So, I'm 35M in a small college town. I'm at the very tail end of a divorce that involves a toddler. Zero bad blood, still live with the ex-wife due to financial/kid/dog reasons (and as she knows my normal reddit account, this is from a throwaway).

I've been frequenting the local bar scene as I fucking love to dance and there're some shitty DJs that will do what they call spinning. It's not great, but it scratches my itch. I typically go alone, drink my pretentious drinks, dance my sexy ass off, and head home.

Two nights ago, I got rounded up in a posse of people including a few moderately attractive girls. Totally clicked with one, numbers exchanged, lots of touching escalation. We headed to a few different bars as a group, ended up back at the one I usually dance at. I did my thing, checking on her periodically, long story short, she's been texting me fairly frequently since, tried to get me to come out last night (I had to watch the kid, so it was a no-go). I've definitely got her interest.

We've got a coffee date today.

My question involves how do I tell her my situation, or even do I? I know I don't want to just "fuck 'er and forget 'er" as that's not the type of guy I am. I know it WILL come up, so I'd rather it came up in a frame of my choosing and not because I'm being "weird" about not being able to meet up for undisclosed reasons and not ever having her come over to my place. I just don't even know how to frame it. I'm certainly not apologetic about my life, but I also understand that it's likely not something anyone really wants to deal with.

I'm in the Wayne's World mindset about it now: "If you blow chunks and she comes back, she's yours. But if you spew and she bolts, then it was never meant to be." Is it even possible to spew this in a way that meets the first two rules?

Just hoping you guys can help me put my head on straight. I would've never got as far as I did without stuff I've read here, and this is the farthest I've ever gotten without a ring involved (which was almost 10 years ago).

UPDATE: So I went on the coffee date... and there was just nothing there. We held conversation, no lulls or anything for a solid hour, but it was just kinda hum-drum boring meaningless smalltalk bullshit convo. We sat across from each other, there was no physical contact until we left, then just a weak hug. I'm realizing now that I fucked up when I took a girl I met in a party situation and expected to have that same kind of fun experience in a calm, quiet sit-down environment.

On one hand I'm interested if there's some way I might recover. She was VERY interested after our first night, and I'm assuming that there's still some of that original attraction. She was certainly fun to be out drinking with. To this end I had the thought to just hang a lantern on it and text her something like "Hey, that was awkward today, lol, coffee obviously isn't our thing. Let's go do X this weekend" where X is something that involves drinking. Bring us back to the frame where things were clicking.

On the other hand, if she's boring to talk to now, why put more energy into it instead of just moving on?