A first video introduction is one conversation between two adults working out whether they would like a second one. Contact details are not exchanged at this stage — that comes later and only if you both want to continue, under the terms set out in our FAQ under when contact details are exchanged.
Knowing that changes how you prepare. You are not preparing to impress, and you are not being assessed. You are there to find out something real about her, and to let her do the same about you.
Sort the practical things out beforehand
Ideally the day before, so that a camera that won't start is an inconvenience rather than a crisis.
Check the camera and microphone on the device you will actually use, sitting where you will actually sit. Put the light in front of you rather than behind you, or she spends the call talking to a silhouette. Headphones help: open speakers produce echo, which makes interpreting harder than it needs to be. Choose a room with a door and tell the household. Water within reach.
Then, if it helps you, jot down a few things on paper — a couple you want to ask about, and a couple about yourself that she should hear from you rather than work out later. Paper rather than a second screen: glancing at a phone reads as distraction on camera.
When an interpreter is on the call
Most advice about video dates assumes two people who share a language. When a third person is interpreting, a few habits make the conversation noticeably easier. The techniques below are adapted from the US Department of Health and Human Services' guidance on working effectively with an interpreter (2015). That guidance was written for clinicians, not for couples, and we have adapted it editorially — it is general communication practice, not research about dating.
- Look at her and speak to her, not to the interpreter. Say "what did you do this weekend" rather than "ask her what she did this weekend", and use the first person. It keeps the conversation between the two of you.
- Keep to one idea at a time. Several sentences at once may result in something being left out. Say a complete thought, pause, let it be interpreted, listen.
- Go easy on idioms, wordplay and job jargon. "It's not rocket science" and "I'm in sales" both tend to cost a detour. Plain sentences travel better, and they do not make you sound simple.
- Let pauses happen. A rendered sentence takes time, and so does thinking in another language. Much of the silence on this call is mechanical.
- Check understanding on anything that matters by asking what she took from it, rather than asking "is that clear?", which almost everyone answers yes to.
One thing is worth raising immediately if it comes up: the interpreter's job is to interpret, not to converse. If someone appears to be answering on her behalf, forming opinions for her, or softening what she said, ask about it — that is a reasonable question and a straight service will answer it.
Things worth talking about
There is no required list, and a first conversation that turns into a questionnaire is worse than one that wanders. The examples below are just examples: a handful of them, asked because you actually want to know, do more than all of them asked in order.
What tends to be more revealing than a topic is its specificity. "What do you like to do" invites the same answer from everyone; "what did you end up doing last Sunday" gets you an actual Sunday. Some directions that tend to work:
- what an ordinary week looks like for her now, and what she would want it to look like in a few years;
- what made her decide to do this through an agency rather than on her own;
- what she would find hard to leave behind, and what she would want to keep wherever she lived;
- what she is looking forward to that has nothing to do with any of this.
Expect it to go both ways. A conversation where only one person is asking is not a good one for either of you, and if she is quiet at the start it is usually worth offering something about yourself rather than another question.
What to say about yourself
Say the things that would end the conversation later if you left them out now: the hours you actually work and when you are home; children, and how much of your week they take; whether you would expect her to move, or would consider moving yourself, or honestly do not know yet; whether you have done this before and how it went.
None of that has to be exhaustive. It has to be true. It is much harder to correct an impression than to make one, and a version of your life that you would have to maintain is a poor investment.
Afterwards
Write down your impressions while they are fresh, before the conversation reshapes itself in memory, and give it a day before deciding anything.
Be careful about reading too much into it in either direction. Nerves, short answers, long pauses, a face that barely moves on camera, a patchy connection, her looking at the interpreter — all of these are ordinary features of a first video call with a stranger and a third person present, and none of them tells you much about her interest. The same is true in reverse: warmth on a first call is pleasant and is not yet evidence of anything.
What is more useful is whether the conversation went anywhere — whether either of you followed up on something the other said, whether anything specific came out of it, whether you would want to continue. One call is a small sample. Treat it that way.
There is some support for the idea that a long run-up of communication before meeting does not simply keep improving things: Ramirez and colleagues (2015) surveyed 433 online daters and found a curvilinear association between how much people communicated beforehand and how the first in-person meeting went. It is a survey of online daters who went on to meet in person, not a study of introductions like ours; it shows an association rather than a cause, and it sets no timetable for anyone. It is not a reason to rush anything after one good conversation.
At Jaroslavna a video introduction is arranged only once a woman has agreed to that particular meeting, and language support is provided where needed — the FAQ covers whether you need the language, and you can see where a video introduction sits in the process. If the language question is the one you keep turning over, there is more on making yourselves understood over time — and if you are still choosing a service, start with what you are paying for.
