What Constitutes Game?
I was having dinner with my friend D. the other night and telling him about a date I went on awhile back. On this particular date, the person in question made sure I had no food allergies or dislikes (and I don't, besides sun-dried tomatoes, which RUIN anything they touch). He then suggested a good, but not frighteningly expensive, restaurant without all that annoying back and forth of "Where do YOU want to go," "No, where do YOU want to go" that drives me bananas. Afterward, he planned a fun activity that went beyond the basic "Let me get you drunk enough that you'll feel like taking your pants off -- or won't feel it when I do!" The last time I had as nice a date was probably more than a year ago when I went with someone to the gorilla exhibit at the Bronx Zoo, and that was a LONG time ago. That's right -- the ass double, in retrospect, couldn't hold a candle to watching a monkey scratch his own testicles. (Although, that's kind of what a date with the ass double amounted to, as it were.)
Anyway, as I was going on and on about how nice it was to have someone ask me out and actually plan dinner and an activity, D. -- who's been on the dating scene for a good 20 years or so -- stopped me and asked, "Is planning a date all that it takes to constitute game these days? Shit!" (D., for the record, plans very nice dates, at least from what I can tell -- I think he was amazed that standards have dropped so low that this was enough to make a date notable.)
And I realized that perhaps that's what it's come to. So to all my male friends who bitch and moan about how hard it is to get dates with decent women, consider it a lesson: just be confident, ask someone out, and plan something for fuck's sake. Repeat after me: "Do you want to go to XXXX concert with me on XXXX day?" I mean, maybe I've just been dating the wrong people, but if you ask me the odds are good that she'll be so floored that someone thought about what she might like to do that it won't even matter if you're flatulent, fat, or five-foot-two.
Furthermore, it doesn't even really matter what the activity is. You could probably take her to an asbestos factory or a Superfund site and she'd have a good time, as long as she didn't have to go through the stress of deciding where to go. Women already have to make so many decisions in one day; sometimes it's almost more than I can handle to pick out a pair of shoes in the morning. Don't make us plan a date on top of it, at least not when you're the one doing the asking.
Does this make me antifeminist? I don't think so. It just makes me tired of trying to navigate New York's dating scene, wherein passing out in my lap at 3 a.m. apparently indicates interest. Call me old fashioned. But if you plan a date, in my book -- yes, you've got game. Do the ladies of New York agree?
Anyway, as I was going on and on about how nice it was to have someone ask me out and actually plan dinner and an activity, D. -- who's been on the dating scene for a good 20 years or so -- stopped me and asked, "Is planning a date all that it takes to constitute game these days? Shit!" (D., for the record, plans very nice dates, at least from what I can tell -- I think he was amazed that standards have dropped so low that this was enough to make a date notable.)
And I realized that perhaps that's what it's come to. So to all my male friends who bitch and moan about how hard it is to get dates with decent women, consider it a lesson: just be confident, ask someone out, and plan something for fuck's sake. Repeat after me: "Do you want to go to XXXX concert with me on XXXX day?" I mean, maybe I've just been dating the wrong people, but if you ask me the odds are good that she'll be so floored that someone thought about what she might like to do that it won't even matter if you're flatulent, fat, or five-foot-two.
Furthermore, it doesn't even really matter what the activity is. You could probably take her to an asbestos factory or a Superfund site and she'd have a good time, as long as she didn't have to go through the stress of deciding where to go. Women already have to make so many decisions in one day; sometimes it's almost more than I can handle to pick out a pair of shoes in the morning. Don't make us plan a date on top of it, at least not when you're the one doing the asking.
Does this make me antifeminist? I don't think so. It just makes me tired of trying to navigate New York's dating scene, wherein passing out in my lap at 3 a.m. apparently indicates interest. Call me old fashioned. But if you plan a date, in my book -- yes, you've got game. Do the ladies of New York agree?
posted by Had To Move at 3:41 PM
7 Comments:
Seriously, this guy like completely totally awesome! Tell us more about him!
I meant to say this guy seems like he is completely totally awesome, but i'm an idiot and forgot to type the word "seems."
Feh. If you want to hear more about him, we'll have to see if he can pull another well-planned date out of his bag of tricks. What else can I say? Hm, I suspect he has an enormous package. So, there's that.
Does "sitting around watching lost on DVR and eating take out" constitute a "well planned date"? It does in my book, anyway.
Hmmmmm.....while a couch date doesn't have quite the "novel reportability" factor of something like, I dunno, taking a girl to the opera or for the chef's tasting menu at Masa, as long as the takeout is something other than General Tso's it's better than asking her out to do lemon drop shots, I suppose. If you wanted extra points on the creativity scale, you could make the dinner yourself and, hm, make it all Lost-themed foods! You know, mango sorbet, five-gallon tubs of mayo, sea urchin, wild boar. Etc. etc.
Krissi -- yeah, my point was that it seems to be a new standard that dates aren't necessary. And I guess if you're just looking to suck face with someone for awhile, they're not. But dates are kind of a nice way to get to know someone a little better. Maybe if all NYC women demanded dates, we'd start getting them.
what if, hypothetically, I don't have a "cook's kitchen" and only have orange juice and expired condiments in my fridge. what then?
What do you have, a hot plate and a dorm fridge? May want to think about upgrading your digs if you're gonna try to impress the ladies with THAT. Anyway, you could try serving her saltines with Arby's Horsey sauce. I hear girls like that. Alternately, you could just make sure you always have plenty of booze on hand -- get her drunk, maybe she'll forget that she didn't eat dinner. Then it's all good (unless she throws up on you).
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