Is this a date?
I was out with a new friend one day and we started talking about dating. It was an odd topic to talk about with someone I barely knew, but that’s the way the conversation flowed and that’s the way we went. She laughed as she told me about the time that she didn’t even realize she was on a date.
“I hadn’t seen him in a while,” she began, “and when we bumped into each other, he suggested we get together to catch up.”
I nodded and took a sip of my tea.
“I thought it would be great to catch up because I hadn’t seen him in a while. And we had been really good friends in school, I just kept thinking how cool it would be to find out what he’d been doing all these years. He picked out a restaurant and I showed up on time for once. We had a great time, sharing stories and letting each other know what had been going on for the past few years. It felt so great to catch up and reminisce about the old days.”
“Of course,” I said, “I love catching up with old friends.”
“I know right? It was a lot of fun…and then I took a look at the situation. He was dressed nicely. I was dressed nicely. We were out at a dimly-lit restaurant. The food was great and the conversation was better…that’s when it hit me. I thought to myself, ‘wait a minute! Is this a date?’ So I looked at him and for the first time noticed the way he was looking back at me. And yup, we were on a date and I hadn’t even realized it.”
We both burst out into laughter. Relationships can be like that sometimes, just when you think you’re safe, one emerges out of nowhere. I had to admit that I’d never experienced such a thing before, although I could distinctly remember a time when a girl I had asked out didn’t realize it was a date. Perhaps it’s more of a girl experience than a guy experience.
“So what happened?” I asked.
“Well, I just couldn’t get past thinking of him as a friend, so it just didn’t work out,” she concluded.
We laughed some more about the silliness of the whole situation before recognizing that it was getting late. We walked back to the parking lot from which we had first set out a few hours ago. We had agreed to meet up for an hour or two and that had turned into six. She gave me a hug and then nuzzled her chin into my chest, holding onto me for a bit longer than I had anticipated. Then she pulled back, looked me in the eye for a moment, and said goodnight. It was then that it hit me.
This had been a date.
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Ah, the dreaded non-date date. I’ve been there. My very first date was like that. I thought I was just doing dinner & a comedy show with a friend, until she held my hand. In hindsight, yea, I was clueless.
Then the roles were reversed with my first girlfriend. I took her out to a nice restaurant one night. She came in with casual lounging-around clothes and didn’t realize it was a date until she saw me totally dressed up.
My solution to this problem is simple - if you want this to be a date, say it out loud when you ask the person out. Make it obvious. Assume that the other person is oblivious. ‘Cuz maybe, just maybe, they are.