A friend is insisting that I’m crazy to think it’s perfectly normal to kiss someone goodbye at the end of a good first date. She said that most people wait 2 to 3 dates before kissing.
What say you, Straight Dope? Let’s assume you have a great first date-- do you kiss them when you say goodbye or do you wait a few dates in?
I don’t see anything wrong with a kiss on the first date if the date went week enough.
FWIW, I don’t mean to discuss the moral implication of the kissing (“ermergerd! Only sluts kiss before date 26!”) but more like, what is done in practice. She’s saying my experience of many a first date kiss isn’t standard at all.
Is your friend twelve?
Maybe it’s about online dating. I can see how a date with someone you met online might not end with kissing if it didn’t go well. I can’t imagine why it wouldn’t end with kissing if it did.
I don’t do online dating, so everyone I date is someone I met in person, which means there is often kissing before the first official on-purpose “date.” Sometimes more than kissing. But hey, I’m old and no one in my demographic is pretending to be a virgin.
Most of the time I’m getting blown or having sex on the first date.
Right, but you could still Pretty Woman it and not kiss them. 
I would say it’s not “shocking” to kiss or NOT kiss on the first date. My WAG is that more first dates end without a kiss than do, but not by a huge amount.
My feeling is that a first date is the first time you evaluate whether you feel a potential spark with the other. Seems like at the end, there are 3 general possibilities: definitely no spark, maybe a potential spark, and feeling a spark. If you end up on the more optimistic end of the maybe or the yes, why not kiss?
I’m not sure what this says about my character but the majority of first dates I’ve been on have resulted in sex at the end of the night.
I’m sure alcohol plays a lot into this as I likes my beer and so do the women I date.
That said, I’d never blow a woman off if she wanted to take things a little more slowly.
I expect that for a lot of first dates, one or both of the participants aren’t actually sure whether it was really a date or not until after the fact. In such a situation, there probably isn’t a kiss at the end of the date.
If both parties know going in that it’s a date-date, though, then I would have thought that a kiss would be fairly standard.
Dude, if you’re getting so drunk your women need to be…yeah, maybe you should cut back on the beers just a bit. 
My experience is pretty limited, but with a couple of exceptions my first dates have always ended way past kissing. I suppose when it comes to hanging out with Inigo, you either can’t resist his charms or you fail to see any charms whatsoever. I can say that with one exception I’ve always known within 10 minutes if there was gonna be any kissing done. The exception turned out to be a very pleasant surprise. I was thinking all like, “Man she’s so out of my league there’s no way this is going anywh..mmfftppmmtthppfftlmmf…” Ah yeah…
But to the OP, nothing wrong at all with a first date kiss if it’s coming about naturally. But please spare the consolation peck-on-the-cheek business. I think nobody really knows what to make of those–I’d read it as “Goodbye, thanks for not raping me, I wish we could both have the last 3 hours of our lives back.”
I’d say it’s a bad sign if a first date doesn’t at least end with a peck on the lips.
“Kiss you? We shouldn’t even be doing this…”
I don’t really know much about American dating customs; in so much as UK has “dates” (e.g. a meal together) then obv no reason to hold back on anything whatsoever.
OP may (or may not) be interested to learn that in south east england at least when in “proper” society you basically kiss women when you meet them socially, same as in france (i.e. on cheek) and it not sexual at all. This is somewhat new but has been the case since I’ve been a legal adult.
This is not the case outside of that though, and most of “proper” society is in south east of england. I have an extremely eclectic bunch of people I mix with that is very unusual.
I nearly always give a kiss on the cheek as a g’day, then at the end of the night anything from a handshake, a kiss on the cheek, on the lips or a big old tongue pash.
The kiss on the lips no tongue is normally the best, leaves me wanting more and is in some ways more intimate…
Well, when my partner and I had our first “date,” somewhere among all the sex we still found time to kiss.
I’ve not had many first dates but kissing was in there, usually in the middle somewhere.
My last first date ended with a quick hug. Tomorrow is our two year anniversary. My other first dates ended in kisses or sex or just a goodbye. It really depends.
All right, who said kissing is for losers?
No. Second or third date. And that’s too soon for me. But I don’t want them to think I am uninterested. There has to be a certain level of emotional intimacy and familiarity in order for me to desire physical intimacy. I’m jealous of those who can make out with random people in clubs or have one night stands, and be sexually satisfied.
Absolutely not and I doubt it will ever happen. Even with my most recent ex who I experienced more physical attraction to than anyone ever, it took me some time to work up to wanting to get physical (AND I had known him for years before we reconnected and went on a couple ‘dates’ which ended up with us becoming a couple).
I am very rarely attracted to anyone. When I am, I get very flustered and shy. Sigh.