The Dood and I are having a good-natured debate about something.
See, I have many male friends, with whom I share completely platonic relationships. I don't want to sleep with them, and presumably, given the length of some of these friendships (I can come up with one that goes back to 1988 and one that goes back to 1992), they don't want to sleep with me.
Every now and then, I'll get together with these male friends for cocktails or dinner, and a few laughs. Most of the time, we go Dutch, unless I am so dirt-po' that I announce, "I'm broke, you're payin'," and then I choose an appropriately divey joint with $4 draft beers and cheap bar snacks (One memorable drunken night at the Oyster Bar excepted).
Tonight, for instance, I'm having dinner with my friend Michael.
We met in 2002, when I worked for the enviro-printing company that was owned by the recycled paper company. Michael and I became friends almost immediately, because we had similar taste in music and the same slightly askew sense of humor, only his delivery is much better. Acerbic, witty. He never broadcasts a joke, he assumes you'll get it. Michael is one of a very few people who can walk down the street with me and in an instant have me doubled over with laughter, screaming "Stop! Please! You're gonna make me wet my pants!" Trust me, this is a gift. (He once also, to great comic effect, called me on my birthday and played the birthday song -- on a trombone. Maybe you had to be there, but it was comedy gold.)
So Michael moved way the hell upstate, and only gets into the city occasionally on business. Now and then we'll hang out and have a cocktail or two. I've been upstate to visit him and his wife, whom I adore. They are one of those clearly in-love couples you want to emulate one minute and throw old food at the next. They're that cute.
So anyway, I'm on my way over to Alphabet City to meet Michael for burgers and beers at Royale. Got me a hankerin' for a Bacon Royale with blue cheese and some onion rings. Yum.
Dood keeps referring to this as a "date."
Feeling like Schwarzenegger, I keep saying, "It's not a date!"
So we're on the phone earlier and Dood's brother is in the room, and he opens the question to the floor: Is Aileen going on a date?
(NO)
Well, Brother of Dood weighs in: where he comes from, that's a date.
Now it's two against one, and I know it's not a date, Michael knows it's not a date, but two Southern boys think it's a date (which leads me to ask, in an aside, you guys make your dates pay for their own meals? Y'all must not be gettin' laid much, or if y'are, Southern girls are big sluts. Subject for a different debate...)
Dood holds the WHMS opinion that all men, no matter what, "pretty much want to nail" any woman they're friends with. He is quick to recuse himself from the category of "all men." His brother backed him up in this claim, which of course he would do, hello, he's his BROTHER, and he was talking to me. Duh. That's a Mafia vouch if ever I heard one, "yeah, he's a friend of ours."
I disagree. To reiterate, I'm friends with lots of men, and all of them platonically.
So I ask you, my bloggy friends, is this a date?
(There are no wrong answers, but I'm interested in knowing what you all think.)
12 comments:
IMO it's subjective. My dad calls every goddamn thing a date -- "I have a date with the cardiologist tomorrow." Ridic.
My guy calls my platonic thingies dates just to tease me, but it's all good. If your d00d is doing that (teasing), then OK, but if it bothers him, then that isn't good. Also, if it bothers you, he should stop. IMO.
As far as do these men we consider platonic friends secretly want to "nail" us, well ... obviously I don't know!
Hi Don. :)
I joke around about having a hot date, even if it's a lunch out with my daughter or a co-worker (of either sex).
If it's with a guy friend whom I consider to be just a platonic friend (irrespective of his secret desires), it's even more fun for me to call it a date. But that's just my whacky sense of humor at play.
OTOH, I believe, based on the large number of men who've told me this, that guys do indeed pretty much want to nail any female they're friends with, but generally respect boundaries and try, again, generally, not to telegraph their thoughts.
That was also the topic under debate in "When Harry Met Sally," yes?
Anyway, it leads me to the view that for normal non-rapist/non-sicko/non-control-freak/non-misogynist guys, it's the women who hold the power. If we indicate sexual interest, it becomes difficult to the point of impossible for the male friends to resist.
It'd be interesting to hear a guy weigh in on this. Not sure we will, tho. LOL!
In what universe would you seriously think I could resist? Sheesh.
Yes, of course we do. Duh. But always as a passing fancy, because friendships matter more, and I can't see carrying on as before after nailing a friend, whether boy or girl.
I mean, gay guys may have figured out how to go camping and have a nice buttfuck before heading out after the deer and still sit around the fire telling fart jokes, but that may be an adaptation of necessity. For my part, I might only wish, in this moment or that, it were possible, and then forget about it and carry on as before.
The reason, of course, is that sex ropes in stronger emotions and passions and feelings that may or may not be real with a given partner; and if they are, the friendship is forever changed, whereas if they are not the friendship is forever damaged. A platonic guy friend will know that at some inarticulate sub-level and maintain the joys of platonicism, even if he secretly envies his friend's boyfriend.
How come MY name got called? WTH? :)
I forgot to answer the question. It's not a date as these southerners mean the term. It is a date as any normal person means it, because you have dates with girlfriends all the time, and Michael might call it a date as part of some cute language he shares with his wife. I would never, ever call a meet-up with some dude a date, but that's, you know, different.
Tough call, really. I get that one can have a date like Paula's dad uses it and nobody misunderstands or gets upset, but in my brain, "date" implies something romantic/potentially sexual, so I would never use it for something platonic (regardless of genders involved). So no, Aileen's not going on a date. She's hooking up.
But wait.
When I was young, hooking up was done with your clothes on and no bodily fluids. It merely led to hanging out. I'm given to understand that "hooking up" nowadays means what we used to call seeing etchings.
I honestly don't care if someone calls it a "date." But after hearing it called a "date" again, and again, and again, and again, and again, all day long, it stopped feeling like teasing and moved into the realm of needling. Poke poke poke poke.
My dad used to do that to my mom, he loved to needle her, and every single time, he ignored the point where she went past amused, then not so amused, then annoyed, and mildly pissed, then pissed, then really pissed, and he would then be all surprised when she would lash out at him.
It's like not paying attention to your cat when you scratch her belly, you'd better be watching for the eyes go huge and black, because that's when things turn murderous.
You say "poke" as though it were something ... bad.
I always thought of dates as job interview type of affairs where you are constantly trying to decide if you want to get serious (er).
So I think it's prolly not date.
As far as wanting to nail all my platonic (female) friends, I wouldn't say it's a steady state want kind of thing, like wanting dinner, or wanting to be happy. Or really even a want. Sooner or later it turns up as an idea, but generally not on a date, more likely when we're at home masturbating and need to change imaginary partners, but then blank on who, and then whoops! There YOU are.
Sorry Ladies.
Not lizards, tho. Right? I mean, eek!
It's a visual thing, geksie. I'd have had to have met you in meat space. Y'all cyber friends are too much of an abstraction to be useful that way.
Have had male friends all my life, and the ones tar remain my friends today are the ones I never fucked. Trust is huge, and never simple in a relationship.
Another interesting question is: How does it feel for "us"-- when the dude wants to hang out with a woman-friend?
Having been the woman-friend more often than not, I think if there's never been a sexual relationship between a guy and his woman-friend, I say, "Go! have a good time." But if any part of either person's primary or secondary sex characteristics ever had more than incidental contact, I would be more inclined to cast a beady eye on so-called "innocent" outings.
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