Are Coffee Dates Low Effort? Matthew Hussey on First Dates in the App Era
Matthew Hussey
Dating coach Matthew Hussey takes on an online argument about early dating: whether accepting, or suggesting, a coffee date signals low effort or low self-worth. On Reddit, people ask whether coffee dates are "really low effort," and TikToks suggest that a woman who accepts one is positioning herself as "low-value." Even under a poll on Hussey's own channel, one commenter wrote that coffee dates "are low effort and are truly for broke high schoolers or college kids." Hussey's position is that the debate misunderstands what a first date is for, and that rigid rules about what a first date must cost end up filtering out good people at a time when meeting in person is already hard.
Where the Criticism Has a Point
Hussey starts by conceding part of the critics' case. He says nothing is more unattractive than someone who has no plan, puts no thought into a date, makes no effort with their appearance, and shows no respect for the fact that the other person came out to meet them. He calls a date "a vulnerable act," since it means meeting and taking a chance on someone you have never been with in person, and says the least two people can do is put in some effort for each other.
He also lists the benefits people usually give for coffee dates. They are low stakes, easy to end if things aren't going well, affordable, and a good way to test chemistry. If one goes well, it can always turn into dinner. Even so, he notes, they get a great deal of pushback online.
How Dating Apps Changed the Purpose of a First Date
Hussey's central argument is historical, though he limits it to roughly the last 50 years. In that earlier period, he says, people had much more certainty before a formal date ever happened. They met through work, friends, school, church, bars, parties, and other social settings they returned to again and again. By the time someone asked "Do you want to go to dinner sometime?", there had usually already been flirting, conversation, observation, familiarity, social proof, mutual friends, and a growing sense of chemistry.
He gives the example of meeting someone in a bar 20 years ago, before the apps. If you had talked to someone for three hours and realized you liked them, it would have been odd to then suggest coffee next week. Dinner would feel appropriate. In his words, the screening process "happened organically before the official date."
App culture changed that, according to Hussey. People now talk to several matches at once. These are people they have never met, heavily curated versions of people, people who may disappear tomorrow, who may not look like their photos, or who may have no real intentions at all. So the first date has often become the screening process itself. In that setting, he argues, a low-stakes coffee is far more rational than it would have been for earlier generations. That is not what the internet suggests, though, and he goes through the three main criticisms one at a time.
Criticism One: "High-Value Women Don't Accept Coffee"
The first objection comes from TikTokers and influencers who say women who accept coffee dates are acting low-value. Hussey plays a clip of one woman who says she doesn't accept coffee or a walk as a date option, because she is "not a dog that needs to be walked" and already has an espresso machine at home.
Hussey says he himself used to use the phrase "high-value behavior" in his work but stopped because he no longer liked how it sounded. He summarizes the argument this way: a woman who respects herself wouldn't show up for someone who isn't spending a lot to be with her. He jokes that whoever says this has never bought a coffee in West Hollywood, and then gives his real answer. If our value can be lost just by going on a coffee date, he says, there is "a fragility to how we see our own value." Your value doesn't depend on how much someone spends on you. Believing it does gives other people too much power and starts the relationship off as a transaction.
He says people are confusing investment with intention. Expensive doesn't equal serious, and it doesn't automatically equal generous either. Inexpensive doesn't mean unserious. Effort, intentionality, thoughtfulness, and generosity all matter, but money doesn't measure any of them well. He contrasts someone who just says "Let's grab coffee" with someone who says "There's a gorgeous cafe I love near the park. Want to go Sunday afternoon?" The second invitation shows thought even though it costs about the same.
He also points out that the "value" logic can be turned around. Someone could just as easily say, "I'm so high value that I only have time for a coffee with someone before I really know I like them." Hussey says he isn't offering that as a serious position, and he thinks dinner can be a great date. His point is that rules about what makes us gain or lose value fall apart under scrutiny.
The "We'll See" Mindset Applies to Men Too
Hussey connects the debate to advice he often gives about early dating: adopt a "we'll see" mindset. Instead of rushing to label someone as special or imagining a future together, remind yourself that you are still in the discovery phase. You can enjoy getting to know the person without projecting your hopes onto them, because the role of life partner "has to be earned."
He says women in particular find this advice useful, but it helps anyone who tends to rush in and overinvest early, men included. A man following it might decide that he usually tries too hard to impress on a first date, and that it would be better to spend some time with the person and see what happens. Hussey argues that a man applying the advice this way shouldn't be criticized for not investing more, especially by someone who is benefiting from the same advice not to invest too much.
