Are You On A Date?

I was out to dinner last night with a gentleman.  This being Portland, we ran into someone we both know.  For me, she's an acquaintance, one of those "oh, that's a familiar face, I'll smile and wave and then go sit down and try to remember what her name is and how I know her," folks.  He knew her much better.  We stopped by her table, and she and I confessed we couldn't remember one another's names and pieced our way back to the last time we saw one another, and then we all chatted for a bit.  She then looked back and forth at the two of us and blurted out, "Hey, wait a minute -- are you two on a date?" 

We both demurred, lightly.  No, not a date, just getting a bite to eat after sailing.  Nothing to see here.  The truth was, I wasn't sure.  We settled into our booth and proceeded to have a conversation that felt a lot like a conversation we might have had if we'd been on a date.  It got me thinking about how you know whether something is a date or not.  I have very little idea. 

There's a realm of clear date scenarios -- you meet, flirt, exchange contact info, and then at some later time you arrange to get better acquainted.  When you meet at the appointed time, that's a date.  Online daters have it easy: it's very clear when they are on a date.  And there are certain requirements for a date, I think.  The two people are unaccompanied by others (unless it's a double date).  The two people are single, and are each aware that the other person is single.

But there are so many ambiguous companionable scenarios that can happen between two single people that fall outside of this narrow band.  What is a date but an audition for romantic possibility between two people?  Sometimes you're sizing someone up for that possibility without admitting it.  Maybe they're sizing you up, too.  Do you both have to know that's what's happening for it to be a date?  I think so.  Can you be "on a date" if both people are sizing one another up but they don't acknowledge that's what's happening? 

A couple of years ago I went to lunch with a long-time acquaintance of mine.  We ran in the same circles; I'd known him for years, though never well.  He was one of those people my friends would suggest from time to time.  "Have you ever thought about dating _____?"  I'd thought about it.  For a while I'd genuinely tried to cultivate a crush on him, because he seemed like such a convenient match, but I'd failed.  I suspect he was getting that on his end, too.  We worked not far from one another and would run into each other from time to time.  One day, he called or emailed me and we arranged lunch.  And on the appointed day we had lunch, a pleasant but forgettable affair.  I was interested in finding out more about him, cognizant of the whispers of my friends who thought maybe we'd be compatible.  So on one level I was just having lunch with a friend,  but on another level I was curious to see if we might uncover a spark.  We didn't, and we never lunched again, falling smoothly back into a friendly chat-at-cocktail-parties acquaintanceship.   

Was it a date?  We both would have denied it.  But I'm *sure* he asked me to lunch to audition me, and that was part of my motivation in accepting.  If we'd been intrigued with one another and had suggested an after-work cocktail the following week, and gone on to have a relationship, we might have counted that lunch as "our first date."  As it was, it was just an unremarkable lunch with somebody already part of my social circle. 

As I write this I conclude that there is a covert pre-dating stage that happens often, unless you meet someone in a bar or online and can jump to the clear date scenario.  If you are getting to know an acquaintance better, or considering a friend in a new light, there's some deliberate ambiguity.  That probably permits you both to save face, as happened with the lunch guy and I, in the event it turns out that you don't want to go further after all.  Not a date, nosirree. 

Comments

[a]

Ah, but you didn't answer whether you thought your dinner last night was, or could have been, a date or not. Sometimes, what you might admit to be a date you don't want to broadcast to mutual friends/acquaintances who have the poor form to bluntly ask "Is this a date?" Unless it was SO clearly a date, the obvious response for anyone would be No.

Surely if you're not sure you're on a date it means you are on a date? A bit like if you're not sure whether you've been sleeping it must mean you have been sleeping.

[wab]

What a horrible concept this "date" business is. You have some reason, any reason, to meet someone for dinner, a movie ... whatever. They have a reason to agree. Need anything more be said. Maybe this happens a second, third or more times... Perhaps the upshot is that you decide to write a paper together, perhaps you decide to become confidants, perhaps you end up have a romantic relationship either immediately or after other alternatives.

Seems to me the only thing imbuing the meeting with the word "date" accomplishes is to raise expectations that likely will be diappointed in one way or the others. Lose the expectations and go with the folow.

How do you answer the snoopy friend? "we're having dinner". Note the "just" is omitted. You have only stated the obvious, but that is all the questioner deserves as an answer.

[ms]

What kind of an ass would ask such an awkward question as, "Are you two on a date?"!?? Ugh!

[ogged]

You're blind to the position of relative privilege from which you're approaching the question. Having not been on a date in so very very long, I've taken to thinking that being in line at the grocery store with an attractive woman is a "date." So were you on a date last night? I don't know, Sherry, I'd say you were practically married.

[Al Wheeler]

I wouldn't let a careless remark (from someone who is probably single) affect a relationship.

[PG]

:-) I once had the "what constitutes a date" discussion from the other end, i.e. dating someone and trying to figure out what could be counted as the first date. I stoutly declared that a date required intent, or as Sherry says,

"What is a date but an audition for romantic possibility between two people? Sometimes you're sizing someone up for that possibility without admitting it. Maybe they're sizing you up, too. Do you both have to know that's what's happening for it to be a date? I think so."

If while the incident is occurring, both parties are thinking of each other as simply a friendly acquaintance sharing a meal, then it's not a date. Even whatever one might do before engaging in intimate activity isn't a date, unless the parties involved would consider themselves to be dating. Hence the delightful modern phrases "f*ck buddy" and "friends with benefits," which permit two people to spend time together and have sex together without dating.

Which is not to denigrate (as the conservative pro-courtship types seem to do) the virtues of non-dating relationships, whether they be benefited friendships or not, but merely to value distinguishing one species of relationship from another. There ought to be enough words in the language to describe these different activities.

[brittany]

I believe that your entry about dating should be taken into considerations. Normal circumstance do have something to do with our interpretation if a meeting is a date or not. Both is not just a planned encounter but can also be a start of something special.

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