Our Sunday brunch date turned into wine tasting, then watching the sunset. I had suggested a morning date because that was when I had the most energy. Apparently, I had enough to get through the rest of the day, too.
I was 32 and had been on Hinge long enough to develop some familiar frustrations. I was getting dates, so this wasn't a story about an empty inbox. The problem was what I thought I had to do once a woman agreed to meet me.
Dinner felt like effort. An evening out, a proper meal, the sort of plan that seemed to announce I was taking this seriously. I put a lot into those dates because I wanted the women I met to like me. They did, to varying degrees. My bank account was less enthusiastic.
There was another small flaw in this arrangement: I'm a morning person. I was choosing the part of the day that looked right for a date instead of the part when I actually felt most like myself. I could arrange an evening. I couldn't arrange to become a different person by the time it started.
So I began suggesting brunch. It still felt like a real plan, with more to it than a coffee or a walk, but without the prices I was paying for dinner. I wasn't trying to stop making an effort. I wanted the effort to involve a version of me who was awake and enjoying himself.
A few months ago, I matched with a woman who seemed promising and asked her out for Sunday brunch. We got along right from the start. And because we had met in the morning, liking each other didn't immediately run into the end of the evening.
We had the rest of the day available. Wine tasting wasn't part of the original invitation; it came up naturally afterward. Watching the sunset followed the same way. Neither had been added to the plan in advance to make the date sound more impressive. Brunch had been the whole proposal.
That was a different kind of day from the ones I spent anticipating an evening date. A dinner could occupy my thoughts long before it occupied a table. If it went badly, the day had already been given over to it. A morning meeting seemed to leave some room: for other plans if we didn't click, or for more time together if we did.
I also liked the idea that meeting in daylight might feel more comfortable for a woman meeting a man from an app. I couldn't decide that feeling for her. It was simply one more reason a daytime invitation made sense to me.
The woman I had invited to brunch is now my girlfriend.
