Love was in the air-conditioning at Whole Foods Redondo’s checkout aisle #3. As I waited to pay for my carrot sticks and crostini crackers (just got back from the Caribbean & Vegas, ate like a piglet, more on that later)… a dude walked up behind me with a bouquet of something sunshiney, inexpensive and long-stemmed. Daffodils, maybe? Miniature sunflowers? I dunno. Alls I really noticed is that, even before he’d paid for the flowers, he was busily shucking off the plastic wrapper and taking the bouquet apart.
I wasn’t the only one to notice…the checker was looking at him w/her eyebrow raised, like “Excuse me, weirdo? Why are you dismantling the foliage?”
He either noticed her or just felt a bit uncomfortable, because suddenly he burst out, “You guys in Whole Foods won’t let me buy just one flower!”
“One flower?” she said. Our minds were one at that moment, I do believe, and both of us were thinking, What kind of cheapskate are you?
Right before I could say, It’s for your own good, sir, he made a great recovery.
“I’m going on a first date, and I want to bring her flowers, but a whole bouquet is too much!”
“Awww!” said the checker-girl, who was about 19 and gangly and probably has been on about three dates in her life. “It’s not too much.”
“Yes it is,” I said.
Call me unromantic, but I get totally weirded out when someone brings flowers on a first date. I love them later down the line, but upon a first meeting, it muddies the waters. I remember when some sweet gentleman brought me a long-stemmed rose, which would have been sweetly romantic except I knew from the first minute that I wasn’t attracted to him. Still, I said ‘yes’ when he asked if he could see me again because he was just too damn nice to say ‘no’ to. Then I accidentally left the rose at the table after dinner, and not-so-accidentally never returned his phone calls. I still don’t know which I feel guiltier about.
So anyway, needless to say, I fully understood why the guy at the Whole Foods checkout would be tearing his bouquet apart.
“One flower is good. No more than that,” I said knowingly.
“Save the rest, and you can bring them on your other first dates,” suggested the checkout girl, suddenly displaying some unexpected and seriously jaded wisdom.
“I mean,” she continued, as I started laughing my ass off, “maybe you have another first date planned for Sunday night, and another for Monday…”
“No, no, no!” said the guy, all shocked. “Hopefully this one will go so well that–”
“You should have gotten a multi-colored bouquet, and then you’d be covered whether you see her again or not,” I said.
“Look, why don’t you two just take the rest of the flowers?” said our poor overwhelmed romantic, as a small audience of bored Saturday evening Whole Foods patrons examined him curiously.
I demurred, since I’m leaving town again at 6AM on Monday. But maybe the checkout girl took ‘em. I hope so. Would hate to have all that sunshiney yellow bloominess go to waste–but at the same time, I think our man was right: Maybe in the ’50s a first-date bouquet was mannerly, but these days, it’s just creepy.
Flowers on the first date are definitely creepy, or any other gift for that matter. For our parents and grandparents, it may have been the right thing to do but today it’s a sure way to creep a girl out!
I’ve never brought flowers to a date. Never. I’m gay, and I don’t really think that guys (even the gay ones) like flowers. Do they?
And I think that an entire bouquet is a little creepy. I’d even say that a single flower on the first date is a little odd.
I think its all in the presentation. If you just whip out a huge bouquet of flowers as soon as you knock on the door, thats reminiscent of a magician’s act or something. But a single flower can be given sweetly, more of a “I was thinking of you and wanted you to remember me by something.” A whole bouquet on the first date is like trying to buy someone’s love or win them over with flowers and gifts. You would be relying too much on the flower and not enough on wit and charm. A single flower is a great first date gift, if done correctly.
Flowers on first date is already too much unless you already know a person prior the meeting, say she’s a friend of a friend that you met a few times before actually going on a date.
women expect so much!
I went with flowers once on the first date, and though it went well then, it’s not something I’d do again. We’d known each other for a few months prior to dating and the whole thing was rather formal, so flowers fit well, but under most circumstances I would never buy flowers.
I think one flower might be ok.
A full bouquet though is just being too clingy from the start.