He mentions a response from a discussion on the Love Life podcast. Someone said men are "just rationalizing something they're not prepared to do." That person said plenty of men had invited them on thoughtful dates, such as their favorite museum followed by the zoo, and called coffee "thoughtless, effortless, and lazy." They ended with "How you do one thing is how you do everything. Keep your standards higher than that, girls." Hussey's reaction is that a museum plus the zoo is a lot for a first date. If you don't like the person, he says, you're stuck, calling it "a hostage situation." That leads into a comic exchange with a crew member about gorillas.
Criticism Two: Women Invest Disproportionately
The second criticism, which Hussey treats more carefully, is that women put in far more to prepare for a date. Many women online argue that getting ready isn't just the hour before a date, because women are expected to maintain their looks all the time. He lists micro-needling, makeup, hair, skin care, nails, outfits, shaving, and red-light masks, and he acknowledges that men do some of these things too. All of it costs time and money. He adds that research shows women who opt out are penalized at work and in society, since women are judged more harshly on their looks than men.
Hussey says he isn't dismissing any of these burdens. He describes himself as an advocate for deciding the culture you want in your dating life. If you don't decide, you tend to absorb the culture of whatever you come into contact with. If never going on a coffee date matters to you, you can choose that. But he says that choice isn't consequence-free. If you reject coffee dates outright because of systemic problems facing women, you may be turning down great men who are willing to invest more as they get to know you. He calls it dangerous to conclude that a stranger is responsible for making up for broader problems in society. If seriousness is measured only by expensive first dates, you risk filtering out people who are genuinely intentional but cautious about investing too much, too soon in an app-based dating culture.
The Cost of Dating When One Side Always Pays
Hussey also looks at the financial side when only one person picks up the tab. He estimates that dinner might cost $100 to $200. Since you often have to date many people to find the right one, someone going on four dates a month and always paying could spend $800 a month on people who may not be right for them. He says this can price many people out of dating altogether.
He quotes the online argument that "if you're too broke to date, you shouldn't be dating," and calls it "an extraordinarily cruel thing to suggest," since it means financial status should shut someone out of love. He plays a clip of a woman saying a man who can't afford dinner for two should be working to make more money instead of dating, because otherwise he couldn't support a family. He also mentions older men who claim that anyone who can't take someone to dinner isn't ready for marriage and shouldn't be in the dating pool.
He has two responses. First, this is an enormous amount of early judgment to put on someone who simply suggested coffee or another low-stakes date. Second, he tells viewers of any gender to be "incredibly skeptical" of anyone online who tries to gatekeep dating. In his view, such people can cost you the right person by giving you filters that are too strict, or they can undermine your confidence by making you feel unworthy of dating.
Criticism Three: Coffee Dates Feel Like Job Interviews
The third criticism is that coffee dates are boring, business-casual, and feel like an interview. Hussey partly agrees. Being taken to Starbucks on a first date would be a turn-off for most people, he says, and although he enjoys Starbucks, he doesn't think it's a first-date location. There are other places that would be an immediate turn-off too. But he says someone might instead take you to a coffee shop they love or that is a personal favorite, and that choice is intentional.
What the Video Is Really About
Hussey then widens the discussion. He says the video isn't really about coffee shops or coffee dates. It's about the nature of first dates and the fact that many great first dates cost nothing. If we insist that someone must take us to a table and spend money on us to be a viable candidate, he argues, we will miss excellent candidates.
He ties this to what he says people keep telling him: dating feels impossible, and they can't even get someone to the point of a date, never mind worry about how it goes. When meeting in person feels harder and harder, he doesn't think the right response is to "raise the activation energy" of a date to dinner or nothing. He thinks it should be easier to get on dates where real connection can form.
He also believes there is basic confusion about what a first date is. In his definition, it is a chance for two people, ideally in a low-stakes and enjoyable way, to find out whether they like each other enough to do it again. So he suggests the second date is in many ways more of a date than the first, because that is when both people have actually decided to go on a date. If critics moved their standards from the first date to the second, he says, he would find their position much more reasonable. For a first date, though, whether it's coffee, a walk in the park, sitting on a bench by a river, or getting ice cream, the choice "is not a statement about anyone's worth, yours or theirs."
Focus on the Person, Not the Venue
Hussey calls the whole argument, at best, a distraction from what should really have your attention. Instead of obsessing over the venue, he says, look at the quality of the person across from you and what they are like to spend time with. In his words, "The best dates aren't determined by what you do, they are determined by who you are with." He says some of the strongest relationships start with small, simple moments, not because someone spent the most money but because sitting across from that person felt easy.
