So the girl who used to be your co-worker reached out. She wants to get drinks! Look at you go! She said, “We should hang out...“ in a friendly Chill Girl way, and you said, "Yes, we should." You thought it was a casual friend thing, but when you tell your friend Bryan what you’re up to, he makes that sound middle schoolers make when something vaguely romantic happens. The oooooo sound. Which kind of makes it seems like there’s something romantic happening. So now you’re faced with the age-old question: Is it a date?
Probably not. You’ve only ever done laundry on one setting, you haven’t paid taxes in the last three years, and your idea of cooking is opening a bag of Fritos and pouring chili inside. No one would ask you out. But just in case, here are five clues that it is, in fact, a date:
She invited you to a nice-ish restaurant at night. Which is like 5/8ths of what a date is. The other 3/8ths, if you’re wondering, are equal parts alcohol and saying "It’s a date." The most obvious sign that something is a date is that someone invites you (and just you) to dine with them (and just them.) This alone is not a date: There is, of course, such a thing as friends going out to dinner together alone. It’s just a little unlikely if both of you are single, you’ve only recently started hanging out, and you’re in a restaurant with tablecloths. If it looks like a date to the waiter, it’s probably a date.
Which brings us to our second Blue’s Clue: Did she did suggest you split an appetizer, which is, in many cases, not only the entrance to the meal, but to intimacy itself? If someone suggests splitting an appetizer they might as well have said, “I’d also like to someday split the cost of a pet-friendly one bedroom in Los Feliz with you.” Likewise for offering you a sip of her drink, or offering to split a cab to her home (obviously).
If your companion slips away to the bathroom and returns looking better than they did before, it’s a date. Did they fix their hair? Reapply makeup? Wipe old makeup out from under their eyes? Most women are certainly not going to waste an extra coat of lipstick on Just a Friend. Yes, yes, makeup is Not For Men, but this is all about a time factor: I’m not going to stay in the bathroom a little too long—to the point where my guy friend thinks I’m probably shitting—just to get lipstick right. But I might risk that for a date (society has us women convinced that if you just look the right way, he’ll like you back). Now, of course, this one is going to be difficult for the layman to spot since most men can’t tell the difference between curly and wavy hair and think that Margot Robbie doesn’t wear much makeup. (She does.) (They all do.) However, if your Maybe Date comes out of the bathroom with her hair up instead of down, or even moreseo down instead of up, she might be trying to look her best for you—the person she thinks obviously knows he’s on a date.
Okay next, did she laugh at your jokes? Men, unfortunately, aren’t that funny. At least not in comparison to how funny they think they are. Sorry; I know that hurts to hear. We still love you. Some of you. There are like two good men and they’re both Gregg Popovich. The point is: if she’s laughing at most of your jokes it’s because we’ve all been practicing fake laughter since nigh-infancy when it made our fathers feel better about themselves, and now we use it for our idiotic boss Randy, who keeps quoting Office Space to the young interns who were born the same year that movie came out. We the people (who date men) are all deeply, incredibly aware of what men mean when they say they’re Looking For Someone With a Sense of Humor. We know. And so we’re politely laughing in a way that, should we actually date you, will taper off around month 8 when your Seth Rogen voice is no longer tolerable. Trust me, we are not going to waste that fake laugh energy on someone we have no sexual designs on.
Here, however, is the biggest sign: did she touch your elbow? This sounds utterly ridiculous. Utterly. All of dating is ridiculous and the sooner you learn that, the better. Now have a friend lightly touch your elbow. See? See how intimate it feels? It feels like flirting. Really, any physical contact will do, but the elbow touch is classic. “Do you want another drink?” elbow touch. “Hahaha I love the movie Elf, too” light forearm touch. That’s a date, for sure.
“We should do this again sometime.”
Okay, so it was a date.
(Or she’s just really friendly).
You should definitely just man-up and ask her.
