Brunch, Lunch, Happy Hour Or Dinner For 1st Dates From Online Dating?

How to determine which type of date is best for women you met online.

In this video coaching newsletter I discuss an email from a viewer who fumbled the football when he tried setting a date with a woman he met online and had no rapport with. He treated her like someone he’d already met in person and had rapport with. He says he’s listened to 3% Man, countless times, but totally put his foot in his mouth and got ghosted. He asks what happened.

My comments are in bold italics like this below in the body of his email.

This particular email is from a viewer who, it kind of looks like, fumbled the football here when he’s trying to set the date. He’s basically started treating this girl like he had rapport with her already, like he had met her in person. Starts talking about picking her up and open car doors and stuff like that. So he says he’s read 3% Man countless times, but he clearly put his foot in his mouth and got ghosted, and he’s going, “What happened?” It’s also possible the woman just didn’t have high enough interest in him, but obviously, as I go through his email, you’ll see there’s some things he should have done differently.

So the idea is if you meet somebody in person and you spend 10, 15 minutes hanging out, talking, chit-chatting, you have a little bit more rapport, especially if you meet them through work, you’re at a friend’s party, or a social gathering where you got mutual friends in common, in those cases, you’re going to get the phone number, you’re going to pick her up, take her out because you got mutual friends in common. Now, with online dating where you haven’t met her, typically because you don’t know if she looks like her pictures, especially these days with AI and all the hookers that are on the dating apps, you want to make sure you’re dealing with a real human being.

Ideally, especially guys that are on a budget, you’re going to want to meet somewhere where like, maybe a wine bar is probably one of the best type of dates you could do. Because if you don’t like her, if she doesn’t look like her pictures, you’re out a glass of wine and then you can be on your way. If it goes well, then that glass of wine can turn into dinner someplace close by that you can walk or a short taxi ride away. Then if dinner goes well, then you can have someplace fun to go afterwards, like bowling, miniature golf, shooting darts, playing pool, or doing video games, something like that. The third place you go should be to facilitate physical interaction, usually around hour four or five of your date.

So let’s go through this particular guy’s email and see what he did.

Viewer Email:

Hey Corey,

It’s been a few years since you made a video about my situationship with a co-worker. Since then, my life has drastically improved. I’ve lived in multiple cities, became a partner at a tech company, got into triathlons, found my dream apartment, and can honestly say I’m living my most healthy and successful season ever. I’ve listened to your book countless times, but I just heard something in a video of yours that prompted me to write this email. 

At the beginning of the year, I moved back to my home state and recently got into dating apps. I’m getting a lot of matches but there was one girl that was more my type than the others. Dark hair, brown eyes, big smile, bubbly, no kids and Christian. We matched and the conversation flowed great! After a few back and forth messages I said, “We should get together for dinner and drinks this week or the next.”

Well, in this case, I would recommend you get on the phone at least see if you can hold a nice conversation for 10 or 15 minutes. Do you like talking to her or does she like talking to you? Does it flow well? That kind of thing. I would suggest a wine bar because again, if it doesn’t turn out right, she doesn’t look like her pictures, the pictures are old, or you don’t like her, whatever happens to be, then you can dip and your investment is a glass of wine.

Offering dinner, he did offer drinks, like I said, I know a lot of guys are on a budget. So me personally, when I’m single it’s like, I’m not going to go and just grab a drink. It’s because I have always met women in person when I’ve been single and I’m going to go to dinner, I’m going to do some nice things. If you’re doing a lot of online dating, you got to go through a lot of prospects to get one good one. So that’s just something to keep in mind.

She said she was on vacation all week and asked if we could get together on the weekend. I was supposed to be out of town for a funeral that weekend, so I gave her my number and said, “Text me when you get back from vacation so we can plan something for next week.”

She messaged me on Saturday (Right as I’m pulling up to the funeral)…

Like, that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun.

…So my responses were delayed. I never told her the reason why I was going to be out of town because I didn’t want to bring our conversation into the dumps, but maybe I should have.

You just say, “Hey, I’m out of town. I can’t get together this weekend, but hit me up when you’re back and we’ll plan something for next week.”

After a couple of messages about her vacation, I asked if she was still free the following week to get together and she said, “I should be.”

