I read an article in The Wall Street Journal about a disturbing Internet dating trend in which many overworked daters are choosing to participate in working dates. For this fun-filled evening, both participants bring their laptops, sit across from one another, and--you guessed it--work.
At first I was horrified. How could society have come so far from the boundaries of romantic decency? That’s not even as much fun as bowling or putt-putt, and that’s saying something. In fact, that might even be worse than the date where the guy showed me a DVD of “Pee Wee Herman” at the dinner table.
Who would want a date where you don’t interact with the other person? Where you don’t even engage in the normal awkwardness that goes along with creeping hands, limp first kiss tongues, and inappropriate sexual questions. What fun is that?
But then, I started thinking about The Straw Man. There is this antiquated provision of law that allows for marriages with a “stand in” if the groom is absent or not available. The whole discussion came about with a lawyer I was dating (there have been so many they all start to blur together after a while) who brought up the idea because I really wanted to get married on 08/08/08 (any guesses as to my favorite number?). So he said I didn’t even NEED a groom to get married!! Now there’s an idea. Marriage without the pesky inconvenience of a male.
So today, I decided to determine scientifically if a real man OR a real date is necessary. Below is a carefully-constructed pie graph of the time my 230+ dates spent talking about various topics while on our dates. I plan to analyze the data so that I can decide if a real man or a straw man is preferable. After a little study, that working date isn’t looking so crazy after all.
copyright © 2009 Tiia Jones
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