Groundhog Dates

When you’re online dating, you can really only count on one thing: awkwardness. The first date can range from Hugh-Grant-Charming-Awkward to Jesse-Eisenberg-Uncomfortable-Awkward, but it is always, fundamentally, awkward. Take normal first date jitters and add the fact that you are meeting a stranger with whom you’ve probably had a semi-intimate text conversation about your dog’s funeral or what your spirit vegetable is.

Maybe you’ve exchanged ugly-but-still-pretty silly-selfies; maybe you already have inside jokes. Either way, the pressure on. Is he going to look the same in person as he did in his photos? Is he going to sound like Alvin and/or the chipmunks? Do you tell him you Facebook-stalked him and realized that girl you went on a teen tour with in 2009 went to his high school?

These questions will be answered in due time, but you’re not at the mercy of the Tinder gods, either. You can help you, by letting me help you.

You have that one thing you do on all of your dates, right? Whether it’s a go-to joke or lucky bra, first dates are never entirely composed of new material. We all do it. My thing is bowling. When the date asks what we should do, I react as if the best idea ever suddenly came to me out of nowhere. “This sounds totally crazy, but I’ve always wanted to go drunk bowling,” I suggest like the fun-loving, sporty, spontaneous gal that in time, he will learn I am not.

I took five consecutive first dates bowling, and on every date I made a variation of the same joke about “handling balls” which sealed exactly 3.5 out of 5 deals. Of course, I didn’t want to get a reputation, or get caught — “Hey, weren’t you here last Friday with a similarly bearded man? You must really love bowling”— so I suggested different allies for each date. I can provide you with a lengthy Pro/Con list of the various Lucky Strike locations in the Tri-state area; just let me know if you need it. Even though the guys were totally different — only two were French! — the dates began to feel eerily similar to the fate of Bill Murray’s recurring Groundhog Day. 

But why bowling? Good question. First of all, getting up to bowl is an amazing way to put some space in a conversation so you can think of more funny one-liners or take a break from his story about the time he and his frat bothers threw a TV out of a window and it was hilarious. The end of each round provides a solid enough cushion to call it a night and leave the date, so if you’re having fun, a drink at an actual bar after is a seamless invite away. If you’re not, claim emotional and physical exhaustion from hurling a heavy object towards less heavy objects with the hope of knocking them down and hightail it out of there. Worst-case scenario and the guy really does sound like a cartoon chipmunk, at least you got to go bowling.

Going on the same date five times is a perfectly-run experiment in that there is only one variable: the dude. No more guessing games, no more “maybe he hated the bar,” or “maybe he’s just not that good at trapeze”  or “maybe he’s allergic to alpacas and the petting zoo wasn’t awesome for him.”

If he doesn’t stack up against the other guys, don’t diSPARE (get it!?) — send him back to the GUTTER (no!?!?) and find another date. That’s life in the fast LANE (okay, I’m done, I swear).

Do you have a groundhog date move? I’d be willing to share bowling with you.

Original Image shot by Jamie Nelson for Evening Standard, Collage by Krista Anna Lewis