Date? Great!

Should I ever find myself in Wonderland, my first order of business will surprisingly NOT be to check out the dessert selection at the tea party. It won't even be to tell Alice she should really think twice about wearing a skirt that length with flat shoes. No, my first order of business will be to grab the White Rabbit by his fuzzy-wuzzy bunny ears and say "Dude, I know you're late, you're late,  for a very important date, but I need you to focus. What the hell is a date, exactly?"

My Oxford Paperback dictionary is of little help:

date (noun) - an appointment to meet socially; a person of the opposite sex with whom one has a social engagement.

Not very rainbow pride of them. And, depending on your definition of social, I may have dated my dentist, a handful of gay men, and possibly a guy from Monterey named Steve I met in line at the train station in Venice. We'll always have the Grand Canal, Steve.

Several years ago, a group of friends and I had a revolving, usually booze-fueled discussion about the definition of a date. There were as many theories as there are pick-up lines, but we did manage to establish a few loose guidelines:

1) A date requires some element of pre-planning. Oddly, at least to me, guys were more adamant about this than girls. Aside: I think girls who care about this too much own a hardcover, dog-eared copy of "The Rules". It might not be on the coffee table, but oh, trust me, it's there. But both sexes generally agreed that day of, last minute, "hey, got plans this evening?" mentions don't count. That might just be boredom. Or horniness. I'm still not sure how far in advance constitutes "preplanning", though. Two days? A week? When hockey season is over?

2) A date is two people. A group date is for pre-teens, The Bachelorette, and anyone who's spent way too much time co-ordinating date night schedules with her sister wives.

3) Intention. Now, intentions can be a  little undefined early on. Do you want a casual thing?  A serious thing? A platonic stand-by emergency wedding date thing? Enter the dating dilemma:  sometimes, you don't fully know anyone's intentions, even your own, until you actually go on a date.  But if intentions are considered a tipping point, then we have a conundrum. Sort of a He's a Catch-22 situation. Unless your intentions are limited to getting all liquored up and making out with someone, in which case you can probably stop reading.

Based on these criteria, I don't actually know if I've had a date in my life. Let's delve a little further, shall we, and examine these seemingly simple guidelines.

Point # 1 - advance planning. Sure, common sense will tell you most dates are pre-booked. Something to look forward to, you can make reservations, put on the good underwear just in case. But what about the following: you run into someone. Someone you like. You're both free, you decide to grab lunch, or a coffee, or a beer on a patio. You have a great time. You don't want your lunch/coffee/beer to end. Coffee becomes dinner becomes more drinks becomes that story with the great punch line becomes a drunken walk to your door at 3am after the best day ever. But under our rules, this isn't a date. Sorry - it became a date at the second location. The exception? If you're being kidnapped. Then, according to security experts, you NEVER LET THEM TAKE YOU TO THE SECOND LOCATION.

Point # 2 - More than two people aren't a date. I agree, mostly. But I have also spent many an evening in the company of friends and a crush. Sure, there were other people around, but we spent many of those nights sitting close, talking, while our oblivious friends wondered why I never wanted to share a cab with any of them. Because he was walking me home, you morons. Not dates? Not exactly, but when it was finally just the two of us for the first time, preplanned and all official,  it certainly didn't feel like a first date.

Point # 3 - Intention. Possibly the slipperiest word in the dating lexicon. Having to state your intentions up front to make sure they're the same as your maybe date's, in addition to seeming very Jane Austen, is also a total boner killer. But if intent is everything, as some of my friends contend, how do you figure it out without just asking? You might think you're on a date and he might just be happy to talk to a girl and not spend another evening eating three day old pizza in his underwear. Or, he might think asking you to a poetry reading series is a sure sign of his dating intentions, since a guy'd only sit through that if he digs you and wants to impress you with his sensitivity, right?  You, on the other hand, might assume he's gay. Or cries after sex. Neither of which is likely what he intended. 

I know what you're thinking:  really, does it matter so much what you call it? Many people, usually men, hate to define things, resisting labels at all costs. Can't it just be "hanging out", they'll ask? Well, it can be, except for one simple reason: women often have a number in their heads. This number equals the number of dates before they'll sleep with someone. I explained this dating math to an old flame, a label resister of epic proportions. If we can't decide what is or isn't a date, I said, then how am I supposed to know when we reach the magic date number? Suddenly, he realized he liked it and he should've put a label on it. Beers and pizza? A date. A movie and dessert afterwards?  A date. That time I made dinner and he stood me up because his ex-girlfriend was in town and her flight home got cancelled?  Probably not. Actually, subtract two dates, jackass

More confusing than trying to follow a cricket match. So I think I have a few new rules.

If we're both single, it's a date. If one of us isn't single, why the hell are we having drinks?

If I've spent any time wondering if the person sitting across from me is a good kisser, it's a date.

If I'm at a poetry reading series, it's not a date. Seriously, dude, stop your damn crying.