How to Date Intentionally (and Whether Slow Dating Works)

Entry No. 067 ·

In a softly lit neighbourhood wine bar on a weeknight, two men of about twenty-six share small plates at a corner table on an unhurried third date, one laughing at something the other has just said, while groups of friends talk quietly and lean in at the tables around them. They wear plain T-shirts, an open overshirt and jeans, and a small jar of deep rose pink peonies sits between them.

By The IF Team

Intentional dating means dating on purpose: knowing what you are looking for, saying so early, and giving your attention to a few people you might genuinely want, instead of keeping a dozen conversations half-alive out of habit. Slow dating is the pace that usually comes with it — fewer people at once, and more time between meeting someone and deciding about them. Does slow dating work? Nobody can promise results, but what researchers know about how people choose points in its favour, as long as slow means attentive rather than stuck. Here is what both look like in practice, and how to start.

If the apps have started to feel like a second job — matching with people you never message, messaging people you never meet, meeting people you have forgotten by Friday — you are not bad at dating, and you are not alone in wanting something different. Wanting to slow down is not a retreat. It is usually a sign that you have learned what the fast version costs you.

Dating on purpose also means being honest about who you actually want, even if they are already with someone. IF, the dating app we built for everyone, single or in a relationship, gives that honesty somewhere to go, whatever the timing.

What is intentional dating?

Intentional dating is less a set of rules than a match between what you want and what you do. If you want a relationship, you date people who want one too. If you want something light for now, you say that, and date people who want the same. The intention can be almost anything. What makes it intentional is that it is chosen, spoken and acted on.

Its opposite is not casual dating. It is autopilot: swiping because you are bored on the train, matching for the small lift of being chosen, keeping a chat going because ending it feels awkward. None of that is a moral failing; it is simply what the apps make easy, and it keeps you busy without taking you anywhere.

In practice, it comes down to four habits: knowing what you want right now, even if the honest answer is that you are not sure yet; saying it early enough to be useful; keeping your attention on the people you actually want; and ending things clearly, so that nobody is left guessing.

What is slow dating?

Slow dating is intentional dating with the pace turned down. Instead of stacking three first dates into a week, you see one or two people and let each connection take the time it needs: a second and third date before any verdict, longer evenings with room to talk, and no rush towards a label, or towards bed, until you both want it. The idea is not new, but it suited the pandemic years, when many people got to know each other over long walks and longer phone calls, and some found they preferred it.

The two ideas overlap, but they are not the same. You can be intentional and quick: some people know by the second date, say so, and are right. You can be slow without being intentional at all: six months of warm messages with someone you have never met is slow, but it is not going anywhere on purpose. The aim is not a particular speed. It is enough time to see someone clearly, and no more time than it takes to decide.

Does slow dating actually work?

No study we know of compares slow daters with fast ones, so anyone promising results is guessing. But the case for it rests on something researchers have watched happen. In three studies published in 2020, the psychologists Tila Pronk and Jaap Denissen found that people shown a long run of dating profiles grew steadily more likely to reject each new one — a “rejection mind-set” that set in within a single sitting. Abundance does not make people choosier in a useful way. It makes them quicker to say no.

Slowing down works against that. Seeing fewer people gives each one a fairer hearing, and meeting someone more than once shows you what a profile never can: how they behave when they are tired, and how they treat the person who brings the bill. People are not always good judges of their own type: in one speed-dating study, the ideals people described beforehand failed to predict who they were drawn to once they met. That is why working out what to look for in a partner depends so much on time spent with real people.

When slow dating stops working

Slow has a shadow side: it can become a way of never deciding. Watch for these:

  • You have been messaging for weeks, and one of you keeps finding reasons not to meet.
  • You are months in and neither of you has said what this is, because asking feels as if it might break it.
  • You are “taking it slow” with several people at once, and none of them knows where they stand.
  • Slow has become a way to avoid a feeling — the fear of wanting someone who might not want you back.
  • You and the other person want very different paces, and nobody has said so.

If that sounds familiar, the problem is not the speed. It is the silence. A long, undefined in-between is how people end up in something they never chose, and a situationship has its own way out. Slow dating works when both of you know it is slow on purpose, and someone is brave enough to say what they feel.

How to date intentionally, starting this week

None of this needs a manifesto. In practice, it looks like this:

  1. Decide what you are dating for right now. A relationship, something casual and “I don’t know yet” are all honest answers; the only dishonest one is whatever you think the other person wants to hear.
  2. Name your few needs: the things you would be unhappy without over years rather than weeks — kindness, honesty, the same answer on children. Hold everything else loosely.
  3. Say it early and plainly. “I’m not in a rush, but I am looking for something that could go somewhere” does not scare the right person off. It tells them where you stand.
  4. Keep your circle small, and your app time too: one to three people at a time is plenty, and a couple of set times a week beats reaching for your phone out of boredom.
  5. Meet sooner, then take your time. Slow dating is about the relationship, not the messaging, and a week or two of chat is usually enough to know whether you want a coffee; months of texting builds a version of someone that the real person then has to live up to. In a 2015 study of online daters, Artemio Ramirez and colleagues found that some messaging before a first meeting helped, but beyond a point, longer online exchanges tended to make the meeting go worse.
  6. Choose dates you can talk on: a walk, a quiet bar, a long lunch — somewhere public for the first few, with a friend who knows where you are. Loud rooms and elaborate plans make it harder to notice the person in front of you.
  7. Check in with yourself afterwards. Not “did they like me?” but “how did I feel around them — calmer, funnier, more like myself?” That feeling is better evidence than any checklist.
  8. End things clearly. Intentional dating includes intentional endings, and a short, warm message is kinder than a slow fade. If you want the words, here is how to turn someone down kindly.

