Hitting on the server, the bartender, the room

Excessive charm aimed at everyone except your date reads, fairly or not, as a quiet warning. The person across from you notices when your warmest energy keeps going to the server, the bartender, the person at the next table. They notice when the charm that was presumably the reason you were asked on a date gets distributed broadly and indiscriminately. It creates an unspoken question: am I special to you tonight, or is everyone? Be warm to everyone — that's not the problem. The problem is when your warmth is identical regardless of audience, when the version of you aimed at the room is the same as the version aimed at your date. Reserve a slightly different register for the person across the table. They should feel, through how you direct your attention, that they are specifically the reason you're here tonight. That differentiation — subtle, unremarkable if it's working — is more attractive than the most dazzling broad-spectrum charisma.