Dateline: So a Mormon and a Jew walk into a bar...
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Female, 24, Freelance Writer
with
Male, 25, Stockbroker
1:00 p.m. - Arrive at the climbing gym. I'm trying not to be overwhelmed by seeing so many attractive straight men gathered in one place, and start bouldering.
1:08 - I go to climb a route at the same time as another guy. I back off and he says, "No, please, after you." I climb it easily because it's an easy route. He congratulates me for climbing it quickly "under pressure." I scoff, in a mostly friendly way.
2:12 - I'm climbing another wall when the same guy makes his way over and starts making conversation. He's wearing one of those three-wolf-moon shirts. He tells me he's in town on business from Utah. I wonder if they wear those shirts ironically there too, or if he's for real.
2:30 - I start climbing top rope with two other guys, but Utah is persistent. He manages not to be creepy about it though, which is impressive. He just seems loyally interested in me, and asks good questions. He manages to get me to break off from the other guys and climb with him. Utah's not my normal type — very all-American face, short and built. But he's a great climber, and that's kind of hot. He also doesn't give me advice I don't ask for when I climb, which I appreciate.
3:15 - Utah kills a climb I struggled on for twenty minutes in about twenty seconds. He says he's sorry when he comes down. I say he doesn't need to apologize for being a stronger climber, and that I could probably downward dog the shit out of him anyway. As usual, I only realize this might sound like a sexual proposition after I say it.
3:18 - I say I want to go catch a yoga class. Utah asks if he can take me to dinner. I tell him I have plans with friends, but give him my number in case he wants to meet up later. I'm still on the fence, but flattered.
8:00 - Utah texts me to ask where I am, writes "to" when he should write "too" more than once. I wonder if I'm an elitist New Yorker for being bothered, or just literate.
10:00 - After two gin and tonics I'm willing to forgive his spelling and text him the name of the bar. He texts that he's "not a big bar guy" but that he'll drop by.
10:05 - I respond, joking, "You're not a closet Mormon, are you?"
10:10 - He doesn't answer. I realize he's from Salt Lake and therefore is very likely actually Mormon. And that I'm very likely actually a douchebag.
10:15 - I text an apology and offer that he can make a Jewish joke at my expense.
10:17 - Utah texts back to say he is indeed Mormon, but that he won't be making any Jewish jokes. "I work with too many of them at Goldman Sachs, I don't want to accidentally repeat one." I refrain from pointing out that he's halfway to a great Jewish joke.
10:37 - Utah shows up, not in the wolf shirt, thankfully. He's a decent conversationalist and we talk about trips cross country and through South America. He says he's only twenty-five. He looks older.
10:55 - A riot grrrl band starts playing, and I'm into it. Ten minutes in, Utah says he's hungry. I offer him my Luna bar. He says those are for women, and I tell him to take it before I stop being attracted to him.
11:40 - Band is wrapping up and I'm getting hungry too, so I suggest we go grab a slice. He expenses it on his American Express business card. Leave it to me to finally go out with a guy with an expense account, only to eat pizza.
12:20 a.m. - My buzz is wearing off, and with it, any attraction to Utah. I walk us towards the train.
12:30 - Utah seems surprised and hurt that I'm leaving him after all his efforts. He suggests we go home and "watch a movie." I counter with the preferred female euphemism, "I'm really tired."
1:00 - Get off the train to a text from Utah asking, "You okay? You seemed to do an about face in the last twenty minutes there." I text back that I didn't mean to give him the wrong idea but that "giving someone your number isn't a contract you'll be invited home."
1:05 - Utah texts back "I don't believe in sex before marriage. So that wasn't my intention. Let me know if you want to hang out Sunday." Touche, but still not going to happen. I go home, drink a bunch of water, and pass out.
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Commentarium (54 Comments)
Yeah... assuming that a guy who wants to keep the date going only wants to fuck makes you just as big of a jackass as the dude who invites girls back to his place just to fuck. Both assumptions are pretty arrogant, especially on a "first date".
