Dating in a Post-Dating World
I Swiffered my studio apartment, selected an outfit that appeared, at least in strategically dimmed light, to be unstained. I dug out just the right music (Dan Hicks & His Hot Licks) and whipped up a passable green curry chicken (Naked Chef). Only one detail remained unresolved: Was this a date or what?
By the end of the evening, we’d discussed art and the direction of our lives, strolled the tree-lined streets of Park Slope, eaten ice cream, but the essential question remained unanswered. I walked her to the subway and we kissed, but even then I didn’t get the clarification I needed, for this was possibly the most ambiguous kiss in human history. Far from a full-on lip-lock, it wasn’t quite a polite peck on the cheek either. I caught her on the corner of the mouth, then let her go. Helen’s was the kiss that launched a thousand ships; this one couldn’t launch the SS Minnow.
We’d known each other for years, casual acquaintances connected by a mutual friend. Every time this friend came to town we’d see each other, marvel at how nicely we got along, and suggest that we keep in touch. This time, I actually followed through, sensing that there might be more to our chemistry than a fizzy, once-a-year flirtation. But having taken the first step, I ran smack into a surprising realization: There was a lot I didn’t know about dating, like how to tell when you’re doing it.
In the throes of my dilemma, I happened to catch Tom Wolfe on The Daily Show, promoting his new book, in which he reports on the love lives of college students the way he once reported on the space program. He told Jon Stewart with a certain bemusement that dating no longer exists among the young, that courtship begins with sex and, if the sex is relatively successful, proceeds to cohabitation. My first reaction was to dismiss this observation as just another bon mot from a raconteur who has always worked in broad strokes. But then I checked it against my own experience and the truth of it struck me: I’m twenty-seven years old and, until recently, I’d never been on a proper date.
You see, I’m what the kids call a serial monogamist. Ever since high school, my pattern has been the same: I sleep with a woman with whom I’m already friends then enter immediately into a serious, long-term relationship. The only exception was in graduate school when I went home with a stranger I met at a party, but that encounter morphed rapidly into the most intense love affair of all. My one-night stand lasted a year.
On the rare occasion I’ve gone to dinner or a movie with a woman I don’t know well, intending to gauge our compatibility, the outing has simply refused to retain a date-like shape. In the waning days of college, I went to a string of concerts with a good-looking classmate. I was motivated by more than the urge to rock out, and at the third show in as many weeks, I leaned in to make my move. When I tried to land a kiss, though, my companion bobbed and weaved, Ali to my flat-footed Foreman. As far as she was concerned, there was nothing romantic between us, we were just friends hanging out, and I’d crossed the line. We were English majors, and this was our last lesson in differing modes of interpretation. A week later, much to my surprise, she invited me over to her place for dinner. She felt bad about her knee-jerk reaction (I was just grateful she hadn’t actually jerked her knee), and while she’d never thought of me as boyfriend material before, now she wanted to give me a chance. I ended up spending the night, and a few months later, we moved in together. I can just picture Tom Wolfe shaking his bowler-hatted head, jotting this story down in his notebook.
So what’s wrong with being a serial monogamist, you ask? Who needs dating anyway, the chitchat with strangers or near-strangers, the sifting of biographical data for clues? Where are you from? What do you do? You seem like an only child, are you an only child? Excuse me while I shudder. I’m sure there are people out there who enjoy the job-interview trappings of a first date, the anxious calculations that follow. (How long should I wait before I call? Is it too soon to hold hands?) I, however, don’t know any of them. Not a one. Most of my friends, like me, are looking to fall in love with a minimum of stilted preliminaries. We are painfully aware that, for the most part, our parents were married by the time they were our age. They were done riding the ferris wheel with their neighbor’s cousin, done bowling with their best friend’s girlfriend’s friend. Why should I be so preoccupied with dating at the same time of life my parents were getting ready to have me?
Times change, that’s why. I’ve come of age in the era of the quarter-life crisis. I went straight from college to graduate school to a job in politics. I’ve been busy and serious since I was sixteen, and I’ve fallen for women who were even busier and more serious. The first-stop-sex-next-stop-shacking-up model of modern courtship suited us because it was efficient and because we were victims of a premature adulthood. But instant intimacy has its consequences. After all, the flip-side of intimacy is commitment. We give free access to our time, our bodies, our inner lives expecting equal and exclusive access in return. We fall in love expecting to be loved back. But making that commitment without taking the time to get to know your partner is like signing a contract without reading the fine print. You know, the fine print that says, I’m looking for a man to support me while I write my novel. I don’t see myself settling down in any one place for more than a year or two. My interest in sex comes and goes.
