This Is The Only Correct Activity To Do On A First Date
by Audie Metcalf
Let’s begin with the worst possible activity for a first date, and it’s the one most of us succumb to:
The meal.
This well-worn idea is, to me, truly the nadir of how to actually get to know someone. Let’s count the reasons why:
We’ve all done it so many times, our entire body and soul falls into an almost script. And when we’re in a script, we’re not our best selves; we’re more performative and weird.
The choosing of the place is fraught. Near you? Near him? Closer to him, he’s thoughtless. Closer to you, you’re rigid. There’s no good way to choose.
I’d like to set sail to this idea that you can “find out everything you need to know about someone by how they treat waiters.” As a person with a severe allergy, I have to occasionally be…firm, especially when they come back to the table and announce that the Cobb salad “should” be fine. And with gluten allergies or sugar issues or whatever the myriad things most of us have around food, these are variables where our health (life?) is in the hands of a stranger. Also, don’t say coffee. A coffee date is the most mindless of all.
Ok, so what IS the right activity? I’ve thought long and hard about this. And while I haven’t been on a FIRST date in 8 years, I’ve been on about 6,798 first dates in my lifetime.
So here it is:
Go smell fragrances together.
Smelling scents is mundane. It doesn’t have a huge amount of meaning. It doesn’t have a prescriptive ending. It’s a somewhat meandering endeavor that can feel bizarre and boring, or revealing and fun, because it’s entirely what you make of it. And how someone is able to infuse a mundane activity with joy is probably the most ironclad indicator of whether or not you’ll want to spend the rest of your 92% mundane-filled life with them.
Is that putting a lot of pressure on a first date?
Meh, not really. Every first date is some version of a test to see if you can stomach this person sitting across from you for the rest of your life, while making quiet judgments about his laugh/grammar/gums. Isn’t it?
The added bonus in this activity is of course that there is no bill to potentially split. And therefore, no fake purse-reach. Which means you can just bypass that “bad-feminist” rage that would inevitably arise if he indeed allowed you to throw your card down.
Is a quaint little bespoke fragrance shop named “Strange Invisible” on some charming Main Street ideal? Yes, maybe. Because then you could also ferret out how you align on elitist, overpriced nonsense—aka, make fun of it while also coveting it, naturally. But any old Nordstrom or Macy’s will do.
Will he be able to correctly identify the small hint of rose in Chanel N°5? Will you impress yourself by noticing the woody note in Baccarat Rouge 540? Will you agree that Byredo’s “Sundazed” is truly like the smell of summer in a bottle? Will you dissolve with laughter when you realize you both find anything with “oud” truly sickening?
Will he reveal that he loves “anything with patchouli” and you can thank him for a lovely time and hightail it the hell out of there?
Or will both of your best selves be revealed by jumping, feet first, into something that neither of you need to win, or conquer, or be better at than the other? And will a small glint of childlike joy emerge, both of your hearts fully open, as if never broken, never wounded, a world of possibility between you.
With a lifetime of joyful mundane ahead of you.
Audie Metcalf is the Editor-in-chief of The Candidly, and lives in LA with her family. You can find more of her articles here.
