Before Embracing Date Night, Remember What A Date Entails

Married couples are apparently embracing the idea of date night, where they cast off their domestic worries and once again are footloose and fancy free.

Of course the only couples who do this are the ones who have been married for decades and have forgotten the horror that is a date.

I have taken it upon myself to refresh their memory.

The Single Person’s Date

A date is an activity where two strangers agree to share an experience in the hopes that they will be able to stand each other long enough to have sex at some later date.

For the woman it involves the following pre-date activities:

-Getting whatever needs waxing and plucking removed

-Shaving off whatever you don’t want waxed or plucked

-Bathing, taking care to use the correct moisturizing soap and rinsing the conditioner in the way your hair dresser told you to

-Exfoliating, which is a fancy way of saying scrubbing your whole body until it is red

-Moisturizing and then remembering that you need to put in your contacts in before your hands get all greasy

-Curling your straight hair or straightening your curly hair and trying not to melt your make-up while doing so

-Trying on numerous outfits before finding the one that makes you look fun and interesting but not too easy

-Changing the outfit when you realise your only decent underwear set will not work with it

-Putting on painful high heels, falling over when walking to the kitchen and changing to your nice flats

-Looking in the mirror, hating your bum in the flats and changing back into the heels

-Sitting straight so you don’t wrinkle your clothes while you wait to answer the door or pacing back and forth while rearranging throw pillows that he will never see

All of this is worth it when the date begins.

Traditionally he answers the door and there is an awkward to moment where you jockey for position. He goes for a hug while you try to kiss his cheek so you pull back for the hug as he lunges for your cheek kissing your left shoulder. You share a hollow laugh and walk, funereal style, to the car.

In the car you talk about music on the radio, current events and each tell at least one amusing anecdote about your day. You try to ignore that fact that he is a speed demon / Sunday driver. By the time you have reached the restaurant you have exhausted your topics and you send the waiter telling you the specials psychic messages to stay beside your table.

In the dead space between ordering and getting the food someone accidentally brings up an awkward topic that brings the conversation to a screeching halt: alcoholism, childhood abuse or restraining orders. During dinner you try to avoid the string of cheese dangling from his chin.

At some point in the evening some foundation garment under your clothes (panties, hose, etc.) will wedge itself into an uncomfortable and unflattering position, causing you to contort like an acrobat to fix it before he comes back to the table.

If you are drunk you will go home and have miserable sex and if you are sober you will both try to move the evening in that direction, but fail miserably.

The Married Person’s Date

For the woman it involves the following pre-date activities:

-throwing off your pinching shoes

-taking off your uncomfortable work clothes and changing into a large t-shirt

All of this is worth it when the date begins.

Traditionally the food is ordered before they begin cuddling on the couch and watching TV. At a decent hour they will retire to bed and roll one way if they want sex and the other if they don’t. They will kiss and fall asleep.