7mo ago

Anon tries to understand his coworker

174 comments

I'll never understand how difficult people make things by not being forthright and making things awkward:
"Is it okay if I bring my boyfriend?"
"...I think there's been a misunderstanding. I had asked you on a hike as a fun first date, I didn't realize you had a boyfriend. I'm going to bow out of this, but I can give you the hike info if you want to take him." And then you laugh about the misunderstanding the next work day, and keep things at work from then on. No reason for it to get bad. Flirting is still fun! Just leave it at that without expecting anything more.
- Don't flirt with someone single if you're not interested, don't flirt with someone in a relationship if you're not interesting in breaking it.
  It's just that simple.
  
  Being polite and friendly to a person isn't flirting. Sexless losers who never leave their basement always think a girl being friendly to them is flirting with them.
  
  I wonder if you have a different definition of flirting, because the end goal of flirting is not necessarily to gain a relationship.
- Some people think flirting means they want more.
  
  "Why can't men understand hints?"

Theres a lot to unpack here, but really OP made a mistake by asking to go hiking. Thats a terrible first date idea and also isnt inherently date-y. Likely he was just missreading her kindness as flirting, but if he had asked her to dinner or coffee brunch it would've made his intentions more clear to her.
Not that it really matters because its fake and gay anyways.
- Well, I read like a hundred times that going for a coffee is an incredibly boring date idea and doing some activity you both actually enjoy is much better.
  For what it's worth, I hate the idea of a coffee / dinner date. Seems incredibly forced and like some kind of an interview. Though, I'm not dating and not interested in doing it, so I might be completely out of touch.
  
  Coffee is a great first date if you met on a dating app. It's a public location where you can both meet in person for the first time and chat but neither of you is forced to stay if things aren't shaping up how you expected.
  But if you already know each other then yeah, coffee isn't much of a date.
  
  Coffee is boring if you are boring. That's why some people are against it.
  
  In my opinion dating is basically an interview. Though for a first date i would choose some light activity so if conversation doesn't naturally come it wouldn't be awkward.
  
  Even if you want to do something more interesting than coffee, find something better than "let's go together to a remote area where no one will hear you scream or find your body" or even just "you'll be stuck the whole afternoon with no way out if it turns out you don't like me." If you want to do something like that, I would recommend a climbing gym or something like that instead. It's public and it's easy to leave, two things you should make sure to include in a first date.
  
  I agree, coffee dates suck. I usually do a nature walk for a 1st date because it's free and gives us something to do.
- Why is hiking a bad first date? Its free and walking side by side makes it easier to talk casually + it makes you appear like someone who actually leaves the house.
  
  Not sure if this was above posters point, but this was pointed out to me once...
  As a guy who typically dates girls, you're asking a woman to go out in the woods alone with you to a place that likely has no cell service and no way to contact anyone and is typically for the most part completely isolated from civilization.