This Calculator Tells You Whether Or Not Your One-On-One Hangout Is A Date

I have this friend. He lives across the country, but he's planning to visit New York at the end of this month.

I'm pretty sure we're just friends. We hooked up once, but it didn't mean anything (I think). He also calls me "boo" sometimes when he texts me, but I think that's just his colloquial way of saying "I miss hanging out with you" (also speculation). Regardless, he's asked me to set aside the last week in April and "grab drinks" with him. "Can't wait!" I texted back, completely ingenuously.

Now, I'm naturally overthinking this little meetup.

Tinder guys always want to grab drinks, so my immediate thought is my friend wants to get in my pants and maybe go all the way this time. But my other thought is that grabbing drinks is something you do with such a wide variety of people -- your coworkers, your friends, your hook-up buddy, your boyfriend -- so it could also just mean shooting the sh*t together with no expectations on either end. I'm not really sure about what exactly my cross-country half-lover, half-friend means when he asks to meet up and get drunk together.

I've asked my girlfriends what the hell they think it means, and they say one thing. My male co-workers have formed an entirely different opinion on it. And then my editor found this love calculator that tells you if you're going on a date or just hanging out based off the information you know about your rendezvous. Thank God for this thing. Friends may lie, but numbers never do.

Here's how it works. I put my parameters into the calculator:

Then I put in the scenario:

Then I got specific with it:

And here's the verdict:

Apparently, what I kind of considered to be (and was actually HOPING would be) a date is not quite a date, and my friend most likely doesn't think it's a date. The article does mention, however, that anything involving dinner is usually a date. It also mentions that invitations from a friend are least likely to be considered a date.

I feel like I kind of knew those things already, but you never know anymore. Millennial dating and hook-up culture have completely thrown me.

What does this mean for me? I'll be wearing my standard black jeans and top, not my flouncy black skirt with the frills. So there you have it. We're all going to die alone. Well, I am, anyway. But if you try it out for yourself, maybe you'll have better luck than I did.