How Quickly We Think We Know Someone After Only a Few Dates

A man can receive a lifetime achievement award for Being Wonderful before the fourth date.

He has been pleasant, attentive, interesting to talk to, and has displayed no obvious signs of being a complete nuisance. Perhaps he has even remembered something you mentioned earlier, which is always impressive when half the world cannot remember where it put its keys.

A promising beginning.

Naturally, the awards ceremony is already getting underway.

Nobody has deliberately decided to crown him Man of the Year. It happens more quietly than that. A few good impressions arrive, the imagination begins connecting them, and before long, the man has acquired an entire collection of qualities that have not yet had much opportunity to introduce themselves.

The first date was lovely.

The lifetime achievement award may be a little premature, but a few teeny-tiny awards? Sure, yes.

The First Awards Are Perfectly Reasonable

Early dating gives us small pieces of information, and some of them are genuinely useful.

A man is easy to talk to. He is considerate during an evening together. He has a sense of humor you enjoy, seems interested in your life, and behaves in ways that make you want to see him again. He has even managed to ask about your life without immediately turning the answer into a fascinating story about himself, which is a lovely quality and, apparently, not always included in the standard package.

Wonderful.

Give him Best Conversation or perhaps a small award for Excellent Company.

There is no need to be suspicious of every pleasant thing simply because it is early. Sometimes a good impression is exactly what it appears to be: a good impression.

The trouble begins when the awards start expanding into categories for which nobody has actually submitted an entry.

He was considerate over dinner, so perhaps he is a deeply considerate person. He has a stable career, so surely he is dependable. He speaks warmly about his family, which sounds promising for the sort of relationship he might eventually want. And he remembered your birthday, so naturally he will never forget an important date or, heaven forbid, become snarky when reminded that he has.

The awards are getting more ambitious.

By the third date, he may have received Best Emotional Maturity, Most Likely to Be a Wonderful Partner, and an honorary distinction for Reliability Under Circumstances That Have Not Yet Occurred.

The man is having an excellent evening.

He has no idea how many prizes he has won.

The Lifetime Achievement Award Is Looking Tempting

The interesting thing about first impressions is how easily one good quality can begin lending its reputation to all the others.

A man who is calm during a pleasant evening may seem emotionally steady. A man who is generous in one situation may seem generous by nature. A man who listens beautifully may appear to possess a whole collection of relationship skills, several of which have not yet been required.

Perhaps he does.

But the imagination is not particularly fond of leaving categories empty.

Once someone seems promising, the missing information tends to arrive in a rather flattering form. We do not know how he handles disappointment, so we picture him handling it reasonably. We have not seen him under pressure, but he seems like the sort of man who would cope. We have not discovered what he is like when he is tired, annoyed, uncertain or no longer trying to make an excellent first impression.

Surely he will be lovely.

The awards ceremony is now in full swing.

Someone is preparing a speech about his remarkable character.

Unfortunately, most of the supporting material consists of three dinners and a very nice walk.

Eventually, the man begins producing information that was not available during the opening ceremony.

He has habits. He has preferences. He occasionally says something that makes no sense whatsoever, and some of his admirable qualities turn out to be rather more specific than the original awards suggested.

The calm man may be calm in most situations but surprisingly impatient about one particular thing. The organized man may have his work life beautifully arranged while his personal life remains a little more adventurous. And the considerate man may be genuinely considerate, yet still forget an important birthday and look rather surprised that it was so important to you.

None of this necessarily makes him a bad man.

It does, however, make the imaginary awards slightly more difficult to justify.

A man can be wonderful company without being wonderful in every circumstance. He can be dependable in some areas and less so in others. He can be kind, attractive, interesting and still possess a few qualities that would never have made it into the original acceptance speech, such as a peculiar devotion to his ancient, threadbare T-shirt, which he insists is perfectly good and which you suspect may have been perfectly good during a previous century.

And so, after all those lovely awards, the ceremony has finally encountered an actual human being.

How inconvenient.

Some Awards May Need to Be Reconsidered

Once a man has been mentally awarded a collection of excellent qualities, new information does not always receive a warm welcome. It may be dismissed as an exception, explained away as a bad day, or treated as something that surely does not represent the real him.

The real him, apparently, is the one who won all those awards.

The newer information must have arrived at the wrong ceremony.

Of course, one disappointing moment does not erase everything good about a person. A man can have an off day, make a mistake or reveal an ordinary imperfection without suddenly becoming someone else.

But neither does one lovely evening establish a lifetime of character.

The funny thing is how much easier it can feel to preserve the original portrait than to allow it to become more complicated. The first impression was so pleasing, so complete, so wonderfully easy to understand.

And now the man keeps adding details.

Some are lovely.

Some are surprising.

A few may require the awards to be renamed.

Outstanding Achievement in Being Absolutely Wonderful in Every Possible Circumstance has been revised to Pleasant Over Dinner.

Still a respectable prize.

The lifetime achievement award can wait.

He has barely had time to achieve anything.