When is a date a 'date'?
Here in the blogosphere we really answer the big questions don't we!
Mulling over the big issues in the Great Britain: irony, relationships
and whether it's possible to make cheese from breast milk
Seriously though, some recent conversations with many of my friends have left me wandering the streets thinking about words and ideas.
One recurring theme is the concept of irony. In particular, the differences in the three available definitions:
1. Dictionary definition - not often available whilst camping, sitting in the Great Britain Hotel or attempting to avoid collisions with roos and trucks on the Hume Highway.
2. Morrisette definition - yeah, we all had that conversation in high school. It's not irony, it's just a string of bad luck... 'ten thousand spoons when all you need is a knife' are you kidding me?!
3. Popular - very difficult to pin-point. It's very easy to announce to a car full of people that Alanis has totally missed the point of irony. This is the precise moment at which all your neatly constructed examples of irony in your brain dissolve, leak out your ear and drip onto your singlet cunningly disguised as wayward drips of Coke. If you can't think of an example, you've got buckleys trying to eloquently communicate a definition.
Oh yeah, and when is irony actually sarcasm? or vice versa?
But back to the useful stuff. Another topic that has been sprinkled through our silly-season rhetoric is the use of the word date. In this day and age when it's socially acceptable for guys and girls (or girls and girls, or guys and guys... depending on your persuasion) to hang out in groups and pairs and (shock! horror!) be friends with people of the gender they are attracted to without romance entering into the equation...
When does two people of appropriate genders hanging out stop being two people hanging out and start being a date? Discuss.
Sure, I have my own ideas on the subject... but I want to hear yours. Let the commenting begin!
posted by portek @ 9:52 PM
5 comments
5 Comments:
You know it's a date when you make sure you're wearing your best pair of undies.
I would very much like to hear your take on this.. I have a little situation going on myself, and this is tres tres tres relevant!
My thoughts: it's a date only if you both think it is. this is why it makes it so hard to know if you're on a date, or if you're imagining feelings that just aren't there (ie 'He's Just Not That In To You'). Thus, do dates only truly occur when it's explicit? Yes, I believe so!
Hmmm...interesting theory Dan, but don't you always find you're more likely to get some action when you're wearing daggy underwear. Or (for girls) if you haven't shaved your legs?
Now that's ironic.
PS, Alanis' it's "Coincidence" not "Irony."
I agree with Dani, it's always the threadbare undies and the unkept
bikini line that seems to be the pick-up beacon.
and Kate (fairly topical for me too bub) - that's the conclusion we came
to as well... that it all depends on INTENTION. If both people are
interested in something more than friends and are checking out the
situation, then it’s a date. If it’s just people hanging out, or if one
of them doesn’t think it’s a date, then it’s not a real date.
That's cool, but what if there are two people who both think it's a date
but (out of shyness or whatever) they can't judge whether the other
person thinks it's a date. Then, they both decide it's not a date
because they mis-judge the other person's shyness or
waiting-for-a-signal-ness as a non-date.
There you go - a perfectly credible date becomes a non-date. And the
modern girl goes home and reads "He's Just Not That Into You" and
re-inforces the mistaken idea that he doesn't like her.
Conundrum I know. We're all doomed.
Perhaps we should wear little badges that say "I think this is a date,
but it's totally cool if you don't."
frankly, I think the time has come and the people are ripe for colostrum mixers.
I'm currently going around bars asking for a 'Paris Hilton', ie. a cognac and coke. Cracker trash, but NOUVEAU RICHE cracker trash!
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