What to say, without sounding like an interview

You do not need to announce that you are “dating intentionally”; it can make a first date feel like an assessment. Put the intention into ordinary words when it matters:

  • On the app: “I’d rather meet than message for weeks. Coffee this weekend?”
  • On an early date: “I’m looking for something real, but I’m happy to let it unfold.”
  • When someone wants to move faster than you: “I like you, and I want to take this slowly.”
  • When you are ready for more: “I’ve stopped wanting to see anyone else. How are you feeling about us?”

That last one is a conversation of its own, covered in when to delete the apps and have the exclusive talk.

How to tell if someone is dating you intentionally

Intentional dating only works if the other person is doing it too, and you learn that from what they do, not what their profile says. Someone dating you on purpose tends to:

  • Make plans with a day and a time, rather than “we should do something soon”.
  • Follow through, and tell you when they cannot, instead of going quiet.
  • Stay about as warm between dates as they are on them.
  • Answer honestly when you ask what they are looking for, even if the answer is “I don’t know yet”.
  • Raise the next step — meeting friends, being exclusive — at a pace that feels shared rather than pushed.

Quiet is not always a warning sign; some people are slow to open up. But if the plans stay vague, the messages arrive at midnight and never at noon, and every question about what this is gets a joke, believe the pattern. They may be dating. They are not dating you on purpose.

When the person you want is with someone else

Sometimes being honest about what you want leads somewhere inconvenient: the person you would choose is already in a relationship. That is not a failure of intentional dating, and it is nothing to be ashamed of or to hide. Feelings that cross relationship lines are normal, and admitting them is honest. The only lines are cheating and lying, and both are wrong; everything short of them is your call.

You can tell them, and saying it takes real courage. But opening up like that has risks: it puts them on the spot inside a relationship they have chosen, it can make every future meeting awkward overnight, and it cannot be unsaid. You are potentially better off sending an IF, a private, sealed message that opens only if you are both single one day, so that if the timing ever lines up, you are there to show them how much you have always liked them. No conversation opens on IF while either of you is in a relationship, so it asks nothing of them today. A crush on someone who is taken walks through every option.

Waiting is not the opposite of dating on purpose. Right person, wrong time? Wait for them on IF, and keep living your life while it waits.

Where IF fits

IF is a dating app for everyone, single or in a relationship, built around an idea that suits intentional dating: you should be able to say what you feel, whatever the timing. Two single people use it like any dating app: they can Like each other, and an accepted Like opens a chat. Your profile shows whether you are single or in a relationship and, if you choose, what you are Looking for — Long term, Short term, Casual, Friends or Open — so the question many people leave until the third date is answered before the first message. On paid plans you can rank your preferences and split them into Needs and Wants: a profile that misses a Need sinks far down your deck, though nobody is excluded outright. Telling needs from wants explains how to choose.

Intentional dating has an ending built in, and IF has a line for it: unlimited chats, but in the end, only one chat matters. When you find yours, you make it IF official: marking yourself as in a relationship clears your Likes and chats in one go, including your chat with each other if IF is where you met, so copy out those first messages before either of you switches. You keep your account, so IFs can still reach you.

When either of you is in a relationship, no chat can open, but you can still send an IF: up to 250 characters, sealed until you are both single. If you are single and they become single, you get 24 hours to reveal it; if you are the one in a relationship and they are single, it reveals when you change your own status to single. They may be told an IF is waiting, but never who sent it or what it says until it is revealed, though people can guess from context. Your first IF is free; membership covers the rest.

And for the one whose timing has not lined up, an IF is the most intentional thing you can do: say it once, on purpose, and let it wait while you keep dating. Maybe it leads you to where you were meant to be all along.

Questions people ask

What is the difference between intentional dating and slow dating?

Intentional dating is about purpose: knowing what you want and acting on it. Slow dating is about pace: fewer people and more time with each. They often travel together, but you can be intentional and quick, or slow and aimless.

What are the rules of intentional dating?

There are no official rules, whatever the listicles say. If you keep only one, make it honesty: about what you want, about how you feel, about where someone stands with you, and about when it is over. That includes the person you would choose whose timing is wrong: you can say it honestly in an IF, and let it wait until you are both single. Most of the rest follows from that.

How many people should you date at once?

Until you have agreed to be exclusive, seeing more than one person is normal and fair, as long as nobody is misled about where they stand. One to three at a time is a sensible range: few enough that each person gets real attention, and nobody is left guessing for months.

Does slow dating mean waiting to have sex?

Not necessarily. For some people it does; for others it simply means not rushing the emotional side. The pace of physical intimacy is yours to set together, and the only right pace is one you both genuinely want.

Does intentional dating mean dating for marriage?

Only if that is what you are looking for. Some people use the phrase that way, especially in faith-based dating advice. More broadly, it means your dating matches your intention, whatever that is: a long-term partner, something lighter for now, or simply finding out.

Know what you want, say it plainly, and give the right person time to show you who they are. On IF you can do that whatever the timing: a Like for the people you want to meet now, and an IF for the one worth waiting for.