Cheap date ideas?

[Seneca]

"Frugal" is a cuss word in English. Right or wrong, it's simply bad marketing to use it.

[Riggerjack]

+1 for internet dating. If you have deal breakers, get them filtered out in the beginning. In my case, I wanted to filter out smokers and breeders, only the internet will allow that level of filtering. It was 100% effective. I met my wife on yahoo personals nearly 8 years ago, on my first internet date. So, in my case, the crazies and losers were what I was finding with other efforts. Keep that in mind as I give my dating advice:

Figure out what you want and don't want. Until you know this, try anything that comes to mind. Women are 51% of the population, sample and learn. When you figure out what you want, look for her where she'll be. In my case, I wanted a geeky introvert. The internet was where I should look.

As for the cheap date issue, that's all wrong. You should be looking for an interactive activity. And pointing out that you want to get to know her, not get her drunk/ eat dinner, should suffice for wanting to forego dinner/drinks/movie.



Under no circumstances should you allow ERE tendencies to get you confused with the shiftless loser living in mom's basement that every woman has been trained to despise since grade school. Even the crazy guy in a treehouse has it going on by comparison to that guy.
If this seems to serious, or too much work, go back to sampling and learning by negative example.

[Riggerjack]

What do you do in the winter? Where do you like to be in foul weather? Now how do you make that a group activity? There are meetup groups for anything and everything. Meet her there.

[7Wannabe5]

Once you reach an age where the majority of your peers are married or otherwise spoken for, internet dating is pretty much the only practical way to go these days. I agree that using a strong filter will prove effective. Mine was something like "The traits I seek in a man are the three "I"s; intelligence, initiative and biceps." Relevant moral lesson being "Be careful what you wish for, little girl, or you will surely get it."

One of the known dysfunctions of intimate long term relationships is the tendency to be driven to opposite corners on any value. For instance, two people might only vary slightly in their house-keeping habits when they first meet but 20 years later one of them will have become the Nazi-Neatnik and the other one will be the Slacker-Slob. Thrift or frugality is definitely a value-which-is-also-a-tool-and-therefore-can-be-used-as-weapon so take this into consideration also because it may be the case that you would prefer to be with somebody who wouldn't give you grief if you wished to purchase a motorcycle someday. IOW, your compatibility with another person in terms of current preferences or practices may prove to be less indicative of future happiness in relationship than their overall ability to be flexible and/or respectful of the differing preferences of other(s) and your mutual ability to come to a basic agreement/contract about how future disagreements will be resolved. IOW, instead of focusing on the details, my advice to you (which would be the same advice I would offer my young adult children) would be that what you want is somebody who is strong enough in their "juvenile" to be able to learn and grow and deal with inevitable change and somebody who is strong enough in their "adult" to be able to make and keep good contract.

[C40]

(a note first - I wish I would have started this thread by asking only about cheap dates. A separate thread would've worked better for asking about how to meet people)

I’ve been seeing a woman for the last month. Met her from Tinder (which I like. It is VERY simple. Physical attractiveness is emphasized by its simplicity, but you get more message responses so you can sort out the person then)

We’ve been together often – maybe 15 times (easier b/c I didn’t work for 2 weeks during).

Here are the dates that included incremental spending:
- Bottle at wine bar - $25 (first meeting)
- Drinks at bars - $25 (my choice)
- Dinner out - $85 (She eventually requested it)

Free dates:
- At my house (or her apt) – meals, drinks, sometimes a Netflix movie. (this exclusively about 8 times)
- Went to the art museum (it’s free)
- Picnic at the park with a $3 bottle of wine she picked at the grocery store.
- Afternoon and dinner with her parents and siblings (their house)
- Out for NYE (free drinks because of her friend)


So for close to 15 times seeing her, that’s $135. That might not be any more than what I would’ve spent doing my own thing all of that time. The summer will be easier when there is so much more to do outside.

