right to both people — that’s it. The kiss isn’t a milestone. It’s a moment. Some dates arrive there. Some don’t.”
Then why do we agonise over it?
“Because we treat the goodbye as the verdict. Films end on the kiss, so we’ve decided the kiss is the ending — the mark out of ten. It isn’t. Whether you get a second date is usually decided somewhere in the middle of the first one, in the conversation, long before you’re hovering outside the station. When someone spends the last twenty minutes doing maths about the goodbye, they’re missing the part of the date that actually decides things.”
How do you know if they want to?
“They slow down. That’s the tell almost everyone describes and almost no one trusts. The goodbye that could take ten seconds takes three minutes. They’re not edging towards the taxi; they’re finding one more thing to say. And if you’re honestly unsure, you can just ask. ‘Can I kiss you?’ has a reputation as a mood-killer, and it’s undeserved. Said with a bit of a smile, it’s the opposite. Nobody who wanted to kiss you was ever put off by being asked.”
And if you don’t want to?
“Then don’t — and don’t apologise for it. A warm hug and ‘I’d love to do this again’ is a lovely ending, not a consolation prize. Plenty of people simply don’t kiss on first dates, and it says nothing about how the date went. What ruins the moment isn’t the absence of a kiss. It’s ambiguity. Leave someone with warmth and clarity and they’ll go home happy.”
Does it matter where you say goodbye?
“More than people think. Don’t engineer a big moment at a bus stop with an audience and a countdown. If the date’s going well, walk a bit. The walk is the great British courtship technology — it gives you time, side-by-side ease, and a natural pause when you reach wherever you’re both heading. Half the ‘should I, shouldn’t I’ panic dissolves when you’re not standing under a departures board with ninety seconds to decide.”
What if the kiss is… bad?
“First kisses are mostly bad! You’re two nervous strangers with adrenaline and half a glass of wine trying to coordinate. Wisp asked users in long-term relationships to rate the first kiss with their partner, and nearly a third called it awkward. They’re still together. A clumsy kiss with the right person beats a cinematic one with the wrong person every single time.”
One rule to leave people with?
“End clear, not cool. Whatever the goodbye looks like — kiss, hug, handshake if you must — say the true thing out loud. ‘I’d really like to see you again.’ That sentence does more for your love life than any kissing technique ever will.”
Aimee, for the record, went for it. It was slightly clumsy, entirely mutual, and the second date’s already in the diary — which, on Wisp, is rather the point. Match, meet, and stop overthinking the last ninety seconds. The middle of the date is where it’s won anyway.