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Low investment dates have become the new norm. Meaning,  any serious investment in another person – be it money or effort – is minimal. This is most likely a circumstance of dating app culture, along with the collective need for instant gratification (think Veruca Salt-like behavior from “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”).

It’s unfortunate, but a first date is no longer a first date. It’s become an effort to earn the first date. If someone cannot handle a low investment commitment of something like a cup of coffee, they’re not ready – or, in the minds of singles, deserving – of a higher investment date like dinner and drinks.

RELATED: An Idiot-Proof Guide to Pulling Off an Epic First Date

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, this newer method is proving relatively successful. For instance, Bloomberg recently credited millennials for plummeting divorce rates. And for what it’s worth, 29 percent of heterosexual and 65 percent of gay couples have met online. Even crazier? Tinder matches have officially outnumbered people on the planet. It’s truly mind-boggling, but that’s just the world we live in now.

But this is not the only reason we’ve decided to elect a more casual approach. In addition to the culture created by dating apps, millennials have graduated with more debt into the worst recession in 80 years. Simply put, they cannot afford to whip out their wallets on dates like previous generations have.

To help navigate this new (and cheaper) standard of digital dating, we reached out to several dating professionals — matchmakers, psychotherapists, dating coaches and sex-positive podcast hosts — to recommend some fun, low investment date ideas to make future planning a cinch.

Kevon Owen is a featured contributing author in this article. To read the entire article please click this link. If you would like to consult with Kevon Owen about your situation please call him at 405-740-1249 or you can visit his website at this address, https://www.kevonowen.com.