
Coffee Date!
A coffee date! So you want to take me out for a cup of coffee; a coffee date. You want our first date to be at Starbucks, or maybe at Peet’s Coffee, or the Coffee Bean. I get that you don’t know me yet, and maybe you don’t want to waste a bunch of money on a girl you don’t know – but geez – coffee? A coffee date?
I recently met a very handsome Italian man at an event I attended. You know when you meet someone, and there is that ‘instant’ chemical attraction – that animal attraction? Well, I rarely have that, but on this night, when I least expected it, I met a tall, athletically built, educated, polished, Italian investment banker named Nico. Over the course of the evening, we ran into each other a few times, and engaged in flirtatious chit-chat to the point that he asked me for my number. The next day he started to text me right away, telling me how nice it was to meet me, how attractive he found me, and how sweet I seemed – saying all the right things; and he asked when we could get together. I was pretty busy with work, and, well, my life in general, but I told him that I had some time Thursday evening, and could meet him anywhere in the Beverly Hills or West Hollywood area. He was free that evening as well, and we made a plan to meet at 7:30 pm, and he said he would get back to me with the ‘where to meet’ on Thursday.
Wow, that was pretty painless, we had a …DATE!
Now for the men out there who are reading this: when we, as women, have a date – a date that starts at 7:30 pm – we know that it is too late for a happy hour, so we assume that means drinks and appetizers, or maybe even dinner. And being that it is our first date, and from the outside you appear to be what might be considered to be an actual contender compared to some of the weirdos that approach us on line, we want to make sure that we make a good impression on the first date.
So, as it was Monday, I knew I had a couple of days to prepare for my ‘Thursday night date with the hot Italian’. Life is busy, especially in a city like LA, but that gave me a couple of days to orchestrate everything I needed to do to get prepared for my big first date – as we all know, that a first impression, is a lasting impression.
My ‘hot date orchestration’ went something like this:
….hmm… It’s Monday, okay so I better clean my place tonight, just in case, for some reason I let him drive me home and he wants to see where I live, I better make sure it looking ‘mint’…because…
…Tuesday night I need to go shopping after work, I want to find shoes to go with the new dress I bought last week, as I have been dying to wear it; or… hmm, maybe I need to find a cute top to go with my jeans and boots in case we go casual…Regardless, I need to shop on Tuesday…. because….
… Wednesday night I have to do a Mani-Pedi; I can’t have chipped polish on a first date, and I want my polish to be fresh and pretty – in case I wear open-toed shoes with my jeans for the casual look, or if I can’t find the right pair of shoes to go with the new dress and I end having to wear my ‘standard black Prada shoes that I wear friggin’ everywhere’ – then my toes better look good too ….because….
….Thursday night is date night, and I need everything ready because by the time I get home I will just have enough time to shower, change and actually put on make-up. Plus on Thursday, I have made a hair appointment to have my hair blown out during my lunch break, so I don’t have ‘Janell hair’, instead I will have luscious long silky smooth ‘I just got a blow-out hair’ to go with my pretty nails and awesome outfit…..
So NOW do you see why my first available day was THURSDAY?
Finally, it’s Thursday Night, and I am ready! Of course, Nico the Italian, has been texting me every day with cute little texts, in anticipation of our big date on Thursday, flirtatious little texts, even texts verging on ‘sextie little texties’ ….Yep…IT’S ON!!!!
So, as I pull into my underground parking, I hear my text messenger going off, and as get into the elevator, and have a hand free to respond, I look down at my iPhone to see bubbles bubbling under Nico’s name, and my heart starts to pound in excitement and curiosity wondering where we will be meeting and…..
When the bubbles finally stop bubbling, as I look down wondering where my first romantic kiss with Nico will be, I see the words … Let’s meet for a cuppa Joe @ The Coffee Bean & Tea Leaf @ 445 N Beverly Bvld BH, can’t wait to see u ….Okay, so I see the words, yet I re-read them several times, thinking there must be more bubbly words coming from Nico? Did he mistype? Did his auto-correct auto-fill in for him? Was this just a text message gone wrong? But when no more bubbles came, I knew that meant he was waiting for my response, and I had to accept that, that, it was what it was, ugh, a coffee date.
A coffee date! He wants to meet me for a coffee date; my first date, a coffee date! Okay, I know what you are thinking; he never clarified what exactly you would be doing at 7:30 pm, so you can’t blame the guy for wanting to grab a coffee. But FUCK! If he had told me up front that he wanted to grab a quick cup of coffee, honestly I would have likely said…NO!
Why? Why NO you ask? Are you a Diva, or a Gold-Digger or a Beatch? Okay… well….
