Good First Date Ideas For Online Dating

If you’re looking for good first date ideas for meeting women off a dating site your best options are to suggest dinner, drinks, or a visit to the beach.

According to a recent study by Zoosk, suggesting these dates in your messages will increase your response rates with women significantly.

Meeting for drinks, dinner, or the beach apparently appeals to women over all other first date ideas. But why?

Zoosk Good First Date Ideas

Zoosk looked at over 600,000 conversations between their users in Chicago, Denver, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, Dallas, Boston, and New York City to discover which “date related words” increased the message response rate for their members.

DINNER
Mentioning the word dinner increased the email response rate by 4.5X in Boston and 5X in Dallas.

BEACH
Mentioning the word beach increased the response rate 7.2X in Chicago, 5.3X in Denver, and 4.9X in New York City.

DRINKS
Mentioning the word drinks increased the response rate 7.7X in Indianapolis and 6X in Los Angeles.

My Two Cents

I’ve read plenty of blog posts on dating sites over the years. There are countless suggestions for first dates; ice skating, doggie dates, hikes, farmer’s markets, and carnivals among other things. These are all nonsense and a waste of your time.

Your first date should be drinks or coffee. That’s it. I covered this in a blog post “What Are Fun First Date Ideas When Meeting Women On Dating Sites?“

The simple truth is this; your first date is to simply meet and see if there’s chemistry. Believe me, there is NOTHING worse than having a dinner date and having zero chemistry.  It’s downright painful and a complete waste of time.  At least with a drink, you can be in and out quickly if you aren’t “feeling it.”

As for these findings by Zoosk, I’m here to give you all the facts regarding their study.  I’m OK with drinks and meeting at a beach for drinks. But you should avoid dinner dates. Just my two cents.

What The Findings By Zoosk Mean To You

Aside from the word dinner, I suggest integrating the words drink, or beach (if applicable), into your email messages to women as they are very good first date ideas.  As an example, you could email her this, “Send me your number and we can meet for drinks.”

Or if you live near a beach you could incorporate both “beach” and “drinks”; “Send me your number. I would love to meet you for drinks at X beach.” Keep in mind “X” is your local beach.

I’d like to point out that the Zoosk study didn’t mention at which point you should use these words in your messages.  I would highly recommend you do not ask a woman out in your first email like this guy:

In fact, NEVER ask a woman out in your first message unless you enjoy constant rejection because your messages will never be returned.   Instead, aim for the 3rd or 4th email to have her send you her number.

Remember, don’t ask for her number or ask her out in an email.  When you ask a “yes” or “no” question you give her an out.

“Would you like to meet for drinks?”

“Are you free Friday for drinks?”

Don’t use sentences like the ones above. She could say “no” to both questions.  Tell her to send you her phone number and use the specific keywords “drinks” or “beach” if applicable as they are good first date ideas.  Use the word “dinner” if you’re comfortable taking someone to dinner as a first date.

And don’t worry if you don’t drink; you can always meet for coffee.  Yes, as boring as it sounds coffee is a good choice for women who don’t drink.

Final Thoughts

I think drinks at happy hour is the best option for a first date.  It’s a cheap, easy, fun, simple, quick way to see if there are chemistry and attraction.

In fact, in one blog post, Match.com, they recommend a public activity that can be “extended if things are going well, like drinks and a game of pool at a local bar, or a coffee and walk…”

The proof that drinks are a great idea for a first date is that women respond highly to messages that have the word “drink” in them. You could even throw in “beach” like Zoosk found in their study.

Like I mentioned above, I’m against meeting a woman for dinner on a first date because if there is no attraction it just gets awkward. However, you can’t argue with the fact that the study found that women respond when men use that word in their emails.

I leave the choice to you of what to do.

What do you think are good first date ideas? Care to share your experiences? Leave your comments below.