Sadly, you are getting too wrapped up in the stories you are creating in your mind about the date.
When you are thinking too much about the date, you are creating scenarios in your mind that don’t exist.
In doing this, you are working against yourself without realizing it.
You are consumed with thinking about how the date with this girl will go.
As long as you remain consumed with these thoughts, you are opening yourself up to creating bad scenarios.
These are bad scenarios where you are envisioning a date where you are sitting across from her and there is an awkward silence, or you are attempting to kiss her on the date and she turns her face away from you.
You are envisioning a date where she ends up leaving with the waiter because you are so boring.
Okay, the last example went too far, but you get the point.
Your mind is working overtime to create the worst possible scenarios about how the date is going to go.
This works against you.
Furthermore, if you have little dating experience, it’s likely you succumb to these thoughts.
This is especially true when the few dates you have been on with girls in the past didn’t work out.
A combination of a dearth of dating experience and a mind that keeps creating endless scenarios about how the date is going to go, is lethal.
But there is a silver lining.
Instead of looking at your past failures in dating as a source of nervousness, take positive lessons from those past failures.
Wherever you went wrong on those dates, improve.
For example, if you think that you struggled to make conversation on the last failed date that you went on, be prepared to be a better conversationalist with this upcoming date.
Conversation isn’t as hard as you think it is.
Women love talking about themselves on a date.
All you have to do is be prepared to ask her questions and manage the conversation.
Ask a question, ask a follow-up question to her answer, and relate to her story by giving her a short account of a similar or adjacent experience from your own life.
This is the formula for a conversation.
As long as you stick with it, the conversation will be robust.
If you are completely stumped about what questions to ask, use what is in your physical environment as a guide.
For example, ask her about the lovely tattoo that you see on her arm.
This alone can open up a conversation that persists for a while.
Follow this up with a follow-up question and relate.
Start over.
Ask a different question.
Still stumped?
Use your physical environment to aid you again.
For example, ask her a question about the color of the dress or blouse she is wearing.
This opens a conversation around color, and before you know it, she is telling you a funny story about wearing a blouse of the same color last summer, and being at the receiving end of a mud splash that left her with a massive dark smudge on her blouse.
Just like that, you have gotten her to talk for a stretch of time and all it required was a question asked about the color of her dress.
Whenever you are stumped about what question to ask, use your physical environment.
Finally, let’s talk about all the scenarios that you are creating in your mind about how this date will go.
Stop them.
Stop thinking about the date altogether.
Do different tasks such as exercising, fixing, building, reading, meditating, etc., so that your mind is preoccupied.
When your mind is preoccupied, there is less time for you to come up with all those scenarios about how the date will go.
Preoccupying your mind with doing different tasks gets rid of the nervousness, so that when the day of the date finally arrives, your mind is fresh, open, and free.