It is the soup she swims in I'm sure. Just look at how dismissive she is of anything outside NYC.
As someone that climbs at that gym and dates in New York there was nothing presumptuous or arrogant about her assumption that he was trying to sleep with her. She was smart and on her guard like you have to be when you are a woman alone in the city. I think the bigger issue is that no one can engage in a simple sport without getting hit on and sexualized and objectified CONSTANTLY.
And so she becomes misanthropic and abrasive to those who don't wish to exploit her. Great game plan you ladies have worked out. Ever wonder why you are still single?
I remember being the guy chasing the girls and my daughter is just at the beginning of this age so I am aware of this kind of situation from her perspective now too. bkb girl, I am with you. Ryan, a little bit and, NN especially, you guys sound like bitter dicks.
Yeah, I'm with bkb girl and dentree here (and, while I'm not sure it matters, I'm a guy). A girl that is invited back to a guy's apartment, whom she met less than 24 hours ago, HAS TO assume he wants sex. I don't care if he said he's a virgin. I don't care if he seems like a nice guy. The fact of the matter is that when we say come back to my place to watch a movie, "watching a movie" is the last thing 99% of us guys want to do.
And ftr, I'm not saying girls are fragile little dolls who are incapable of casual hookups; and that all guys are sexual predators. However, like BKB Girl said, women who live alone in city have to have their guard up. That's not opinion, that's just a simple fact of life.
Who cares? If lovin' is wrong, I don't want to be right. He offered, she said no, end of date. Assuming that the guy didn't want to go back to her place and play checkers is probably pretty reasonable, but if the date was going awesome, you're not totally out of line to suggest going someplace private and fooling around. Going someplace private and fooling around with somebody you're into after a good date is the very definition of awesome. (It is considered gentlemanly to offer a reasonable euphemism, though.) And you're not out of line to politely decline, either, for whatever reason. She politely declined, so he asked her out again, she wasn't into it, end of story.
Please, guys, I've been on plenty of dates, and "let's go back to my place and watch a movie" is too (to?) a euphemism for fucking. Everyone knows that. Also, assuming sexual intent where there is none carries FAR less risk than assuming the opposite. He asked, she said no, nobody got lied to or strung along. I don't see any harm or foul on either party's part here.
P.S. And I'm not single, so take your defensive weirdness elsewhere.
Misanthropic and abrasive? She gave a guy she wasn't particularly interested in a chance, and when she continued to not be interested, she left. What a fucking monster.
I suppose the super-cynical interpretation would be that she ended the date because she got the payoff she was looking for, e.g. the ego gratification of knowing he was attracted enough to want to take her home, but didn't want to actually follow through.
I personally don't read this story that way (though I find the author's persona somewhat grating). But there are plenty of people out there who'll go on a date with someone they're not really interested in -- that is, with no intention of ever letting things get physical -- because they enjoy the attention, company, money (if the other person's buying), and/or power trip (if the other person is clearly into them). But, hey, that's life.
@NN
The plan's working just fine for us ladies, thanks. The confident women you seem to have a chip on your shoulder about are simply content being single and happy than dating a dick like you
@BKB girl
I think it's ridiculous to demand you can go *anywhere* without being "hit on" or "sexualized". Unless you're alone in a dark room, the possibility is always going to exist. If it's really that much of a burden, you can always find a dark room to stay in. I personally don't hit on women at gyms because I look disgusting if I'm working out... but for every girl who gets furious at being talked to at the gym (?!?) there's another dressed immaculately, without a drop of sweat, barely pushing on the bars of the machines.
Other commenter are right in that a "movie" is usually a fairly obvious euphemism. I've been a victim of it myself before. My point wasn't made to suggest that the Author was obligated to go back to his place, far from it. But if your reason for saying no is assuming someone wants to fuck and you willingly truncate a fun date, it's on you. It's just as easy to keep the date going and say no if they ask to have sex.
I personally agree with AAC as to the reasons the date ended. I found the author's tone to be pretty damn smug. Seems like the Mormon dude dodged a bullet.
