Timeless Stupidity
April 11, 2005
It's good to know the cultural elite is defining my conduct. If I have dinner with a male friend, I am not having dinner with a male friend. Rather, I'm on a man date. (Hey, buddy, I mandate that we go on a man date). The article showcases the author's analogical reasoning:
Simply defined a man date is two heterosexual men socializing without the crutch of business or sports. It is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman. Dining together across a table without the aid of a television is a man date; eating at a bar is not. Taking a walk in the park together is a man date; going for a jog is not. Attending the movie "Friday Night Lights" is a man date, but going to see the Jets play is definitely not.
I'm hardly insecure about my sexuality. Thus, I am not upset at the terminology of man dates. "What do you mean I'm on a man date?" Hell, any philosophy major likely took many long walks with other students and philosophy professors. Though none of us thought we were doing anything other than taking a walk and talking. So the author's attempt at creating a new meme as such doesn't annoy me.
Rather, it's this pseudo-intellectual bullshit that grates like fingernails on a blackboard. If a man date is "is two guys meeting for the kind of outing a straight man might reasonably arrange with a woman," then what is a man and a woman "meeting for [an] outing" called? Is it a date, date? Really, now.
I realize that the article appeared in the Style section. But I would expect that the paper purporting to provide all the news that's fit to print could find something a bit more stylish than adding teenage concepts to our lexicon. The man date discussion reminds me of high school.
When two guys went to a movie together, they would leave a seat between them open. This seat was the "gay seat," i.e., a barrier that only gay people would break. Such terminology was stupid then, just as this man date terminology is stupid now.
Good to know I can find high schoolish thoughts in the paper purporting to provide all the news that fit to print.
(Hat tip: Southern Appeal).