FRISKY FRIDAY FOLKLORE: The Third Date Rule – It’s Back

If you make it to three dates you’re really “dating,” right?  And in traditional dating folklore, a third date equates with intimacy, as well.

And it turns out even in current times with dating apps and “hookup culture,” the idea of a “third date rule” is still around, and equated with sex.

In Match’s 2021 Singles in America Survey, they found that two in three singles “want to wait until after the third date to have sex.”

Match suggests that this might be due to the pandemic; as most people don’t want to jump into bed with possibly COVID-infected strangers.  Or, it may be as a reactionary return to “slow-dating” in response to the culture of instant gratification, which dating apps carried into the early 2010s.

The “three date rule” may have originated in a poorly aged self-help book called The Rules, published in 1995.  It said a woman could lock down a husband by following 35 rules—including Rule No. 14, “No more than casual kissing on the first date,” and No. 15, “Don’t rush into sex.”

The book also vaguely suggests women “wait a month or two” to have sex, and directly references the fact that sex on a first or second date would be a very bad idea.

Hook up with more, here:  (InsideHook)

• The “three date rule” seems to sort of be back in practice as Match’s 2021 Singles in America Survey finds that two out of three singles “want to wait until after the third date to have sex.”