@dentree, I'm glad you called me a "bitter dick"... I always love when you can take a paragraph comment and extrapolate it into a damning criticism of the poster's personality. Ironically enough it makes you sound like a "jaded asshole". I've been invited to houses on false pretenses and vice versa, I just think assuming everything's for sex is bad business. If I assume a girl wants to fuck and she doesn't then I look like a creep, but if I always assume she doesn't until she's explicit we've both lost nothing. It's worked for me, and I don't see why the opposite can't be true for women.
Also, to be clear, it was obvious the author didn't think this was a "fun date". My point was about other human beings with emotions : )
People have been euphemistically speaking about women having to have their "guard up." Ryan: Let's be clear. The reason it is harder for a woman to 'extend the date' and put herself in increasingly intimate situations with a man she does not know, that may have an increasing expectation of sex, and that she has no intention of sleeping with, is that she has a much more significant chance of being raped. Acquaintance rape accounts for 77% of rapes in the U.S. I am not saying that this man was a rapist, but I am saying that it is not as easy for women to put themselves in increasingly intimate situations with men that they do not know, that likely has an expectation of sex, and that she does not intend to sleep with, as it is for you.
To/Too bothers me as well (see what I did there?), and I'm Texan by birth.
No, she's right. Nobody outside New York knows the difference between too and to, it's something they only teach in New York schools.
@JCB +1
It was 12:30am, they had already hung out for a couple of hours, and she wasn't really into him. Even if she hadn't assumed he was trying to sleep with her, why does she owe it to him to continue a "date" she's only mildly interested in? You can't fake attraction. It's better that she ended it there without leading him on. Seriously, women who will drag something out when they're bored or disinterested are much more cruel than those of us who know when to call it a night. I don't know how that's "misanthropic" or "abrasive". The whole encounter seems civil enough.
plus, his comment about Luna bars being 'for woman' totally sucked. That plus the no sex before marriage bit...this sounded like a fun night. NN wins for Most Defensive Comments.
Luna bars are for women. Elk jerkey is for men. It's science.
Yeah, how are Luna bars "for women", men? Huh? Just because they were created by women, with the express purpose of creating a Clif Bar for women, explicitly designed to support the nutritional needs of a woman, are marketed to women, are named after the moon -- an ancient symbol of femininity, and have pictures of dancing women on the wrapper? All of sudden they're FOR WOMEN???
Men are such pigs.
Luna bars were created to sell more Cliff bars. It's hard to imagine a man who is hungry staying hungry just because only Luna bars were available to him. Whatever the case, it was a totally dopey thing of him to say.
Luna bars were created to sell more Clif bars to women.
The first lines of the LUNA Bar Wikipedia page are "LUNA Bars are a brand of nutrition bar created by Clif Bar & Company in 1999. They are targeted at female consumers. LUNA was created in 1999 by Clif Bar & Company’s female employees. The bars are designed to meet the nutritional needs of women, and were the first nutrition bar to target a female audience."
The only way that product could be more specifically pitched to women is if they stuck a doe-eyed vampire on the box.
When I get cold and I am at my boyfriends house I don't give a second thought to putting on one of his sweatshirts, even though they are made and marketed for men.
Luna bars are ostensibly for women, but that doesn't stop my husband from eating mine by the truckload.
If it makes any difference the brother from that old band Nelson, that went on one of those celebrity weight watcher shows, LOVES Luna bars. I remember him bringing them up repeatedly on the episode he was on... I'm not sure if that makes me want one more or less.
Yeah, hard to imagine these two embracing their feminine side. Are those mom jeans?
https://www.mainstreetmallonline.com/fanstuff/members/buhhoe4/listings/ne...
I'm sorry. Person jeans.
I am comfortable enough with my masculinity to eat a Luna bar without fear of my penis turning into a vagina. Still I usually go for the regular ones as they are the same price for more product. When I was single I would have accepted a Luna bar from a pretty lady, especially when there wasn't a squirrel in sight.
