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Top 10 First Date Ideas by @singlegirlie

13
04 Jun 2012
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by Single Girlie

Single Girlie’s Top 10 Date Ideas…terribledateidea 283x300 Top 10 First Date Ideas by @singlegirlie

People often stress out over what to do on a first date. You want it to be original, you want it to be fun, you want to make sure the lighting obscures your lazy eye. The pressure is on and you are charged with making plans. What should we do???

Allow me to eliminate the guesswork for you. If you’ve encountered someone online and are meeting them in person for the first time, these are the top 10 date ideas you may choose from:

  1. Meet for coffee or a drink.
  2. See #1
  3. See #1
  4. See #1
  5. See #1
  6. See #1
  7. See #1
  8. See #1
  9. See #1
  10. See #1

 

Easy peasy! Pressure’s off.

I don’t care how much witty banter you share over e-mail, how easy they are to talk to on the phone or how hot their photos are. Coffee or a drink. That’s it.

It’s low-commitment, low-cost, low-pressure, and if you discover you’d rather be home picking at your ingrown toenail than feigning interest in the nitwit across the table, you can just down your drink and hightail it out of there.

When you meet someone online, it’s basically a blind date, except you don’t have a mutual friend in common whose back you can talk behind. You don’t know jack about this person or how compatible the two of you are, no matter how cleverly crafted their profile is.

I Learned the Hard Way

Allow me to present Exhibit A. I met Exhibit A online and found him attractive, funny, smart, gainfully employed and into indie flicks and travel — just like me. We shared a lovely repartee over e-mail and had a five-star phone conversation. He sounded perfect and I couldn’t wait to meet him.

He suggested that we meet for a movie at the Hollywood cemetery, where they screened classic films. He’d pack a picnic and we’d meet there. I knew this plan deviated from my “coffee-or-a-drink” rule, but he lived all the way in the San Gabriel Valley and I felt bad making him drive so far just for a coffee. And he sounded so incredible! I thought for sure we’d have a wonderful time together.

I was wrong.

I didn’t find him nearly as attractive in person and the conversation was strained at best. He didn’t like baddate2 300x195 Top 10 First Date Ideas by @singlegirliemy favorite book and I didn’t like his, and this really seemed to bother him. I guess in his mind, a girl who didn’t enjoy Lonesome Dove just isn’t relationship material.

At his suggestion, we had met outside the gates an hour and a half before they opened at 7 p.m. (he said we had to arrive early to secure a spot). The movie started at 8:30. Crap. That meant three more hours of forced chitchat with this dude I really didn’t want to spend another minute with.

I’m far too polite to have just said I wasn’t interested and left. So I stuck it out. Time had never moved so slowly.

By the time the film ended, I’d wasted four and a half hours with a man who I knew I wasn’t interested in 15 minutes into meeting. If I’d stuck with my coffee-or-a-drink rule, this would not have happened. This rule is no longer flexible for me.

If you’ve met online, treat a first date more like a “first meeting” to determine if you even want to go on a real date-date. It should last about an hour, tops. If you fancy each other, you always have the option to continue the date. You want that option. But you want the option to bugger off as well.

Save the crazy, imaginative, think-outside-the-box outings for the second, third, fourth and fifth dates – after you know you’re interested and want to spend more time with them.

Whoopsie, do you feel gypped out of your 10 date ideas? Calm down, Nelly, I got your back. Check out 365 Cheap Dates for some fun non-first-date suggestions. This website lists recommendations within Southern California, but I’ll betcha some of the posts here can give you ideas for your part of town, too.

Until then, enjoy that drink. Or the ingrown toenail.

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pixel Top 10 First Date Ideas by @singlegirlie

Top 10 First Date Ideas by @singlegirlie

Single Girlie

I am a single girl dating in Los Angeles. Sometimes. It’s interesting. If you enjoy snark, penis stories and the occasional F-bomb, mosey on over to Single Girl Blogging to partake in the mayhem. Or find me on Twitter @singlegirlie.

  • Seven Dates a Week

    I completely agree! If coffee or a drink goes well, you can always proceed to dinner or a walk in the park. Love Natalie Dee. =)

  • http://singlegirlblogging.com singlegirlie

    Absolutely. And yes, Natalie Dee is 100% Dee-lightful!

  • http://singledatingdiva.com singledatingdiva

    I totally agree, first and even second dates should always be coffee/drink … low maintenance, low cost and allows you to determine if this is something you want to pursue before jumping in.

  • http://www.mutualattraction.co.uk Mutual Attraction

    Great post and so true! I run a matchmaking consultancy in London and always recommend a casual coffee or mooch along the southbank, abit like a a pre date!
    http://www.mutualattraction.co.uk/blog/2012/04/recession-proof-your-london-dates

  • http://singlegirlblogging.com singlegirlie

    Yes, @singledatingdiva, I agree. The dates should get progressively longer. Don’t go to Disneyland on date 2! @Mutual Attraction – nice. Wish I lived in London town – I love it there!

  • http://accordingtojewels.com According to Jewels

    Great advice. Everyone seems to love meeting for coffee and I’m glad you added the “or drinks” because I couldn’t hate coffee and the smell of it more. You’d be amazed how many problems this creates when dating. Over committing your time on a first date is a huge mistake and one I typically make over and over again. Thanks for the reminder that it’s okay to say no to longer first dates.

  • Pingback: Top 10 First Date Ideas « Single Girl Blogging

  • http://singlegirlblogging.com singlegirlie

    Wow – could you just go for a tea or does the smell totally make you gag?

  • Clint

    Maybe it’s the kid in me that still believes the best loves start at that purely simple, innocent level but I’ve always thought a carnival’s a good place to start. It may be a little immature, yes, but it takes the pressure off, you can hopefully see each other laugh, maybe get a shot of her eating some oblong foods, and get a little close on top of the world at the ferris wheel. At least, it’s good enough until that million dollars lands in my lap and I can start doing those hot air balloon dates I see on Millionaire Matchmaker where the chick can keep ME from quaking in my boots hundreds of feet in the stratosphere ;)

  • http://singlegirlblogging.com singlegirlie

    Clint – that sounds like a great third date! Not a first date. Certainly not a first date with someone you’ve only met online. I would NOT want to be stuck at a carnival for 3, 4, 5 hours or more with many of the men I’ve encountered online.

    But I LOVE carnies, amusement parks and the like with a new guy who I know I’m into! So fun!

  • Tiny Dater

    I couldn’t agree more with you singlegirlie. In fact I am a firm believer in the ‘five minute rule’. It really doesn’t take much longer to figure out whether there is a spark. I wish all online dating sites had a 30 min get out clause that everybody had to sign up to, where you could break it up without being offensive. A kind of first date pre-nup. Been on too many dates where I’m sitting there, nodding, necking too many Gin and tonics to take away the pain of strained conversation. Actually I have been known to yawn to speed up the bye bye time. Usually works.

  • LifeBytes

    The perfect list, really! I’m reminded of the first date “dinner” I had with a guy who sounded perfect on paper. Turns out he was sort of troll-like and actually very creepy as he just kept staring at me and …um..sort of drooling. Easy escape routes are your friend for sure!
    Sha

  • Single Girlie

    @Tiny Dater – Yes! I actually wrote about the “5-Minute Date” here: http://singlegirlblogging.com/2010/05/11/new-rule-the-5-minute-date/. A lot of people got mad at me for it. But it sure would save a lot of time. I like your yawning strategy. Pretty crafty.

    @LifeBytes – I had a dinner like that too. Total creeper. And it turned out his picture was fake. I was pissssssed.

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