Early Dating Worksheet (First 90 Days)

The useful decisions in dating get made in the first three months, and they get made by whoever you are at the time. If your pattern is anxious that is someone already attached to a person they barely know; if avoidant, someone about to find a reason at exactly the point things become real; if fearful-avoidant, both of those in rotation.

So this worksheet is designed to be filled in early, ideally before you meet anyone you like, and consulted later when you cannot think straight. It is not a compatibility test and it will not tell you whether to keep seeing someone. It is a record made by the calm version of you, for the version that arrives around week six.

Who this worksheet is for

You keep ending up in the same kind of situation and would like to notice it happening this time, rather than in hindsight.

Download the free PDF ↓

Free, printable, no email required. Prints on A4 or Letter.

Write it before, use it during

Fill in section 1 while you are not seeing anyone, or at least before it gets interesting. Non-negotiables written about a specific person are not non-negotiables, they are an argument with yourself about whether this one counts.

The observation log is deliberately behavioural. Note what happened and when, not what you think it meant. Interpretation is the part that goes wrong under attachment activation, and a log of events survives a mood in a way a log of feelings does not.

Do not show anyone this. It is not a scorecard to present at the three-month mark and it is not evidence for a case. It is a private record so that your assessment in week twelve is not made entirely out of week twelve.

One page per person. Reusing a page across people quietly turns into a comparison exercise, which is a different and less useful activity.

The four sections

Sections 1 and 4 are written once. Sections 2 and 3 are per person. The PDF has three blank observation pages.

1. Non-negotiables, written cold

Five things, decided when nobody is in front of you.

Not preferences and not a wish list — five things whose absence would end it, written flatly. Most people find this harder than expected, and the difficulty is informative: if you cannot name five, you will accept whatever appears, and if all five are about their qualities rather than about how you are treated, the list will not protect you from anything. Include at least two that are about behaviour toward you rather than attributes of them.

Prompts

  • Five non-negotiables, written today:
  • Which two are about how I am treated rather than who they are?
  • Which one have I abandoned before, and what was the reasoning at the time?
  • What would I need to see to know a non-negotiable had been breached?

2. The observation log, weeks 1–12

Events with dates. Four lines a week, no more.

Once a week, four short lines: what they did that you liked, what they did that you did not, whether plans were made and kept, and how the week felt on a scale you keep consistent. That is it. Twelve weeks of this produces something no amount of thinking about it can — a record of behaviour over time, which is the only thing that distinguishes a person from an impression. Consistency, not intensity, is the variable to watch, and it is invisible without a log.

Prompts

  • Week __: something they did that I liked:
  • Something I did not like, stated as an event:
  • Plans made and kept, made and changed, not made:
  • How the week felt, 1–10, same scale each time:

3. Your pattern’s early-dating trap

The mistake you specifically are likely to make.

Anxious: attaching to potential, then reading inconsistency as a challenge rather than as information — the tell is that the intensity increases when they become less available. Avoidant: the third-month cooling, which arrives disguised as having noticed something about them; the tell is that the fault appeared at the same time as the closeness. Fearful-avoidant: the accelerate-then-vanish sequence, usually right after a good weekend. Secure: leaving too slowly out of fairness. Write down which one you are watching for and what it looked like last time.

Prompts

  • My trap, in one sentence:
  • What it looked like in the last two situations I was in:
  • The earliest observable sign of it, from those examples:
  • What I want to do differently at that sign, specifically:

4. The three-month checkpoint

Read the log before you answer anything.

At twelve weeks, read the log first and then answer four questions — in that order, because answering from memory retrieves a mood rather than a record. Are the non-negotiables intact? Is the pattern of behaviour consistent, regardless of how good the peaks were? Am I calmer than at week four or more vigilant? And the one people skip: what have I stopped doing since this started? Not liking the answers is a legitimate outcome, and so is deciding to continue with them written down.

Prompts

  • Non-negotiables — intact, bent, or breached?
  • Consistency across twelve weeks, from the log rather than from memory:
  • Calmer or more vigilant than week 4?
  • What have I stopped doing since this started?

5. What I am not going to do

Two lines that save the next three months.

Write the two behaviours you already know you are going to be tempted into — checking when they were last online, drafting the long clarifying message, cancelling on friends to stay free, going quiet to see whether they notice. Naming them in advance is not a promise; it converts them from things that happen into things you catch. Keep this page with the log so that finding yourself doing one of them means reaching for the sheet rather than for the phone.

Prompts

  • Behaviour one I am not going to do:
  • Behaviour two:
  • What I will do instead when the urge shows up:
  • Who I can send a message to that is not them:

What this cannot tell you

No worksheet identifies the right person, and a log of twelve weeks is twelve weeks — plenty of situations look consistent for a quarter and are not. What the log genuinely does is stop the retrospective rewrite in which everything was obviously fine or obviously doomed, and give your three-month self something that was not written by your six-week self.

It also cannot tell you their attachment style, and trying to work it out from twelve lines a week is a good way to spend the quarter analysing rather than dating. Watch consistency instead; it is observable, and it matters more.

Which trap page applies to you?

Section 3 is the part that does the work, and it needs you to have picked the right one.

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Attachment Dating Worksheet Worksheet: FAQ

Is this dating worksheet free?
Yes. It is a free printable PDF with no email required, and it includes three blank observation pages so you can use it for more than one person.
Is not tracking someone a bit clinical?
It is four short lines a week about your own experience, kept privately, and it is considerably less clinical than the alternative most people actually do — analysing every message in detail without keeping any record of what happened. The log tends to reduce the analysis rather than add to it.
When should I fill in the non-negotiables?
Before you meet someone you like, or at the very least before week four. A list written about a specific person is not a list of non-negotiables; it is a negotiation about whether this one is an exception, and it will conclude that they are.
What if the three-month checkpoint says stop?
Then you have a record that says so, written across twelve weeks rather than in one bad evening, which is a much better basis for a decision than either a mood or a hopeful memory. It does not oblige you to end anything — it means the decision is being made with the log in front of you.

Worksheets for the other styles

  • Anxious Attachment worksheet You re-read messages looking for tone changes, feel panic when replies slow down, or find yourself doing things to get reassurance that you later wish you had not done.
  • Avoidant Attachment worksheet You need space when things get close, go quiet under conflict, find faults in partners as intimacy grows, or feel relief when plans get cancelled.
  • Fearful-Avoidant Attachment worksheet You crave closeness then feel trapped by it, end relationships you wanted, or feel like two different people depending on the week.
  • Secure Attachment worksheet You came out secure and want to know what to keep doing, or you are building earned security and want the target described in behaviour rather than adjectives.

Worksheets by situation

Or go back to all free attachment worksheets, including the one-page cheat sheet covering all four styles.

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