Three options and how they differ
You can meet at your place, at hers, or on neutral ground in a short-let apartment. The difference is not comfort. It is who takes on the trouble and who pays for what.
The cheapest is almost always going to her: nobody pays for travel or for a room. The most predictable is a rented apartment. The most troublesome, oddly enough, is a hotel.
- Your place: convenient, but it depends on the rules where you are staying, and having her travel usually costs more.
- Her place: the cheapest, and stated in the listing. The exact address comes closer to the time, which is normal.
- A short-let apartment: the cost is yours, but nobody asks anything at the door.
Hotels: what to ask before you book anything
Hotels in Yerevan treat guests differently and there is no general rule. Some let a visitor up without comment, some ask for an identity document at the desk and enter the name in a register, and some have a policy forbidding visitors to rooms after a certain hour.
Ask at your own reception, in advance, in ordinary words: whether a guest may come up to your room, and until what time. It is a routine question that is asked constantly and there is nothing awkward about it. What is awkward is bringing someone along and discovering the answer in the lobby.
If the hotel asks for a document, tell her before she sets out. Some people do not mind, some do, and finding out on arrival is the worst version of it. The same applies to a guest fee if the hotel charges one.
Short-let apartments
This is a common and inexpensive format in Yerevan, rented by the day through the usual booking services. The advantage is obvious: you are the host, nobody asks anything, and no house rules govern the time.
Two things get forgotten. The first is check-in: renting an apartment for the evening and arriving at the same moment as your guest means spending the first half hour on keys and the owner. The second is the address. Yerevan addresses often involve a building number and an entrance number, and courtyards are not always obvious, so know the address yourself and be able to explain it rather than forwarding a map link and hoping.
Her place
If the listing says she receives guests at her own place, that is usually the simplest route: nothing to rent, nobody to arrange it with, and a lower price because no travel is included in it.
The exact address is not given in the first message but closer to the time, the district in advance and the building shortly before you set out. That is not secrecy, it is ordinary caution, and the right way to take it is calmly. Getting there is rarely a problem: the city is compact and a taxi costs little.
The district matters less than you think
Yerevan is small and a taxi across town is cheap and quick. Choosing a listing by district therefore makes sense in exactly one case: when you want to walk and not travel at all.
In every other case the district is a weak criterion, and filtering hard on it simply halves your choice for nothing. Whether she travels to you and what hours suit her both matter far more: listings that travel are a page of their own.
What to avoid
Settle the place while you are still settling the time. It is one extra message and it removes the part of the evening that most often goes wrong. What is expected once you get there is in etiquette.
- A place suggested by a third party: a taxi driver, a helpful acquaintance, someone at a hotel.
- Hourly apartments advertised without an address. Neither of you knows what is there.
- Meeting in a car or a stairwell. That is not a saving, it is a way to ruin the evening for both of you.
- Deciding where after she has already left home.