Hooray for Hollywood!
Just Not on a First Date.
by Lolita Haze
The evening carries on like any given Friday. You find yourself at your favorite watering hole seeing the same smiles as you drink your scotch. Sure, there’s a new one at the end of the bar and another at the table in the corner, but it is with some regret that none are catching your fancy. As you finish your drink and are about to call it a night, it is through the crowd of strange and the familiar, however, that you happen to come across one that has just the right bit of tilt. How come you didn’t see her before? Did she just walk in? Recognizing that her second smile was most definitely directed toward you, you buy her a drink and within minutes you find yourself engaged in a pleasant and surprisingly effortless conversation. She is beautiful, just your type, and not pretentious about it at all. A classy dame whose sexiness extends far beyond the physical. There seems to be no one else in the bar but you and her, till there comes the last call and time has come for you to part ways.
Far too amazing to give her up to the night’s blanket of darkness, you work up the courage to ask her out on a date…and this time you mean a real date and not some random meeting in a dive bar. You can’t believe your luck when she gives you her number. Four days go by - five - and with another Friday approaching you’re starting to worry about exactly where you are going to take that girl. Uptown? Downtown? Somehere in your neighborhood? In hers? The heck with it. Dinner and a movie. That’ll be fine. It’s a classic choice, tried and true, and you can’t possibly fail there, right? Right?
Wrong! Dinner and a movie is the worst possible choice for a first date. You’re not a teenager anymore, bub, and theoretically should have many more options available, but not only will it exhibit your lack of imagination, it will probably kill any chance for a second night out.
Let’s start with dinner. Chances are you are going to try to impress your new lady friend with a restaurant that is reputable for high prices and small servings. Nothing wrong with that in the slightest! Women should be treated to only the finest that your money has to offer. The problem comes when the decision is made to continue the relationship and she realizes that your real definition of a treat is extra cheese at the burger joint around the corner. Let’s face it, if you are not already a connoisseur of fine dining and have the means to continue it, the lady will just be disappointed in the end. Do not lure her with false impressions. So now you are saying to yourself, “I enjoy dining out, why shouldn’t I still take her to dinner?” The answer is simple. Women are vain creatures, far too concerned about the way we look while eating. We wonder if we have any slop around our mouths, if we’re eating too fast or too slow, if we’re eating too much. By the same token, I hate to say it, but the typical man doesn’t pay enough mind to the way he eats and the last thing we want to do on a first date is watch him shovel food in his mouth. If you wish to take her out dining on a future date, that is perfectly fine, but for the first it might be best to avoid long involved meals, and for God’s sake, whatever you do, never go to a rib house.
 And now for the movie. Why would you take this gal - the one with whom you had such a fabulous conversation and want to know more about - to a place where “Silence is Golden”? It seems a bit absurd to hide this beauty in a dark theatre and then keep her quiet because you are afraid of awkward pauses. What a shame that she took all this time getting gussied up for you, only for you to proudly show off the back of her head to the row behind. Sure the movie will give you something to chat about on the walk back to her place, but shouldn’t you have so much more to offer already?
The dinner and movie lack imagination and most importantly, what they lack is you, which brings me to what I think is the perfect date.
When you asked this gal out, it was in hopes to learn more about her and share yourself with her. It is this very idea that you need to apply when choosing the perfect date. Take control of what you two will be doing for the time you spend together. After all, you asked her out; she didn’t ask you. Far too many times I have found myself accepting a date only to play the, “What do you want to do? I don’t know, what do you want to do?” game and, in turn, being turned off by the indecisiveness of the gentleman who asked me out. Take into consideration things about her that you have already learned. Does she like to read? Does she enjoy art? Is she a nature lover? Take what you gleaned from that conversation and apply it to things you enjoy as well. This can translate into many things: a trip to the zoo, a museum, a social dance, or an evening at the carnival. Introduce her to things you like. When confirming your date, just let her know what is appropriate for her to wear.
As a man interested in this particular lass, you will have to apply more than just your physical self into the date. She agreed to spend a day with you, so she is interested in learning more about you. Here is your opportunity to show her what you are all about. Find your common interest. She likes horses and you like the outdoors – perfect! Go horseback riding. She likes history, you like boats, take her to a nautical museum. Get creative with the time you spend with this lady!
Never, by any means, take her some place you have no interest in at all. If you take her someplace that is 100% her, you will appear one of two ways in her eyes. While you think you are being gentlemanly towards her, she will see you as a doormat, and a wimpy one at that. Or if you are in a milieu you could care less about, she will be able to read that and think that you have no interest in her world. Also, never take her somewhere you never plan on attending again, or do something you never wanted to do in the first place. There is no point in impressing her with something you are going to deny her later.
As for conversation, a good rule of thumb is to keep it open with little distraction, but active enough so that what you are doing can spawn interesting repartee with each other. Otherwise you might as well just have your first date over the phone.
Ultimately, whether your first date is the first of many or, unfortunately, the first and last, it should leave her with a sense of fondess. Years later she may recall, ‘On our first date your father took me to...’ or even ‘I dated this guy once. It didn’t work out, but...,’ and that’s not going to happen if all she has to remember is a dark theatre. Besides, you don’t want to watch a movie where the couple on the screen has all the romance – you want to be that couple and live it!
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