26 Jan 2014

Conversations From 20-Somethings

What’s in a first date?

After a week of being sick, I finally made my way out of my home last night for a drive up to the city for dinner and drinks with some pretty great company. The best part about moving to another nearby major city is that people you know are ALWAYS visiting and honestly – nothing makes me happier. My brother’s friend Ryan was in town earlier this week and through this weekend from Seattle and he brought with him two friends – one also living in Seattle (Neal)  and the other in New York (Blake) – all of us working within tech. It’s been awhile since we’ve had a “Conversation From 20-Somethings” post, but these are some of my favorites.

As we’re dining over our six plates at Nopalitos, the topic of relationships naturally comes up (doesn’t it always?)

“A first date is always coffee or drinks, but NEVER a meal.” – Blake (while Ryan agrees)

“Wait, I never look at coffee as a first date. In fact, that’s kind of like the express lane to friend zoning, isn’t it? Or just indicating something…friendly and casual.”

“No, the great thing about coffee or drinks is that there’s not a whole lot of commitment there. When you get dinner, you are committing to an hour or more of your time with this person regardless of whether or not you know it’s going to go well.”

“For a girl, when a guy says dinner – that’s a date. When it’s coffee or drinks it gets lost in translation or it’s not clear.”

“If I ask a guy on a date for coffee or drinks I just say, ‘let me buy you a drink.’ That’s a date. I don’t have to actually say, ‘this is a date.’

So readers, I’m so curious, how do you determine a first date? Are you okay with coffee being a first date option? For the record, I’d like to share that the one time I went on a coffee date, I considered this pre-dating before the dating and that while I believe when someone asks you to dinner that that is a date, I used to always revert to coffee or drinks first because I just didn’t particularly like going out to dinner as a first date. College me didn’t know anything about dating. Current me still doesn’t know that much.

Edit: I’ve never been on a dinner date where I didn’t know the person pretty well. So that’s where Blake and I kind of came to terms on that. I am in agreement with him though that maybe if I didn’t know someone or recently met them, drinks and coffee are a much safer bet.