All right, Eric. You're out at a bar for the first time with a girl you really like. You apologize for being a little off, you have a splitting headache. She offers you a Midol. Do you take it?
Mind you, there's nothing in Midol that is lady-specific. It's just a pain-killer mixed with a stimulant and an anti-histamine. Chemically no different than the daytime formula of most cold-and-flu drugs. It's just marketed to women -- probably not even as specifically as LUNA bars are; to the best of my knowledge, there's not lady dancing on the cover of a box of Midol.
Acetaminophen at a bar? Not a chance given its interaction with alcohol. Midol also has a diuretic, not an antihistamine, which would only make me dehydrated.
Someone obviously forced a Luna bar down your throat in the past.
Midol contains both a diuretic (caffeine, the stimulant I mentioned above) and an antihistamine (pyrilamine maleate), but you've kind of missed my point.
We're very rarely so self-aware as we are on first dates, and even very confident men like you apparently are, Eric, will go out of their way so as not to appear less than masculine in front of a woman they're trying to impress. I'm sure there are exceptions -- Prince, for example, would probably nosh down three Luna bars while pedaling around her on a giant velveteen tricycle, but that kind of cool is a little hard to pull off if you're a 25-year-old stockbroker from Utah.
Woman aren't really that much different -- cs, the sweatshirt lover up the thread, may wear sweatshirts while at her boyfriend's house, but I'll bet she wasn't rocking one on their first date.
Never mind that she invited the poor guy to a riot grrl show, a genre of music that lost 50% of its straight male audience to the business end of Kurt Cobain's shotgun.
Let's also suppose that what he was saying was not, "I am very hungry right now," but "Hey, do you want to get out of here and get something to eat? Maybe someplace quieter, where we can talk, get to know each other?" I'm just theorizing, considering that riot grrl music is not really known for it's soft, conversation-friendly tones. But no matter, because the author clearly made him stay through the entire. Goddamn. Thing.
So then he buys her pizza, she loses her attraction to him with her buzz (classy), she calls it a night.
The movie thing is suspect, I'll grant you that. However, I have dated a Mormon girl, and at least on the female side of things, when they invite you back to their place to watch a movie at 12:30am... you end up watching a movie. Backdraft. I really enjoyed it, actually. Mormon guys may be different.
His text could be interpreted two ways -- "Why aren't we fucking right now?" or "Hey, did I do something wrong back there? You kind of went cold at then end." You know, like she said she did when her buzz wore off. However, only one of those options is expressly against his religion. You remember, the religion she started off their meeting by insulting.
I'm just saying, if I - over the course of one encounter - accused a girl before she arrived of being a secret Jew, took her to a Insane Clown Posse concert, when she asked if we could get a drink brought out a container of something called Bro Juice and told her to drink it or I'd stop liking her, made her pay for dinner and then, when she texted me to ask why I blew her off at the end of the evening, told her that she wasn't going to just get to bang me after one night -- one MIGHT be within their rights to say that I was being kind of a DICK.
But yes, he's probably the bad guy, because he identified a nutrition bar that all but has a picture stamped on the wrapper of Tori Amos biting down on one giving the thumbs up as "for women." Truly, history's greatest monster.
Oh, and if the author would care to weigh in? I'll bet he ate the Luna bar, didn't he?
Your comments here read like you could use a Midol yourself.
@@Jax
Ah. Argument invalidated... because I must be on my period. Try not to let the irony hit you all at once.
Whether you've got your period right now or not, you do sound awfully uptight.
fuck off, the whole ICP bro juice analogy was magical.
She's more open than I am! I woulda been out as soon as I realized he was a Mormon. Not that there's anything inherently wrong with being a Mormon but there's no way I could date someone with beliefs so entirely different from mine. No sex and no drinking? No point, for me.
I agree with Honestly...
What's the point? Why would you want to date a Mormon, anyway. Or a guy who works at Goldman Sachs, for that matter. Or an anti-semite?
Where on earth did you get anti-semite from? There's no mention of anything like that.
Just what I was gonna say.... where did the anti-semite remark come from ?
