Well... Usually for me, the "dates" don't start happening until after a relationship is established. I think, though, that a kiss after the two of you have confessed your feelings for each other and decided to remain in a relationship is the norm nowadays. With my last girlfriend, she had been dropping hints about her feelings toward me, but I had been completely oblivious to this fact (although we were friends) and break the ice by kissing me on the cheek one night after walking me home after anime club. The next night she was walking me home again, and she started apologizing thinking she had gone too far, that is until I kissed her full on the mouth to get her to shut up and stop second-guessing herself because it wasn't becoming of her.
As for my current GF... we both consider our relationship to have began on November 20th, 2011, which was a Sunday, but in reality I confessed to her the Friday prior. This was after we had stayed up most of the night at her dorm playing cards. She gave me a hug as was leaving, she seemed kind of confused about it so I told her if she needed time to think on it that was ok, but that I wanted her to come over to my house for Sunday dinner with my family and I. She did, and then we ended up back at her dorm. At this point it was clear that she was not only accepting of our relationship, but overjoyed and a bit excited seeing as she had never had a boyfriend before and didn't think someone would ask her out (she was a bit unpopular in high school). I considered that dinner our first real "date", and yes we did kiss at the end. It was kind of funny, she ended up taking a picture with me to prove to her friends that I actually existed (they were skeptical of her claim of having been asked out). When she told me this, I told her "Well, if the photographic evidence isn't enough, here's this" and kissed her. It was slow but gentle, there wasn't any real making out involved, that didn't happen until much later.
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"Yeah, so this one time, I tried playing poker with tarot cards... got a full house, and about four people died." ~ Unknown comedian
Happy New Year from WP's resident fortune-teller! May the cards be ever in your favor.