I have been on many a HOT date and wondered halfway through if in fact it was HOT at all or if it was even lukewarm or room temperature or fall weather or bathtub water at the end of the bath or a badly insulated house in the winter in Toronto that does have heating but you wonder sometimes if it really does though. I have spent several hours examining scenarios that at first seemed quite obviously erotic but in retrospect could have rather easily been completely platonic. When the gentleman asked me to grab a beer with him casually over Facebook messenger I assumed it was because he wanted to fuck me, I have thought dozens — nah, thousands of times. But now it appears that all he wanted to do was pick my brain about the biz or just possibly chat about his so-called tough life as a straight white man.
How does one determine without explicitly inquiring if they are en route to makeout-city or if the Uber at the end of the night will be travelling to two destinations and the fare will be split between both parties and the awkwardness over the driver’s innuendo about the good time you’re about to have together will be shared by you individually in your respective homes? At this point in my sexual adventures I tend to be directly direct in requesting clarification on such confusing matters. Unless it’s clearly stated in the message that this human would vastly enjoy talking shop or that they require advice about problems with their long-term girl person my response to a general invitation to hang is typically Is this a date or…? Let a girl know. I don’t got time for mysteries thx.
This reply is especially relevant now that I’m officially bisexual and drinking a bottle of wine with any gender could result in a beautiful romantic comedy screenplay or a creative collaboration convo or a best forever friendship aka making bracelets and sharing secrets and syncing uteruses. Digging for more info always works like a charm for moi these days, but I wasn’t always this unflinchingly honest in my approach. I used to lean on the shyer side of insecurity and I would wander through life as a horny lost soul totally unaware if I was being desired or befriended or headhunted. I got myself into some pretty sticky afternoon coffee drinking situations where I was barely drinking my caffeinated beverage because I was too distracted by my anxiety yelling from within the depths of my neurosis WHAT THE HELL IS HAPPENING I MUST KNOW RIGHT THIS MILLISECOND CLARIFICATION NOW PLEASE!
For example, I recall matching with a handsome sir on Tinder who was a distant colleague of mine and when I say colleague I mean I had worked with him for approximately an hour a year prior. He was a writer and I was a producer who hired writers but our working relationship was rather short-lived. After we parted ways, his existence was whipped from my memory until we apparently both swiped right at each other’s faces in our phones. Suddenly, we were chatting up a storm. Messaging all day long for 48 hours straight without a single absence of wit. Joke after joke after joke was being catapulted through the satellites in the sky into our little handheld computers. Then he made a giant request: Can I have your phone number so we can move this over to text? In the world of Tinder this is a large step forward in the budding whatever this is. You’ve gone from communicating on an app to communicating on¦ not an app.
The messaging continued for a week straight. Then he made ANOTHER giant request: Should we continue this conversation in person? I jumped at the proposal, obviously. I had already invested so much into this so yes, let’s advance to the next stage please and thanks. We met up a few days later at a park in the late afternoon on a Sunday. He bought us both a cup of tea and we sat on the grass and began discussing what I thought was going to be our deepest, darkest secrets and our greatest fears and our mutual attraction to each other’s genitals. But, it very much wasn’t that. It was more along the lines of Yeah, so I’m working on this show these days and I worked on this other show last month and do you know if that one company is interested in this or that or THIS ˜cause I’m writing that and this and THAT. I quickly realized that this date was not in the HOT. He was grilling me for industry information. That’s all the ˜lil schmoozer wanted! But we matched on Tinder. Does he think that’s a professional medium? IS HE NUTS? I pondered as he went on and on and on about how broadcasters don’t even know what’s good for them anymore and do I know of any freelance work he’d be right for.
My instincts of this being totally platonic and obviously non-erotic were proven correct when he SHOOK MY HAND goodbye and suggested that we do it again, but Let’s invite Brandon next time! Brandon being a coworker of mine who he was clearly also interested in grilling and not in sexy manner. This wasn’t a threesome proposition. He was trying to set up another fucking meeting! If only I had demanded answers early on. I thought it was so clear on both of our ends though. Tinder. Text flirting. Park stroll. But, evidently, I was way off. Way way off. The worst part about it was that I wasted two hours of my weekend WORKING. If he wanted to give me a rundown of his current CV, why didn’t he email me and request a formal sit down at my office?! Also, he didn’t ask me a single question about MY LIFE. He was pitching his career to me and I couldn’t have cared less about anything he was saying because it was SUNDAY and I was OFF THE DAMN CLOCK.
This is why Is this a date or¦? is such a necessary question when an acquaintance or a stranger or a distant colleague asks you to spend time with them in a casual setting at a casual time and via casual words. I have found myself on what I was convinced were dates with gay men, married dudes, married gay men, straight women, married straight women, married lesbians, emotionally unavailable straight men, lesbians in monogamous relationships, potential employers, devoted fans, interested collaborators, or persons who were simply not wanting of my vulva in any sexual capacity but were majorly into my brain in a buddy buddy sense. And hey I love all of the above mentioned types of people. I love people in general and chatting with them no matter what their intention is, BUT I’d just like to know in advance that there is no possibility of getting laid so I can masturbate before we meet up and focus on the operations of my brain solely as opposed to the operations of my vulva in connection with my brain.
Which is why I ask. Asking is great. It solves most problems. Especially dating related ones. Try it sometime. You won’t regret it and you’ll be less stressed because of it and your Sundays won’t be wasted unexpectedly working and not boning.
