>When is a date (as in an appointment to see meet with someone) just that
>and when is it a "Date". For example, if you are female and a male
acquaintance
>you met recently via mutual friends sends you an e-mail asking if you are
>willing to meet with him to give him some advice on organizing the structure
>of a web page and THEN suggests that you do it over dinner at a fairly
>nice restaurant...well, what are the intentions here. Is it just a business
>type date or is it a "Date". Are the intentions different if the suggestion
>islets meet for coffee at Barnes and Noble than lets meet at a nice
restaurant?
What you got there was an invitation to a Date.
Many, many moons ago (no pun intended) I studied ballet, in a class mostly
made up of adult spastics such as myself. In the men's locker room I had
occasion to overhear many a conversation between men who wanted to get to
know each other better, and the conversation ALWAYS began: "Would you like
to go for a coffee?" Never mind that class ended at 7:30 pm and that a drink
or dinner was what people wanted to go for. The INVITATION was for coffee.
Why? I asked myself, and my self answered: "Because the person making the
overture is not sure of the sexual orientation of the person to whom he is
making the overture. Hence coffee, because coffee has no sexual content." It
is then possible, I continued explaining to myself, for the invited person to
say "no" or even "yes" and keep it platonic; or it is possible for the
invited person to say "yes" and then, when safely out of earshot and en route
to a coffee shoppe, to say "actually, it's 7:30, why don't we have a glass of
wine instead?"
Soooo: if this guy had asked you to coffee or lunch, even at a nice
restaurant, it would have been business; and he would have allowed you to
say, if you were so inclined, "actually, I can't make lunch--how about a
drink instead?" and then after your second glasses of wine he might say "do
you have plans? or would you like to go to dinner? there's a great bistro
nearby..."
As it is, he has bypassed all those steps. So if you say yes, you are saying
yes to a Date; if you want a date; you should say "Damn, I can't, how about
lunch?"