[C40]

I mentioned dating in a journal post, and ebast had an interesting comment. It's directly related to this thread, so I'm replying here instead of in my journal:

I wonder if there aren't surrogates that feel like you're going out for dinner but don't cost 90 bucks along the way.. like you mentioned museums -- you go to the a museum or gallery for an opening, everybody's dressed up, maybe there'll be wine and cheese, music.. does that feel more like a date? If you see something live instead of a movie, is that somehow date-ier? (asking a girl out for a Spotify date - good luck with that) I dunno.. more things to figure out..

Interesting question. When she was asking/insisting I take her out, I asked some questions to try to learn more about why it is important to her. I think mainly it's about confirmation of my interest and going through courting routines (or at least not straying from the routines completely -- the important part probably being the "event" of going to a specific "nice" place together under the obvious "date" pretense.)

I'm going to ask her more about it as that will help me with being able to limit costs, find substitutes, or make things we already to seem more like Dates. (plus, of course, ensure that when we do go out on a traditional date, we do it in a way that fulfills her reason for wanting to do so)

Some thoughts on a few things we've done:

- Museum - This was very "date-ish". It includes some of the key parts - picking her up, going to some specific location, time together out with just her, a focused and specific activity rather than just relaxing together, etc.. Could lack the element of being seen out together (few people go to museums), could lack the normal date context (dinner, movie, etc..)

- Out for NYE (We went out with her friends. Didn't spend anything as her friends we came with bought one round, then the group got bottles of vodka - one girl is the girlfriend of the restaurant manager) - With some specific effort, I could have made this more of an event, more of a date. Definitely something for me to keep in mind. Generally we were just standing/sitting around a table with a group of friends. I could have taken her off to have a some nice interaction one-on-one. I could have been more intentional about meeting more of the people there as a couple, etc..

- Out for dinner. We started with a bottle of wine and then ordered food after drinking all of it. She said she didn't care if we even got any food. Not sure if that was a bit of posturing, or effort on her part to keep the cost low, or what.. May be an indication that she cared mostly about other aspects of a "date".

- Dinner at our homes. Two of the times, I/we've definitely made "events" out of these (and her even more-so than me - with having some candles, setting the table formally, etc) Maybe I'll try to figure out how much she interpreted that as a "date" vs. going out for dinner.

[m741]

I like the cheap date ideas concept, so I collected most of the ideas I saw on this thread in the Wiki. Please contribute, I find all these ideas useful as this is an area where I'm not naturally creative!

[ebast]

Just to add a few ideas from experience (the legal ones only of course):

