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These days, going out for drinks is usually the go-to first dates for millennial women who enjoy social drinking. It’s a low pressure way of getting to know someone and you can relax at the same time with your glass of Riesling. If you don’t like him, you can easily make an excuse and leave after your first drink. This was my main reason for having done a lot of drink dates throughout my dating life. That and the fact that I was afraid that if we do a dinner date, he might ask me to split the check. At least with drinks, if he wanted to split the check, it won’t be as expensive.

My outlook has changed since then.

Be girlfriend material. Make it expensive to take you out to filter out low effort men.

Accepting drink dates will not yield you men who are looking for relationships and it will place you in the category of a “fun girl” instead of a girlfriend/wife. If you’ve met a man socially and he asked you out on a date, requiring that he take you out to dinner will call for more financial investment on his part, which is one of the ways you can tell if a man is serious about you. Plenty of men offer drink dates because it’s a low financial investment on his part and it allows him to see as many women as possible. A man who only wants to do drink dates after you’ve stated that you only do dinner dates is a red flag and I would personally pass on that man. Remember that a lot of men do drink dates because they know that alcohol smoothes the way for sexual encounters.

What if you meet someone on a dating app? Now, should you still expect a dinner date from someone you’ve never met before? My answer is still yes. Online dating is notorious for attracting men who are only looking for something casual, so it’s even more imperative to only do dinner dates if they want to take you out in order to filter out low effort men. Before embarking on a date, do a pre-date phone call first to test for conversational compatibility and to make your expectations clear beforehand. (I’ll write a post on this soon.)

You need a sound mind to filter men.

Don’t drink during the first few dates with a man. Why? This will allow you to have a sound mind when it comes to filtering a man — does he pass your standards, does he have dealbreakers, does he seem like a good person? You need to be able to judge a man’s character with an alert mind. Being under the influence of alcohol makes you focus more on the “fun parts” of the date like how attractive he is and how much you like kissing him, instead of analyzing if he’s the right fit for you and if he’s boyfriend material. Abstaining from alcohol also helps you determine quickly if you two have real chemistry. Alcohol will make you think that you have more chemistry than what you actually have. Plus, why would you want to go out with a man who’s only fun when the two of you are drinking? Many women don’t successfully enter relationships because they date the wrong men, and this is because they’re under the influence of alcohol during the early stages of dating.

So what should you do instead?

For first dates, I recommend dinner dates. You can do one in 90 minutes to an hour to see if you'd like to see him again. Do a pre-date phone call beforehand to see if you're on the right page, to communicate your expectations, and to make sure it's worth it to get all dressed up for him.