You’ve noticed some odd behavior from your crush or girlfriend? You feel as if the situation between you is now awkward and you’re not exactly sure what changed?
If you’ve recently gone on a date with her or had any sort of in-depth conversation, it’s very much possible you’ve said or done something she found off-putting. However, there’s no need to completely hang your head in defeat: it’s definitely possible to impress a girl after a bad impression. It will take some effort on your part though.
But you must be wondering from where to start. To figure this out, I felt the best advice for this would obviously come from girls. So, I approached many girls in my circle and had an intense discussion with them to come up with some practical solutions that work! I’m here with inside information from girls and will do my best to help you figure out the best approach.
So, How To Impress A Girl After A Bad Impression? Overall, these are the basic steps you can take.
- Understanding the signals from your girlfriend/crush that she is unhappy.
- Analyse what went wrong.
- Apologise : Know How To Apologize.
- Ask For Another Chance: (How To Guide).
- Build Foundation For A Solid Relationship.
The above steps may look easy but they are not. Here is a comprehensive guide on each
Understanding the signals from your girlfriend/crush that she is unhappy
If you’ve ever read a tutorial that tried to help you solve an issue you’ve been having, I’m willing to bet that the first step was identifying what the problem is exactly and what caused it. A bad impression is no different and the first thing you will need to do is to read the signals she’s sending out and understand that things are a bit different.
If her behavior and manner of speaking have changed, chances to have her overall opinion of you. That’s no reason to panic, but it’s certainly something to be aware of. After all, the goal isn’t even to go back to how things were, but to overcome the situation and come out the other end even closer.
Here are some signals to read from a girl if she is upset or unhappy with you:
- She’s not texting you first.
- She’s taking longer to answer your texts.
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- When she does answer, her responses are short.
- She comes off as distant in her answers.
- She has stopped asking questions.
- No smiley faces/gifs/stickers (depending on what she was using before)
- Use of punctuation that is not typical for her texting habits.
- Lack of initiative to meet up.
- She tries to dodge your attempts at setting up a date.
- When you see each other, she is less than enthusiastic and your hug has been downgraded to a handshake (or anything similar).
- Her smile is forced-The air around you two is tense, and not in a fun way.
- She shares a look with her friend (that’s the one you want to watch out for)-Her friend is quick to drag her away from the conversation.
I’m not saying this is the full list, but these are definitely major signs she’s losing interest and that can usually be contributed to two factors:
You said/did something that didn’t sit well with her OR someone/something completely unrelated has messed her up.
Now that you know that the problem is a bad impression you made, it’s time to look into what exactly caused it as you can’t change something if you’re not sure what even went wrong in the first place.
Analyse What Went Wrong
Here, analysis of your last couple of conversations will be key. If they’re in text-form, you’ll have a harder time figuring out the problem, as you don’t have the benefit of seeing the body language and immediate reaction of someone through text message.
In such case, look for response times. Most phones logs show how long it took to answer each message and this is where you should look at oddities. Does she usually answer within minutes, but it took her fifteen to come up with a response for something? If yes, there’s a chance that is the problem.
If you had a face-to-face conversation and things somehow soured, you have the added benefit of reading body language and the added difficulty of dealing with your own memory. Memory can be tricky, and when we really like someone, we tend to see everything much better than it is- and that includes reaction. Think back and be honest with yourself,
- Did her smile start feeling forced at some point during the conversation?
- Did she start seeming distant or providing shorter answers?
That’s how you identify the problem and that’s the first step.
How To Apologise
This step really depends on the results of the previous one. There’s not much you can apologize for if your girl got offended or was put off by your opinion or life stance. No matter how rose-colored your glasses are, you’re not about to change who you are for someone.
But, if it was a simple misunderstanding, which often happens over text, especially when we don’t know someone very well and are wearing rose-colored glasses of our own, apologizing in a roundabout way can really make a difference.
It’s also quite common to get nervous on the first couple of dates, when we’re all doing our best to put our best foot forward- it sometimes ends up with that foot in our mouth. Girls are complicated creatures and when we like someone we tend to see them as flawless Greek gods who are the best things since chocolate. That’s often the downfall.
The moment we start noticing the first flaw or stumble upon a hurdle, we start overthinking and noticing things that might not even be there. Remember this: the biggest enemy a girl has is her tendency to overthink.
Just like men are fixers and like to offer solutions for problems, women like to vent to their friends in order to feel better. This often makes the friend notice things that might not be there, and the vicious circle begins.