• Instead of coffee try dessert - anyone online dating has been on five coffee dates that week, maybe that day, and any coffeeshop you pick, they've been there with at least three other guys/ladies already. You can do this at dessert-y places, and can even get away with dessert only at restaurants that aren't too crazy. Cost: share the dessert (what!? it's romantic - haven't you seen Lady and the Tramp?) and it's less than two lattes. Or a latte and hot water if you're that guy.
• For live music, bars can be a fantastic resource since often the music is free, subsidized by high-priced drinks (hmm... there must be some way around that one...) Other people are on dates there so it's obviously a date. If there's a cover, you may be able to slip in 15-30 minutes before the music starts before they start taking covers. Cost: two drinks, maybe
• I once took a girl to an evening community meeting on what to do with some reclaimed land after a new highway was put in. I know, Absolutely Thrilling, right? She didn't want to go at first, either. But it was in a neat building we'd never get in otherwise, it turned out there were some real characters from the community coming out, there was some great people-watching and group-dynamics going on with live drama before your eyes, she was new to the area and so got to learn about what people living here cared about, we had a bottle of wine at her place afterward, and afterward she would always bring it up whenever we went past that highway. I have to think it shows you're an interesting person outside of the run-of-the-mill too. There are variations on this. Cost: 0!
• Go house-hunting to open houses together. Ok, houses are not really my thing, but there are some who go absolutely wild over this. It is kinda fun to snoop around in other peoples' houses and neighborhoods, but more to the point, you can craft a cover story together to tell the realtor (anything where you and your date are co-conspirators is a good thing.), and it subliminally sets up the vibe for you as a couple. Also, you are guaranteed to find things to talk about and it will show you a different side of your date than drinking frappicinos at a coffee-table. Cost: 0!
• Crab for your dinner. Or fish for it. Make sure [s]he's not vegetarian first. (Instead, vegetarians get to go wild blackberry-gathering and live longer.) Make sure your date's doing the fun work here, but this is exciting, you can show them a new skill, there's anticipation and weird slimey things, and you transition into a nice at-home dinner afterward. Bring lentils. Cost: I'm tempted to say negative because technically, the date is working for your supper here.
• Book readings are typically free, are pretty social affairs sometimes with wine and cheese, and you can see genuinely famous and semi-famous people who happen to be authors. I would try to pick something relevant to my date if doing this. Cost: 0!
• Sneak into... anything. Abandoned buildings, bridges, mills, gardens, farms.. Sources for this tend to be pretty local - search for things like "urban exploration" or "abandoned photography" in your area. This may not be entirely legal - don't blame me and don't get caught. Cost: 0!
• Bike somewhere. Think this one was mentioned before but it's a good one. (generally a warm-weather thing unless it is absolutely the right person) The bike trip is just as fun and entertaining as wherever it is you pick to go. Cost: 0! Warning: my last friend that did this as a first date ended up married.
• Beg, borrow, steal (or if you're Jacob, build) a dinghy, raft, or canoe and row to some little island together. You cannot beat this. Cost: 0!

I would do some of these even if I were married.

[saving-10-years]

Copied from C40 Journal thread comment.

ebast wrote: my favorite description of a date restaurant I heard from a broker when looking at an apartment near the bronx: "Oh that's the restaurant where all the girls make their boyfriends take them so they can look at each other's shoes."

Gossip fodder. I imagine that E-types are more influenced than I-types by this. In the trial by friends-of-girlfriend review does your date need to take you somewhere that you would like to go to yourself? Something that 'sounds good' should work in impressing your girl's girlfriends but it perhaps need to be not too out of the comfort zone of the audience. 'He took you where???'

Wondering how the ERE-types deal with double dates (where it could be 3 vs. 1 in deciding what to do, a bit like your Dad/brother).

[Spartan_Warrior]

Thanks for the ideas @ebast!

After the most recent posts here I'm even more thankful for my comparatively low-maintenance GF. I agree it may be an E-type versus I-type dilemma as we're both I-types and I almost never feel pressured to engage in the "going out to a restaurant" or other "gossip-bait typical dates". I only get pressured to go for bike rides and park walks.

RE: double dates--I've been successful in diverting these things with something like: "or, you could meet us at my place and we'll have dinner and a movie." Some of my friends did manage to get me out to a restaurant, but my GF was fine with the "no drinks/no appetizers/no dessert" rule (we pre- and post-gamed as needed) and it was only about $20. To me that's not significant given the low frequency.

[Western Red Cedar]

Bumping this thread based on this recent inquiry: viewtopic.php?p=283315#p283315

One of my favorite first/early dates is an art museum or gallery. You could find free galleries, or spring for a nicer exhibit.

I like it because you have a lot of potential conversation prompts based on different pieces/displays, but it also gives you the opportunity to trail off a bit and give your date some space. If things go well, you can always opt for dinner, a drink or a walk afterward. If there isn't chemistry, you aren't necessarily stuck like you would be at a restaurant for a couple hours, or even at a coffee shop or bar for half an hour.

It sends a tacit signal about your cultural/intellectual interests, and is different enough to stand out from other guys.

For me personally, anyone not interested in going to an art gallery probably isn't going to be compatible, so it also serves as a good filter.