>I don't disagree, but in my opinion picking a very mainstream, arguably mass-market, but still decent place for a first date over the one-of-a-kind local shop

>I don't disagree, but in my opinion picking a very mainstream, arguably mass-market, but still decent place for a first date over the one-of-a-kind local shop is useful signalling. I was mainly objecting to your line about "countries where coffeehouses actually exist." We have those in the US, they're all over the place. Just not in small towns or shitty (usually smaller and Southern) cities. Just open Google Maps, pick any metro area with at least 1M people, and search for "coffee". You should easily find something that's not Starbucks or Panera (though I will admit Panera is pretty good, it's my favorite corporate chain by far, but make sure to go to the corporate locations and not the franchises if you can). They aren't all one-of-a-kind local shops; there are plenty of local or regional chains around. I'll take any of those over Starbucks. But for your "useful signaling", that can be played different ways. Picking a Starbucks when there's better convenient alternatives, to me, says that you're possibly a mindless consumer drone who just buys whatever's popular without putting any thought into your consumption. Maybe I'm just biased, but from my own experience, Starbuck's product is generally sub-par, and their shops are generally too small and overcrowded compared to their competition. Not really the kind of place where you can sit down with someone and have a nice, quiet chat. Maybe they used to be years ago. You're probably right about quirkier people. Maybe the Millenials have a higher proportion of quirkier people than previous generations. The internet certainly can be blamed for that.