I can understand a woman wanting someone she trusts nearby on a first date. What I’m having trouble picturing is trying to get to know her while that person joins us for dinner. I thought the awkward part would be finding out whether we liked each other. Apparently, I also need to establish the size of the reservation.
This is the possibility I’m stuck on, not an account of a dinner that has already gone wrong. A first meeting in a public place makes sense to me. Bringing a friend along for safety is where my idea of a date starts to look different from hers. I’m expecting time with a woman I might be attracted to; she may want someone familiar there before she can relax around a stranger.
From my side, I know I don’t have bad intentions. From her side, that is information supplied by the man whose intentions she hasn’t had a chance to judge. I can see the limitation in my character reference. I wrote it myself.
Still, understanding the reason doesn’t make the arrangement appealing. If a friend is sitting with us, there’s another person to include in every conversation. I’d be getting to know both of them, while only hoping to date one. Even a perfectly pleasant companion would change how freely I could flirt, ask something personal, or admit to being nervous. A first date already has enough moments when nobody knows quite what to say.
If the companion were her male best friend or her brother, I’d feel more wary. I can imagine arriving and wondering what I had walked into. That’s my unease, though, not evidence that either of them planned anything. The source of the discomfort is simple enough: I wouldn’t know him, wouldn’t know what role he expected to have, and wouldn’t feel as though I were meeting her on equal terms.
Then there’s the bill. Being willing to buy a woman dinner doesn’t automatically mean I’ve offered to buy her friend dinner too. The third meal bothers me because it would be an extra expectation attached to an arrangement I already wasn’t keen on. I don’t know that anyone would actually ask me to pay for it. But if that were the expectation, I’d want to know before the menus arrived.
A friend staying nearby and a friend joining the whole date would feel different to me. So would everyone paying for their own food. Those details could change the practical problem; they wouldn’t necessarily give me the one-on-one meeting I wanted. I’m not sure I’d be comfortable enough to enjoy myself under those conditions, even with the bill settled in advance.
That leaves me considering whether to go at all. I’d rather meet a woman who is comfortable with a public first date for two.