He gives a contrast to illustrate this: some couples married for 40 years had a first date that began with ice cream and a walk in the park, while some people going through brutal breakups or divorces right now had lavish, expensive first dates. If you want something meaningful and lasting, he says, what you need to look for is connection, and the activity and the money matter far less.
He ends by clarifying that the video is not an advertisement for coffee dates. He calls it instead "an advertisement for not finding yet one more way to cynically and prematurely disqualify people in a world where connection is hard enough as is." He asks viewers to share in the comments a favorite first date they've been on, or one they'd like to be invited on.
Wow, it was so good meeting you. Oh, it was great talking to you, too. Yeah, it was a fun conversation. Maybe we could exchange numbers. We can. Yeah, I'd love that. I'm actually free on Friday afternoon next week if you wanted to do something then. Maybe get together and get coffee.
Oh, yeah, you just order at the counter. And I never understood why people don't bring coffee table books to coffee shop. What is—is that almond milk?
A big controversy that's taken over the internet when it comes to early dating rules is that of the coffee date. On Reddit, people are asking, are coffee dates really low effort? And then there are all the TikToks that indicate that if you accept a coffee date, you are essentially positioning yourself as a low-value person.
Try telling that to Sir Benedict Ashworth who just spent half his monthly salary importing expensive beans from Yemen so that he could flirt in a candlelit coffee house. Once upon a time, coffee was a hallmark of luxury and intellectualism, but that's not necessary for this video. These are from Costco.
Even on my own channel, when I put up a poll and asked if you would all like to see a video about coffee dates, someone commented, "I think coffee dates are low effort and are truly for broke high schoolers or college kids."
When it comes to coffee dates, there are plenty of people who see the benefit. They're low stakes. They're easy to end if things aren't going well, and they are affordable. They are a great way to test chemistry, and if a coffee date goes really well, it can always turn into dinner. Despite this, they get so much pushback online.
I want to get this video started by saying, I get it. There is nothing more unattractive than someone who has zero plan, puts zero thought into a real date, shows up having put no effort into their own appearance on a date and just generally has shown no respect for the fact that you have come out to meet them. A date is a vulnerable act to begin with. Meeting up and taking a chance on someone that we have never been with in person before. The least we can do is put in a little effort for each other.
But we have to put this in an historical context. Don't worry, I'm not going to go back to 17th-century Europe. But even if we just go back 50 years, people had far more certainty before the formal date ever happened. And that is the crucial distinction. People met through work, friends, school, church, bars, parties, repeated social environments. So by the time someone said, "Do you want to go to dinner sometime?" there usually had already been flirting, conversation, observation, familiarity, social proof, mutual friends, and a sense of chemistry that was building.
Even if you met someone in a bar 20 years ago before the apps existed, you met them, you had a great conversation, and then you decided to do something because you had spent three hours talking to them and realizing you liked them. At that point, yes, it might have been weird to say, "We've been talking for the last three hours in this bar. You want to go for coffee next week?" Dinner sounds appropriate. In other words, the screening process happened organically before the official date.
But app culture changed that. Now people are talking to multiple people at once, people they've never met, heavily curated versions of people, people who may disappear tomorrow, people who may not even resemble their photos, and people who may not have any genuine intention whatsoever. Which means the first date is often the screening process itself. And in that context, a low-stakes coffee suddenly feels far more rational than it might have in previous generations. But that is not what the internet will have you believe.
So, let's look at some of the biggest criticisms of people who oppose coffee dates. Criticism one, higher-value women don't accept coffee. A lot of TikTokers and influencers claim that women who accept coffee dates are acting low-value.
I do not accept a coffee or a walk as a possible date option and neither should you. First of all, I'm not a dog that needs to be walked. Second, I have an espresso machine at home, works fabulous.
I used to use the term high-value behavior in my work and then I stopped using it because I just didn't like the way it sounded anymore. But the argument these people make is that a woman who respects herself wouldn't show up to meet someone that isn't paying a lot to spend time with her. And to that I say, you must never have got a coffee in West Hollywood.
Look, if our value is so easily lost that it goes away by showing up on a coffee date, there is a fragility to how we see our own value. Your value is not dependent on how much someone is willing to spend on you. That gives other people way too much power and it also starts off a relationship as a transaction.
