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Meet the Third Person on Your Date

Restaurants staffers dish on everything from the telltale signs a first date to faking Uber calls as an exit strategy

By Archana Ram

It’s not just you and your partner at the bar. Waiters and bartenders end up seeing dates as they unfold—sweet anniversary gestures, epic proposals, and fumbled first encounters.

“You can pick up when it’s a blind date, because there’s that awkward first moment when they don’t know if they should shake a hand or give a hug,” says Meghan Balser, who bartends at Lola 55 in the East Village and The Smoking Gun downtown. “When it gets awkward, people start excessively drinking. Or they’ll sneak shots when the other person steps away. I see that a lot.”

During his nearly 10 years as general manager at Mister A’s, Ryan Thorsen has learned the body language of a first date. “They wipe their mouths too much, shift in their seats, order items that are specifically not messy,” he explains.

But the Bankers Hill restaurant draws more than just first-date diners. Its high-end atmosphere also means longtime couples who might be, er, past the honeymoon phase.

“We had a couple arguing at the table. The lady took headphones out of her purse, and they ate and drank and ordered with headphones. After dessert she got up and went home alone. And there’s this archaic practice of people trying to order for each other. We had a guy who was saying, ‘The lady will have,’ ‘The lady will have,’ and the server obviously could read that the woman wasn’t privy to what the decisions were, so she finally stepped in and said, ‘Why don’t you just let her decide?’”

With the benefit of all that observation, Thorsen has some words of advice. “People’s etiquette with servers is such a clear view as to who they are as a person,” he says. “Some people treat service staff like they’re not human. That’s a huge red flag.”

When in doubt, there’s a way to make a clean break from your date without involving anyone in the restaurant: fake-order a rideshare car. “I’ve seen this happen when the eject button needed to be pushed, and their ‘Uber’ was waiting outside,” Balser says. “I’ve definitely been guilty of this myself in an awkward situation!”

Meet the Third Person on Your Date

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