I disagree. Do you know how much effort it takes for me to get ready for a date? For a guy, yes, you do have to rent a car and figure out where to go; I’m not minimizing the difficulty of that. But for a me, my family has to clean up the house, my father needs to miss a good part of his nightly shiur, I need to do my hair and makeup and spend 2-3+ hours of my night. That’s also ignoring the emotional stress and nerves that are involved. If I did it once and there is no legitimate chance of the shidduch working out, what is the tachlis in going out a second time?
By the way, with every boy that I said no after one date, the boy said no, as well. The only exception was one boy who was 9 years older than me (I had literally just turned 20), whom I was reluctant to go out with in the first place. People told me to go out and see how it went. When I went out, I was very uncomfortable with the age difference, and I said no.
I don’t think I’m unreasonable with saying no. I’m generally a very thought-out person, and I don’t tend to be impulsive. Sometimes, there is just no shaichus in a date- which the shadchanim themselves have admitted in my case.