Wouldn’t it be nice to have a compass guide your first-date decisions? Did the “right person” just make the wrong impression? Did we both assume the wrong relationship type? Does our “same relationship type” even mean the same thing!? Honestly knowing which direction to sail on a date may save you both a lot of time and unnecessary hurt, as significant deal-breakers lurk below the surface of even seemingly calm waters.
Our relationship “compass” is an app called CanWe. We built it to help guide your honest dating conversations with potential partners you’ve already met or matched with. It’s a simple, secure, and straightforward in-person dating app to truly get to know someone.
What can CanWe’s four steps do for your dating life? Read on to find out.
Four Steps to Better Dating, Faster
1. Thoughtfully put words to what you’re looking for
A critical part of entering a relationship that meets your needs is honestly sharing what those needs are. While this seems obvious, very rarely is it actually done on an early date! If even well-established relationships hide deep truths from each other, how is there any hope to understand someone you’ve just met over a few drinks? Furthermore, let’s say you’ve already thought about the exact type of relationships you want and defined your Must-haves and Nice-to-haves; grabbing another drink and making out is always more fun than a two-hour nerve-racking interrogation.
Defining expectations in the privacy of your own home—before a date—creates an easy opportunity to make clear-minded decisions. You can avoid getting wrapped up in a relationship that isn’t a good fit simply because they were too cute or you got too drunk (or both). Capturing these thoughts on paper (or…err in our app) before chemistry and biology take over will immensely help to start the right relationship on the right foot with the right person.
There are so many structures of love these days! Are you actively looking for…
- Something Forever?
- Something Serious?
- Something Casual?
- Something Physical?
- Something Open?
- Something Platonic?
- Something Pandemic?
2. Share your relationship intentions
Based on what relationship intent(s) you choose, you’ll have the opportunity to answer important questions that help define each intention’s emotional, romantic, social, logistical, and even sexual compatibility with a partner.
To unveil which relationship type is the best fit for you and your in-person date, the app will only consider the intentions you both choose to share in the moment. For example, maybe overall within the dating community, you’re seeking Something Serious, Something Casual, and Something Platonic, but with this person, you’re only interested in exploring the Platonic and Casual intents.
Let’s highlight the simple significance of this method. Traditionally, a person organically tests relationships with another person in a series, stumbling through one possible relationship type at a time. A couple may stumble one-relationship-at-a-time from Something Platonic to Something Casual, to not-friends, to a Something Physical; and then finally settle on Something Open.
With CanWe, daters may quickly and securely review each other’s relationship alignments across many possible relationship intentions at once.
There’s an unfathomable amount of savings when a couple focuses their energy on their most aligned relationship(s)! CanWe relationship testing empowers individuals who value their time, energy, and resources to focus on the relationships with maximum potential rather than following sloppy happenstance and assumptions that miss potentially great opportunities.
3. Discover and explore your alignments
CanWe first unveils your mutually aligned expectations.
Once you both decide to compare answers in a certain relationship Intent, CanWe’s double-blind relationship model ensures that you first only see the intents and traits you both have in common, providing an emotionally safe shelter to share sensitive truths. No social judgments for sharing something “weird” or “unusual”—scary questions are only seen if they’re in alignment! By establishing common ground first the CanWe pairing process helps foster trust, honesty, and emotional safety.
Next, if you and your date decide to, CanWe unveils your unaligned answers.
If you and your date want to explore the total depths of your relationship potential, you may both consent to view unaligned traits within an Intent.
Sharing these unaligned answers might be no big deal, genuinely intriguing…or existentially devastating to the relationship. Either way, exploring expectation unalignments promptly is healthy for a relationship. If you do come across fundamental differences that make you and your date incompatible, it’s better to have those challenges and compromises surface now than months or years into a romance (after a mortgage and kids, etc). Hopefully, exploring aligned and unaligned expectations helps you both navigate tough topics and unveil better relationships faster.
If you don’t trust us, take it from a pro:
“If you know the obstacle and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the obstacle, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the obstacle nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”
Sun Tzu, The Art of War
4. Move forward in parallel
There are no perfect partners and no relationship is perfect. CanWe’s compass is about getting you through the roughest romantic cross-currents and hazards. After an engaging and thoughtful date, you may both pocket your relationship compasses until next time, knowing the waters ahead are no longer dangerously uncharted. Oriented in your new course, you can make informed decisions about which direction to charter your relation“ship” next (ha!).
To try out our “relationship compass”, download CanWe from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
What are your go-to questions to ask an early date? Feel free to drop your favorites in the comment section below.
