Image via Complex Original
Forget all the Los Angeles destination dates you've seen on every episode of every reality television show. Los Angeles is more than just overpriced dinners and helicopter rides through Malibu. Dating doesn't have to drain you just so you can impress a dame. The best way to make sure your first date is money is to take the girl you're trying to get to know to someplace interactive, quiet enough to talk, and where you can show your skills and impress her with something other than your bank roll or who you know in town. Some of these dates require some game-playing and strategy, others involve naked women. All of them will leave a lasting impression in her mind.
RELATED: Summer City Guide: Los Angeles
RELATED: 10 Reasons Why Los Angeles Is Better Than New York
RELATED: The 25 Douchiest Bars in Los Angeles
Blipsy Barcade
Neighborhood: Koreatown
Address: 369 N Western Avenue
Website: yelp.com
Everybody in the club getting tipsy. The "club" is actually a hole-in-the-wall bar. "Everybody" is you and your first date trying to break the ice over ice-cold beers and Pacman. Blipsy Barcade has everything a man could want to get him through a bad date and make him feel invincible during a great one. Show off your gaming skills playing Donkey Kong, Galaga, Track and Field, and Double Dragon. Cash-only drinks keep you well-lubricated, and dim lights keep you looking attractive. Every once in awhile, Blipsy’s has a hipster-y DJ bringing in a young and semi-hot crowd looking for $5 PBRs and $4 well drinks. Machines are less than a dollar, and even though some of them might eat a quarter or two, at least you and your date bonded over getting jacked by the Xenophobe game. Maybe, by the end of the night, you’ll even get to score.
The Spare Room
Neighborhood: Hollywood
Address: 7000 Hollywood Blvd.
Website: spareroomhollywood.com
In high school, the hottest dates were always the bowling dates. The parents would drop you off at a place that usually served alcohol and horribly delicious food. Nothing was more erotic than strapping on some smelly shoes, sticking your fingers into those holes, and having them put on the laser show to 70s disco. Someone always managed to sneak a drink from the adults at the bar, everyone always got wasted, and making out in the back or in someone’s truck was par for the course. You can reenact that whole scenario at The Spare Room in Hollywood, only this time with pricey cocktails, a dress-to-kill, and bowling lanes so clean and slippery they would make a porn star proud. Rental shoes are handmade by Esquivel. On top of having games like backgammon, checkers, chess, Monopoly, Scrabble, and Connect Four, The Spare Room’s also has delicious handcrafted cocktails like a Bull’s Eye with Tapatio Blanco Tequila and what they claim to be the best Moscow Mules ever. It’s way more expensive than that high school experience, but will create that same feeling. Maybe you’ll get to make-out in a Hollywood alley.
One-Eyed Gypsy
Neighborhood: Downtown
Address: 901 E 1st St.
Website: one-eyedgypsy.com
If you bring a babe to the velvet wonderland that is the One-Eyed Gypsy, she might fall under your spell while tucked in your arms on a cozy little couch. On top of having Skeeball and a Zoltar, the One-Eyed Gypsy has a super cheap happy hour with carnival food combos like corn dogs and beer, pizza and boilermakers, and deep-fried Oreos. It also has sexy theme nights and live performances by burlesque dancers, jazz troupes, Parisienne gypsybilly, and a bimonthly night where you come, get wasted, and draw. If you want to show off your artistic ability and draw her Titanic-style, show her you’ve got what it takes before you get to do the fully-nude model sketch you’ve been pining after.
Rosie's Dog Beach
Neighborhood: Long Beach
Address: Belmont Shore
Website: hautedogs.org
Not every first date has to end in tequila-induced delirium tremens or ball-shriveling conversations on how to split the check. If you’re both animal lovers and have a canine friend to sublimate your awkwardness into, hit up Rosie’s Dog Beach in Long Beach. Considered one of the best dog beaches in Los Angeles, Rosie’s isn’t fenced in or considered a dedicated dog beach, but tons of off-leash dogs come there anyway and it’s a perfect place to show your date your soft side with your pets before she agrees to some heavy petting.
Lucha Va Voom
Neighborhood: Downtown
Address: 1038 S Hill St.
Website: luchavavoom.com
What do you get when you combine Mexican wrestling, beautiful burlesque dancers, and comedy? Lucha Va Voom. If your first date is a tatted up, exotic sexpot who idolizes Bettie Page, hold out and take her on a first date to Lucha Va Voom. While shows don’t happen all the time, when they do they are titillating demonstrations of “sexo y violencia.” In between hyper-theatrical Mexican wrestling there are glitter-pasty wearing girls dance around with hula hoops, pogo sticks, and aerial silks. Shows generally take place at the Mayan, which is hot place to go in and of itself, and prices are around $45 each, but totally worth it when she’ll be asking you to wrestle her to the ground in your brand new Luchador mask.