This is a lesson I’ve learned the hard way. I’ve met an ex-lover at Starbucks so I could give her back her clothes and books, shards of my heart poking through the plastic shopping bag. She was older and itching to settle down, so she threw herself into love with me. But settling down involved too much settling. After a year of trying to force the reality of me into line with her ideal, she gave up and threw herself into love with an MIT grad whose prospects of becoming a jet-setting tycoon undeniably exceeded mine. Our whirlwind romance turned into a tsunami. I believed I’d met the woman I was going to marry and was sadly, devastatingly mistaken. Because the consequences of commitment without a getting-to-know-you period can be so dire, the stakes so high, I’m changing my ways. For the first time, I’m approaching romance like a teenager. I’m still looking for a lover, a partner, a wife. But first I’m looking for a date.
The problem is that the world isn’t set up for dating anymore. First, as Wolfe points out and my misadventures amply demonstrate, people my age don’t know how to do it anymore. But there’s more than unfamiliarity and incompetence at work. When my parents were young, the whole social framework was designed to make dating easy. In those Happy Days of yore, if a guy asked a girl to go to the drive-in with him, it was understood that his intentions were more than platonic. If the girl accepted, it was a clear signal that she was willing to at least entertain the possibility of a romance. If the guy and girl got along well enough, more dates followed. Eventually―eventually―physical intimacy entered the equation, and even then, sex could be withheld until a commitment solidified. So the guy and girl became a couple, and barring the unforeseen, they kept dating until the guy coughed up the ring, and then they lived happily ever after, until death did they part. Go ahead, call this thumbnail sketch reductive, a Norman Rockwell fantasy. I’m sure Wolfe will back me up.
What’s indisputable is that the game has changed. When I invited my friend’s friend to dinner, I’m sure it crossed her mind that I was asking her on a date, but the invitation itself no longer constitutes evidence. After all, she and my friend have dinner together all the time without any romantic implications. Likewise, I could draw no definitive conclusion from her acceptance of my invitation. Even a goodnight kiss, a warm exchange of follow-up e-mails, and a subsequent get-together did nothing to shed light on the situation.
Why not make an unmistakable advance, you ask, throwing your hands up in disgust. Tell her you’re interested, kiss her again, only this time, make it count. Ah, easier said than done, dear reader. Remember, she likely grew up with the same paradigm of instant intimacy that I did, and according to that paradigm, the first open expression of attraction is tantamount to hardcore couplehood: sleep-overs, a meet-and-greet with the parents, the works. It’s happened once or twice that I’ve asked out a woman and she’s had the good sense to request immediate clarification of what I had in mind. The result has always been rejection, usually of the most spastic and awkward kind. These days, letting someone know unequivocally you’re attracted to them is either an act of aggression or a sign of desperation. We say we’re just looking to have a good time, see what happens, no pressure, but no one believes it, least of all ourselves.
So we keep our intentions to ourselves. We play it cool and nothing happens. We pore over every last detail with our friends (what she wore, who paid for what) like we’re reading tea leaves and meanwhile opportunities fizzle. Wouldn’t we be better off in the world in which our parents grew up, Tom Wolfe’s world? I could wear a white suit and spats, pay for dinner without appearing presumptuous. She could let me escort her home without worrying that I might try something funny.
Then again, the grass is always greener, isn’t it? In his teen anthem of that bygone age, Brian Wilson longs for a closeness with his sweetheart that the times will not permit: “Wouldn’t it be nice if we were older/then we wouldn’t have to wait so long/And wouldn’t it be nice if we could wake up in the kind of world where we belong...We could be married/And then we’d be happy/Oh, wouldn’t it be nice?” No, I suppose we wouldn’t want to give up our sexual freedom, our hard-won maturity, for the sake of a little courtliness. But what if, by giving up the guessing games and the instant high stakes, we could realize a deeper, more satisfying maturity in our relationships? What if a little formality could set us free? Wouldn’t that be nice?
It can, and it is. Recently, I ran into an acquaintance from high school, someone I hadn’t seen in years. We enjoyed catching up, so we swapped e-mail addresses and a week or two later went out for dinner and a movie. By the end of the evening, we were really clicking and I was smitten, but I didn’t go further than kissing her cheek. I called her the following day and made it clear I wanted our next meeting to be a date. At a cozy Italian restaurant in the West Village, we shared a shrimp and mango salad, talked about our goals and beliefs, and made fun of the painful blind date taking place at the table next to ours (“I like to do an hour of Precore after work.” “What’s Precore?”). Amid the funky smells and freaky outbursts of the West 4th Street subway station, I asked for permission to kiss her goodnight, and she gave it. More dates followed, and before too long, I was Swiffering my apartment and consulting the Naked Chef again. But this time I was pretty sure my guest would want to spend the night, and I wasn’t disappointed.
I’m discovering that a more measured, formal approach to dating pays off. It makes the eventual intimacy feel sweeter, more fully earned, less susceptible to a sudden jolt of second thoughts. The woman I’m with now is good-natured, thoughtful, funny. I can see a future in which our lives are happily entwined, but I’m in no rush. Not when getting there is this much fun.
