Pal or Paramour?

Rules for Handling an Ambiguous Outing

A girl asked me out the other week. Or, at least I thought she might have.

Let's look at the evidence:

Signs it was a date: Wine bar, Friday night, we had never hung out just the two of us before.

Signs it was not a date: She recently told me she was giving up on dating for awhile; out of my league.

It was at least important to consider that it might be a date, and plan for the possibility. Otherwise, you can get halfway through an evening before realizing "flowers, wine, she made me a mixed tape, she's picking up the check...I'm on a date here!" At which point your night turns into one of those old Choose Your Own Adventure novels: "To agree, you really could see the two of you settling down together to a nice house in the country in another few weeks, turn to page 43. To ask the barista if she has any bourbon, turn to page 52."

Of course, you can't just ASK the person if this is a date or not. It's simply bad form, because we all know the answer would be "Me? Date you? BWWWHAHHAHAHAHA."

So, one must learn to discern the subtler signs, the minute interactions of interpersonal communication that tell the real story. To help you do that, I have developed the "Date or No Date" Test. If you would like to play along at home, award yourself the proper number of points for each condition that applies to your outing and tally them up:

• A definite effort has been made to dress well, shave, hide any electronic monitoring devices and otherwise create a good impression, +10
• You make steady eye contact through the evening, +10
• Even mildly witty comments are met with uproarious laughter, +10
• Your date waves to an ex across the room, points animatedly at you, then gives the ex the finger, -50
• Casual physical contact -- the kind that would give you an uh-oh feeling if your boss did it -- is well received, +10