Dating While Married

Ha! I bet some of you thought this was going to be a "we practice free-love and so should you and here's our number" type entry. Try again, pervo's. This is simply a rant on the difficulty of finding things to do once you're married.

I believe I mentioned in a past post that every other Friday night is heavy-duty cleaning night. Which still leaves us with 4 Saturday nights and 2 Friday nights each month to actually leave the house and have fun.

You'll notice there is no mention of week nights. That's because week nights are work nights. I don't know when or how exactly I turned into my parents on this subject, but it happened. We don't even have kids, for God's sake, but I think both of us would look at anyone in slack-jawed amazement should it be suggested we go to a movie or see a play on a Tuesday. That's just crazy talk!

Actually, we did have a chance to go out on a Monday night the other week. My friend Rachel found a one-night show of some hot new comedian who was appearing at a club downtown at 8:30 (8:30 pm! On a work night!), and did we want to go?

We did.

But I had stipulations.

First I wanted to know if it was a sit-down club. I didn't want to stand all night. Second, was smoking allowed, because I didn't want to go home smelling like smoke. And would there be a lot of noisy college kids? The thought of being bumped into by large boys carrying beers and placing bets on whether or not they'd get laid that night was not enticing.

So I would go. I was game, I said, as long as it's a quiet, sit-down, non-smoking, older crowd that didn't drink excessively and we would be home at a decent hour.

At what point, exactly, did I turn 80?

I remember my best friend Trisha surprised me with Billy Joel concert tickets for my 21st birthday. We had 11th row seats and stood and screamed and danced and sang the entire concert. There were some middle-aged couples behind us and to the side, who kept trying to get all the kids to sit down, so they could stay seated and see Joel and enjoy the concert. "Man, I hope I never get like that," we said to one another. "Too uptight to enjoy a concert for what it is."

I have this terrible fear that now, should I go see a Billy Joel concert, I would be the one begging the kids around me to please, just sit down.

But all is not lost. We made plans to see a play this weekend and I found an improv comedy club in GSO that gives workshops. The thought of doing improv scares me, so I think I'm going to have to do it.

I just better not see any noisy college kids there.