What Drink to Order on a First Date

Order the one you want to drink. On one of our live calls, a student asked a simple question. Should he order something conventionally masculine like whiskey? Or would a fruity cocktail make her think it was a feminine drink? Our coach said it does not matter much. A masculine drink will not hurt you, and a sweet one will not either. He orders sweet drinks himself and has never seen it become a problem.

There is one real exception. Some girls are snobs about their alcohol or their food, and those girls may judge you a little. You cannot do much about them, and you would not want them to decide the date anyway.

What our coach does is order what he likes and acknowledge that he wants something that tastes good. He is not ashamed of it. When you plainly do not care what she thinks of the order, even a snob has less to push against, because not caring takes the sting out of whatever judgment she might make.

So if she asks about your drink, one line covers it: you like what you like, and it tastes good. Do not over-think this part of the night.

Most men worry about the drink and ignore the count. Our coaches do not recommend getting drunk to calm your nerves. The risk is that you start believing you cannot do it sober, and then the alcohol is a crutch you carry into every date.

On our bootcamps, a coach tells students who want to drink that they can earn it. First they do a couple of approaches sober and show themselves they can. After that, a drink is fine. The second rule is not to get sloppy, because if you drink so much that you forget the night, you forget what you learned from it too.

We would apply the same idea to a first date: walk in able to talk to her without a drink in your hand, and let the first one be the reward rather than the fuel.

Our coaches generally rate drinking dates above eating dates, and they call a drink date an easy go-to that converts well. It also leaves you room to move. When it is going well, the next step is what they teach as logistical escalation: a second drink, or a change of venue, rather than a long meal at one table. A first order that is small and quick keeps all of that open, and it keeps the date about the two of you instead of about a menu.

A first date at a bar sometimes drifts into food. Our coaches generally prefer drinking dates to eating dates, but sometimes she says she is hungry. You do not have to eat to go along.

Say you are not really hungry, and take her somewhere to get food while you get another drink, or just water. One of our students had strict food rules and asked how to handle this. The coach's answer was that you are not obliged to take a girl to any activity you do not want, and there is almost always a creative way around it. If she wants to grab a bite, you can go with her and sit with a light drink or a glass of water.

The venue is the other half of the order. A coach covering first-date strategy said to scout a few bars with a quick search, then walk in and know within thirty seconds whether it works. The venue being perfect matters much less than the logistics being easy.

Once you pick a place, go back to it when you are not on a date. Have a bite, talk to the bartender, and tip well so the staff are happy to see you. You do not want to take date after date to a bar where you have a bad reputation and the people serving you dislike you.

Order what you like and say it tastes good. Keep the first one slow, so you are talking easily before the glass is empty. If she eats and you do not want to, take water or something light and keep your attention on her. The drink is the least interesting part of the night, and the more you treat it that way, the better it reads.