A Guide on Apology
The best thing you can do is be honest! And I can’t stress this enough. Simply come out and ask if everything’s all right because you’re noticing some tension. Ask if it was something you did. Most girls will jump at the chance to ask you about whatever it is that’s bothering them, because inside, they’re dying to know.
This will be your chance to clear the air, explain what you really meant to say and apologize, for the misunderstanding if not anything else. Even if she doesn’t bring it up herself, you can ask if the problem is what you already suspect (thanks to our successful step 1).
She will appreciate the thought you put into figuring it out and that attention will give you an edge and make headway in improving the previous impression.
How To Ask For Another Chance
We all make snap judgments all of the time, from deciding which sandwich to eat to reach a conclusion on how compatible someone is with us. The former has no long-reaching consequences, but the later can definitely make us miss out on a great thing simply because we made an assumption or assessed the situation wrongly.
It takes time to take the stink out of the bad first impression and air it out. Don’t expect overnight results. If you were nervous when you met her, said the wrong thing at the wrong time, made a stupid joke she didn’t find funny but offensive, looked at another girl in passing while she was right there, had a stain on your shirt you weren’t aware of or some lettuce in your teeth (once again, not a definite list of possibilities), she may have reached a conclusion you’re simply not for her.
When this happens, you will have to work at changing it. The trick is to get her to give you a chance. Once the conversation starts flowing and she starts seeing who you really are, and honestly, we’re all so much more than first impressions, bad or otherwise, she will probably not even remember what it was that she didn’t like about you to begin with. And how do you get her to give you a chance? Say it with me: honesty.
Send her a message apologizing for the way things turned out and how you acted/what you said/how you looked. Explain yourself (but thread the line and don’t be too excessive) and ask a question in passing. This will effectively acknowledge the situation and make her aware that you know that you didn’t make the best impression, while also establishing a line of communication through the question.
Hopefully, you know something about the girl and her interests, so ask meaningful questions about something you know she enjoys (bonus points if you have that interest in common). In order for me not to be so abstract.
I’ll give you an example:“Hi, it was good to see you today. I just wanted to apologize for the situation, my week has been very stressful, you caught me at a bad time. I meant to ask you, but didn’t get the chance: Did you like the new Fantastic Beasts movie? What did you think about Nigini?”Now, that’s not too hard, is it?
Keep in mind that it’s a text, so there’s all the time in world to construct a message and get the wording quite right. I do recommend sending it the same evening or the next day, while the situation is still fresh and she hasn’t had enough time for the impression to settle or for her friends to start analyzing EVERY SINGLE detail of the interaction. And don’t think they won’t- this is what girls do.
How Long Will Fixing Things Last?
After that initial message, things should settle quickly. If you find this approach to be lacking or it simply didn’t work for you, whatever you do- don’t text a million times and be too persistent. Let her cool off and see if you can arrange for you guys to casually meet.
Maybe you have some mutual friends that like drinking coffee at a particular place and they just happen to invite her, while you’re on your coffee break. Apologize in person for the bad impression you left last time and start a conversation about a topic of interest. You’ll be off to a great start.
Most bad impressions will start shifting the second the first apology is delivered and starting a more meaningful talk will certainly speed the process up. I can’t give you a specific guideline, because while some generalizations are all right, all people are different and function differently, but I will take the liberty of saying that if she isn’t warming up to you after a few weeks, it’s time to walk away.
Foundation for a Solid Relationship
When it comes to building a relationship, there’s much more to consider than just a bad first/other impression. It certainly helps to leave the best one you can, but even that doesn’t guarantee length, quality or the true value of the relationship itself. Here are some things you need to consider from the start, if you’re in it for the long haul.
Values
I’m not saying you need to value the exact same things, but it certainly helps if your values at least somewhat line up. Otherwise, down the line you will be facing bigger problems in your life together. I’ll explain it simply: if you like chicken and she’s a vegan, that’s a value that will affect your future household and long-term plans.When the time comes to move in together, you will have to decide whose values will win out and who will have to compromise.
Examples:
- Big or small family?
- Adopting a pet?
- How close do you want to be with your extended family?
- What makes you tick: do you constantly need a challenge?
Someone’s values are a big thing and are often formed throughout the entire life, starting from childhood. This means that they don’t change easy. And whoever ends up compromising theirs will find themselves bitter at some point in time, if things haven’t been properly discussed.
