I would certainly call this date culturally enriching. In fact, the city and I had a wonderful time together. But I was on a date with a foreign exchange student, and that part wasn’t quite so filling.
Basically, it was nearing the end of the month and still being sans date, I realized that I had to ask one out. I have a class with James, who is a study abroad student from Manchester, UK studying political science for the semester. He seemed nice enough, and I figured that if we have nothing in common, I’d at least get to hear him talk about England and I’d learn something. I asked him to a contemporary art museum with me, date set for 6:30 pm Friday evening.
Real quickly, let’s just talk about the definition of a date. It’s a case-by-case thing at our age, and the rules get bendy. For the sake of consistency, I determined a few things. First, it’s not a date if one of the people doesn’t know it’s a date. “Remember our first date?” “Oh, are you talking about that time we hung out and went bowling?” Doesn’t work. Next, you have to have something to do. An activity. If all we do is get coffee, all we have to do is talk, and what if listening to this guy is worse than hearing nails on a chalkboard? Next, some sort of food/beverage should be included. Eating or drinking are social acts so I figure they should be part of the program.
I picked James for the date because he’s friendly in class and didn’t seem all that interested in me, so I was hoping a date wouldn’t be super special to him. Plus I thought he might like to see more of the area around campus. I’m working at this new carefree dating style, which means that a date isn’t a big deal, filled with expectations and hopes. It’s something close to hanging out with a stranger on good terms, because what do you have to lose doing that? So we went to the museum, a first-time visit for both of us. I didn’t think I was gonna be into the contemporary art scene, but this was seriously awesome. There was an artist from France giving a presentation, and we ducked in to hear the last 20 minutes of that. Definitely check out his most recently completed project, The Machines de l’île. I could have stayed longer, but James was on his phone and itouch simultaneously, looking bored. Maybe he was just tired of standing.
After we left the museum, I was starving so I asked if he wanted to go get food somewhere. As we’re walking towards a restaurant, he kept bringing up coffee and how he likes coffee so much, blah blah blah. Finally he goes, “Well you can get something, I’ll probably just get something light, or a water.” I’m like, Fine! We’ll go get coffee if that’s what you want. I’m not gonna sit and have you watch me eat. As we’re walking to a local coffee place, he tells me all about his previous night spent at Olive Garden and later at a bar. He says, “Oh God, haha, my credit card is really feeling that weight of last night today.”
So wait. I can’t go get food because you’re too cheap? Order soup!
The coffee shop that we went to happened to be hosting some kind of open mic poetry event. I LOVE poetry. Especially slam poetry, or any poetry that’s performed in person. I might have been with a lame guy, but I went from an awesome museum to an awesome open mic session on one date. How lucky am I? We ordered our drinks at the register. (I got a Dirty Chai Latte - chai, milk and two shots of espresso. Magnif!) James pulled out his debit card, while I pulled out my cash, but the cashier had rung us up together. James looked at me and said, “Can I just pay you back?” So I paid for coffee. As we sat down, a man running the poetry event came up to ask for donations. I was happy to give him a couple bucks, but instead he informed me about the requested donation of $3 each. Hmm, would James consider cutting off a corner of his card to give as a donation? So I paid for donations too.
The night spiraled down pretty quickly after that. While my latte was curdling in my empty stomach and the performer on stage sang bravely on, James read a newspaper. It was about this time that I noticed his foot was definitely in my leg/chair/personal space. I moved my feet and ignored this. A few minutes later, his leg was in my space. I focused back on the show, and next time I turned, his arm was on my chair. Turn back again, his chair was just shy of an inch from mine. This guy is fucking Ninja Cat! I went to the bathroom just to get away.
By this point, I had texted my friends that I was coming over, bringing boxed wine, and that I’d need the largest cup in the apartment to drink out of. I wanted to watch A Very Potter Musical, laugh til it hurts, and repair the remainder of my night. As we left, James attempted one more cuddle with “You’re cold? Aww,” and pulled me in close. I wiggled free, then he wished me goodnight, and finally it was over. I had an excellent night with my friends afterwards. They fed me dinner.
Some thoughts on this date: It didn’t really occur to me that it’s a big deal to get asked out by a girl. I think James took all the wrong messages from that which probably made my disinterest in his cuddling really confusing. I can’t believe how naive I was to think that because I’d decided to treat the date lightly, my date was going to think the same thing. I’ve really gotten to thinking about it, and boys see things so differently. They have a different role than girls do. They usually do the asking, and girls (let’s be honest) are doing the rejecting. I think, in general, girls are more desensitized to flattery whereas boys don’t have any practice with such things. When they get asked out, it’s really easy to get excited. As a girl, I’d think, Alright, let’s see what happens. Boys just feel the flattery.
So I’ve learned that you can change your attitude on dating - look at me, doing a 360 - but you can’t toy with the traditional rules in dating without explaining that clearly. Compare Charlie to James. I set up a date with him 3 months in advance, which should be weird, except that everything is out in the open. With James, I knew what I was doing - finding a nice guy to check out the museum with me - but he was on a totally different page. And because I’d asked him out to start with, he never looked past all of that to see that I wasn’t interested in getting closer. Truthfully, I wasn’t even interested in a second date. I think a little clarification of the concept of the date, at least according to me, might be the best route for next time. That way nobody is confused and I’ll have more happy dating.
One last thing: On the date, I asked James about his homeland, and all I got was, “All of England is shit. The entire country.” Well that just can’t be right. Maybe I should ask out one of the other British guys to find out?
No comments:
Post a Comment