House of Intuition
Neighborhood: Echo Park
Address: 2237 Sunset Blvd.
Website: houseofintuitionla.com
Want to know what your future holds? New Age antics are all the rage in Los Angeles and there’s no hotter first date than one that will basically tell you if there are any subsequent dates in the future. House of Intuition is a one-stop shop in Echo Park that has a little tea lounge (just the front patio, but no one drinks their delicious teas, so take advantage), tarot, crystals, psychics, astrology, kundalini yoga classes, and lots of different workshops you can take to learn how to balance each other’s chakras or get all hot and bothered with some hands-free but energy-heavy reiki. House of Intuition even has a massage parlor down the street called the Echo Foot Lounge that has $25 full-body massages (clothes on) that are super relaxing and a great way to round out a first date full of self-discovery. Tantric lovemaking and all this other hippie shit will be sure to impress any pseudo-bohemian babe that’s attracted to your beard.
Hollywood Forever Cemetery
Neighborhood: Hollywood
Address: 6000 Santa Monica Blvd.
Website: hollywoodforever.com
A date in a cemetery sounds totally goth, but not in Los Angeles where all the graves are marked with the names of former superstars and the weather is pretty much always gorgeous. The Hollywood Forever Cemetery takes advantage of their beautiful landscaping, famous deceased residents, and their expanse of space by putting on amazing concerts, showing movies, and having riveting talks. Flanked by gravestones, people come with beer and picnic baskets. Last year, they played The Royal Tenenbaums, The Craft, and had John Waters come to a screening of Cry Baby. James Blake, XX, and The National have all played the cemetery as well. While winter time isn’t always the best when it comes to events to take your first date to, the minute spring and summer rolls around there will be nothing more awesome to take a date to than a place you can sprawl out on a blanket with some California rolls and some cheap rosé and watch a good movie.
Esotouric Tours
Neighborhood: All over
Address: Different locations
Website: esotouric.com
Los Angeles isn’t just palm trees and Crossfit. There’s a seedy underworld that exists under the neon-crunch of vintage signs. tThere’s a history of murder, mobsters, and Hollywood mayhem that plays out like the world’s most fascinating film noir. If the babe you’re taking out on the town is anything of a film buff or basically interested in the shady inner workings of mankind, take her on an Esotouric Tour. Learning things together on the first date is always erotic for sapiosexual babes, and it will also give you something to talk about other than how her ex-boyfriend might have screwed her over. It's set up like your typical tour with buses and tour guides, but those are basically the only similarities. Upcoming tours cover locations the Black Dahlia might have haunted, and Charles Bukowski’s favorite places to get trashed. Donuts are involved. Tours are pricey for a first date (about $58 dollars per person), but are way more memorable than dinner and a movie.
Pins and Needles
Neighborhood: Echo Park
Address: 1623 Allesandro St.
Website: pinsandneedlesla.com
An almost undiscovered gem full of antique pinball machines, Pins and Needles has all the makings of being a supernerd’s mancave, but it’s actually the work of an awesome local costuming lady named Molly Atkinson. Atkinson opened the pinball salon in the creative space called Bedrock Studios, where artists and musicians come to rehearse, record, create, and, if they’re lucky, play with Atkinson’s awesome pinball machines. The space has odd hours—if it’s raining, the Pins and Needles blog will announce it's closed for business due to water concerns. But, when it is open, the rad space has old-school games like Mystic, Pinbot, and Laser War. It's BYOB (all the bands drink outside anyway.) Most of the games only run 25 cents to 50 cents and one of Los Angeles’ best taco trucks often parks down the street, making Pins and Needles the perfect date on the cheap. Also, who doesn’t like watching a girl lean over a pinball machine?
Museum of Jurassic Technology
Neighborhood: Culver City
Address: 9341 Venice Blvd.
Website: mjt.org
Hidden on a busy, nondescript street in Los Angeles, the Museum of Jurassic Technology is the perfect place to take a girl who shares your twisted sense of humor, absurdist attitude, and has an appreciation of all things weird. You can spend hours in this museum reading about old-time superstitions, playing with magnetic holograms, looking at diorama versions of Los Angeles trailer parks from the beginning of the century, and quietly trying to brush up against each other in the cozy Borzoi Kabinet theaters. The coolest part of the museum is also the most clandestine and romantic: the tea room. Tucked away toward the top of the museum is the Tula Tea Room which serves free tea and cookies. The room itself has benches and tables where you can talk, but a small set of stairs takes you onto a gorgeous rooftop courtyard. Columns and arches are reminiscent of some decaying Mediterranean villa while a man on an antique instrument provides the soundtrack for a date sure to inspire conversation.