People are confusing here investment with intention. Expensive does not equal serious. It does not even equal generous automatically. Inexpensive doesn't mean unserious. Yes, effort matters, intentionality matters, thoughtfulness matters, generosity matters, but none of those things are perfectly measured by money. And there's clearly a difference between someone who just says, "Let's grab coffee," and someone who says, "There's a gorgeous cafe I love near the park. Want to go Sunday afternoon?"
And by the way, even within this logic, the argument starts becoming contradictory. You could literally make the reverse argument and say, "I'm so high value that I only have time for a coffee with someone before I really know I like them." My point with that, by the way, is not to use that as a serious point. I think dinner can be a great date, but to say that any of these rules that we create about what makes us gain or lose value fall apart under scrutiny.
You'll also know that one of the things I advocate for in early dating in general is the we'll-see mindset. First, we have to adopt a we'll-see mindset. Instead of rushing to label someone as special or imagining a future together, remind yourself that you are still in the discovery phase. Tell yourself, "I'm enjoying getting to know this person, but we'll see." Don't project all of your hopes and dreams onto that person. Remember, the top job in your life, the role of the partner that you spend your life with, has to be earned.
Women, by the way, really benefit from this advice and get a lot of value from it. They find it very useful. It's also useful for men. It's useful for everybody who has a tendency to rush in and overinvest in the early stages. And I think that it's important to allow men to use that advice as well. And if a guy is applying that advice, he might say to himself, "You know what? I often overdo it by trying too hard to impress someone on a first date instead of just spending a bit of time with someone, hanging out, and seeing what happens."
If a guy is applying that advice in that way, I don't think that they shouldn't necessarily be criticized for not investing more by someone who themselves is benefiting from not investing too much.
When we talked about this on the Love Life podcast, there was someone who said, "Men are just rationalizing something they're not prepared to do. There are plenty of men who have invited me to a thoughtful date like going to my favorite museum and the zoo afterwards. Coffee is just thoughtless, effortless, and lazy. How you do one thing is how you do everything. Keep your standards higher than that, girls."
That's a lot to me. The idea of a first date where you go to museum and then the zoo afterwards. What if you don't like the person? You're stuck. That's a hostage situation.
Yeah, but what if you're looking at the gorillas? What? The gorillas at the zoo. It's still a long first date to be stuck at the zoo with someone that you don't like. Even if there's gorillas. What? You don't like gorillas? I like— If you hate gorillas so much, then what's your favorite animal, tough guy? David, I don't hate gorillas. Gorillas are great. I'm just saying I don't have time right now to answer this question.
I get hundreds of questions a week. I can't possibly get to every question. Wait a minute. Earth, I took all of my content, everything I've ever said, every live event, every paid program, every thought I've ever had, every piece of advice on dating, relationships, and confidence, and I put it all into a digital mind, the mind of Matthew AI. A mind that anyone can go to at any time to ask the thing they're dying to ask, the piece of information they need to move forward, whether it's decoding a confusing text from someone, figuring out what the next best move is, knowing what to say in a specific difficult conversation, or how to ask for more commitment.
And the best part is people can try it for free at askmh.com right now so that they can literally get my answer to their biggest love life question in the next 60 seconds. Matt. It can even answer David's monkey question. Matt. Matt.
What? What's your favorite animal? I'll tell you the same thing I tell everyone who asks me that question, David. Go to askmh.com. You can't just tell me if you like— No.
Criticism number two. Investment is disproportionate for women. A lot of women online argue that getting ready for a date involves a long process. Women don't just spend the hour prior to the date getting ready. Many women spend their whole lives having to upkeep their looks. From microneedling sessions to makeup, hair, skin care, nails, outfits, shaving, that scary-looking red light mask you wear before bed. All of it. I do think men do some of these things. We are living in a world of the most metrosexual men that have ever existed.
All of that costs money and time. And for women who want to opt out of it, research shows that they are penalized in the workplace and in society in general because women are judged more harshly on their looks than men are. I am not dismissing the burdens of any of this.
And listen, I'm a big advocate for creating the culture you want to have in your dating life. You know this. Most of us go into our lives, if we're not careful, if we haven't decided the culture we want for our lives, we just end up becoming part of the culture of whatever it is we come into contact with. So, if it's important to you to never go on a coffee date, you get to choose that reality. But that culture is not consequence-free.
And an unfortunate consequence of rejecting coffee dates outright due to the systemic issues stacked against women is that you could be saying no to some really great men. People who are willing to invest as they get to know you. It can be dangerous to conclude that it is a stranger's responsibility to compensate for the broader issues in society. If we only measure seriousness through expensive first dates, we risk filtering out people who are genuinely intentional, but simply cautious about investing too much, too soon in a modern app-based dating culture.