Firstly, I only drink coffee in the morning, before 8 am, because if I have any amount of caffeine after that time, I will never sleep at night. Who the fuck goes out for coffee at 7:30 pm? (Oh, he’s Italian, ugh, I forgot.)
Secondly, going for coffee means to me, that I am going as I am, no fuss no muss. That means, Janell is showing up in a pony-tail, jeans and sneakers, with no make-up, except maybe some lip gloss, basically ‘au natural on steroids’ – picture that look! That is my gym look, my work look, and believe me, that look is definitely an ‘acquired-taste kind of a look!’ It’s not a first date look, definitely NOT, I need to keep that look hidden for several dates, several dates until the guy is completely hooked before I unveil that look!
So THEREFORE: I would have said NO to a coffee date for a first date!
So now I am irritated that my romantic date – or at least the one I imagined for the past four days in my head – is reduced to a coffee date, and I start to annoyingly stomp around in my place, having a mini-tantrum thinking that I just wasted $34 dollars on a Mani-Pedi, and $40 on a blow-out, and bought a new top and spent one whole evening cleaning my place like my name is Mrs. Clean; and on top of that it is 6pm, and it’s a bit late to say NO. So how the HELLLLLL do I respond to his text?
That is when two of my friends came in very handy. The first, I like to call her CABERNET, and I poured myself a big glass and started to sip and relax and, when I was finally calm enough to enunciate words, I called one of my single girlfriends – one of my single girlfriends who was in the loop about my hot date with the Italian, one who was also almost excited for my date as I was; because, if one of us actually finds a real man in LA, then….Halleluiah, it reassures us that real men are still fucking out there, giving all of us single girls a glimmer of hope.
Sometimes all a girl needs is a good glass of wine and a good friend; and after a three minute conversation with the two of them, I not only felt better, but I had a plan. I texted him back, ‘Great, see u there!’
Within 30 minutes, I was ready to walk out the door: hair perfect, nails perfect, make-up perfect, wearing my tight skinny jeans, sexy – yet impossible to walk in – high heel shoes, and a cleavage enhancing and somewhat revealing top. As I stood in front of my full length mirror checking out my look, sipping the last bit of my large glass of Cabernet, I came to the conclusion that I looked hot, damn hot. I mean, I think I would even do me!
And as I got in my Uber, Nico sent a text saying he was there and did I want him to order me anything? I responded “Sure, I would love some bottled water.” And five minutes later my Uber pulled up to the Coffee Bean, and I could see Nico and my water sitting there waiting for me. The place was almost empty, so we didn’t have any trouble spotting each other (duh, yeah, I am not the only one who doesn’t drink coffee at 7:30 pm). I could tell from the look on his face that he wasn’t expecting a sexy Janell, and as a side note, I was dressed extremely classy at the event that I met him at, but I could tell by the way his eyes stared at me, that he was digging my sexy side.
The wine had relaxed me, and I poured on my Janell charm, and regaled him with stories, laughing and enjoying his company, but at 8:30pm, my phone started to blow up. Ahhh, my plan was in motion, my girlfriend texted me saying she was on her way to Craig’s, and that she would save me a seat at the bar.
As I got up to leave, thanking Nico for my ‘water’, and giving him a sweet kiss on his cheek, he seemed a bit confused. So I told him the truth: that when I realized that he only had time to grab a quick cup of coffee, I had made plans to grab dinner with a friend, as I was hungry and food was also a friend of mine.
Off to Craig’s I happily skipped, met up with Girlfriend, and we hung out with two other friends we call Chardonnay and Pinot Noir, flirted, met some nice guys, got some great Instagram shots, and had a blast.
And of course, Nico texted me back the next day, wanting to know when I was free to do dinner….
But the truth is, as handsome as he was, I found him a bit dull, and if we had gone out for the romantic dinner as I initially had hoped, I would have been let down regardless.
The universe always ultimately gives you what you need, and for now, its friends and Cabernet. And guess what, that’s not so bad!
And the moral of this Coffee Date story is:
- Always clarify what a date means, because this avoids: you getting let down, getting unrealistic expectations set too high, wasting hard earned money – or most importantly – your very precious time. Don’t be afraid to communicate! If you piss the other person off by asking, then they aren’t the right one for you.
- Guys…if you had the balls to call us on the phone and get to know us, then the likelihood of miscommunication would be greatly diminished. Don’t be afraid to speak with actual words, romanticism and chivalry is missing in our modern day life. I would love to hear your voice over seeing your happy faced emoticon. We are all LOST IN TEXTATION!
- And always be grateful for friends, Girlfriends, and wine. I pick wine any day over a coffee date, but, well, then that is what makes me ME!
MWAH! AUDIO LINK – POD CAST BELOW

Coffee Date…. hmm…..