I havnt looked into the dates/relationship code much.. but i know they can decline effectively.. .. its the premise of the whole "Yea great.. sure.. il call you (never).... have a good night".. So it might not be a bug. If your stats are good (there's a behind the scenes charm stat, and attractiveness etc), and it keeps happening.. the maybe its a calc issue with the game, but last i knew you could invite people home (and prior to 8.0 at least). You do need your own place.. either the Apt above Kelly's bar or the highrise condo.
Once invited home it would kind of work once they got there, and sometimes they would leave, sometimes it would think you are in a perpetual date mode when going back to the bars. I havnt touched it much since 8.0, so I dont know if the backend coding is fixed for that, but I know the invites home did work.