There's two things I can't stand: people who are intolerant of other people's religions, and Mormons.
Haha!
I'm sorry if this seems narrow minded or "intolerant", but I lived with 3 mormon guys whilst dating my now husband (and their cousin - not a Mormon) for over a year. They were also dating (in the mormom community). The experience was.... weird. I'm sorry to say I would never in a million years date a Mormon. A lot of crazy stuff went down. What really erked me was the fact they took every opportunity to voice their concerns over us sharing a room/bed, and the next week I'd get a a girlfriend of theirs approach me for help getting the morning after pill /birth control. Said cousin then broke up with this girl because she didnt meet his purity benchmark (read...Virgin). Obviously this was not an issue when he was boning her. Poor girl was 21 and already divorced (from her also mormon ex-husband). She told me straight up she was pressured into marrying her first husband so they could have sex and he left her 4 months later. She was jaded, to say the least. SO yeah, I think this girl probably had a lucky escape.
Three Mormon guys don't represent the entire Mormon community.
Would you be okay with someone making assumptions like that about other ethnic groups or religions?
(No, I'm not Mormon.)
I LIVED with three. You don’t think I met and spent time with many, many more? Men AND women? Generally speaking, I'm a very liberal person and do not normally make sweeping generalisations (I am CERTAINLY not a racist) but religion is a very different ball game. It shapes a person's outlook on life and I've had enough experience with my Catholic family, born again Christian in-law's and extended Mormon family to know that it's a deal breaker for ME. Maybe not for you, in which case you’ve obviously had some really positive experience with religion/religious people? I'm not saying that Mormon’s are all bad - far from it. It was just a very strange experience and I know enough about the community and culture within the church at this point to know it's not for me. I gave a couple of examples of why that may be - why I found these guys in particular to be hypocrites - but honestly, I can say this about most of the religious “groups” I’ve had firsthand experience with. I’m just not comfortable around people who say one thing and do another. Maybe I’ve been unlucky in that my experience has been negative, but I’m an adult and I get to decide who I date based on MY personal experience. Some people don't want to date guys who spend a lot of their time at the gym. Or the bar. It's a lifestyle choice for them. I don't want to date guys who spend a lot of time at church. What's the difference?
Oh, that's a straight girl and a Mormon boy. And here I was all happy that you can have faith and be gay.
I thought the narrator was a guy too until I got to 12:30!
Actually, except for the info box at the top, which I checked halfway through the comments, nothing in the story rules out the author being a guy.
Yeah, when she goes to climb something at the same time as 'another guy' in para 2 I thought it was a nicely subtle way of signalling she was a guy.
Author was totally within her rights, and perfectly decent too. The guy had bad game; he shouldn't have asked her to dinner (too high stakes), and when he did and she said no to that, he should not have accepted the lower stakes offer. And even if he did, he should've cut it short, sent a brief text the next day, left the ball in her court and made himself just so slightly unavailable. Simple psychology. If he does all the pursuing and she invests nothing, she'll lose interest quickly. You can't fight human nature.
Doesn't seem like anyone did anything wrong up until the author's crappy text at the end. Mormon gets points for his response to that and for being generally flexible -- going to the author's choice of venue, listening to her choice of music, putting aside his hunger, going along with her choice of dining. The Luna bar line sounds like banter, as does her response to it. On the other hand, he's probably a 1%-er.
Loved the comments from Jax.
Here's another take on the situation.
This 'feminist' leads a guy on (I'm not talking about sex here), so she can get a free dinner out of him.
Then she insults his religion (what would the reaction here be if she'd made a crack at a Muslim?), then insults him afterwards here.
Sounds like the guy was the perfect gentleman, and yet she STILL didn't mind getting a free meal and drinks out of him, even though she admitted she wasn't into him right from the start.
Who is exploiting whom here?
She insulted his religion before he bought her a slice of pizza so it was his choice to even meet her after the Mormon comment. If he was really that bother by it then he shouldn't have even gone on the "date".
The comment thread was much more entertaining than the article. Thanks, everyone!
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