Displaying Value and Minimizing Flakes: Dinner vs Drinks

DankuTwo · 2025-11-23T05:31:49+00:00

I have never in my life done dinner as a first date. It has pretty much always been drinks, with the odd coffee or walk here or there, based on circumstance (sometimes that just worked better for our schedules).

TheOneWhoThinketh · 2025-11-23T04:10:58+00:00

As a man, what works with a woman who is genuinely interested in you, is following her lead. A woman who expects more will hint at it in various ways during your initial conversation. A woman who doesn't, will likely be overwhelmed by too much effort, and feel pressured to reciprocate if she continues talking to you.

Ignisyourface · 2025-11-23T05:13:28+00:00

It depends more on how I met this man.

If he and I met in real life, exchanged numbers, talked for awhile, and he only asks me out for coffee, I’d feel some type of way about it.

If he and I met on OLD and have yet to meet IRL, then coffee or drinks is fine. We haven’t even met yet and I don’t want to get stuck on a full blown dinner date with the dude if I’m not feeling him.

uglysaladisugly · 2025-11-23T14:52:40+00:00

I'm horrified about the idea of getting dinner with someone i don't know well. It's way too long and formal.

aslfingerspell · 2025-11-23T22:19:45+00:00

I would argue that a lower investment date is also safer, since a dinner date can make someone feel "locked in." for the whole meal.

In US culture at least, cafe-level items like bagels and smoothies are paid for upfront, ready in minutes, and acceptable to eat out of the venue, while restaurant-level items like burgers and steaks are paid for after you have eaten. Unless they are explicitly fast food, these kinds of food are consumed dine-in beginning to end.

If I have a date at a coffee shop, order coffee, get my coffee in 5 minutes, and then someone is a creep, I can go out the door, coffee already paid for. I can evacuate from a dangerous situation without thinking "Wait I'm technically shoplifting." or being trapped by the habit of never having left a restaurant without paying before.

My last date was an actual dinner date in which I felt trapped due to, among many other things, the fact that it took an absurdly long time for food to arrive and didn't get a chance to pay for it until the end.

It sounds stupid, but little things like that can create a lot of friction in a dangerous scenario.

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Lemon_gecko · 2025-11-23T08:59:20+00:00

I'm usually looking for something casual and coffee dates are for me, i'll reject any dinner proposal lol. If i were to date more seriously i would be fine with both. In both cases there are men who will be exploiting that or angry or manipulative, or in both there could be men who use rational reasoning. All in all what matters is his treatment of me and i will see it pretty quickly.

TopShelfSnipes · 2025-11-25T17:03:12+00:00

Dinner is a terrible first date for a number of reasons, unless you're both foodies or there's an existing rapport:

You will likely be seated on opposite sides, minimizing the potential for any physical connection to develop organically, and blocking more than half of body language.
You will be interrupted frequently by wait staff, especially at the beginning while you're trying to build/deepen rapport, to order...which sets the tone for the rest of the date.
You can't move around.
You have to watch each other eat which some people find awkward at first meet, so some actively don't like dinner first dates because of this (some women are very particular about certain things).
You are captive for the entire meal, which is a commitment and means there is likely no escape from if the date goes badly.
There is little going on around you that is worth discussing, so it's harder to live in the moment. So you will have to both manifest conversation from nothing, which can be awkward if you don't know each other well yet. Sure, the food prep is going on, but it will take a moment to get there, and that's why I said this isn't terrible if you're both foodies/willing to share food with each other/etc. since you can talk about the food in anticipation of it and have it not be boring talk. It can be fun/spice up conversation to have other things going on around you that you can spontaneously comment on, and it reveals how well your date thinks on her feet if she's funny, and can give you a chance to show off sense of humor as well...all of which won't happen at a dinner date typically.

IMO dinner dates were a super high risk for a 'job interview' date which was ALWAYS a no to a second date from me. Dates are supposed to be fun, not games of 20 questions focused around career, future plans, etc.

Coffee/drinks could work, but I always found drinks to work better after you'd done something first. I usually liked building dates with an activity in mind (a walk somewhere, museum, ice skating, watch a sunset, that sort of thing) in a public place, usually in the afternoon. Then have places in mind for dinner/drinks/ice cream and if the date is going well suggest adding on more to the original activity. Night tends to be more prone to eliciting romantic feelings than day, and I always liked that coinciding with the transition of day into night to allow that to build. Very few people are going to make out on an sidewalk in the middle of the day, moreso at night, should things progress to that level.

I dabbled in dating apps as a secondary place to meet women, but I never liked it as people were rarely who they were online. Fun, bantery conversations online often turned into dry dates when they weren't as extroverted as they seemed. For all I know, a friend could've been helping them, and I could've been talking to the friend online. So I never put a ton of stock in online banter because it wasn't guaranteed to carry over IRL...it only mattered inasmuch as the conversation was continuing and progressing towards meeting up.

Money is irrelevant to attraction for women, and men should want money to be irrelevant to attraction, so it never factored into dating. Age was important in the sense that she had to be within a few years of me or of similar mindset, which presumably the women were screening for as well. And IRL attraction tended to be a pretty reliable filter for that. Style should reflect who you are and the type of woman you're looking to attract. So for me on a first date, that was usually blue jeans, a nice shirt, and a pair of brown boots - something along those lines - unless we were doing something more casual where shorts/a t-shirt would be appropriate. Overly formal is unnecessary unless that's who you are/who you want. Suits also cover up a lot of your physique as a guy, and you should want things that show off your butt, calves, forearms, wrists, hands, etc. - parts of guys that women often find attractive.

Title	Displaying Value and Minimizing Flakes: Dinner vs Drinks
Author	landdeveloper16
Upvotes	1
Comments	8
Date	November 21, 2025 9:11 PM UTC (8 months ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/PurplePillDebate
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/PurplePillDebate/comments/1p3aht8/displaying_value_and_minimizing_flakes_dinner_vs/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/PurplePillDebate/displaying-value-and-minimizing-flakes-dinner-vs.1567195 https://theredarchive.com/post/1567195

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