So, first dates … right?

I know.

First dates are always an exercise in like,
self–flagellation.
I know it’s what everyone says. 

It’s what everyone says.

So I’ll tell you the truth. 
The truth is 
actually, I actually 
kinda like going on first dates, 
except I have to say this:
I hate first date dinners,
as in,
I hate dinners as a first date.

Don’t get me wrong – I love dinner. I love eating.
I love other people subsidizing my eating – this is why I’m on food stamps, no—
Just kidding. Yeah. Yeah, yeah.

Yeah.

But I just don’t like eating with other people.

Especially in public.

I like 
eating alone, 
in my apartment, 
hunched 
over my computer,
watching Netflix.

It’s too much, I think, 
navigating dinner on a first date. 
There are too many variables. 

The restaurant choice, the drink choice, the yes–or–no to an appetizer, the terror if the guy suggests an Italian restaurant because red sauce and what is this—

the 1990s?

So yeah.

I’m totally against the dinner–as–first–date.

Except I do like it when other people buy me things, and it is a much better deal than free coffee or free two–glasses–of–wine–because–anything–more–than–that–sends–the–wrong–message.

So, what if guys bought girls dinner but didn’t eat the dinner with them? So guys would still get all the cred of being generous and thoughtful and hip or whatever, depending on restaurant choice, food choice, etc. Then I thought: even better, what if the dinner got sent to the girl’s house. Even more chivalrous, right? What is more chivalrous than thinking girls shouldn’t leave the house. 

Basically what I’m saying is that there’s got to be a way for one of those dating apps and one of those online food takeout/delivery apps to work together on this. Because online dating is so much noise, and ordering food online is kinda pathetic when you are using it yourself … every night.


But it’s not like the girl would just use the guys. Like, I’m all for a gender equality. The girl, if she approves of the food choice and restaurant, then proposes meeting for a drink the next night. And of course she would pay for the drinks. Of course! Because gender equality. Lean in! Men need money more than women. Isn’t that what they told Lily Tomlin in 9–to–5? Still holds true.

But I hear so much from my girlfriends who are online dating, I hear all about how much bullshit there is. The ratio of weird messages to normal messages is like a million to five.
 
This way, guys can just send girls dinner instead of sending stupid online dating messages. Like instead of Orientalist comments on my eyes or my boobs or my comfort level for sexual experimentation, they can send me sushi that I can eat at home, alone, in the lovely glow of my iPad as I marathon 30Rock.

Then, after consuming all the shrimp tempura – because you can’t keep those for tomorrow, they’ll just get soggy, you have to eat all of them – after, I’ll fall asleep amidst the empty plastic trays of sushi rolls and I’ll wake up the next morning to the smell of soy sauce and with wasabi in my hair and I’ll think of the guy who sent me the yummy dinner from a hole–in–the–wall Japanese restaurant around the corner from me that I had never gone to despite living on the Upper East Side for ten years and I’ll be so full of sushi I’ll be so sushi–filled and happy I’ll immediately open my e–mail and write:

THANKS FOR DINNER. BUT I’M NOT JAPANESE.