On a first date, I once took a girl to a Chinese restaurant, and we split a single entree and ordered a second bowl of rice. She married me later on, and and that rice order became a leitmotif among some of our friends.
That’s actually brilliant! I don’t think there are a lot of homeless people around here, but I can probably convince a friend to play one.
I’m certainly asking for a doggy bag for myself, so I wouldn’t be offended by my date asking for one, too. I can’t bear to see good food getting thrown out and besides, leftovers make the tastiest breakfasts.
A date who gave his doggy bag to the homeless … I’m not sure I’d think highly of that. It’s unhygienic, for one thing. If he set the portion aside before he ate any, I’d be happier about it. But it’s still basically giving table scraps to a poor person. I’d only really be impressed if asked the homeless chap what he wanted off the menu.
And I would expect him to keep doing that. If my date stopped after the third date, I’d certainly be annoyed to find that he was pretending.
And this is why you should order the minimum amount of food you think you need. You really can’t win.
Homeless people don’t give a damn about that. I’ve never seen one refuse leftover restaurant food. Plus, your girl will admire your empathy and won’t be able to take her hands off of you.
I would dislike looking parsimonious, myself. Just order two appetizers and eatum all up. Most fine dining establishments put more effort into the appetizers anyway, because you’re relatively sober when you consume them.
Yes, order less. Except when you’re in one of those places where the servings are enough to feed a pack of ravenous teenage boys.
One of the first dates with my ex-wife, we walked into the restaurant, looked at the humongous plates of food, and asked the waitress if we could split a single order between us. The waitress was very understanding.
Hell, they will eat out of the trash. A bit of leftovers won’t bother them at all.
I like a movie and a dinner, in that order for a first date. So, I’d get a takeaway box if it was something I’d reheat the next day. Of course, that would depend if we’re going for drinks afterwards.
Nothing ends up less cool than trying to be cool.
If that is not something you’d normally do then DO NOT do it in order to try to impress a date.
And while I am an old married and hardly expert, my sense has always been that being concerned about how something looks is what looks the worst.
NM.
Agreed on all points, especially your first re trying to be cool. If you’re more concerned with making sure you re leaving a positive impression on a first date, rather than simply enjoying the time as much as possible, you’ve already failed on all counts.
ETA: Oh yeah, and just don’t call it a “doggy bag”. Ask for a box if you need to but don’t be lame by asking for a doggy bag. IMO that sounds rather limp-wristed to say on a first date.
Take my advice, don’t take home a bag that stinks up the whole car. She might like garlic chicken, she might not, best to play it safe.
Get the food to go, then tell her to put the silverware and sugar packets in her purse, is she looks at you oddly, well she’s not the one for you!
What? It’s about “how it looks” and not “how it is”?
Fleeing tangentially and running as fast as I can from that kind of a girl–I married one of those once. NOT. EVER. AGAIN.
Go to a sushi bar on your first date.
Yeah, carry that tinfoil swan into the club afterwards and the cab ride home like a hero!
Be careful! There’s a P.G. Wodehouse story along those lines, which I only remember vaguely. The general scenario is our hero has come into some money and is feeling kindly and generous, all the more so because he’s heading out to meet the girl of his dreams for lunch. Furthermore her wealthy father – a man in a position to do our hero some considerable good – will be joining them. So in that jovial spirit, when he sees a homeless disheveled old man on the street, he kindly slips him a coin and tells him to enjoy a square meal. He arrives at the restaurant and he and the girl await the father. And in he comes, in the familiar form of the disheveled old man, an eccentric millionaire still roaring with furious indignation at the witless oblivious idiot who mistook him for a homeless bum and tossed him a cheap coin … 
Waiter, can you put this leftover steak in a “tiger sack” for me?
I think being married in a 20 year relationship makes me MORE of an expert. I mean whose the better businessman? The entrepreneur-junkie who has founded and “exited” a dozen startups? Or Bill Gates who just built the one?
Unfortunately (?!) where I live and dine, encountering the homeless is a rarity.
A few times when I specifically ordered extra to allow for a true “doggie bag”, this led to her requesting pics of my dog, stories about my dog, and then eventually a request to meet my dog after dinner.