What constitutes at date? I never really understood the American dating system; despite living there for several of my adult years, I only ever went on one date. It was the classical 'meet guy, 'do you want to do out some time?', going to dinner' and him continuously opening the car door for me althrough the night even though he had power locks. That freaked me out so much that I didn't answer his call when he called to ask me on a second date.
I always complained about how difficult it is to date in America, but I think it might just be because I often wasn't very datable. In fact I now realized that the Danish ad-hoc system is even worse. At a certain point in your life you get a little to old to find boyfriends/girlfriends the Scandinavian way by getting insanely drunk at a private party, dance with the cutest one you can find for half an hour and end up smooching in the corner. When you get too old for that, what do you do? You can't just expect some hot guy to ask you out, because that is not in the Danish culture. I have only ever once been asked out (the above date), but have asked several guys to anything from coffee to movie and dinner with more or less serious intentions. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I have had one serious relationship on this account and ended up at several disaster 'dates'. But recently I realized how uncertain this method is and always end up with the big question in mind: if you go out for coffee, dinner or lunch with a guy, how do you know if it is a date or just a casual attempt for friendship?
I have very few guy friends. I used to say that if a guy was nice enough to be friends with, I would also want to be his girlfriend. But in my strongly male dominated field I acquired more guyfriends that I had ever imagined and I had to swallow my words again. I know so many nice guys that I love to hang out with but would never want to be together with for a longer time. But this undefined dating scene also means that I can't be sure what their intentions are when hanging out with me and this leaves me puzzled and confused. What constitutes a date her in non-dating Denmark?
Posted by Louise at June 18, 2004 10:04 AM