It's also worth making a point here about the sheer cost of dating when it's only felt on one side in terms of the dates themselves and picking up the tab, and how it can actually disqualify many people from dating. If a dinner costs anywhere from 100 bucks to 200 bucks, and you have to date a lot of people to find your person, you might be going on four dates a month, and the person who's picking up the tab every time, that's $800 a month that they're spending on lots of people who may not be the right person for them.
I've seen arguments online from people who say, "If you're too broke to date, you shouldn't be dating." Which is an extraordinarily cruel thing to suggest that our financial status should preclude us from a life of love.
If a man cannot afford dinner for two, he should not be dating. He should be working to make more money. Because if he can't afford dinner for two, how is he going to afford a family and support your future kids? Girl, choose wisely.
And it's not just women. I've seen older men righteously proclaim that, "If you can't take someone to dinner, you're not ready for marriage. You shouldn't be allowed in the dating pool." Firstly, this is an insane amount of early judgment to place on someone who has simply invited you for coffee or a low-stakes date. Secondly, whether you're a man or a woman watching this, be incredibly skeptical of anyone you see online who seeks to gatekeep dating. Those people have the potential to either rob you of the right person by giving you filters that are just too hard, or being someone who robs you of your confidence because they make you feel like you're not worthy in the dating pool.
Criticism number three. Coffee dates are boring and business casual and seem like an interview. I do get this, and for sure, someone taking you to Starbucks on a first date is going to be a turn-off for most people. I get that. That makes sense to me. I have a mocha Frappuccino bippy boppy with light foam for a Steve. So, where do you work?
I get it and there are certainly places that if someone took you to for a date would be an immediate turn-off. Starbucks is probably one of them. Even though I enjoy a Starbucks, it's not a first date location. But someone might take you to a coffee shop that they really enjoy or that is a personal favorite of theirs and therefore is intentional.
And by the way, this video isn't really about coffee shops at all. It's not about coffee dates. It's about the nature of first dates and it's about realizing that there are many first dates that don't cost a dime that happen to be great first dates. And if we have these rules that say someone has to take me to a table where they spend money on me in order to be a viable candidate, we're missing amazing candidates.
People are saying to me all the time right now that dating has become impossible. That they can't even get someone to the point of a date, let alone worry about how the date is going. I don't think that in an age where meeting up in person feels increasingly difficult, the right response to that is to raise the activation energy of a date to dinner or nothing. I think we actually need to make it easier to get on dates with each other where real connection will be built.
And I think there is some basic confusion here over what a first date actually is. It is a chance for two people, hopefully in a low-stakes enjoyable way, to find out if they like each other enough to do it again. In many ways, the second date is more of a date than the first date because it's the date where you really decided to go on a date. If people took the philosophy that I'm challenging in this video and simply shifted it to the second date instead of the first, I'd actually find it much more reasonable.
But for a first date, a coffee date, or any inexpensive date, a walk in the park, sitting on a park bench looking at a river, going for ice cream is not a statement about anyone's worth, yours or theirs. It is simply two human beings getting together, being in company, and deciding whether there is enough there to continue. And at best, this whole argument is a distraction from what should actually be occupying your focus.
Rather than obsessing over the quality of the venue, what is the quality of your date, the person sitting in front of you? What are they like to spend time with? The best dates aren't determined by what you do, they are determined by who you are with. Some of the strongest relationships begin in the smallest, simplest moments. Not because someone spent the most money, but because sitting across from that person felt easy.
Look, there are couples who have been married for 40 years whose first date started with ice cream and a walk in the park. There are other people who are going through the most brutal breakup or divorce right now whose first date will have been something incredibly expensive and lavish. If what we are looking for is something meaningful and lasting, then what we need to look for is the connection. The activity and the money spent are far less important than that.
And to be clear, this is not an advertisement for how amazing coffee dates are. This video is an advertisement for not finding yet one more way to cynically and prematurely
Disqualify people in a world where connection is hard enough as is.
Leave me a comment below letting me know a favorite first date you have been on or maybe even a first date you would like to go on if someone invited you. I will be reading the comments and I will see you in next week's video.
Oh, Audrey, just the lady I was looking for. Might I interest you in a double espresso on the patio?
It's 6:00 p.m. I'm getting ready for bed. I'm cozy.
Okay, well I made this whole video to try and secure that date, so it's pointless. Goodnight.
Article published · Updated