It used to be that when you arranged to meet up with someone for the first time with the idea of finding out if you might want to get into a relationship with that person, it would be your first date. That was usually how it worked. You could go to see a film, or go to a pub quiz, or any number of activities. Now though, there’s a new dating term called the “non-first date”.
A non-first date is where you arrange to meet up for something really casual, like an after-work drink or a coffee, before deciding whether you want to invest more than an hour (or maybe, at a push, two) on that person. The idea is that, with so many dating apps and potential dates, you want to make sure that the person will be worth spending a cherished Saturday night with, and whether you’re willing to shell out more money on them. After all, first dates that involve dinners at nice restaurants, or paying for cinema tickets, can start to get expensive if you go on too many of them!
The idea of the non-first date is that it will avoid this and help to keep your money and your weekends reserved for people that you really click with. It means that you can test the waters with a greater number of people if you don’t always arrange a “proper” date and just meet up for mid-week coffees.
But really, although calling it a non-first date helps to differentiate it from a fancy date that you put lots of effort into, isn’t meeting up for coffee still kind of a first date? Just a thought.
