Monday, August 27, 2007
A Question for the Peanut Gallery
So, help me out with this one. When is a date not a date? Here are the facts. The other night I asked this guy I kind of know to see a movie (he had a car!), but I didn't consider it a date until another guy said it definitely was. He did pick me up at my place. We went out for drinks before, and he actually paid for mine but only because our tab was on his card. I tried to find out what I owed him, but he said not to worry about it. Okay, then we went to the movie. I paid for my own ticket. After he took me home. Hmm... I did have trouble deciding what to wear because I wasn't sure if I should dress like I was going to the movie with a friend or on a date. So??? Was this a date in disguise or just two almost, kind of friends hanging out?
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11 comments:
Ah, the deceit-speak of the mating cycle! I never changes!
Speaking as a man (not a wey-faced, wimp-assed, monkey-collared number-cruncher, for instance), let me clue you into something you bloody well should know, since you're a beautiful woman in a world of horny guys: once a man's paid for a woman's drink, HE's from that point on a date, regardless of where the woman is. Any woman who thinks anything else is possible is a dad-blamed fool.
Which you most decidedly aren't, as a closer reading of your deceit-speak reveals! Let's look at the tape, shall we (since, as any lawyer can tell you, the INSTANT somebody says 'here are the facts,' you know one thing for a bedrock certainty: they're gonna leave a LOT out of what follows)?
'this guy I kind of know' - what can this possibly mean? How can you 'kind of know' somebody? You can't, obviously, but the construction has a purpose: to stress your own personal disinterest. WHY would you stress that? There's only one possible answer: because you were feeling the OPPOSITE of personal disinterest and don't want to admit it in your account.
'he had a car!' - methinks the lady doth protest too much. Not only does this further undercut the 'kind of know' line before it (even somebody dippy enough to voluntarily move to the heart of secession wouldn't be dippy enough to get into a car with a guy she only 'kind of knows'), but it leadenly over-exaggerates the aforementioned feigned personal disinterest. He had a car, did he? So if he'd been, say, 50, overweight, underbitten, pockmarked, and a little panty - but he had a car! - that would still have been a deciding factor? Please. The jury isn't buying that for a minute.
'He did pick me up at my place. We went out for drinks before, and he actually paid for mine but only because our tab was on his card.' - so he picked you up at your place, this guy you 'kind of' know, and you went out for drinks, with this guy you 'kind of know,' but you're still wondering if you went out a date? Isn't the dictionary definition of 'a date' a guy picking you up at your place and taking you out for drinks and a movie? And then there's the further misdirection, designed to throw the jury off the point: again you stress your personal disinterest by assuring us that the only reason he paid was because your tab was 'on his card' ... so you didn't know ahead of time that bars require legal tender for goods provided? And what, once this bombshell burst upon you some weird forcefield prevented you from HANDING him the CASH? Oh that's right: you didn't know how much you owed him! Why is that, the jury wonders? Unless you drank like an elderly Irishman, you could have sussed out this mystery number by mentally ADDING UP the prices of the drinks you giggled your way through.
Oh wait, as an afterthought you tell us that BEFORE all this slobbering lovemaking, you'd had trouble figuring out how to dress, because YOU YOURSELF weren't sure whether or not you were going on a date. This is patently false, as the jury will find: beautiful young women are NEVER unsure whether or not something's a date - they're only ever unsure whether or not to SIGNAL that something's a date. You agree to go to a movie with a guy you 'kind of know,' you debate how to dress, you let him pick you up at your place, you let him pay for preliminary drinks (you might as well admit right now how SEETHINGLY BITTERLY disappointed you were when he let you pay for your own ticket - admit it! It'll help with your sentencing, down the road), but you expect the jury to believe you're honestly confused about what happened?
You're not confused. You know perfectly well you went out on a date. Your goal in throwing the whole matter - GROTESQUELY distorted in your account of it - before the jury is mere cocquettish misdirection, trying to pretend you were quasi-blindsided by a fun evening with a guy you're already hot for. The jury finds you guilty of being a self-doubting dater-hater and sentences you to completely divulge the REAL details of the evening in question!
For shame, trying to deceive the Love Master! The Love Master has been studying (and losing friends to) human mating rituals for many, many years and cannot be deceived! Go ahead and deny ONE THING I wrote! I DARE you!
Did you ask him to see the movie because he has a car OR because you are interested in him? It sounds like a date to me.
Just curious, but what movie did you see?
Geez. When did the Peanut Gallery turn into Court TV? I half expected you to dramatically point a finger at me and declare, "J'accuse!"
And I'm NOT a "dater-hater." I love going on dates when it's a date which this, so clearly, was not. But he does have the dreamiest dimples I've ever seen. Sigh...
Where was I? Oh yeah... Not a Date!
To answer Brian's perfectly valid question... I really really wanted to see the movie and had no way of getting there on my way. So, the car was definitely the draw. The movie was "Once" which I previewed in an earlier post.
ONLY Brian would wade through all this bodice-ripping miasma of denial and desire and then ask 'what movie did you see?'! MOVIE NERD!
Oh, and by the way: 'J'ACCUSE!'
From my point of view, it was a date. If I asked a boy to see a movie and had no intention of it being a date, I would ask mutual friends to join us. We'd all meet somewhere convenient to everyone and there would be no pre-movie drinks.
I think that what you're really wondering is "did HE consider it a date?"
Unless he starts to put the moves on you down the road what does it matter how you define the outing. And then maybe you'll want Mr. Dreamy Dimples to go out with you again:) In which case when you start officially going out you can look back on this first date with fond memories! STOP over analyzing fun times!!!! Leave it to Steve to do that:)
Ok, here's how you can tell if it was a date. Go out again, but this time with the intention of getting smashed. If you black out & wake up the next morning (sans clothing)in bed together, than it WAS a date. Trust me. Alcohol is as good as any truth serum you're going to find.
Dater-hater! Dater-hater! Dater-hater! J'Accuse! J'Accuse! J'Accuse!
I'm waiting for a new entry about date #2. C'mon Rebekah, fill us in already!
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