Remember, we don’t do “maybe” dates because when she says “I should be,” or “maybe,” 99% of the time she’s going to cancel on you at the last minute, or when you’re trying to text her to firm up plans, she’ll say, “Something came up” or she forgot. Again, if it was me, I’d have gotten on the phone with her at least for 10 or 15 minutes and see how conversation would have flowed. If it doesn’t flow on the phone, it’s not going to go any better in person, even if she’s super attractive. You want somebody you like who likes you and you enjoy conversing with. You want to genuinely enjoy her company.

I know, I should’ve asked, “When are you free?” or “What’s your schedule look like?” But honestly, I was distracted and not on my A-game.

Regardless, since she didn’t give me any options, and I have a busy schedule with training and nights with friends, I decided to share the nights I was available. I said, “I have Wednesday and Friday night open next week. Which one works better for you?” 

The kitty-cat was either testing me or didn’t like how I approached that, because she waited until Monday after work to respond.

Again, you don’t really have much rapport with her. You haven’t met in person, you haven’t even talked.

But like you say, the kitty-cat always comes back. She had some excuses about being busy blah, blah, blah, but said, “I think Friday will work best. I have it off!”

I responded, “Sounds great! What do you say we meet at Bob’s wine bar at 7 to start?”

I would say, “How about we meet at Bob’s Wine Bar?” Because a lot of your responses, the way you word them, is like a question expecting her to make a choice. You should be inviting her to do something that you would normally be doing anyways. Just comes off as a little bit more confident and more direct. The higher the interest, it’s not going to matter as much, but if her interest is low to marginal, that could be the difference between getting a date and just getting totally ghosted.

About four hours went by, and around 9:15 p.m., she replied, “I’ve never been there! Would more of a happy hour deal work? I am meeting some friends later Friday night!”

So here she already is trying to make plans after your meeting. Women will do that. I mean, if the date goes well, they may blow their friends off and decide to hang with you, but if you’re trying to create an opportunity for sex to happen and she’s already telling you she’s got plans afterwards, she’s already going to cut the date short. These are signs of low interest and not high interest. Again, most of this could have been headed off if you’d had just spent 10 to 15 minutes talking on the phone first.

I was genuinely tired and since she’d been waiting hours (and days) in between texts I decided to mirror her effort and went to bed. The next morning I replied, “Happy hour? What am I, your co-worker? No, I’m going to take you out for a nice date, hold doors open, we’re gonna drink expensive wine, and have a great time together! So if you already have plans with friends on Friday, we’ll just have to do it some other time.”

Well, I wouldn’t have worded things that way. I would have said, “What evenings in the following week are you definitely free when you’re available to get together?” So you basically told her, “Have a nice life. I’m going to go do something else,” in the way you worded that.

It’s been a day and no reply. There could be a lot of reasons why, and I’ve already got another date lined up so I’m not worried about it.

It just seems like because he liked this girl, it’s like everything he learned in the book just completely went out the window, or maybe he just read the book a bunch but never really got around to applying it. Now he’s just now starting to apply it.

Repetition is the mother of skill. You have to be reading the book and applying it, not to read the book a bunch of times, and then three or four years later, start applying it for the first time. Just the way you’re trying to plan a date, it looks like this the first time you’ve ever tried to do online dating. It doesn’t come off as somebody that’s really familiar with what I teach.

But the reason I’m emailing you is I was just listening to your video, Dating: Over-Eagerness & Over-Thinking while making dinner and you were saying it’s understandable if we want to meet someone for brunch or happy hour when we’ve met online. 

Well, I don’t know the context of that particular video since there’s thousands and thousands of them. There’s been ones I’ve done where the guy’s just not available just because of the way their schedules lined up. Just keep in mind, if you’re going to do a brunch date or a lunch date, usually the person that you’re meeting is going to have plans for after that. So you’re going to maybe hang out for an hour. So it’s not really conducive to creating an opportunity for sex to happen. It delays the seduction. Then you also have to go out with her multiple times before you really figure out if you guys are going to jive and the seduction is possible. It’s better to stack the deck in your favor and do a dinner or an evening date.

Again, starting with a happy hour. Something where she doesn’t have plans afterwards. If she’s already telling you she’s got plans, it means she has low interest. She’s not thinking that the match is going to go well, and there’s a very good chance she’ll just cancel at the last minute anyways. Again, talking on the phone for 10 or 15 minutes to see if you guys really click instead of just making dates off the app with somebody, not even heard her voice, I would not recommend that.

With that in mind, do you think I was too much of a hard ass by saying no to happy hour?