Interests
This is the next tier: once the passion runs out (and in 20 years time it probably will), you will need something to talk about. At the end of the day, in the words of my mother: “The most important thing is finding someone you can eat breakfast with every day.” Having common interests always helps, but it’s also very healthy to have some of your own and explore them individually.
It’s great to have someone who has the same movie interests, reads the same books and listens to the same music, but once you start a serious relationship with that someone it’s easy to become entangled and lose track of who you are and where you begin and she ends.
This is why having your own separate thing is something I definitely encourage. Go camping from time to time, go out with the boys or simply do puzzles- whatever makes you happy. But find something you can enjoy doing alone and use that individual time to reflect and work on yourself.
The more you work on yourself the happier you will be and your relationship will be stronger for it.
Communication
Finding the right time and the right words / phrasing is important, but shoving things under the carpet while you’re searching for all the “rights” can trip you up and you will end up bitter and alone.To be in a real relationship with someone, you need to trust them enough to show them who you really are.
You need to be able to feel vulnerable and to trust they will not betray your confidence and will, instead, be your anchor in the storm. That’s the hard part.In order to get there, your starting point is being as honest as possible.
Tell her what you believe, what your opinions are, explain your reasoning to help her understand your thinking processes and soon enough she will surprise you with figuring your next move out before you do. Another big tip: active listening is your friend.
Be interested in what she has to say and actually listen to her. It can be difficult, especially considering most girl’s tendencies to rant, but she will appreciate you paying attention and remembering the little things and you will also learn a lot about her in the process.
You don’t have to go over every little detail of your daily routine, but it really helps to cover all the vital, significant parts and it’s extremely important to look at your partner as just that: a partner.
This is someone you’re choosing to share everything with: the good and the bad. And no matter how hard it is sometimes, remember that being open is always more rewarding in the end.
Goals
This is another section where being individual is great, as long as your goals are compatible. If my goal is to travel the world in the next five years, and yours is to get married in the next two, we’re definitely going to have to compromise to make any relationship work.
And while compromise is a great tool that, in my opinion, works best in settling smaller issues, a big gap between life goals is a real challenge. In this case, compromise would mean one of us having to give up on our dream- and that’s what can cause problems down the line, as well as a whole lot of regret.
Be upfront about what you want as soon as you can be, and once the relationship is solidified talk to your girlfriend openly about what you want out of life and figure out what she wants. Then, work on your “together” plan.
- What do you want to achieve as a couple?
- Where do you want to be in five years?
It may seem silly to apply a typical job interview question to a real-life situation, but there is a reason it exists in the first place and it’s to understand where you’re going. Just like values, interests and communications helps figure out the past and how you tick, goals help determine the future: what you want and how you’re going to get there.
Friend Circle
Last but not least, we come to friends. Here, we have three equally important types of friends: hers, yours and mutual. Hers can be your biggest supporters, or can hinder your relationship. Honestly, most of the time this depends on how you treat her.
If you treat her right, her girlfriends and close family members will appreciate it and they will fight in your corner even when you mess up sometimes (and that can’t really be avoided, everybody messes up).
Show that you care, that you respect her, love her and treat her right and you will never have a problem with them putting thoughts in her head, over analyzing things or trying to set your relationship up for failure. Respect her relationships and don’t be controlling.
You guys are a team, but are also individuals and as such need to be able to function separately. Have your nights out or nights in with your friends and don’t give up spending time with them.
Of course, you can also do group outings and try to bring everyone closer together (this sometimes works, but usually with two smaller groups of friends that can merge). The important thing is to respect each other as people first and you’re golden.
In A Nutshell
Getting rid of that pesky, bad first impression can be tiring, but if you’re thinking this girl could be the one you’ll be building something solid with, it’s definitely worth untangling that knot of assumptions and misunderstandings. Once that first hurdle is out of the way, you’ll be free to explore her interests, values and goal and see how you fit into her life and vice versa.
Establish good communication from the very start, be as honest as possible and always listen to her opinions and what she has to say (bonus points for remembering information later).
Establish clear rules for individual activities, but be ready to be flexible- you’re entering a relationship, not a contract. All in all, you need to remember to think of the needs of your partner and make decisions taking them into account.
While this guide may not be a full, 100% accurate cheat-sheet to a successful relationship, it does provide an overview of the basic principles you ought to keep in mind and helps you set yourself up for success and happiness. Good luck with changing any bad impressions you’ve made and turning something seemingly bad into the best thing ever!
