The Death of Dating, or The Boy with the Chopping Block in the Baseball Field

Last Monday my friend Diana told me she met a great guy at a bar who called her 2 days later - textbook timing - to tell her that he had a great time, was pleased to have met her, and could they get together Friday night. Diana said sure, suggested dinner and a movie. He suggested dinner. At his house. Which he would cook.

"Oh, NO!" I exclaimed.
"I know!" she replied.

Cooking for someone is an involved activity and to do so on a first date is entirely too hot, too sexy and entirely too intimate. Cooking takes thought, effort, energy, sensitivity to dietary restrictions, could possibly be considered traditional, romantic, almost other-worldly and honestly, what is more fun than standing in a warm kitchen with amazing smells while you drink wine and watch a boy cut scallions? This is intense. And certainly not a first date activity. Starbucks are for first dates. Kitchens are not.

For several minutes Diana and I listed the various boys in our past who have cooked for us - all of which can be directly tied to intense feelings and heartbreak. While we went back and forth deciding whether or not she should accept his offer I wondered why we put up so many barriers. At what point in our lives did we lose the proverbial innocence and start putting up emotional blocks that keep us from entering a boy's... kitchen?

I remembered a moment in my own kitchen with a boy who was in the kitchen for the first time, drinking a glass of water with me one hazy morning.
"You eat seafood, right?" he said.
"Uh huh."
"Do you like pizza?"
"Yeah, but really only fancy pizza," I said.
"You should come over. I make this really great scallop pizza that you'd love."
I looked at him. "....yeah...." I replied slowly, recalling that the night before when we stood in the rain, lip locked with his hands up my shirt him saying, "I don't want a relationship, if that's what you want then we need to wait a few months..."
The relationship was tossed out the window pretty quickly. But talk of pizza the morning after? This does not a deal make.

It didn't stop there in this quick fling. Again, at my house he said to me,
"Don't tell me those are YOUR Mr. Show DVDs" he said, and later, "The David Sedaris box set?" I saw our fling jump off the cliff. Fondness for one's DVD collection, book collection does not a fling make. Flings don't like films. Flings don't read, and flings certainly don't cook.

I tried to hang onto this one though, and keep my little mouth shut. But I'm not very good at that. He drank Yuengling in my bed! He told me he was a better baker than he was a kisser! He looked me in the eyes and told me about going home and going to a baseball game and sitting in his hometown team's stadium!

And then, it died. Maybe my girlfriends and I are a little too neurotic. Maybe we need to be a little less devoid passion, less enthused with our interests, and gain back some naivety. Or maybe we know our boundaries.

Diana's boy cooked dinner for her. It took hours. The margaritas were good, but not good enough to keep her from crossing the lines she so recently drew for herself.

I, I decided to be the first one to say it outloud. "I think we should maybe just be friends. I mean, if it's one or the other because clearly we just have too much in common to make this be a fling-thing."
"I hate talks like this," he said.
"Me too," I said.
And that was that.

***

Today Diana's boy texted her and called he saying what a great time he had. Di, I'm sure, if she could, would have spent the last three days in the shower washing off the dirty residue of this date gone bad.

I, bummed that I yet again found myself on a different page of someone who had a high "This could be a lot of fun" potential, but died with little to no hope of rekindling, carried on about my weekend. I went out to eat with friends, found myself at a restaurant in the village splitting a bottle of wine and eating desert with two of my great friends when my phone buzzed. I looked down. I had a text message from him. "Walk-off grand slam? That's rough" it said.

A text message about the Orioles. A random text about what I looked like with my clothes off would have been easier to handle, but baseball? Seriously? I was touched, and had to brush away my stupid girl fantasies of going out to a game, drinking lots of beer, coming home and having hours of amazing sex.

Clearly I need to invest myself in a different sport. And apparently, stop eating. Anorexia and curling? Anyone?