Dating of a Non-Romantic Kind
Dec. 8th, 2003 06:17 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
xansA boy takes a girl to dinner, and then they go see a movie. A girl asks a guy to a dance, and they share a meal at a fancy restaurant beforehand. It’s what is known as a date. Lacking male companionship, very often a girl friend and I will go to dinner and attend a dance, or go see a movie together. We do not, however, call it a date. Even if it’s prearranged, it is never a date. Such an event, in my circle of friends, is more commonly identified as a dat.
Dances are awesome. Movies are fun to watch. Taking a trip to another town is exciting. But none of these events are as much fun when I’m alone. There’s nothing like looking over at my friend in the middle of a romantic scene and sniggering at the sappiness. I love to reminisce about that one dance where we totally scared this guy by dancing with him at the same time. I find it’s not as much fun to turn around and tell anyone what I did when my friend and I can tell everyone what we did.
It first showed up within a matter of weeks after Homecoming. Four special dances are held at my school, but by the time the second one was about to roll around, several friends and I faced the uncertainty of having a date. As I chatted online one night, my friend asked me, “Hana, will you be my dat to Tolo?” Fearing she made a typo, I sought clarification, only to have her respond, “No, I mean dat, with no e.” A dat: no e, and no romance.
In that case, “Dat” was made up possibly on a whim. The roots are obviously found in the word date, but it is a word we could not help but coin merely to set it apart from the connotations when a person hears someone say, “Date.” A date implies that there are or could be romantic feelings between the couple sharing their time together. It has a sense of formality, and that there can or will be more than one such event.
Yet very often my friends and I take such trips. No one actually says, “Oh, so you had a date with her,” but in all reality, for two girls to get dressed up, go to dinner, and then go to a dance together is very much like being on a date. The same goes for when we see a movie that sometimes is erroneously labeled a “chick flick” that many a boyfriend has been pulled along to watch. That is, was it not for the fact we have no romantic interest in each other. Our common line now, when we want to go with just one friend to a dance or a movie, is, “So you’ll be my dat, right?”
My most recent experience with a dat has also shown that it is a form of rekindling friendships. On Thanksgiving, I found myself reconciling with a friend after a long period of discord, and our way of making up: to go see “Love Actually” together. It was our dat, for even though we knew several other friends desired to see that movie, we made it an event for us. Our past war forgotten and forgiven, we were able to sit there, and mutter to each other when characters’ didn’t do what we thought they should do. It was a dat that left us feeling good about our friendship and ourselves.
The truth is, my friends and I care for each other deeply. We love to spend time together. We love to have group events, and generally have a ruddy good time. Sometimes, when I know that another friend is just as interested in attending an event as I am, or I just want to spend some one-on-one time with a specific friend, it’s just as fun to plan an event that’s just the two of us. While dats share no romantic connotations, they are still based on love, companionship, and enjoyable experiences with a person I care about.
Dances are awesome. Movies are fun to watch. Taking a trip to another town is exciting. But none of these events are as much fun when I’m alone. There’s nothing like looking over at my friend in the middle of a romantic scene and sniggering at the sappiness. I love to reminisce about that one dance where we totally scared this guy by dancing with him at the same time. I find it’s not as much fun to turn around and tell anyone what I did when my friend and I can tell everyone what we did.
It first showed up within a matter of weeks after Homecoming. Four special dances are held at my school, but by the time the second one was about to roll around, several friends and I faced the uncertainty of having a date. As I chatted online one night, my friend asked me, “Hana, will you be my dat to Tolo?” Fearing she made a typo, I sought clarification, only to have her respond, “No, I mean dat, with no e.” A dat: no e, and no romance.
In that case, “Dat” was made up possibly on a whim. The roots are obviously found in the word date, but it is a word we could not help but coin merely to set it apart from the connotations when a person hears someone say, “Date.” A date implies that there are or could be romantic feelings between the couple sharing their time together. It has a sense of formality, and that there can or will be more than one such event.
Yet very often my friends and I take such trips. No one actually says, “Oh, so you had a date with her,” but in all reality, for two girls to get dressed up, go to dinner, and then go to a dance together is very much like being on a date. The same goes for when we see a movie that sometimes is erroneously labeled a “chick flick” that many a boyfriend has been pulled along to watch. That is, was it not for the fact we have no romantic interest in each other. Our common line now, when we want to go with just one friend to a dance or a movie, is, “So you’ll be my dat, right?”
My most recent experience with a dat has also shown that it is a form of rekindling friendships. On Thanksgiving, I found myself reconciling with a friend after a long period of discord, and our way of making up: to go see “Love Actually” together. It was our dat, for even though we knew several other friends desired to see that movie, we made it an event for us. Our past war forgotten and forgiven, we were able to sit there, and mutter to each other when characters’ didn’t do what we thought they should do. It was a dat that left us feeling good about our friendship and ourselves.
The truth is, my friends and I care for each other deeply. We love to spend time together. We love to have group events, and generally have a ruddy good time. Sometimes, when I know that another friend is just as interested in attending an event as I am, or I just want to spend some one-on-one time with a specific friend, it’s just as fun to plan an event that’s just the two of us. While dats share no romantic connotations, they are still based on love, companionship, and enjoyable experiences with a person I care about.