I am going on a blind date tomorrow night. What should I expect? We are meeting at a bookstore for coffee and a chat. This was my choosing. He asked me to dinner but I didn’t want a committment (time wise) in case he was a dud.
Bookstore is a perfect choice for a first meeting/blind date. You can have a cup of coffee and if the conversation lags you can always go explore the store together. Low pressure all around; definitely my favorite choice. You can always, if things really click, go to dinner or plan on dinner as a second date.
As for what to expect, perhaps I’m cynical and jaded but recent experience has led me to expect nothing from blind dates. If there’s no follow-up then there’s no disappointment, and if he calls (or you call him) then everybody’s happy.
My wife is a former (almost) blind date.
Friends tried to set us up in a group thing, inviting both of us, along with about 7 others, to a concert event. It didn’t work that evening because one of the other 7 was a girl I was seeing and I didn’t want to flirt with the Lady B in front of this other regular date of mine.
Almost six-months later, I asked a common friend what ever happened to that girl at the concert. I got an enthusiastic reply that she remembered me and wouldn’t mind my calling.
Now, my method of asking girls out is, “You wouldn’t want to go out with me, would you?”.
Exhibiting that same confidence, I never called her. Our common friend got the Lady B to call me, we talked for hours on the phone. The next day we met for an in-person date and the rest, as they say, is history.
Married 8 years and counting.
I’ve had some bad blind dates, but I met my husband on one and we’ve been married for 8 years and 2 days.
I’ve only been on one blind date. It wasn’t a terrible experience, but I did not go out with her again. So I guess from her perspective it might have less enjoyable. And I thought I was so cool…
I’ve only been on one blind date, too, and I took my mother with me. And then I married the guy.
(Actually, she had a business dinner with him and invited me along. But she told us both it was a blind date.)
I got setup with a blind date by my mum. [hangs head in shame]
It was a pretty awkward situation on both parties. It was a mutual ‘meeh’.
I went on a blind deaf date once, never again. She seemed psycho or something.
I think I’ve only really had one “blind” date. Long ago, met a girl on the phone at work and met later that night for drinks. She had her gal pal tag along till she felt things were okay.
Ended up boinking her that night, so how do you think it went? 
She told me she loved me like a brother. She was from Arkansas, hence the Joy!
Never been on one, but a friend of mine is about to marry a guy she met that way.
Went on one… argghh… horrid experience.
Blind date #1 was in 10th grade. Cool chick. We stayed together almost a year, until her parents moved away to another State and she had to leave with them.
Blind date # 2 and I have been married for 18 years now.
I guess you might say my opinion of blind dates is:
I’ve gone on blind dates with six guys. Five were fine, one or two dates, nice guys who treated me well, but we ran out of things to talk about or there was obviously nothing coming of it. I dated the sixth for almost two months, a long time in my community, where people who date for five or six months tend to get engaged. (About 80-90% of my peers who dated someone for that long married them.)
Generally speaking, it’s more common for Orthodox Jewish singles to be set up on blind dates than to meet in other ways, so my friends and I go on a lot of them. My advice is to know the person setting you up - do you trust them? Do they know you well? Are they the kind of person who will say “He’s a guy! She’s a girl! They must be perfect for one another!”, or “They’re both smart - they’d be great together!” Don’t go in with any particular expectations, either - just be open to whatever happens.
I’ve been on several blind dates, but I will do them no more. The most success I have had with them is that two of them led to relatively quick crash-and-burn relationships. The rest turned out to be disappointing one-time encounters. The worst one I had was set up by a friend’s sister, who had a friend of her own whom she wanted to introduce me to. It was one of the most awkward, time-wasting evenings of my life. We were both shy, we each had so little in common and we hardly spoke a word to each other.
I’ve had a few others where I thought we had hit it off, but after I called a couple times and never had my messages returned I realized where I stood as far as the other person was concerned. And then there have been a few girls I’ve met whose doorsteps I never wanted to darken ever again.
No more dating for me, blind or otherwise, thank you.