We met at his place. I was wearing the snappy coat I only break out for parties. He had on a purple bomber jacket with a tiger woven into the back. It was a first date. He was taking me to a party, which was great — plenty of conversation buffers, and you're allowed to get drunker than you can at a restaurant.

He was ready to go. He just wanted to watch the last ten minutes of American Idol first, so we plopped down on his couch. The screen was paused on a blonde girl who was thrusting an entire microphone into her enormous maw. When I told him I'd never seen the show, he briefly made a face like the priest in The Exorcist, then became visibly excited to deflower me to the experience.

We watched the last ten minutes of the show, then rewound it and watched the first fifty. After we finished American Idol, we watched an episode of Ugly Betty, then an episode of Lost, then two episodes of Curb Your Enthusiasm. Then the night was over. We had sex and went to sleep.

Your first few dates with someone are allegedly make-or-break. You're supposed to plan something that makes you seem creative and carefree, but not desperate — arranging a tandem parasail, for instance, might seem a bit eager. But television? Until recently, a TV-based first or second date would get a person blacklisted. But today, somehow, it seems to be okay. Here this guy and I were in his apartment, our first time hanging out, two reasonably social people who'd skipped a party in favor of having a threesome with America Ferrera.

Previously, the TV date was just an excuse to make out. But based on an informal poll of friends, they now function as legitimate activities in and of themselves, with several hours of genuine, attentive TV viewing before getting down to it, the same way you and your date might linger over dessert before heading home for a nightcap.

Twenty-six-year-old Arianne recently experienced a TV-based third date with a man named Jeff. She thinks the rise of TV dating has coincided with our growing tendency to evaluate people based on their responses to things, as opposed to their own original thoughts and actions. "You used to judge people based on what they said and what they did," she says. "Now you judge them on how they react." And she's right — my date had wanted to see my reaction to Idol. Inadequate enthusiasm on my part could have sunk me right there: Doesn't like Idol? Not my type.

Arianne went out with Jeff a few more times after that first date, but eventually she ended it. She couldn't get past the fact that he'd laughed at all the wrong parts of The Daily Show — the broader humor and bleeped-out profanities, but not the subtler, more ironic jokes. Could it be that Jeff's mistimed reactions indicated a lack of nuance? Arianne wondered.

There's more than a whiff of pop-culture hysteria ensconced in the TV date. We routinely list upward of twenty "Favorite TV Shows" in our online personal ads. We edit these lists down to a mix of the frivolous and the profound — A lover of D-Listed AND MacNeil/Lehrer? That'll make 'em wet. We'll toss in WKRP in Cincinnati for quirk value. And we fret when confronted with the profile belonging to that person who we thought could be our soulmate — until we noticed their proudly admitted obsession with reruns of Mad About You.

At some point during Lost, the guy in the sexy purple bomber jacket changed into ill-fitting sweats, and I removed my party-ready coat. We began necking, which seems the only appropriate term for the fractionally erotic endeavor that is half-making out, half-watching TV. This ambivalent foreplay continued intermittently for the next two-and-a-half hours, a choppy, tepid session that neither of us felt comfortable escalating out of fear we'd miss an important plot point. By the time we retired to the bedroom, what had started as genuine sexual tension had deflated like a Mylar balloon.