Is This a Date?

Published January 22, 2008

By Lea McLellan

I was visiting my friend in Boston when he offered to pay for my lunch and my movie ticket. I was running out of money, so I pulled an “oh you don’t have to,” quickly followed by an, “okay thanks!” He informed me that it was no problem and that we were actually on a date. I responded by saying, “awesome,” and that was that. Now I’m pretty sure he was just being cute and the real reason he paid was because I had driven two hours to visit him and we hadn’t seen each other in over a year. It definitely was not a date-at least I doubt it.

But if it had been a real date, I would have appreciated his straightforwardness. I’ve come to the realization that I often can’t tell whether I’m on a date or not. It’s possible that I’m exceptionally oblivious, but I refuse to believe I’m the only one with this problem.

Unless someone is very brave, they won’t say, “Would you like to go out tomorrow night on a real live date?” It’s more like, “So yeah, we should hang out sometime. Umm call me.” Which is tough to interpret. Whether or not I’m alone in my confusion, the truth is that first dates are a lot more awkward when you’re not even sure if you’re dating.

For instance, over break, a not-that-close friend from high school asked if I wanted to go to a concert with him on New Year’s Eve. It occurred to me that it might be a date, but I dismissed the idea. Then, before New Year’s, he called and asked me if I wanted to go to breakfast.

Breakfast?! I’d only ever been out to a one-on-one breakfast with my ex-boyfriend and my mom. It must be the most puzzling meal of
the day. Everyone knows dinner has more romantic potential than lunch, but does that mean that breakfast has the least romantic potential of all? I’m not so sure.

Breakfast seems intimate. And whether it’s breakfast, lunch, or dinner, you have to sit there and talk… the whole time. It’s not like going to the movies where you can sit silently for two hours and only think of things to say on the ride home. If you allow for a lull in conversation, it gets uncomfortable pretty quickly.

So I ate pancakes with the kid and I still can’t tell you if they were regular pancakes or date pancakes. I’m not even sure if I wanted it to be a date, but it would have been nice to know. Given our history, it wouldn’t be that weird to think he’d ask me out. He also picked me up at my house and hugged me. I made it awkward by stepping on his foot-characteristic of something I would do at the start of a date.

But there were also indications that it wasn’t a date. He didn’t pay for me, but in retrospect I didn’t give him the opportunity. Maybe I should have, for clue purposes.

If a guy pays, then it’s almost definitely a date, but it also doesn’t mean much if he doesn’t pay. The practice has become sort of old-fashioned. As in, it’s 2008, I’m an independent woman, and I can pay for my own damn pancakes. Also, the general vibe didn’t seem all that romantic. Then again, if we had discussed whether we believed in love at first sight and played footsie, we both might have been weirded out.

It’s true that the “am I on a date?” issue can only go on for so long. If you hang out repeatedly without either party going in for the kiss, then you probably aren’t dating. In the meantime though, it’s difficult to know how to act. It’s possible that both people could be like me. Neither knows if the other person thinks they’re on a date, in which case no one wants to make the first move because they’ll end up looking stupid. It’s obviously a serious problem.

Things could be worse. I could be sitting at home talking to my pets like a crazy person, stalking people on Facebook, and watching reruns of A Shot at Love the whole break, (instead of only some of the break.) I should be thankful that I have some kind of romantic life… at least I think I do. I might. I really don’t know.

Print This Article

Comments