Well, you should have said no to happy hour. I don’t know why you went on that long diatribe, but talking about opening doors and stuff like that, that’s the kind of thing you say to somebody that you already know. You know from work, you met at a friend’s party, a friend’s social gathering or whatever, and somebody you have spent some time with. This is somebody you haven’t even talked to on the phone. So you got to have rapport first before you can kind of talk that way, because you basically just said, “Hey, have a nice life,” to her in your text. So I’d be surprised if you hear from her in the future, but again, just from the fact that she’s waiting a day or two to reply to you already shows her interest is low, and that tells me you’re focused on how much you like her and ignoring the fact she’s like pushing a wet noodle to get together with her. She’s not really trying because her interest is low.

Again, if you just got on the phone and talked to her first saying something simple like, “Hey, here’s my number1 Give me a call and let’s chat for a few minutes and maybe meet up for a drink,” or “Send me your number and I’ll give you a call and we can chat for a few minutes,” because again, you want to make sure you’re not getting catfished and you don’t want to go out on 10 dates, and then nine of those girls you don’t like talking to or the sound of their voice. The idea is you want to do as much pre-qualification upfront. So when you actually do go on a date, really it’s just, “Does she look as good as her pictures or not?” Because if you clicked on the phone, you’ll probably click together in person.

To me, it would go against what I’ve learned from your book about creating an environment for sex to happen and the principle of hanging out, having fun, and hooking up. But maybe the “happy hour date” is a normal thing in the dating app world?

Thanks for your time,

Bob

Again, when you tell me you’ve read my book more times than you’ve listened to it more times than you can, and then you write an email like this, you don’t look like somebody that’s read the book more times than you can count. Looks like you went through it once or thumbed through it.

So the idea is you’re going to start out at some place like a happy hour, because you want to go to three places in the evening. I mean, this is one of the basic principles, and it doesn’t sound like you’re even aware of that, despite the fact you say you’ve listened to the book countless times. This is what can make sense if you’re only listening to the book, and then you’re waiting several years before you actually get out there and apply it. Maybe you’ve been moving around a lot and you’re working a lot and you just haven’t had a lot of time for dating. So it was always kind of on the back-burner. Repetition is the mother of skill. So you read the book and you apply it, you read the book, you apply it, and each time you apply it, you get experience. That experience helps you fine tune what’s in the book. If you don’t get the experience, because you’re not really dating and applying it, and maybe you read the book a long time ago, then you can’t expect that your interactions are going to go really easily and effortlessly.

So if it was me, I would read the book, just the book itself, or put the audio-book on two-speed and then follow along on a digital or physical copy. If you’re driving around in your car listening to it as background noise or working out and listen to it, you’re distracted. Most of the time you’re not really paying attention to what’s being said. That would make sense because again, when I read your email and what you’re doing here, there’s major concepts that doesn’t seem you have a grasp of or even understand or why you do things here. Especially that whole long diatribe of your text about opening doors and stuff like that, that was totally inappropriate and not something you should be saying to a girl you’ve never met, and you never even heard the sound of her voice yet.

So ideally, a happy hour wine bar to start with. That goes well, then you go to dinner and then the third place should be something you can do physical. Now, if there’s a Topgolf place in your area, you can do the dinner and you can do the physical thing all at the same place. So you actually go to two places there and they have video games and you can move around. Maybe you’re hanging out, having some drinks or some food or appetizers, and then you go up and you get your bay when it’s ready Then you got food there, you got drinks there, you can hit golf balls and joke. You can show her how to hold the golf club, and if you guys start making out, then you can say, “Hey, why don’t we get out and go back to my place and open a bottle of wine?” If she’s down, she’ll be ready. If not, she’ll say, “Let’s have another drink here.”

So again, it gives you the option. The idea is the more dates or the date experiences that you stack in one evening, the quicker the seduction will happen. Most women sleep with a guy by the second or third date, typically. So it helps speed up the process versus just meeting for a quick drink and then boom! You’re out of there. The idea is the drink is kind of pre-qualification. Do you click enough to warrant investing the time and the money in a dinner? If the dinner goes well, do you want to invest time and money doing something else afterwards? Again, if she starts saying things that are off the wall, you can always dip and in the date at that particular place. So if it’s me, you need to go back and review the book and actually take the time to listen to what’s being said.

So, if you’ve got a question or a challenge and you’d like to get my help, go to UnderstandingRelationships.com, click the Products tab at the top of your screen on any page, and book a coaching session with yours truly.

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