Holly's Dating Tips: Should I Ask Out a Bagel Via Text Message?

Q: I’ve read a lot of advice that says I should wait until a Bagel actually calls to set up a date. We’ve texted for a few days, but haven’t exchanged numbers. He’s asked if I wanted to meet up via text, so should I say yes?

A: A lot of antiquated advice on the internet tells you to call when setting up a first date. Or that you shouldn’t accept a first date arranged via text. Don’t listen to this advice. It was published back when Lindsay Lohan still had a thriving cinematic career. I’m sure before that, people were advising you against accepting anything less than a handwritten invitation for a first date and that the new fangled telephone was ruining the courtship process.

Texting is fine. In fact, at Coffee Meets Bagel, we give your own private text line with the explicit hopes you will use it to arrange a coffee date. See? We make answering this question easy.

Why a text line, though? Because until after you meet and probably not until after you’ve met several times, your bagel is a stranger. And though we’re not inciting “stranger danger” (you already know to meet in a public place for coffee, not a darkened alleyway in the warehouse district), it is hard for our generation to gab on the phone with someone we don’t know. It’s a social norm these days to reserve phone calls for emergencies and social intimacy. We can mourn the loss of it as a form of communication, but ask yourself how many close friends you’ve actually dialed this week? I rest my case.

So relax. Use the chat line. Set up the date. When you meet in real life, have your first conversation face-to-face the way Lindsay Lohan intended.
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Want some more dating tips? Check out my previous post on how to meet new people this winter!