First Dates

From The Washington Post -

Your romantic first dates? Restaurants hate them.
By Lavanya Ramanathan

The guy had left the table for only a minute.

But as soon as he was out of sight, his date whipped out her phone, opened Tinder and started swiping.

“It was deceitful, a little bit,” says Chris McNeal, general manager of Bar Dupont, who’d watched the scene unfold, slightly aghast that this is how people find love in the modern age. It wasn’t even the first time he’d seen a Tinder meetup turn sour.

First dates — those angst-filled encounters when two strangers size each other up as romantic prospects — fill restaurants and bars so often that the staff is keenly aware when you’re on one.

“They’re moderating how much alcohol they drink,” McNeal says. “They have that twitchy-eye thing where, like, they don’t know each other.”

Your first-date banter? Banal. And the bartender is pretending that he hasn’t seen you twice already this week. With different women. Using the same, somewhat-creepy lines.

Greg Algie, co-owner of the Fainting Goat, a popular Washington first-date destination, has witnessed more than one Tinderella arrive, get a glimpse of the person they’re supposed to meet — and head right back out the door.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/your-romantic-first-dates-restaurants-hate-them/2016/06/07/bf45adfc-1df5-11e6-8c7b-6931e66333e7_story.html?wpmm=1&wpisrc=nl_rainbow