[komali2]

I don't think he was necessarily implying it'd be date-like - I've had those "4 hour conversations resulting with the key to my existence" type conversations with the sex I'm not romantically interested in, from small coffee "dates."

To quote Always Sunny, it's all about the implication. I start with a question unrelated to the coffee "Jane, how are things going at Salesforce? I've been considering a move lately, mind if I get you a coffee and pick your brain a bit?" You can initialize the convo at that point and then either fluidly move the conversation elsewhere if desired, or, you know, not. Anyway, that's how I do it: transparent objective.

[balabaster]

LOL I didn't mean to imply that they only come from romantically driven situations. Of course we've all had them at some point or another whether it be with someone we are attracted to or not. But the point is, right at the beginning there's nothing been invested yet. The risk isn't anywhere near as great as we hype it up to be in our own mind. We didn't know this person an hour, a day or a week ago, they had no bearing on our life prior to that, yet we drum it up to be this huge event in our mind that realistically, even if we get shot out of the sky in a flaming wreck, is it really that big a deal... after all, they had zero consequence in our life such a tiny piece of our life ago, what's the difference if they go back to being such a tiny piece of our life 10 minutes from now?...

The converse is also true though, there's a much greater risk for not taking the leap given a). the amount invested (lack of it) so far and b). the real risk of them saying no (I mean if they say no, then what?). What if this person is the key that unlocks the meaning of life for me and I don't take this leap? Admittedly they're probably not but weighing these risks against each other, it would appear more foolish not to ask than to ask. If you don't ask, or you ask and they say no, you're exactly at the same position you are now (except your ego is a little bruised, but that'll recover). If you don't ask, you'll spare your ego potential embarrassment but you'll always be stuck where you are.

[bostonpete]

I don't think there are any characters in Always Sunny that you should ever take life tips from... :-)