Quit Thinking You've Ruined Everything Because You Had Sex On The First Date

You know when you've just had the best first date of your life, where it ended with sex, and someone rains on your parade?

They start telling you how this wonderful person you spent an incredible night with is long gone. That you should have taken a harder look at them before you said goodbye because that was the last time you would ever see them.

Why? It was all because you slept with them.

And nothing good can come from two people skipping all the good bits of dating, right?!

Personally, I hate this debate. And I despise the idea that what society thinks of your dating habits dictates the rest of your relationship. Even though logic doesn't make sense.

If you've done the dirty on day one, don't think it's time to throw away your relationship just like that. Here's every reason why you haven't ruined your chances of a successful relationship after having sex on the first date.

1. You both wanted to sleep with each other (and suffer the consequences)

Let's be real here; it's not like you slept with yourself. Sometimes the people admonishing us tend to forget we're grown-ups. And we made this relationship step together. 

We're allowed to have sex when we want it. And the two people doing so knew what they were getting into before hopping into the sack.

Life is too short. YOLO and all that. 

This might have been the only opportunity you will have to be with this person. It might be the only time sex is on the table. You never know.

I'm not someone who lives in regret, as you might be able to tell. 

Sleeping with someone can easily become a behaviour we regret if it doesn't turn out the way we had hoped.

Yet people often regret the people they slept with rather than the people they didn't sleep with.

In short, regret doesn't serve you in life and relationships, so don't bother regretting this decision.

2. What a wonderful prediction 

I hate testing as much as I hate regret.

But before you fall in love with someone, make a commitment to them, you want to know if everything about your union will work. Are the two of you compatible in the bedroom?

Well, there is only one way to figure that out. A test run.

I wish I had this foresight with an old boyfriend of mine. We waited until we were officially an item before we jumped into bed together. 

It seemed romantic and sweet, waiting for this big moment. It wasn't like any other relationship I had been in before.

But like any couple, we didn't work. And after we couldn't please each other, we ended up breaking up.

The next part sucked worse than the bad sex. Because we knew the end was coming; a bad sex-related break-up. One of the worse reasons to split, in my books.

Moving on was tough, but imagine how easier it would have been having we got past the awkwardness on day one. 

I learned that sex without all emotions has its benefits.

It's like buying a dress without knowing the size first, hoping that it fits. 

Or, more to the point, buying a dress in the shop, assuming that just because it's your size. And, in theory, it will fit.

But when we do this, we can't cry buyers' remorse. We knew the risks of buying without trying. And we know the risks of committing to someone without knowing how good the sex will be.

In many ways, it's 'seller's fraud', too. Both members of the relationship feel like they were sold something that wasn't true. 

That's the problem with assuming something without knowing. And making commitments based on these assumptions.

I don't need to say this but I will. Assumptions are the mother of all stuff-ups.

3. First date minefields

If the relationship doesn't continue past the first date, but you had sex, you always blame the sex. It's easy to blame. 

Better to blame premature physical intimacy than something else.

But what about everything else? The first date is a minefield for all daters. There is so much on either side that could destroy any hope of continuing past this first meeting. 

Any of the following could destroy your chances of a relationship past the first date:

• One person insults the other, unintentionally of course
• You both discover you have opposite interests
• You both don't click during small talk
• You realise someone has baggage you can't get past
• You clash on certain topics
• You discover the other person has a deal breaker of yours
• The second date - You could stuff it up during the second date, and not the first. In the early days, all these dates merge into one. You're still getting to know each other, and you're a little more comfortable with each other, and one of you slips up.

And everything on this list might happen and you end up in bed together anyway. It doesn't mean the sex was the breaking point. And even if it was, the relationship was breaking anyway. 

You were both doomed well before you got into bed with each other.

4. What about everything outside of your control?

Sure, the two of you got along. 

But then the world comes crashing into your relationship and you realise it can't work. Forget deal breakers. This is like earthquakes rocking your chance of survival.

• An ex interferes in your relationship
• Your friends and family don't get along
• One of you has to move away for work suddenly
• Another person asks you out, complicating the relationship
• A family emergency that means the other person has no time
• One person becomes sick and dating no longer becomes a priority

And here you were thinking it was just the sex to blame. Anything could destroy your chances. Absolutely anything.

You're putting too much pressure on this decision, by the way. One act, one relationship step, can't completely ruin everything. It's not that black and white.

5. You can't take back what you did, by the way

You had a 50/50 choice on your first date, both of you. And you made your choice.

If you're looking at this situation retrospectively, there isn't anything you can say or do to undo this situation. Even if you tried, you've slept with the person.

Some people like to think they can re-write history, and fix their first-night "blunder" by:

• Abstaining from sex with the person on dates two and onwards
• Not bringing up sex, or any conversation about it with the person for a certain amount of dates
• Avoiding any situation where you could have sex with them again
• Making the next time you actually have incredibly awkward and not as fun as the spontaneous first time

It doesn't matter what you do, sex in now on the table. As a couple, you, either embrace it or the relationship crumbles.

6. True love will survive first date sex

Some relationships are like shatterproof glass. No matter the force, how many times you have sex on the first date, you can't break the relationship. 

There isn't anything you do on the first, second or third date, that will ruin it.

Some might call this fate. I wouldn't go that far. But the bonds that bring people together, the will that means a couple will push through anything to make it work, will survive first date sex. 

If it's meant to be, it will happen despite your initial affection for each other.

And If you sleep with someone on the first date and end up marrying them, what does first date sex matter? It didn't ruin anything, nor do you end up remembering it thirty, forty years later.

Perhaps your relationship, the long-standing marriage you end up with, won't happen without sex.

Maybe that's what you both needed to calm the nerves. Or what you needed to feel comfortable with each other and figure out how much you care for them. 

What if, right?

You can't predict what will happen either way. But you can't keep going through dating and relationships with a rigid process of what makes a relationship work. And what doesn't.

If only it were that simple. 

We're humans; we have feelings and desires. And trying to control them is an exercise in futility.