The Weekday Afternoon Date: WTF How Is This A Thing

You look so beautiful at 2p on a Wednesday.

Is the unemployment crisis so bad that nobody has a job? Instead of going to work we go on dates?

Have any other single ladies out there been experiencing this trend, or is this just a symptom of my terrible luck with online dating? It's been a barrage of midweek-afternoon first-date offers, with little to no notice.  Hey how is your evening going, there's this concert at noon tomorrow.  Hey can we get coffee at some point on Wednesday (which was actually, hey I'm in town for two days, if at some point I have a spare hour can I text you and you can entertain me while I'm otherwise alone in a Starbucks?).  And the clear winner: I have an extra standing-room only ticket for this week's 1:05 Phillies game, wanna go?

Now, I could go on all day about the sheer logistics of a baseball game as a first date. There's no exit strategy--if we hate each other that's three hours of awkward stares.  Not to mention the sheer numbers: unless you have antlers, you can tell me the exact sign you're standing under and I will never find you among the 200 people who are currently occupying the same exact spot.  And SRO?  I know you don't know me, but I can guaran-damn-tee you I'm worth a chair, brosef.

But, really: 1pm on a Thursday?

It's not that any one of these was a non-rescheduleable weekday-afternoon thing.  It's that ALL OF THEM WERE.  I get that teachers are off for the summer and bartenders and SOME musicians and the A-List strippers wouldn't be working on a summer afternoon anyway, but that's not a sizeable enough chunk of the population for that to be a fair generalization.

I know I don't come off as independently wealthy (although maybe I do and it's scaring away all the doctors and investment bankers?). Do you gentlemen not encounter many ladies with jobs? Who are available to wait by the phone should you happen to not have a book to accompany your latte? I envy those ladies of leisure but they're teaching you bad habits.  And I suspect they're in the seventh grade, which was the last time anyone I know had the time to revolve around a man, even if she waned to.

A teeny part of my brain wonders if it's a reaction to The Rules?  She's going to turn down the first one anyway so as not to seem too available so why not burn a near-impossible one first and THEN the real one?  Or maybe the afternoon is less pressure as it isn't as likely to lead to something else?  Like, if we meet in the middle of the day we'll both have places to go and that'll be it, but if it's drinks then it could be dinner and then should I just try to take off her clothes? Or are they trying to start early because they're hoping it lasts longer--and then we had coffee and coffee led to drinks and we're here so let's just get dinner and should I try to take off her clothes?  (You know what, though, even I don't think I'm THAT awesome.)  Honestly if it's going to be that complicated then I'm just getting all the cats now. I already have the caftan, so I've got one foot on Spinster Lane.

WHAT is the deal?  Why is it always the weekday afternoon?

Or maybe they actually think I'm a really, really good stripper?....Actually, I kind of say my job is "hanging out with everyone," and I never say exactly what it is...Ah, okay, they think I'm a stripper.  A really good one who only works the weekend nights, though, so...yay?



image via photostock