True to their promise, my parents got me to correspond with and meet someone thought to be an eligible bachelor (EB). So, now that I am over the trauma of that experience, I can perhaps share my worldly advise (heheh) with all EBs on how to impress a girl with things they should NOT do while creating the crucial first impression.
1. Do not be clingy - texting the girl every few minutes to locate her coordinates might only scare her a bit instead of showing her how much you care (as I am sure the intentions are so). Do remember that until yesterday, you were strangers.
2. Do not assume she's going to meet a boyfriend if she's making an impulsive trip to visit friends in a nearby town / city. That really does not go down well with most girls I know.
3. When you are trying to fix a place to meet over coffee, do not be ruthless and make the girl travel half-way across the city to meet you at your convenient location, after office, on a week-day. Life would be more pleasant if you could contrive to meet on weekends if you can't compromise on the location.
4. If you both have agreed to a location and time, please try to make it to the place on-time, if not earlier. Texting the girl every once in a while that you would be there in two minutes or five, is not fair when you end up making her wait for forty minutes!
5. Even if you are getting late due to unavoidable reasons and you don't know when you'll get free to make it to the appointment, reschedule! - She would much rather prefer that to waiting in a public place indefinitely.
6. Please do not ask her to order something for you while she's waiting. THAT is the height of insolence. Really.
7. When you finally make an appearance, you could still save the situation by apologising, you know. Realising after 5 minutes that the girl is inwardly fuming which makes it an effort for her to even talk to you politely, and only then apologising doesn't cut it.
8. Since you were the one who were late, be a little considerate and allow the girl some space to vent her spleen. Enquiring if her job pays her well enough to cover her EMI of the education loan does not make for coffee-table conversation in such a situation.
There were many other instances that could make for good advice, but I'll abstain since you would have no doubt realised that I am a highly biased party and might reject my advice as commonplace rants. Anyway, the experience was something you can classify as "It will only get better from here" - leaving our whole family much wiser. "Due diligence" has reached another level in this respect. :P Now to see what the future unfolds...
