Choosing the perfect spot for your first date
The first date can be awfully tricky to negotiate.
Where do you go, what do you do? Will there be enough going on around you should the conversation lapse? It’s a big responsibility and often left up to the requester – usually the man – to determine and what if she doesn’t like it?
Most people tend to meet up in a bar, but contrary to popular belief, not all first dates need to include alcohol. In the USA, it’s common for people to ‘go for coffee’ and spend their first date -safely- in a café or coffee shop. Not so in the UK, where, maybe we’re a more nervous bunch, we like to incorporate some kind of Dutch courage.
However, meeting at a bar can be dangerous, there is always the risk of showing oneself up by drinking far too much or taking things prematurely too far. Worse still if only one of you is drinking while the other drives. Date number one could result in being date number one and only.
Why not try what our cousins across the pond do, then and find a really nice café? It might feel less intimidating than meeting in the darkened corner of an unfamiliar bar.
We’re not talking about a tea shop here, either. Find a decent place, one with a good menu, attractive decor, smart-looking café furniture and a great atmosphere. This gives you several options, depending on how the date plays out.
It may sound strange, but a café is a great place for a date. You can observe your fellow patrons or people watch from the street and gain an insight into what sort of person you are dating: are they forgiving, are they judgemental, are they funny?
If it looks like things are dragging and you have nothing in common, then after a couple of coffees, you can quite easily slip away – a café is not somewhere that you would hang out into the early hours of the morning.
However, if the dates seems promising, you could think about ordering some food and prolonging proceedings. Knowing that you’ve got on well, without the aid of alcohol, is only ever a good thing.
Next time you ask someone out, or you get asked out, why not think about having your date in a café?