Day Ten: The Concept of a "First Date"

Being as I am a woman, and what I consider to be at least a decent friend, I have sat with my girlfriends as they sniffled, gloomed, and bemoaned recently failed relationships. I’ve seen relationships end due to poor communication, infidelity, and just plain lack of luster. But as I am seeing new relationships form, old relationships end, and just about half of the people I work with getting married, I have been wondering what the success stories have in common. I also wonder about the success of my own relationship, which is now going on two years. Although a relationship is never a true success story until “death do you part,” I would consider being with someone longer than a year a successful mastery of the basics. While I’m definitely not a believer in love at first sight or fairy-tale endings, I wonder, if there is one specific thing that most (I’m sure not all) successful relationships have in common: the existence, or lack thereof, of the monumental First Date.

What first needs to be established to answer this question is what exactly constitutes a true “First Date.” I define it as being in a neutral location with no one else of common acquaintance to distract the couple from getting to know each other. For example, while I think group dates are a witty and fun idea, they’re not at all a suitable way to really pick someone's brain. Also, finding a soon-to-be companion at a party and ferociously making out for a length of time is not a first date. Sure, chemical attraction has been established, but what information about a person is really gleaned from that? Okay, maybe quite a bit, but certainly not enough to base a relationship upon. While there has to be a technical first date eventually, at what point in most relationships (established as formally a couple, ambiguous, or still unknown) does it occur? I have been in relationships before where we have established ourselves as dating, but didn’t actually go on a first “date” until we were already a couple. They all failed miserably.

But similarly, my current boyfriend and I did not have a first date until after we were already quite familiar with each other. We had a very fast week of talking over various electronic devices constantly, followed by a day of flirting with each other within a large group of people, and finally wrapping up our courtship with some TV over my apartment with my roommates. Our first actual date was lunch, long into our courtship of each other, but not when we were "officially" dating. This is similar to the way I think it should work. I’ve always gotten the impression that the “First Date” is supposed to be uncomfortable, and more like a job interview, quickly determining the assets and weaknesses of each other before deciding whether the courtship should continue. How could anyone connect in such a cold and uncomfortable manner?

But really, does anyone do that anymore? Unless a couple meets each other on a dating website, I really don’t think it’s necessary. So why, I wonder, do so many dating magazines, websites, and articles describe ways to navigate around this stupid, dated ritual? And why are women still believing it? I might conduct some kind of experiment on this, because I’m pretty sure this sterile, to-the-point courtship staple is completely out-of-date. If this is really the way we're supposed to meet people, why hasn't the idea of it developed into something more workable? As a species, we can create an mp3 player that's the size of a stick of Trident, but we can't change the way we think about the "First Date?" I demand a change.